A Tribute to the Muses: Music, Dance, Drama, and Poetry Music by Walter Piston, Antal Doráti, Gordon Carr, Carol Herman, Gustav Holst, and Henri Dutilleux Carol Panofsky, oboe, recorder, and artistic director Lynn Kidder, piano Kathleen Purcell, flute Jesse Buddington, tenor Geoff Fiorito, actor Lorna Kohler, dancer and choreographer The Greek Muses were personifications of the spirits that move the creative process. This program, all music of the 20th century, will be a blending of music with other arts. Rather than a journey into the land of myth, it will be a contemporary exploration of human creativity: a concert of music as it interacts with expressions in other art forms. The Piston Suite for Oboe and Piano, a prelude followed by four dances, will be choreographed and danced. Two song cycles give voice to the poetry of William Blake and Emily Dickinson. We also bring you narrative and theater through several short pieces for unaccompanied oboe by Antal Doráti with story interpretations by actor Geoff Fiorito. And don’t forget about music itself! The program includes the Dutilleux Sonatine for Flute and Piano and the Holst Fugal Concerto – music for music’s sake. THE PROGRAM MUSIC Sonatine for Flute and Piano (1943) Henri Dutilleux (1916-­‐2013) Allegretto Andante Animé Flute and piano A Fugal Concerto, op 40 no. 2. (1923) Gustav Holst (1874-­‐1934) Moderato Adagio Allegro Flute, oboe, piano Suite for Oboe and Piano (1934) Prelude Sarabande Minuetto Nocturne Gigue DANCE Lorna Kohler, dancer and choreographer Walter Piston (1894-­‐1976) Oboe and piano DRAMA Geoff Fiorito, actor “Bedtime” from Cinq pièces pour le hautbois (1981) Antal Doráti (1906-­‐1988) La cigale et le fourmie (d’apres LaFontaine) Berceuse Oboe alone POETRY Jesse Buddington, tenor Songs for Mr. Blake (2008) Gordon Carr Introduction: The Piper text from William Blake, Songs of Innocence The Shepherd The Lamb Laughing Song A Cradle Song Nurse’s Song Paintings by William Blake will be displayed in the lobby Tenor, oboe, and piano Emily Dickinson: Five Poems (1992) Carol Herman The Day Grew Small Adrift! Some Keep The Sabbath These Are The Days Tie The Strings Tenor and alto recorder PROGRAM NOTES The Greek Muses were personifications of the spirits that move the creative process. This program, all music of the 20th century, is blending of music with other arts; it is a contemporary exploration of human creativity, a concert of music as it interacts with other art forms. Though there were ancient muses for many different areas of the arts, this concert will focus specifically on the interaction of music with dance, lyric poetry, visual art, and theater, while also spending some time on music for its own sake. Music is one of humankind’s most basic forms of self expression. When words fail, music expresses a wide range of emotions. It can make the body dance. It can conjure up memories or draw you into a dream state. Music can be deeply personal: when happy or sad, there is a tendency to seek solitude and make music. And music is the basis of many group rituals, bringing communities together in worship or celebration. DANCE There has always been dance music, but little of it has been written down. In Western Europe, musical notation was developed by the Church and only clerics knew how to read it. Eventually notation moved into courtly circles as well, but dance music still wasn’t considered worth writing down. Eventually however, fashions changed and by the late sixteenth century, dance pieces with similar mood and tonality were grouped together into collections that came to be known as suites. By the eighteenth century, suites were thematically linked, and generally started with a prelude or an allemande. You would almost always find a sarabande, a minuet, and a gigue. As suites got longer and more abstract, pieces that weren’t dance music but where in the same key and mood found their way into the mix as well. Even with no dancers, the audiences, who were all trained in dancing, would have intimately known what kind of which dances were being played. The Walter Piston Suite for Oboe and Piano (1934), is a twentieth century work following the same tradition. It has all of the required parts. The first movement, Prelude, full of strong beats (and off-­‐beats) draws you in and gets you ready to dance. The second movement, Sarabande, is slow and has a strong second beat, just as a sarabande should. But it is, in fact, in Flamenco style, a different sort of dance altogether. The Minuet has a lovely melody based on the “minuet rhythm” of dotted quarter – eighth – quarter, but Piston personalizes it by offsetting the oboe solo from the piano by one beat. The next movement, which is not a traditional dance type, is called Nocturne. The piano has delicately moving notes under the oboe, which sighs and dreams. Many suites end with a gigue, a fast dance in triplets. Piston‘s Gigue is fast and playful. Lorna Kohler has been inspired by her muse to choreograph this work and will dance it for you in today’s performance DRAMA We bring you narrative and theater with two movements from Cinq pièces pour le hautbois (1981), by Antal Doráti, music written for unaccompanied oboe. Many pieces of music lend themselves well to narrative, but composers often go a step farther with the composition of “program music,” works that are very graphic and full of musical images that are intended to illustrate something very specific. A famous example is the thunder shower in Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony. Our scene begins