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Mesut Özgen and friends in a Multimedia Performance
Sonata: Ondas do Mar de Vigo (1)
by Christopher Pratorius (b. 1974)
I. Introducción y Danza
II. Canto
III. Estudio
La
Guitarra for soprano, guitar, and percussion (1, 2,
4) by Robert Strizich (b. 1945)
with Lauren Rasmussen, soprano
Sortija
(1, 2) by Pablo Victor Ortiz (b. 1956)
Shenandoah by Robert Beaser (b. 1954)
Gigue by Anthony Newman (b. 1941)
INTERMISSION
Stars for recorder and guitar (3)
by Anthony Gilbert (b. 1934)
with Annette Bauer, recorder
Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song
by Carlo Domeniconi (b. 1947)
Uzun ince bir yoldayım by Asık Veysel
Surya for bansuri and guitar (1, 2,
5) Deepak Ram (b. 1960)
with Deepak Ram, bansuri
Be Kind All the Time for guitar and electronics
(1, 2, 6) by Benjamin Verdery (b. 1955)
Visual Artists:
Gustavo Vazquez, video and stage choreography
Peter Elsea, digital images and multimedia design
David Lee Cuthbert, scenic/lighting design and stage choreography
Guest Performers:
Deepak Ram (bansuri), Annette Bauer (recorder), Lauren Rasmussen
(soprano)
(1) Written for Mesut Özgen
(2) World premiere
(3) American premiere
(4) Commissioned with funding from the Porter College Hitchcock
Poetry fund
(5) Supported in part with funding from the Porter College
(6) In this work, Mesut plays a 2003 Gil
Carnal guitar with D-TAR pick-up system (under-saddle
and under-nut double transducer), D-TAR
Digital Modeler, Line 6 Delay Modeler, and Boss DD-20
Giga Delay; in other works, he plays a 1995 Simon Marty guitar
This event is partially funded by a grant
from the University of California Institute for Research in
the Arts. Special thanks to David Kaun for his very generous
support and encouragement.
New Dimensions in Classical Guitar is the
collaborative effort of a multidisciplinary artistic team.
Each musical composition is accompanied by a visual composition
comprising video, interactive computer images, and particularized
lighting design and stage choreography. I have been so lucky
to have this opportunity to collaborate with such a talented
artistic team as Gustavo Vazquez, Peter Elsea, and David Cuthbert
for about two years. Each one of them brought their expertise
generously from their respected art to this special presentation
of classical guitar performance.
The video images support the music in various
ways, setting an emotional mood through an abstract use of
landscapes, animate and inanimate objects. Gustavo has prepared
the video footage, exploring the relationship of sound as
vibration and image as color temperature, which appears to
be an abstraction to our rationality in many ways.
Peter creates animated digital image patterns
and manipulates them during the performance. His Visualizations
Project is an exploration of methods to make visual images
and performed music cohesive by generating and modifying images
with the sound. A computer program analyzes the sound of the
performer for volume, pitch, and timbre during the performance.
This information is then used to produce the projected images.
The scenery and lighting design also set
the mood of each piece and support the music by transforming
the stage subtly during the performance according to the changing
musical content, both between and within the same piece. David’s
interest in multimedia as a theatrical device for story telling
for years has led him to develop new design approaches for
the New Dimensions in Classical Guitar.
This interdisciplinary collaboration between
several art forms (music, visual arts, digital media, and
theatre arts) aims to push the traditional boundaries of these
art forms to explore visually enhanced stage presentations
in classical music performance. I would like to thank Gustavo,
Peter, and David for contributing tremendously to this event
with great dedication and artistry.
Mesut Özgen
As an image maker in this collaboration, I was inspired both
by Mesut Özgen’s precise gift as a guitarist and his
sensibility in interpreting the composerÕs work on stage.
The composer’s notes were pivotal when I considered the
type of images I would create for this piece. I have attempted
to link a visual association germane to the origins of each
piece of music. This concert has offered me the opportunity
to bring together my interests and training in painting, photography,
and filmmaking.
In Sonata: Ondas do Mar de Vigo second movement,
Canto, I chose the light house as a metaphor for the woman
that waits for a friend, a lover. The music evokes a stoic
distance and a solitary vigilance for his return. In La Guitarra,
I am interested in bringing to the foreground the poetics
of Garcia Lorca and my personal connection to classical guitar.
I feature the actual text of the poem and my visit with Don
Baltazar who was an old man that introduced me to this art
form. His story contrasted the rough life of a miner living
close to the land in the mountains of Mexico and the delicate
talent of a classical guitarist.
