George Benjamin, composer
English composer and conductor George Benjamin made his Royal Opera debut in 2013 conducting his opera Written on Skin (text by Martin Crimp), which he returned to conduct in 2017. He returns in the 2017/18 Season with Lessons in Love and Violence, a new work co-commissioned by The Royal Opera, with which he conducts the premiere. Benjamin was born in London. He started composing at the age of seven and studied with Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire and with Goehr at King’s College, Cambridge. He made his BBC Proms debut aged 20 with Ringed by the Flat Horizon (BBC Symphony Orchestra and Mark Elder). Further compositions include At First Light (London Sinfonietta and Simon Rattle), Palimpsests (London Symphony Orchestra and Pierre Boulez) and the chamber opera Into the Little Hill, which marked the start of his collaboration with Crimp. His compositions have been celebrated through retrospectives at the Barbican, the Southbank Centre and in Paris, San Francisco, Frankfurt, Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh and New York, among others. He is an honorary fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society. He was appointed a CBE in 2010 and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2015. Benjamin regularly conducts such leading orchestras as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern. He has conducted world premieres by composers including Chin, Grisey, Ligeti and Rihm. He regularly teaches at the Tanglewood Festival and is Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King’s College London. George Benjamin is widely regarded as one of the leading composers of his generation. In 2017 he received a knighthood from the Queen honouring his achievements.

Mario Carro, composer
Born in Madrid in 1979, he starts his musical studies in the Escuela Municipal de Música de Tres Cantos, continuing them in the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, where he gets a degree in Piano. During this same period, he studies Composition with Jesús Torres. During the past years his music has been more and more frequently showcased in concert halls and festivals in Spain and different European and North and South American countries, through the hands of ensembles and soloists such as the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España, Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, Plural Ensemble, Ensemble Kuraia, Grupo Enigma, Alea III Boston University, Cuarteto Bretón, Dúo Gelòs-Santes, Dúo 11 Abrazos, Mario Prisuelos, Ricardo Descalzo, Adam Levin, Julián Elvira and Celia Alcedo, among others.This has been aided by the fact that his musical works have won awards in prestigious competitions: “Alea III International Composition Competition” (Boston, 2005), “Labyrinthmaker Plattform” (Wien, 2006) and “Concurso Internacional de Composición Musical Universidad de Zaragoza 2008”. He has also been a finalist on “I Muestra de Jóvenes Compositores del CDMC”, Premios Injuve (Málaga, 2005) and “Hui, Hui, Música” (Valencia, 2008). In 2009 he received the Premio del Colegio de España en París/INAEM, and a monographic concert of his music took place in the French capital. He has received commissions and grants from La Residencia de Estudiantes, INAEM, Comunidad de Madrid and Fundación Canal. He has recently written a piece under the commission of “53 Semana de música Religiosa de Cuenca”. He balances his creative work with teaching at the Escuela Municipal de Música de Tres Cantos.

Piero Guimaraes, percussionist
Percussionist Piero Guimaraes stands at the forefront of a new generation of international performers specializing in orchestral and contemporary music. A native of Brazil, Guimaraes presented the Brazilian premiere of several pivotal works by influential composers including Iannis Xenakis, Steve Reich and Peter Eotvos. Guimaraes concertizes extensively, having made his mark in halls across the United States, Brazil, Austria, Germany, Spain, and Holland. A versatile player, Guimaraes is a frequent participant in orchestral and contemporary music festivals including The World Orchestra, International Ensemble Modern Academy, Pommersfelden Summer Akademy and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. He has collaborated extensively with living composers, working with John Luther Adams, Heinz Holliger, and Kaija Saariaho to name only a few. Additionally, Guimaraes performs regularly with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, the United States Coast Guard Band and the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra and has performed under the baton of many world-renowned conductors including Maestro Kurt Masur. Guimaraes earned his bachelor’s degree from Sao Paulo State University in Brazil and holds a Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University in New York. Guimaraes has performed at such prestigious venues as Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, and Roulette and serves as a core member of the Iktus Percussion and Providence based new music ensemble, Verdant Vibes. Guimaraes and Iktus frequently perform world premieres and have presented master classes in the elite music departments of Oberlin Conservatory, Michigan State University. the University of Michigan, Eastman School of Music, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Piero serves as percussion coordinator and faculty member at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School and faculty at Rhode Island College and Stonehill College.

EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks, violinist
EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks grew up on an organic farm where as a young girl she presented her first violin performances to a very attentive audience—her flock of merino sheep. As that violin grew from quarter- to a full-size, EmmaLee, with that expressive instrument in hand, made her way onto the stage as soloist with symphonies and then on to Carnegie Hall as a member of the Pangea String Quartet. Armed with a performance degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a doctoral degree from SUNY Stony Brook, EmmaLee serves as principal second violinist of the New Bedford Symphony and as a busy chamber player she performs with Verdant Vibes New Music Collective, South Coast Chamber Players, Sycamore Hill Duo and more. She is on faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and the Birch Creek Summer Performance Center. A firm believer that music can move people, quite literally, EmmaLee takes the lead in string bands across New England and in the Midwest where her lively fiddle music drives the spirited old-time dancing. She has played fiddle with the Rusty Pickup String Band since she was ten years old and she has taken many a championship prize at fiddle competitions.

Lara Madden, violinist
Violinist Lara Maria Madden has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Central America and Asia. A dedicated orchestral, chamber, and solo musician, Lara received her formal training at Indiana University and DePaul University. Originally from River Forest, Illinois, Lara began studying the violin at the age of three, and attended Merit School of music during her childhood and teen years. During the summer months she attended festivals including the Meadowmount School of Music, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Music Masters Course Japan. Always musically curious and open to learning, Lara has performed in yoga classes, Baroque operas, musical theater productions, orchestra and chamber concerts, and solo recitals. A committed educator, Lara received her training with Mimi Zweig at Indiana University, and this summer participated in the Summer Music Educators Workshop through Carnegie Hall. Lara is a firm believer in music fostering individual and community wellness, and seeks to spread the joy of music with those around her. 

Kareem Roustom, composer
Syrian-American Kareem Roustom is an Emmy-nominated composer whose genre crossing collaborations include music commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, conductor Daniel Barenboim & the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, the Dallas Symphony, & the Grand Teton Music Festival. Roustom is currently composer-in-residence with the Württembergische Philharmonie in Reutlingen, Germany for the 2019 – 2020 seasons, and has been the composer-in-residence at the Grant Park Music Festival (2019) and the Grand Teton Music Festival (2018).  Roustom’s music has been performed by orchestras that include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen,  and at renowned festivals & halls such as the BBC Proms, the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Verbier Festival, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, as well is in the Near East, Armenia, Jakarta, China and Japan. Roustom’s music has also been recorded by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester (Berlin), and the Philharmonia Orchestra (London). In addition Roustom has collaborated with pop-artists such as Shakira, Beyonce, Tina Turner and others. The Chicago Tribune wrote that Roustom is “a gifted and accomplished artist…one of the most prominent active Arab-American composers,” BBC Radio 3 described Roustom’s music as “among the most distinctive to have emerged from the Middle East”, and The New York Times described his music as “propulsive, colorful and immediately appealing.” The Guardian (London) wrote that Roustom’s music is “arrestingly quirky and postmodern…music with lots of personality.”  Of his Violin Concerto No. 1, composed for violinist Michael Barenboim, Der Tagesspiegel wrote ““Roustom’s Violin Concerto No. 1, an homage to Mozart’s fascination with Arabic & Turkish music, is not Mozart “alla turca”, but conversely Turkish and North African “alla Vienna”: As far as the vitality, the profound cheerfulness, the dance like  dialogue between instruments are concerned, Roustom’s work is infected by Mozart’s élan.”