with a bedtime story based on The Cricket and the Ants, as told by La Fontaine. The Fables of Jean de La Fontaine, dedicated to the young son of Louis XIV, were published in several volumes between 1668 and 1694. Classics of French literature, they are short tales intended for children. They are written with humor, but provide a commentary on the foibles of human nature. We have adapted the original story to fit with the music, a delightful bit of program music with the same title from Doráti’s Cinq piéces. Listen to the unwise cricket who just wants to sing while the industrious ants scurry about storing food for the long, cold winter. After the story, our child will fall asleep to the Berceuse (Lullaby), which is the fourth movement of the Doráti Cinq pièces. POETRY (AND ART…) Song is one of the earliest forms of music and part of what makes song special is text. Poetry developed alongside music: words chosen with an ear to how the words would sound spoken aloud or sung, and with a rhythm of its own. Setting pre-­‐existing texts to music is one of the greatest challenges – and joys – in music composition. The music needs to be coherent on its own, but also needs to add a layer of understanding to the words. Today’s program has two song cycles The first cycle is Gordon Carr’s 2008 setting of six of the poems from Songs of Innocence, by William Blake. William Blake (1757– 1827) was a deeply religious man, who developed a private mythology based on prophecy and a complex symbolism. Around 1788, he invented a method of full color book making using copper plates with the non-­‐printing surfaces etched away. He made all of the plates himself, integrating both text and illustration on each page. Thus he was able to self-­‐publish his works from start to finish without involving any other craftspeople, a huge advantage for a person disseminating uncomfortable theological and political messages! Songs of Innocence is a collection of pastoral poems, ostensibly directed towards children. The underlying theme of the poems is that childhood is a state of protected innocence rather than one steeped in original sin; but childhood is not immune to the fallen world and its institutions. A series of posters taken from pages of the book are on display around the church. The Carr settings stress the innocence of childhood. They are gentle and nostalgic, but also fun. The second song cycle is based on poems written by Emily Dickinson (1830-­‐1886). Dickinson, a woman living alone in Amherst, Massachusetts in the 19th century, was considered an eccentric by her neighbors. She became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence. While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime.* Carol Herman, composer of Five Poems, writes, “This is my second venture in mixing the centuries by placing Emily Dickinson poems in contemporary settings, and combining high voice with a period instrument. My previous settings were for soprano and viola da gamba. Choosing five poems from over 1700 is challenging! I was drawn to these because of their imagery and contrast. However I am increasingly aware that I have merely scratched the surface of both the scholarship and controversy which surrounds this poet…” MUSIC We must not forget about music for its own sake! The program includes the Henri Dutilleux (1916-­‐2013), Sonatine for Flute and Piano (1943) and the Gustav Holst (1874-­‐1934), Fugal Concerto (1923). These two works are based on musical forms that have, historically, been considered platforms for the most sophisticated music writing. A “sonata” is a piece to be played rather than sung. Sonatas are formal in construction and generally written in several contrasting movements. The Dutilleux Sonatine is one of a series of four exam pieces that he wrote for the Paris Conservatoire between 1942 and 1951. These works were intended both to test the technique of the students and to provide them with new scores. Sonatine has an ethereal, dark feeling created by carefully controlled harmonic dissonance and intricately independent parts. Dutilleux was notoriously critical of his early works, including the Sonatine. His later style was much more “modern,” and even though he never withdrew it, he once stated that he wished that it were played less often. It is however, a wonderful piece, beloved of flute players, and is a staple of the repertoire. The word fugue means, literally, a chase. The voices or instruments begin one at a time, each one playing the same melody, sometimes starting on the same pitch, but usually in various transpositions. The tunes chase one another across the score, fitting together to create a whole. They might get closer, one or two parts might drop out for a bit of rest, and sometimes the tunes appear at half or double speed, or up-­‐side-­‐down, or backwards. In the case of the Holst Fugal Concerto, two of the “voices” are played by the flute and oboe. Listen for the other voices in the piano: with two hands and ten fingers, nearly anything is possible. _______________ • Dickinson note from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson THE MUSICIANS Jesse Buddington, tenor, is thrilled to be a part of this project. Jesse’s lifelong love of singing began at age 6, when he joined the Ragazzi Boys’ Chorus. After attending the San Francisco School of the Arts as a vocalist, he completed a Vocal Performance degree at UC Santa Cruz. Jesse participated in UCSC’s renowned opera department in a variety of roles, working alongside many of the musicians whom would later form Loudr.fm, an