COMPOSERS' CONCERTS EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC - Thursday, April 15, 2021 Kilbourn Hall - Eastman School of Music

EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC

 COMPOSERS’
  CONCERTS

     Thursday, April 15, 2021
         Kilbourn Hall
            7:30 PM

PROGRAM
Three Haiku Songs (2021)                                   Yuanning Gao
                                                               (b. 1999)

                    Emma Unkrich, mezzo-soprano
                       Yuanning Gao, piano

Metro-North to Grand Central (2021)                         Ethan Resnik
                                                                (b. 2002)

                      Madeline Nysetvold, violin
                       Danny O’Connell, cello
                        Ethan Resnik, piano

Sonata No. 2 “Chaconnesque”                              Keane Southard
  for Violin and Piano (2020)                                   (b. 1987)

                       Nicholas Schaefer, violin
                       Keane Southard, piano

The Secret (2021)                                             William Jae
                                                                (b. 2001)

                 Matthew Hrinda, soprano saxophone
                 Dykeem Cervantes, alto saxophone
                        Karina Tseng, piano

Quartet Fragments (2020)                                 Charles Berofsky
                                                                 (b. 2000)

                 Lily Dunlap and Lydia Becker, violins
                          Lucy Gelber, viola
                          Joëlla Becker, cello

Three Love Songs (2021)                                  Keane Southard
       My Love It Should Be Silent
       A Red, Red Rose
       Again and Again

                      Jazmine Saunders, soprano
                        Keane Southard, piano

PROGRAM NOTES
Three Haiku Songs (2021)                                    Yuanning Gao
Three Haiku songs:
1. On a branch
a cricket singing
floating downriver.

2. The snow is melting
and the village is flooded
with children.

3. A wicked cage flew
across the long horizon
searching for a bird.

Metro-North to Grand Central (2021)                            Ethan Resnik
Walking through Grand Central Station is like experiencing a symphony. The
sound created is an unintentional collaboration appealing to many senses.
The colossal ceiling echoes the percussive footsteps and timbres of the
voices, making the music come alive. The breezes carry a variety of scents,
adding flavor to the dimension of sound. At Grand Central, people,
unbeknownst to them, contribute to the entire production, and as an
observer, I am mesmerized. It fascinates me that players in a symphony
work together, united under a different ceiling to perform, while the
ensemble in Grand Central inadvertently produces music that changes
every single second.

Sonata No. 2 “Chaconnesque”                              Keane Southard
   for Violin and Piano (2020)
The impetus for this piece was the opening harmony and a desire just to
explore and enjoy it. Like a traditional chaconne, this work features a
repeated harmonic progression, this one consisting of nine harmonies
with the first, fifth, and ninth being the same. However, in my piece the
harmonies are stretched out over a much longer period than usual with
each usually lasting between twenty and thirty seconds. I wanted to take
time exploring these beautiful harmonies in different ways and fully
basking in them, which presented me with the challenge of how to create a
compelling musical narrative that doesn’t become boring or too static
when there are essentially only seven different harmonies (excepting some
small changes) used in a 15-minute-long work. The solution was to create
more contrast through the other musical elements such as texture, voicing,
dynamics, tempo, and playing techniques.

PROGRAM NOTES
The music cycles through the harmonic progression four times
throughout the piece. The first time features the piano holding the
harmonies while the violin plays improvisatory cadenzas above it which
climb higher and higher. The music finally “takes off” and jumps into the
second cycle where the harmonies are always activated through repeated
arpeggios and tremolos, creating a thick and continuous wall of
sound. The third cycle finally introduces silences and rests, using only
short fragments tossed between the two instruments and sharp contrasts
of timbre. The fourth and final cycle is a kind of condensed summary of
the first three, lasting only a fraction of the length of the others while
shifting between the characters and textures of each. The piece then ends
with a return to the beginning chord which finally slowly floats away as the
violin descends back down to earth.

Quartet Fragments (2020)                                      Charles Berofsky
My first real foray into the string quartet genre has been an interesting
journey, and one that in hindsight I feel must have been partially inspired
by Bartók, if only subconsciously; I was studying his quartets for the first
time (specifically Nos. 3-6) as I was writing the piece. “Quartet
Fragments” contains many short sections that flow one into the other
attacca, yet there are recurring motifs that I aim to use to unite the work.
Examples include a pulsating drone in repeated sixteenth notes which
occurs in different registers and dynamics, and a scalar motion going up
one or two steps. A few cadenza-like moments occur throughout the
piece—whether for a solo instrument, or for several in dialogue with each
other. For all the intensity in certain sections, the work is meant to exude a
sense of crazy fun. While improvisation is not required from the players,
the music should flow spontaneously from one idea to the next with
abandon.

Three Love Songs (2021)                                 Keane Southard
The first of these Three Love Songs was composed in March 2021 and is a
setting of the poem “A Love Song” by American poet Theodosia
Garrison from her 1917 book The Dreamers and Other Poems. My setting of
“A Red, Red Rose” was composed almost entirely on Valentine’s Day
2021 and sets the famous poem by the 18th century Scottish poet Robert
Burns. And lastly, I composed “Again and Again” in 2016 which sets the
poem “Immer Wieder” by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke in my own
translation from German. These songs are all dedicated to my love and
wife Diane.

UPCOMING EVENTS AT EASTMAN

    Information about upcoming Eastman concerts and events can be found at:
                     www.rochester.edu/Eastman/calendar
                    www.facebook.com/ConcertsAtEastman

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