Kirsten Volness, composer
Internationally recognized composer Kirsten Volness creates sublimely intimate and emotive soundscapes that inspire immersive listening. Through the refined use of electronics and modern composition techniques overlaid with jazz and pop influences, Volness’s music is both groovy and graceful, “irresistible” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “nothing short of gorgeous.” (New York Arts). Each of her compositions reveals “an exquisite sound world” (New Classic LA) with disparate, suggestive musical elements and idioms woven together to create sonic atmospheres that hold listeners in beauty and fascination. Inspired by nature, myth, spirituality, and environmental and sociopolitical issues, Volness’s music is smart, relevant, timeless, and transcendent. Volness’s work features around the world, with past performances at The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), L’Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, The New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Illuminus Boston, Electronic Music Midwest, Noise Floor, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, Third Practice, Tribeca New Music, American Composers Alliance, LunART, the Montréal and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, and concerts throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. Her rich commission history includes projects with the World Future Council Foundation, ASCAP/SEAMUS, BMI Foundation, Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance, Hotel Elefant, NOW Ensemble, Transient Canvas, Opera Cowgirls, Experiential Orchestra, Cambridge Philharmonic, and Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Volness received the MacColl Johnson Fellowship in 2017, the Fellowship in Music Composition from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts three times (2018, 2014, 2010), and the 2017 Composer-in-Residence position at the Music Mansion. Her first opera, Letters That You Will Not Get: Women’s Voices From The Great War, is in development with The American Opera Project with support from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Also an active performer, producer, and a passionate promoter of multimedia, Volness has cultivated and curated numerous festivals and series featuring the work of interdisciplinary artists. Her broad creative practice fosters hybrid genres of performance which explore modes of presenting and experiencing art that generate larger, and more diverse arts communities. A highly sought-after collaborator, she is the Co-Founder, Director and pianist for Verdant Vibes(Providence); multi-instrumentalist for Hotel Elefant (NYC); Co-Director of homeless advocacy group Tenderloin Opera Company (Providence); Composer/Performer in Meridian Project, a multimedia performance/lecture series exploring astrophysics and cosmology (Chicago/Providence); and Affiliated Artist of Sleeping Weazel (Boston). Volness is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Reed College (2019–21), and previously taught at the University of Rhode Island with guest appearances at Brown University, University of Michigan, Johnson & Wales, Western Illinois University, and Interlochen Arts Camp. With composition degrees from the University of Michigan (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Minnesota (B.A., summa cum laude), her greatest mentors include Evan Chambers, William Bolcom, Betsy Jolas, Bright Sheng, Michael Daugherty, Karen Tanaka, and Judith Lang Zaimont.

Read Program Notes here.

Watch and Listen: Sonata Series Event #3 
Premieres Thursday, January 28 at 7pm EST

This hour-long presentation of our Student Performance Party includes musical performances, jokes, and joy. CMW students and teachers have been working hard despite the challenges of online learning. Watch as students perform for family and friends in a virtual community event!
DIRECT LINK HERE

By Jeff Louie

Claude Debussy’s sonata for violin and piano, written in 1916-1917, was the last significant composition he completed. Its premiere, on which he played the piano part himself, was his final public performance. The sonata was the third of what he had intended to be a six-sonata cycle, after the sonata for cello and piano from 1915 (performed a few years ago in the CMW Sonata Series by Zan Berry and Sakiko Mori) and the sonata for flute, viola and harp, also from 1915. Before these sonatas, Debussy had not written any type of chamber music in more than two decades, since his string quartet from 1893. (That string quartet is such a masterpiece that perhaps he felt he had nothing more to add to the chamber music repertoire?)

Debussy is a profoundly significant figure in the history of western classical music. Yet he is broadly embraced and beloved in a way that similarly important composers of the era (e.g. Schoenberg or Stravinsky) often are not. Debussy’s willingness to discover the sounds of other cultures and to break the harmonic conventions of his own—the centuries-old rules about which notes were allowed to go together and how certain sound combinations were supposed to resolve—wasn’t merely about defiance; it was always about finding better and more original ways of evoking emotion through his art. His sensitivity to the feelings that sound combinations could hint at imbues his music with a uniquely visceral appeal.

