Walker ArtCenter

Neo ChorallThe DaleWarlandSingers'

,/

Walker Art Center presentsNeo Choral IThe Dale Warland SingersSunday, November 8, 19923:00 p.m.

Program Notesby Brian Newhouse

There is Sweet Music Here

I.

"t'm influenced by everything I hear. I don'twant to be pigeon-holed. If I feel like usingjazz in a piece, or writing something theatrical,I'll do it. The music I'm interested in writing,' isthe idea or sound that excites me at thatparticular moment. II

Dale Warland, Conductor

-Stephen ChatmanThere is Sweet Music Here (1984)Stephen Chatman (b. 1950)

II.

That's a solid artistic credo, III do what I like. IIIn claiming it, Faribault native StephenChatman echoes the late leonard Bernstein,whose IIMissa Brevisll ends todav's concert.Chetmen's and Bernstein's scores crossboundaries all the time with persuasivesuccess. For IIThere is Sweet Music Here,"Chatman chose a style that is surprisinglysimple and tuneful.

Seven Choruses from Medea of Euripides(1934)Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)Jerry Rubino, ConductorRobert Adney, Percussion

v.

"There is Sweet Music Here" is 8 setting of fourpoems each text filled with musical images.This was a risk for Chatman, as for anycomposer, because poems about music alwayssuggest a certain kind of music. To succeed, acomposer has to avoid simply copying orpantomiming the poet's images, and mustcreate something that enhances theword, frees it. There are few great models tofollow. In "There is Sweet Music Here,"Chatman made the music light, and lyrical, andthe result is charming. Written for theVancouver Cantata Singers, a group Chatmandescribes as a "reallv good amateur choir," thecycle sounds almost childlike - in fact, thefourth song is dedicated to Chatman's twodaughters who were nine and five at the timehe wrote it.

11'1.

Namings, (1992)Jalau Kalvert Nelson (b. 1951)World Premiere Performance

Intermission

IV.

Tom OIBedlam (1951)Jacob Avshalomov (b. 1919)Thomas Temple, OboeRobert Adney, Percussion

Bendita Sabedoria (1958)H. Villa-Lobos (1885-1959)

VI.As we begin this concert dedicated to newchoral music, forget frowning or scowling whiletrying to "understand" a new work. Chatman'sscore speaks plainly - don't be surprised if yousmile and sigh.

Missa Brevis (1988)Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990)Robert Adney, PercussionAlexander Platt, Counter-tenor Seven Choruses from the Medea of

Euripides

-I wrote in Paris music that was always, in oneway or another, about Kansas City. I wantedParis to know Kansas City, to understand theways we like to think and feel on the banks ofthe Kaw and the Missouri.-

-Virgil Thomson

After leaving ~ansas City in his mid-twenties,Virgil Thomson spent far more time on the

banks of the Seine and the Hudson than theMissouri. But the muddy river of his youth leftits mark. There is a straight-forwardness to allhis music that evokes the prairie and the

rength of the people who settled it. He.cornpllshes that with a particular musical

vocabulary - the "open" intervals of an octave,a fourth, and a fifth - and with a style that has,Thomson said, "precision, gentleness, sincerity,and directness of statement.·

The work ends as it began, with the sounds ofthe ocean, symbolizing the journey back toone's origins. Composing this work was a greatdiscovery for me. I hope that it will also be onefor you."

·Seven Choruses from the Medea· of Euripideswas written midway through Thomson's fifteenyear Paris sojourn, a time when he wasbefriended by the composers known as "LesSix" - men and women who wanted to simplifyFrench music and lift a German heaviness anddissonance from it. Thomson sought the samefor American music, and these ·SevenChoruses" are a classic example of his efforts.

Mr. Nelson received the first John W. Work IIICornposer's Fellowship in 1974. He's alsoreceived commissions from the OklahomaSymphony Orchestra, the BrooklynPhilharmonic, the Kronos Quartet, and theAmerican Dance Festival.

"Namlnqs" was commissioned by The DaleWarland Singers through its New Choral MusicReading/Commissioning Program forEmerging Composers. The Dale WarlandSingers would like to thank Cynthia Gerhig andThe Board of Trustees of The JeromeFoundation for their continued support andencouragement of this program.

Naming.World Premiere Performance Tom OIBedlam

Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson's latest work wascommissioned by The Dale Warland Singers

th funds from the Jerome Foundation..~amings· was begun in April 1991 and

completed this past February. Nelson writes:

The hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, or"Bedlam," as it came to be called, wasoriginally opened in the thirteenth century as apriory. In 1547, by order of Henry VIII, it wasconverted into Englandls first insane asylum.Mad Tom was one of many who were let out ofthe overcrowded asylum to roam as licensedbeggar. His hair was long, his clothes rags, andin his hat he stuck feathers and ribbons. Whenhe came upon a village, held herald his entrywith the sound of an ox horn that held hungaround his neck, then sing, sob or dance for hissupper. This anonymous text dates from about1615 and is Torn's street song - a moving,timeless picture of a homeless tunatlc's plight.Robert Shaw premiered Avshalornov's score in1953, and it captured the New York MusicCrltic's Circle Award that same year.

