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Presented as part of the Bowdoin International Music Festival since 1965, the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music represents a sustained commitment to nurturing and promoting the music of our time. It is programmed by Festival composer-in-residence Derek Bermel.
MUSIC IN EIGHT DIMENSIONS
FANG MAN (b. 1977)
Thirsty Stone I
Russell Iceberg, Sory Park, violin • Luke Rinderknecht, drumset
POLINA NAZAYKINSKAYA (b. 1987)
Glimpse of Hope
Angie Zhang, piano
LEI LIANG (b. 1972)
Winged Creatures
Sory Park, Russell Iceberg, violin • William Suh, cello • Lucy Zeng, harpsichord
DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN (b. 1971)
Jam!
Anthony Ratinov, piano
ANDREIA PINTO CORREIA (b. 1971)
Música para uma reitoria
Andres Sanchez, cello • Anthony Ratinov, piano
TOM JOHNSON (b. 1939)
Failing
Logan May, bass
TYLER TAYLOR (b. 1992)
Dust
Ye Jin Min, Russell Iceberg, violin • Jiwon Kim, viola • Dana Rath, cello • Anthony Ratinov, piano • Victor Sintchak, vibraphone
SCOTT WOLLSCHLEGER (b. 1980)
Secret Machine No. 6
Stephen Joven-Lee, piano
PATRICK ZIMMERLI (b. 1968)
Piano Trio No. 2
IV. Allegro Moderato
Ye Jin Min, violin • Dana Rath, cello • Ming-Li Liu, piano
The Fellows on this program are sponsored by Patricia Brown, Barbara Gauditz, Peter & Harriette Griffin, Lewis & Adria Kaplan, David Lakari, Kent & Natalie Mitchell, Tod & Lyn Rodger, Deborah Schall, Claudia & Michael Spies, Ruth & Rupert White, an anonymous donor, and are recipients of the Richard & Maryan F. Chapin Scholarship and the Paul J. Lynskey Piano Scholarship.
Program Notes
FANG MAN
Thirsty Stone I (2002)
Fang Man has provided the following note to accompany Thirsty Stone I:
Thirsty Stone is dedicated to percussionist James Armstrong. Inspired by the traditional rhythms of Vodou and my interest in Italian composer Luciano Berio, the piece is scored for drumset, congas, and violin duo. This dramatic, yet playful composition combines afro-Haitian rhythms and Chinese folk-song like melodies. The interpretation for Thirsty Stone is based on a story I had in my imagination of an ancient stone who woke up under the moon, desired to be free, and to dance with the fishes and water around him.
POLINA NAZAYKINSKAYA
Glimpse of Hope (2015)
Polina Nazaykinskaya has provided the following note to accompany a Glimpse of Hope:
A “Glimpse of Hope” serves as a meditation on the inner conflict between a silent surrender to suffering and a struggle to overcome adversity. Inspired by the lyrical folk song of Polish origin, the music shifts perspectives in an effort to find the balance between rapid mood swings. A cycle of despair is overtaken by a need to locate a silver lining, revealing a deeply seeded longing for lasting happiness and tranquility.
LEI LIANG
Winged Creatures (2006)
Lei Liang has provided the following note to accompany Winged Creatures:
Winged Creatures – a Cadenza for Harpsichord was composed as an encore piece for a recital given by my wife Takae Ohnishi. It incorporates improvisation by the harpsichordist in the cadenza section. Images of avian creatures are behind the imagination of the work as well as the improvisation. Its first performance was given by Haldan Martinson (violin), Christina Day Martinson (violin), Mickey Katz (cello) and Takae Ohnishi (harpsichord) on June 25, 2006 in Ishihara Hall, Osaka, Japan.
I have long been fascinated by “the sound of calligraphy” since the late 1990s when I experimented with writing Chinese characters in calligraphic strokes inside of the piano. However, unable to find musicians who practice calligraphy, this fascination remained unexplored until this piece revived my interests. Having been trained to practice calligraphy as a child growing up in Japan, Takae knows calligraphy well, and is a much better calligrapher than myself! In the improvised cadenza on recording for New World Records, Takae uses the kanji character 翔 (“flight”) as the material, and evokes the vivid imagery of wings by sliding her palm on the strings. Other extended techniques invented for this piece includes plucking the strings and using a tuning key to bend the note after attack.
DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN
Jam! (1994)
Known for his signature violin sounds infused with myriad electronic, urban, and African-American music influences, DBR takes his genre-bending music beyond the proscenium. He is a composer of chamber, orchestral, and operatic works; has been nominated for a Sports EMMY for Outstanding Musical Composition for his collaboration with ESPN; featured as keynote performer at technology conferences; and created large scale, site-specific musical events for public spaces.
DBR earned his doctorate in Music Composition from the University of Michigan and is currently Institute Professor and Professor of Practice At Arizona State University.
An avid arts industry leader, DBR serves on the board of directors of the League of American Orchestras, Association of Performing Arts Presenters and Creative Capital, the advisory committee of the Sphinx Organization, and was co-chair of 2015 and 2016 APAP Conferences.
ANDREIA PINTO CORREIA
Música para uma reitoria (2019)
Andreia Pinto Correia has provided the following note to accompany Música para uma reitoria:
Música para uma reitoria (2019), a miniature for cello and piano, was commissioned by the mpmp (movimento patrimonial pela música Portuguesa – Patrimonial Movement for Portuguese Music) as part of their new music series in collaboration with unusual venues. In my case, the work was paired with the rectory of Oporto University, a beautiful historic building built in 1807 that also houses the Museums of Science, Zoology, Geology, and Archeology.
TOM JOHNSON
Failing (1975)
The publisher notes that Failing is one of Johnson’s most often-performed pieces, written for Jon Deak and has been interpreted by Bertram Turetzky, Gary Karr, and many other performers. The piece requires the bassist to read the text out loud while playing the bass part, in a sequence of increasing complexity. The title refers to the premise that’s it’s so difficult to complete the piece with no mistakes that the point of the composition is for the performer to fail.
In an interview with the online magazine Perfect Sounds Forever, Tom Johnson shared some thoughts about the inspiration for this piece:
“Failing” is related to some other things I was trying at that period, all having to do with making something real and unpredictable happen in a performance, without just improvising. There’s an unaccompanied aria in the “Four Note Opera” where the singer has to end on an A, and knows that the pianist is then going to play that note, so the audience will know if she ended in tune or not. The “Lecture with Repetition” does something similar with audience participation, and then there was a whole series of Risks for Unprepared Performers pieces that could only be done once.
TYLER TAYLOR
Dust (2019)
Tyler Taylor has provided the following note to accompany Dust:
This piece was created for the 2021 Bowdoin International Music Festival. It is an extraction and arrangement of the middle movement from a larger work called Modus operandi for a mixed octet of winds, strings, percussion, and piano.
This movement, titled Dust, refers to the idea of something mundane, muted, and melancholic in nature. The title also suggests that the music is the lighter remnant or even residue of something that came before, or that has settled in place in the aftermath of its passing.
SCOTT WOLLSCHLEGER
A Secret Machine No. 6 (2007)
Scott Wollschleger has provided the following note to accompany A Secret Machine No. 6:
Secret Machines are a series of pieces based around the idea of schizophrenic musical flows that are cut and connected together to form little musical machines. Secret Machine No. 6 is derived from an ever-expanding distribution pattern, consisting almost exclusively of the piano’s white notes. As the piece progresses, the distribution pattern expands in range, dynamics, and resonance. Toward the middle of the piece the expansion ends, and the music contracts inwards until the end.
PATRICK ZIMMERLI
Piano Trio No. 2 (2003)
Patrick Zimmerli has provided the following note to accompany Piano Trio No. 2:
The Trio #2 for Violin, Cello, and Piano was commissioned by the Seattle Chamber Music Festival for their 2004 festival, and was written for violinist Scott Yoo, cellist Michael Mermagen, and pianist John Novacek. Like its pendant Trio #1 it is in four movements, following the general architectural design of trios by such 19th century masters as Brahms and Dvořák.
I often described the style of this piece as mixing jazz idioms with classical forms; another way to put it might be that it combines a contemporary sense of melody and rhythm with a long form narrative, the desire to tell a coherent story. The “telling a story” metaphor is also often used to describe what the best jazz musicians do when they improvise. For me the use of classical forms was a way to ensure narrative coherence — to keep the listener’s interest — through an entire piece.
Tonight you will hear the fourth movement, which is in the form of a Rondo. This concluding movement strives for a pure lyricism, a continuously unfolding melody. The middle section features a scalar theme first heard in the violin; it is followed by a very simple chorale melody in the cello that provides the basis for the extended coda.