What happens to a rule-breaking artist once they’ve created their ground-breaking masterpieces—after they’ve broken all the rules? Where do you find inspiration after you’ve scorched the earth? There’s a bit of a pattern for many artists: they often pare down, shed the excesses, and look backwards. After the youthful “Russian phase” of Stravinsky’s career (which included the most incendiary, revolutionary works of his career, including Petroushka and The Rite of Spring), Stravinsky turned to baroque and early classical music for inspiration for his “neoclassical phase,” featuring sparser and more formally rigid music. (An example from another genre—after the extravagances of Sgt. Pepper and the White Album, the Beatles made a conscious effort to “Get Back” to their stripped-down rock and roll roots.)

In Debussy’s case, he was drawn to the great French composers from the past, particularly Rameau and Couperin. The sonatas of Debussy’s late sonata cycle are not the sonata forms of Beethoven and Schubert, but resemble more closely the form of 18th century “monothematic” sonatas. In other words, don’t listen to them waiting for a distinctive second theme to come in establishing a new tonal center and then anticipate its triumphant restatement later in the home key! But, as in all Debussy, do listen to the subtle changes in texture, to the way a snippet of melody is repeated on top of a slightly altered accompaniment, and notice how these details make you feel—how a new harmony can add a dark undertone to a previously insouciant tune, how a small up-and-down gesture in the violin creates an ephemeral sniff of dread. Also, particularly in the violin sonata’s second movement, listen for the sense of mischief—Debussy had a great talent for incorporating playfulness into his music.

Debussy’s plans for the other sonatas in the cycle included one for oboe, horn, and harpsichord, and one for trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, and piano. The sixth and final sonata was to combine all the instruments of all the other sonatas into a concerto grosso type of composition, focusing on all the different sonorities that combination of instruments could produce. Unfortunately he passed before he was able to complete this project. One can only wonder if, had he lived longer, his late-career return to small ensembles would have produced even more masterpieces to the chamber music repertoire.

***

Jeffrey Louie is an accomplished instrumentalist, composer, and arranger across a wide range of musical disciplines. A virtuoso pianist and violinist, he has soloed on both instruments with numerous Boston-area orchestras and has served as principal second violinist for the Yale Symphony and the Boston Philharmonic. As a pianist in Providence, he is a frequent collaborator with Community MusicWorks and with faculty and students at Brown University. He is a BMI Student Composers Award winner, and at Yale received the Wrexham Prize in Music and the Abraham Beechman Cox Prize for music composition. Jeffrey is also a singer/songwriter and guitarist, as well as a versatile arranger and session musician for a diverse roster of ensembles and recording artists. An avid cruciverbalist, he recently had a crossword puzzle published in the Los Angeles Times.

Hear Debussy’s work performed by Jeff Louie and Lisa Barksdale in our YouTube Sonata Series event.

By Lisa Barksdale

In the year 1913, French music reviewer Émile Vuillermoz wrote:

Several months ago, in this column, I warned musicians of the imminence of the ‘Pink Peril:’ events have not hesitated to prove me right. Madamoiselle Lili Boulanger has just triumphed in the last Prix de Rome competition over all its male contestants, and has carried off the Grand Prize with an authority, a speed, and an ease apt to seriously disturb the candidates who, for long years, cried tears and sweated blood while laboriously approaching this goal. Do not be fooled: this deed stands on its own merits. Not only did the gallantry of the judges not intervene to facilitate her victory, but it could be said that they were stricter with this young girl of nineteen than with her competition. The misogyny of the jury was known. […] And it required all the crushing weight and indisputable authority of this woman’s work to triumph over the student’s homework that surrounded it.”

It’s a statement that reveals a lot about the musical world surrounding Lili Boulanger, about her talent, and about the immensity of her accomplishment in shattering the glass ceiling of the prestigious Prix de Rome prize for composition. It also reveals something significant about what was required of her in order to do it – to write something that was indisputably, beyond the shadow of a doubt, worlds better than all her competitors, so that no juror could be accused of the sin of “gallantry.”

While Mr. Vuillermoz’s statement implies that she triumphed with “ease,” Lili’s path to victory was not without struggle, and sadly a close examination of her life inevitably leads me to ask the question I often ask when studying the lives of the women composers of European classical music – What might have been if not for…? Of course, that’s also a question Jeff will be asking about Debussy. Perhaps it’s a question that could be asked about all artists. But when it comes to looking at the lives of women in the story of music, it seems like those “if not fors” too often became insurmountable obstacles. Thank goodness for Lili Boulanger, they were not entirely.