·1 composed this work as an act of homage tothe Africans that were brought to the Americasduring the slave trade era. The text consists ofnames of different west African culture-groups,clties, as well as terms that were brought tothe Americas, and other words that werecreated here. Composing this was a kind ofjourney for me - a journey into my African pastwhere these words and what they representcame alive. I felt a spiritual connection tothem. In calling the names, they continue tolive within me.

Bendlta Sabedorla

This is a free-form work. It begins with thevoices imitating the sound of water and oceanwaves - symbolic of the slave traders arrivingin Africa by ship. Many times, the voices areused in a percussive manner, like drums, andwords are altered or broken up for their soundvalue. Near the end, all the terms are sungalphabetically, moving chromatically upward,

rting with the basses and ending with the.prenos. At the very end are these words

from the Ba-Kongo people: IMu kala kintwadi,,\\t~~~\m'i1\~~,1,",t\\t~m,,~~,I,m,~\~touch will never die, I

The Brazilian Villa-Lobos created well over athousand scores in his seventy-two years,making him, arguably, the most prolificcomposer ever. There are a few clunkers in hiscatalogue though: if a commissioning soloist orensemble had the cast, Villa-Lobos had thepiece; sometimes an uninspired piece but apiece nonetheless. At his best, however, Villa-Lobos was a strikingly original voice in early20th century music, and his greatest scoreshave an almost improvised air to them. (Heplayed guitar on the streets of Rio de J.aneirowhen he was a teen, improvising with on~u\tS{\sts 6~d s\~~%~.\ 01",,%\6\% \HOf~S,"Bendlta Sabedoria" stands out. It was written

the year before his death, a time whenchurches and schools around the globe wereasking him for new scores, most often choralpieces. He chose the book of Proverbs for"Bendita Sabedoria," and set the ancient wordsin a rich six voice texture, freely thickening itat times to as many as seven or eight parts.Some passages of "Bendita Sabedoria" arelighter and clearer, almost madrigal-like; andthe cycle ends with a powerful, dramaticallyclean "open" chord.

The Dale Warland SingersDale Warland, Founder and Music DirectorJerry Rubino, Assistant Conductor and PianistCarol Barnett, Composer-in-ResidenceRuss Bursch, General Manager

Missa Brevis

SopranoJane E. AndersenWendi Ellen GerthJanice A. HuntonKathy JosselynPatricia KentNorah longJulie Ann OlsonDeborah loon Osgoodlisa SawatskyMarie Spar

Just as he had a hand in launchingAvshalornov's "Tom O'Bedlum," Robert Shawwas key to leonard Bernstein's HMissa Brevis:'In 1995, Bernstein composed choruses for theplay "The lark," a drama depicting Joan ofArc's trial. Since the play was set in mediaevaltimes, Bernstein deliberately wrote music toevoke that era. RobertShaw attended one ofthe first performances and suggested toBernstein that with some changes andadditions the music would make an effective"Missa Brevis:' Thirty years later; in honor ofShaw's retirement as Music Director of theAtlanta Symphony Orchestra, Bernsteinfashioned HThe lark" music into this little nineminute mass, dedicating it "for Bob Shaw."

AltoJoanne Halvorsenlynette R. JohnsonAnna MooyMary Jo Oldakowskilisa TheisenPatricia ThompsonSandra WaldenMitizi Westra -Teresa K. Whaley

Bernstein said that his own musical style hadthreads of "jazz, Hebrew liturgical music, Bachand Beethoven and Schumann and Chopin andMahler and the musicians from my own countrylike Copland and Harris and Schuman ...HAllthese are in his "Missa Brevis," including a darkmediaeval strand; but, as always, thecompleted tapestry is uniquely Bernstein.

TenorPaul J. AndersonPhilip Blackburn .Thomas larsonTimothy McGlynnDean Palermo'Robert W. PontiousSteven J. SandbergRandall C. SpeerSteve Staruch

This program is supported in part with fundsfrom the Music Program of the NationalEndowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Ba.sThomas JamesJerry Johnson .Daniel KallmanJin KimArthur la RueDavid Ryan MobergBrian Newhouse"Jerry RubinoKevin M. ShannonMark SotebeerPaul A. TheisenScott Thomas Toperzer

This activity is made possible in part by a grantprovided by the Minnesota State Arts Board,through an appropriation by the MinnesotaState legislature.

Upcoming Performance:Echoes of ChristmasDecember 3,4,'5, 1992 at 8:15 p.m.St Thomas Chapel, University of St. Thomas,St. PaulTickets The Connection 922-9000