Sortija is a very joyous song with kinetic
energy. I chose to combine images of art studios and merry-go-rounds
that allude to the colorful qualities of the music. For Variations
on an Anatolian Folk Song, I was inspired by the words, “On
a long and narrow road walking day and night unaware of the
condition I am.” I decided to use images of old places
and then purposefully create motion and abstraction of colors.
I intend to call to mind the spirit of places and a pondering
of each being’s mysterious life. In Surya for Bansuri
and Guitar, I created the visual work to resemble a tapestry
for the master musicians to luxuriate on while they play their
instruments.
Gustavo Vazquez
The visualization techniques used here are in two styles.
In most of them, you will see images generated from some aspect
of the sound, which are then processed in various ways. This
is similar to what happens in iTunes and MediaPlayer, but
there is one important difference: the process is under the
control of a human being at all times. So, the graphics do
not change randomly but are shaped to follow and fit the performance.
Depending on the skill of the visualizer (?) the images will
react to tempo, form and mood in a way that supports rather
than distracts from the music.
For “Stars”, I have taken a different
approach. Just as the composition is based on the composer's
impressions of the woodcut, the graphics are my own interpretation
or gloss on the picture. Maurits Escher did not just sit down
one afternoon in 1948 and draw "Stars". He spent a major part
of his life designing geometric figures and working with the
mathematics of projection. Prior to “Stars” he built
models of all of the figures (and many more), dozens of drawings,
and produced a preliminary woodcut “Study for Stars”.
During this time I suspect he was even dreaming about these
figures. What you will see might be one of those dreams.
For the technology addicted, all of my visualizations
are produced in real time using the program Jitter” by
Joshua kit Clayton and David Zicarelli.
I'm dedicating my part of this concert to
my father, Carl A Elsea, who lived a life of frugality and
sacrifice so that I could indulge in artistic nonsense.
Peter Elsea
Sonata: Ondas do Mar de Vigo by Christopher
Pratorius
“Sonata: Ondas do Mar de Vigo” is my first large
guitar piece. It is based on a Spanish song by the medieval
troubadour Martin Codax, from Portugal. The song is classified
as a Cantiga de Amigo or "friendship song." The genre is characterized
by the longing of a young woman for a lover who has gone.
Typically, the "friend" is supposed to meet her by the sea
and never arrives. The title of the song used as the basis
for this piece is “Waves of the Sea of Vigo." I began
with an in depth analysis of both the poetry and the melody.
It is a strophic song, with four verses. I decided to mirror
that structure with four movements. In one movement, the structure
of the whole poem, with its subtle repetitions and variations,
was the basis. In another, the structure of the melody was
used. The other movements were freely composed, but still
work within the context of the larger form. My idea was to
do a set of structural variations that takes into account
every aspect of the original, not to reproduce similar but
slightly different copies, but to project the structure of
the original song in a way that would be quite unexpected.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Mesut, not
only for encouraging me to write this piece, but also for
being a genuine partner. He tackled a difficult piece, analyzed
it for hours so he could understand my musical logic, brought
passion and artistry to it, and also contributed many original
ideas to the project. The most obvious contribution is an
arpeggiation pattern that he suggested for the last movement,
which has added a great deal of excitement to the only hearing
of the original melody. Thank you, Mesut!
C.P.
La
Guitarra for soprano, guitar, and percussion by Robert
Strizich
I first encountered Federico García Lorca’s evocative
poem La Guitarra when I was an undergraduate music student
at the University of California at Berkeley. The poem was
displayed in a coffee and sandwich shop I used to frequent
on the north side of the Berkeley campus, elegantly inscribed
on the stucco wall in the original Spanish. In the course
of my regular visits to this coffee shop, I became intimately
familiar with the poem, and resolved that some day I would
set it to music.
However, the idea for this project lay dormant
for many years. But for some reason, when invited recently
by guitarist Mesut Özgen to write some music for a series
of new works he was planning to perform, it seemed, finally,
like just the right time to set Lorca’s poem to music.
La Guitarra appeared originally as one section
of a longer poem entitled “Poema de la siguiriya gitana,”
which appeared in 1921 in a collection of Lorca’s poetry
entitled “Poema del cante hondo.” All the works
in this collection were inspired by flamenco music and dance,
subjects about which Lorca was extremely knowledgeable, and
which influenced much of his creative output. In my setting
of the poem for soprano and guitar, I have tried to combine
some of my current compositional interests with references
to the flamenco styles that inspired LorcaÕs poetry. In fact,
the piece is cast in the form of a seguiriya, which - with
its regular alternation between 3/4 and 6/8 meter - is one
of the most venerable and profound forms of cante hondo. The
inclusion of wine glasses, to be played as a percussion instrument
by the soprano, seemed like an obvious, but nevertheless necessary
and inevitable, contribution to the setting.