Lili Boulanger was born to a musical family and soon revealed herself to be the definition of a child prodigy. She tagged along with her older sister Nadia Boulanger (whose name has more widespread recognition among musicians, as she became the composition teacher to many composing giants of the 20th century – Google her) for music lessons with composer Gabriel Faure. Lili learned to play several instruments, including piano, violin, and harp. Her composition skills and passion for music were unquestionable, but her health was poor for her entire life, likely due to a chronic battle with what is now known as Crohn’s disease. Because of her poor health and the death of her father early in her life, Lili’s mother encouraged her to pursue a career through which she might be able to support herself, knowing she was unlikely to marry with the severity of her health issues.

In fact, her first attempt at winning the Prix de Rome ended in a collapse that took her out of the competition, making her second attempt at the competition all the more breathtaking. That win earned her a publishing contract, which allowed her to establish a living for herself and to share a handful of compositions until she passed away peacefully (due to her ongoing battle with Crohn’s) at the tragically young age of 24, in 1918.

While Lili’s short life forces us to ask what we lost by her too-soon departure, the music of hers that we do have is well worth immersing ourselves in. Given the constraints of her short life, health challenges, and World War I, what she was able to accomplish in her music is to be deeply admired. She was especially known for her skills at orchestration and her rich harmonic language featured in orchestral and choral works. But even in the two short pieces featured in this Sonata Series performance – Nocturne and Cortège – you get a small taste of her voice and language as a composer. The Nocturne takes clear inspiration from Debussy, setting a contemplative mood, while the Cortège counterbalances with a playful march.

***

Lisa Barksdale, violinist, is a Resident Musician at Community MusicWorks and Program Coordinator for the Daily Orchestra Program. Read her bio on our website.

Find a detailed chronicle of Lili Boulanger’s life, with links to key pieces in her legacy here.

Hear Boulanger’s work performed by Lisa Barksdale and Jeffrey Louis in this CMW Sonata Series event on YouTube.

LISA BARKSDALE, violin

Program Coordinator, Daily Orchestra Program/Resident Musician
Lisa Barksdale, violinist and Daily Orchestra Program Coordinator, has been a member of the CMW team since 2012. Lisa teaches eager young students in both orchestra and individual lessons and coordinates and supports the mentors who volunteer with the DOP. Lisa earned both a Master of Music and Performance Diploma at Boston University under the guidance of violinist Lucia Lin. Prior to that she earned a Bachelor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied with violinist Vartan Manoogian. Since joining CMW Lisa has enjoyed the many opportunities she’s had to explore a variety of her musical interests, including playing the Baroque violin with the Providence Baroque Chamber Orchestra. Lisa lives in Providence with her husband Jeff and their beloved adopted dog Jasper.

KIMBERLY FANG, violin

CMW Violin Fellow, 2019-2021
Kimberly Fang, violinist, is a native of Florida and was always curious about what else the world had to offer. Once she got a taste of the transformative power of music as a teen, she was determined to bring that same awe-inspiring experience to the next generation. She graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Music in violin performance and music education and earned a Masters in Violin from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Before coming to CMW, Kimberly lived in Taipei, teaching English and freelancing as an opportunity to learn more about her heritage and to expand her teaching experiences. Working with young children is her passion, and she has taught in many capacities, including privately, in public schools, online, and in all kinds of subjects. In her spare time, she loves to sing and was a part of a collegiate a cappella group, the Northwestern University Treblemakers.

JEFFREY LOUIE, piano

Guest pianist Jeffrey Louie is an accomplished instrumentalist, composer, and arranger across a wide range of musical disciplines. A virtuoso pianist and violinist, he has soloed on both instruments with numerous Boston-area orchestras and has served as principal second violinist for the Yale Symphony and the Boston Philharmonic. As a pianist in Providence, he is a frequent collaborator with Community MusicWorks and with faculty and students at Brown University. He is a BMI Student Composers Award winner, and at Yale received the Wrexham Prize in Music and the Abraham Beechman Cox Prize for music composition. Jeffrey is also a singer/songwriter and guitarist, as well as a versatile arranger and session musician for a diverse roster of ensembles and recording artists. An avid cruciverbalist, he recently had a crossword puzzle published in the Los Angeles Times.