online music business and licensing platform. Although Loudr takes up the bulk of his time these days Jesse is happiest on stage, whether as the director of Ragazzi’s Young Men’s Ensemble or performing with its elite alumni ensemble, Ragazzi Continuo. He also maintains a private voice studio and is the tenor soloist at Trinity Episcopal Church in San Francisco. In his questionably-­‐existent free time, Jesse likes to play video games and study tuvan throatsinging. Geoff Fiorito is an actor (member of Screen Actor’s Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Actors), poet, artist, and interior designer (member of the American Society of Interior Designers). TV credits include NASH BRIDGES (CBS) with Don Johnson and Cheech Marin, and TRAUMA (NBC) with Anastasia Griffith and Taylor Kinney. Film credits include PATCH ADAMS with Robin Williams. He has appeared in national TV commercials and corporate films for products ranging from Pepperidge Farm and Taco Bell to Apple computers and Hewlett Packard. Trained as a theatre actor at the prestigious American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Geoff has appeared on stages all around Northern California. Recent favorite roles include Father Flynn in DOUBT, Alan Turing in BREAKING THE CODE, and Moises Kaufman and eight other characters in THE LARAMIE PROJECT. When not acting or writing, he is designing and renovating kitchens, bathrooms, or entire homes; see his portfolio at www.jefffioritointeriordesign.com. Lorna Kohler, dancer and choreographer, delights in exploring the intersection of dance, music and poetic imagery. In 2015, she completed Wishbone Drum, a recording of original songs for voice, guitar, oboe and English horn. At the 2012 North American Biodynamic Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, she premiered Tribute to Turtle Creek Gardens, a solo performance piece weaving singing, dancing and audience-­‐participation ritual to celebrate work on a biodynamic farm. For over four decades, Lorna has choreographed, danced, composed and played music for numerous multi-­‐art collaborations in the Seattle, Monterey Bay, and Los Angeles areas. She studied dance and music at Swarthmore College, UCSC, Cabrillo College, and CSU Sonoma, and earned an MFA in Music at California Institute of the Arts. She thanks Tandy Beal, Roberta Bristol, Rita Rivera, Ursula Schorn, Avon Gillespie, Kelly Holt, Ruth Solomon, Henrietta Lyons, Patricia Boyer and Gisela Christensen for their contributions to her growth as a dancer and performance artist. Lynn Kidder, piano, has performed extensively in California and Washington as a soloist, duo-­‐pianist, chamber musician and accompanist, in addition to working many years as a piano teacher and vocal coach. Ms. Kidder has a B.A. in music from CSUFresno and a M.Mus. in piano performance from the University of Washington in Seattle. She worked as a staff accompanist at both institutions while a student, playing for vocal & instrumental lessons, classes, opera workshops and degree recitals. She was also a coach for the Fresno Opera Association. After a 20-­‐year hiatus she has returned to playing and teaching. Ms. Kidder has been awarded two Professional Development Grants from the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County to attend the Golandsky Institute’s Summer Symposium on the Taubman approach (piano technique) at Princeton University. An experienced knitter, she has knitted sample garments for a local yarn shop when not making music. Carol Panofsky, oboe, recorder, and artistic director, can be heard in performances of the Albany Consort, Santa Cruz Chamber Players, Ragazzi, and, on occasion, with Magnificat! and the Santa Cruz County Symphony. She plays oboe, early winds, and piano, which has provided her with opportunities to perform on both coasts as well as in Italy, Croatia, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, China, and Korea. Carol, Theory Director of Ragazzi Boys’ Chorus, is responsible for the music literacy of approximately 180 young choristers. She has developed workbooks and classroom materials that are friendly to both children and adults and which make no assumptions of knowledge of a musical instrument. She received a Masters Degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. She has been on the faculties at the Music School of the University of Idaho and at UCSC. She has many students, both children and adults. Kathleen Purcell has played Principal Flute under the batons of Leopold Stokowski’s prized protégé Maurice Dubonnet, Robert Shaw, and Richard Woitach of the Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Purcell has toured Europe as Principal Flutist and soloist with the United States Honor Band, and has toured the U.S. as Principal Flutist with the Idaho Bicentennial Orchestra and as part of the United States Bicentennial Celebration. She holds a Bachelors degree in Flute Performance from the Lionel Hampton School of Music, where she assisted National Flute Association President Richard Hahn in the construction of historical flutes, and a Masters degree in Flute Performance from the University of Wisconsin-­‐Madison, where she studied with Robert Cole while developing a new course on flute performance. Additionally, Ms. Purcell has played with the University of Idaho Faculty Quintet, was Principal Flutist with the Washington Idaho Orchestra, and has coached with Samuel Baron, Julius Baker and Jean-­‐Pierre Rampal. Today, she concertizes, coaches chamber music and runs an active flute studio in Santa Cruz.