Join us Tuesday, December 15 at 6pm EST for the YouTube Premiere of the CMW Student Performance Party!

Click here to join the party!

Join us for an hour-long premiere presentation that includes musical performances, jokes, and joy.

CMW students and teachers have been working hard despite the challenges of online learning. Tonight, students perform for family and friends in a virtual community event where you can cheer on our young musicians and enjoy the company of friends online.

Student Performance Party
Tuesday, December 15 at 6pm EST 
CMW’s YouTube Channel

WELCOME to BACH TO THE FUTURE VIII: THE ALL-NIGHT BACH MARATHON!
Original Broadcast Friday, November 13, 7pm to Saturday, November 14, 7am on WELH 88.1 FM 

LISTEN HERE, ANYTIME:
Click on the hour-to-hour icons to listen and read program information.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE:
We are grateful for the support that makes these events possible!

Hour 1

Hour 2

Hour 3

Hour 4

Hour 5

Hour 6

Hour 7

Hour 8

Hour 9

Hour 10

Hour 11

Hour 12

Presented by Community MusicWorks and curated by Sakiko Mori.

Special thanks to:

The Public’s Radio, 88.1 and Mr. Torey Malatia

Sakiko Mori, curation

Andy Russ, audio editing & production

Liz Cox & Kelly Reed – marketing, event management & production, and imagining this show into being

Aaron Read – IT Hero and Engineering Director of The Public’s Radio

Agnes, recording and editing/ Bach to the Future Archives

Our D.J.s: Zoe, Abraham, Mariam, Alyssa, Mark Hinkley, and Kamyron Williams

Our Station ID announcers: Susanna Angelillo, Elena Cazac, Doris De Los Santos, Kimberly Fang, Piero Guimaraes, Susi Kaske, Takao Mori, Kareem Roustom, Emanuel Ruffler, and Prerna Singh

Our Resident Humorist: Jesse Holstein

CMW presents a week-long celebration of all things J. S. Bach!

The season’s shift to crisp temperatures and falling leaves signals Community MusicWorks’ annual autumn tribute to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, his contemporaries, and music inspired by the composer.

We kick off the week with a virtual Sunday afternoon concert filmed at various locations within the gorgeously renovated Providence Public Library, share a student-led week-long exploration of the life and notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach, and take to the airwaves Friday evening with our annual Bach marathon in our week-long celebration of J.S. Bach.

The Events:

Bach and Friends
CMW’s YouTube Channel 

CMW students lead a musical, story-based, and pictorial exploration into the life of  Anna Magdalena Bach, soprano and second wife of J.S. Bach, with a focus on the manuscript notebooks presented to the singer by her composer husband.

Bach to the Future: the All-Night Bach Marathon
Friday, November 13, 7pm – Saturday, November 14, 7am
WELH 88.1 FM Rhode Island Public Radio

Can’t listen local?
Follow along with the Listening Guide
with audio embedded in each hour’s icon.

Our annual Bach Marathon takes to the airwaves on WELH, RI Public Radio, 88.1 FM in a glorious 12-hour electromagnetic tribute to J.S. Bach transmitted to your radio.

Our first Sonata Series event features CMW Resident Musicians Jesse Holstein and Lisa Sailer, with guest pianist Ivan Tan, performing works by J.S. Bach, Anthony R. Green, Dana Lyn, and Jessie Montgomery.

SONATA SERIES #1
YouTube Premiere
Thursday, October 22, 2020

THE PROGRAM:

Sonata No. 1 in G Major for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027
Composed by J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Adagio
Allegro ma non tanto
Andante
Allegro moderato

…on top of a frosted hill…
Composed by Anthony R. Green (1984-)

Performed by Lisa Sailer, viola, and Ivan Tan, piano

a current took her away…
Composed by Dana Lyn (1974-)

Rhapsody No. 1
Composed by Jessie Montgomery (1981-)

Performed by Jesse Holstein, violin

***

PERFORMER BIOS:

Guest pianist Ivan Tan is equally at home playing classical piano or rocking out on a keytar. Ivan has performed in venues ranging from the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music to the Rochester Fringe Festival. He is on faculty at Brown University, where he teaches courses on music theory, and is a Ph.D. candidate in music theory at the Eastman School of Music, where he is completing a dissertation on keyboard performance in 1970s progressive rock. Ivan also holds degrees from Brown and SUNY Purchase in music and applied mathematics.

Jesse Holstein, violinist and violist, has been a Resident Musician at CMW since 2001. He was a founding member of the Providence String Quartet. Prior to studying with Marilyn McDonald at Oberlin and James Buswell at New England Conservatory, he worked with Philipp Naegele in Northampton, MA. An active recitalist, orchestral and chamber musician, Jesse is currently concertmaster of the New Bedford Symphony. He has performed at the Bravo! Festival, the Montana Chamber Music Festival, the Bay Chamber Concerts, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, The South Coast Chamber Music Series, the Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts, and the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, among others. In 2009 Jesse was a Violin Professeur at L’Ecole de Musique, Dessaix Baptiste in Haiti and is currently on faculty at Brown University. One of his interests is how Buddhist mindfulness practice and meditation intersects with teaching and performing music.

Lisa Sailer, violist, joined CMW in 2019. In addition to teaching individual lessons, she directs the newest and youngest ensembles in CMW’s Daily Orchestra Program. She also teaches at the Community Music Center of Boston, and was a Teaching Artist Fellow in the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s META (Music Teachers/Teaching Artists) Fellowship’s first cohort. A certified Alexander Technique teacher, Lisa incorporates body awareness and freedom of movement into her string teaching. She has been a guest Alexander Technique teacher and Teaching Assistant at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in New Hampshire, and has run Alexander Technique workshops in Alaska, Florida, and in between. She earned a Bachelor of Music in violin performance from SUNY Purchase and a Master of Music in viola performance from The Boston Conservatory. When not playing or teaching music, Lisa can be found doting upon her two cats and her sourdough starter.

COMPOSER BIOS:

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations, and for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Composers and musicians for generations have looked to Bach’s music for inspiration, including participants in Community MusicWorks’ annual Bach to the Future all-night Bach marathon, which showcases Bach’s posse of fanatical followers, ranging from classical string musicians to noise artists to electronic and experimental composers and musicians. This year, our annual Bach Marathon, curated by Sakiko Mori, takes to the airwaves in a glorious 12-hour electromagnetic tribute to J.S. Bach transmitted to your radio and laptop on WELH, 88.1 on Friday, November 13 at 7pm to Saturday, November 14 at 7am.

The creative output of Anthony R. Green (composer, performer, social justice artist) includes musical and visual creations, interpretations of original works or works in the repertoire, collaborations, educational outreach, and more. Behind all of his artistic endeavors are the ideals of equality and freedom, which manifest themselves in diverse ways in a composition, a performance, a collaboration, or social justice work. As a composer, his works have been presented in over 20 countries and he is currently a fellow at the Berlin University of the Arts. More at www.anthonyrgreen.com

Violinist-composer Dana Lyn has received commissions from Brooklyn Rider, the Apple Hill String Quartet, the Ireland’s National Arts Council and the Portland Chamber Music Society. Also an improviser and a well-versed traditional Irish fiddle player, her projects include a mixed sextet, “Mother Octopus“, a collaboration with actor Vincent D’Onofrio and a duo with guitarist Kyle Sanna. Dana is a recipient of the 2018 ACF’s “Create” Commission and the 2020 NYFA Women’s Fund Grant. More at www.danalynmusic.com

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, language, and social justice, placing her squarely as one of the most relevant interpreters of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post). More at www.jessiemontgomery.com

PROGRAM NOTES:

Sonata No. 1 in G Major for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027
Composed by J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Notes by Ivan Tan

Having grown up in a copyright-dominated world that esteems the role of “originality” as part of the artistic process, modern-day listeners may be surprised by the frequency at which Baroque composers would rearrange their own pieces (or even pieces by other composers) for different instrumental combinations. The ever-busy Bach was no exception; several of his most beloved pieces actually originate in earlier works, or were mined for instrumental passages in his cantatas.

One example of Bach’s propensity for rearranging is the G major sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord (BWV 1027), likely written around 1739, but adapted from an older trio sonata for two flutes and continuo Bach had written in the 1720s (the older sonata itself may stem from an earlier work for two violins and continuo). In creating this new arrangement, Bach assigned one of the flute parts to the keyboardist’s right hand and gave the other to the viola da gamba, lowering it by an octave to fit the instrument’s natural register. The keyboardist’s left hand, largely preserved from the older sonata, provides an active, independent line equally important as its two “melodic” partners. In this spirit, we perform the G major sonata on viola and piano, with the viola occasionally playing up an octave from the gamba part to suit its register.

Like most sonatas from this era, BWV 1027 consists of four movements in a slow-fast-slow-fast arrangement. In the first movement, the viola and piano trade off long lyrical phrases, eventually landing on a harmonic cliffhanger. The ensuing second movement presents a more contrapuntal texture, with all three voices (viola, piano right hand, and piano left hand) getting in on the fugal fun. The third movement provides a brief excursion into E minor, with arpeggiated chords decorating a simple, chromatically descending bassline, and ending on yet another cliffhanger. We pause briefly before launching into the fourth and final movement, which returns to the jolly mood and imitative texture of the second movement. The “short-short-long” rhythm that opens the movement and recurs throughout is reminiscent of the bourrée—a Baroque dance.

…on top of a frosted hill…
Originally written for cello and piano in 2011, …on top of a frosted hill… has also been arranged for cello and harp. The viola and piano arrangement performed in this concert was written for a Castle of our Skins concert in 2016, and is featured in the film Come on In.

Notes by composer Anthony R. Green:

After having overly successfully premiered Refraction Aberrance, a work for cello and variable ensemble of harp, guitar, and piano (thought to be impossible, but proved wrong), I knew I had to compose another piece for Mathieu D’Ordine – an amazing cellist who is musical and metaphysically sensitive. Sharing many musical interests, Mathieu suggested we perform an ambitious recital – including the Myaskovsky sonata and the Chopin sonata. I knew this would be a perfect time to also compose a piece for us to perform together, hence … on top of a frosted hill …The work began as a piano improvisation that screamed for another voice in my ear. That voice was found through the cello, and the relationship that developed between the parts formed organically. This work is consciously similar to a previous work of mine – Seeing Through Heaven for flute and piano. However, this work is much more concentrated in its environment. Yet, this piece quotes one of my favorite childhood church songs. The mountainous trajectory very much belongs to the Boulder environment, which has significantly influenced my composition for the past 3 years, and I’m sure it will for the years to come.

a current took her away…
Notes and illustration by composer Dana Lyn

Sonata Performance video by Atomic Clock, with audio by Jim Moses
Event edited by Liz Cox
Hosted by Minna Choi

UPCOMING CMW EVENTS:
Bach and Friends
Join us for a virtual afternoon performance set in the grand and newly renovated Providence Public Library with the MusicWorks Collective performing works by J.S. Bach, Elisabeth Jacques de la Guerre, and Missy Mazzoli.
Sunday, November 8 at 3pm
CMW YouTube Channel premiere

Bach to the Future/Bach to the Airwaves: the All-Night Bach Marathon
Our annual Bach Marathon takes to the airwaves in a glorious 12-hour electromagnetic tribute to J.S. Bach transmitted to your radio and laptop!
Friday, November 13 at 7pm to Saturday, November 14 at 7am
WELH 88.1 Rhode Island Public Radio

THANK YOU FOR JOINING US!

Read our Season 24 Program Book here:
https://communitymusicworks.org/29may_/calendar/season-24-program-book/

Learn more about CMW, sign up for our enews, and check our calendar at
www.communitymusicworks.org

Today, the spotlight is on a new class called “Jazz to Hip Hop Improv,” offered by the wonderful violinist Kevin Lowther, aka Big Lux.