R.S.
La Guitarra (The Guitar) by Federico
García Lorca
Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Se rompen las copas
de la madrugada.
Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Es inœtil callarla.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora monótona
como llora el agua,
como llora el viento
sobre la nevada.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora por cosas
lejanas.
Arena del Sur caliente
que pide camelias blancas.
Llora flecha sin blanco,
la tarde sin ma–ana,
y el primer pájaro muerto
sobre la rama.
¡Oh, guitarra!
Corazón malherido
por cinco espadas.
(from “Poema de la siguiriya gitana,” published
in “Poema del cante hondo," 1921)
The Guitar by Federico García
Lorca
The lament of the guitar
begins.
The wine cups of daybreak
are shattered.
The lament of the guitar
begins.
It is useless to silence it.
It is impossible
to silence it.
It weeps monotonously
like the weeping of water,
like the weeping of wind
over the snow.
It is impossible
to silence it.
It mourns
distant things.
Hot southern sand
that craves white camellias.
It mourns the arrow without target,
the evening without morning,
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh guitar!
Heart wounded
by five daggers.
(translated by Robert Strizich)
Sortija
by Pablo Victor Ortiz
Sortija is a large ring used in Argentinean merry-go-rounds.
The kids try to grab the Sortija out from a pear-like wooden
container. The person holding this container alternatively
prevents or facilitates the children's grabbing efforts. Whoever
gets the Sortija is eligible for a free ride. The piece was
written for Mesut Özgen, who kindly helped me sort out some
of the mysteries of his fascinating instrument.
P.V.O.
Shenandoah by Robert Beaser
The original tune “Shenandoah” was popular on American
sailing vessels in early New England. Later the regular cavalry
carried the song west. Shenandoah is the name of an Indian
chief who lived along the Missouri River. The singer portrays
a man who has fallen in love with the chief 's daughter. It
is thought that the song originated with the loggers or rivermen
who taught it to sailors in port. The sailors took the song
to sea and used it as a shanty, or work song, while loading
cargo.
Beaser’s Shenandoah, commissioned by
Rodrigo Riera International Guitar Composition Contest held
in Caracas, Venezuela in August 1995, is not a set of variations,
but comprises various sections in an arch-like form: beginning
quietly, building up the tension gradually, and ending softly.
This arch-like emotional process is thus the composer’s
main request of the performer, reflecting the musical equivalent
of the song’s story from his point of view. The original
tune can be heard sometimes in part, and sometimes complete,
in arpeggio, chord, and tremolo sections on the trebles or
bass, and sometimes disguised in a contrapuntal texture. When
I worked with Beaser in preparation for the premiere performance
at Yale Guitar Festival in 1995, he played all transitions
from section to section on the piano for me in order to demonstrate
the overall structure. He also gave me a lot of room not only
to discover the most effective fingering, timbre, and idiomatic
positions, but also to explore various textures, especially
in chordal sections, by providing as many as ten notes and
allowing me to choose the ones that I felt most appropriate
to the particular context. During the several months of work,
Eliott Fisk provided many valuable fingering suggestions and
added beautiful harmonics in the lyrical sections.
M. Ö.
Shenandoah (sea chantey, traditional
American folk song of Old New England)
O Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Away you rolling river,
For her I’ve crossed the rolling water,
Away we’re bound away,
Across the wide Missouri.
The trader loved this Indian maiden,
With presents his canoe was laden.
O Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you,
O Shenandoah, I’ll not deceive you.
O Shenandoah, I long to see you,
O Shenandoah, I long to hear you.
Gigue by Anthony Newman
The Gigue is part of a larger suite, neo-baroque in style
[commissioned by luthier Thomas Humphrey and written for Benjamin
Verdery]. My system of harmony is to use older background
harmonic motions and then fill them in with added notes, which
either spice the harmony, or all right replace them. This
is how music gradually progressed through Brahms and Wagner,
and later Stravinsky. Besides the "spiked" harmonies, rhythmic
substitutes abound, much more so than in the works of Bach,
they are more like raga substitutes.
A.N.
Although there is a brilliant coda, “Gigue” basically
is a binary work, with the second half twice as long as the
first half. The piece is written in Newman’s system of
substitute harmonies, and features series of short rhythmic
cells that when put together give the effect of a Hindu raga
(certain material recurs out of order in the second section).
B.V.
Stars for recorder and guitar by Anthony
Gilbert
The piece takes as its point of reference a wood-engraving
by Maurits Escher in which a number of single, double and
triple geometrical solids float through space around a giant
central composite of interlocking stars imprisoning two dragons
or chameleons. The music has nine such elements, related but
extremely contrasted. Strictly speaking, the elements should
float freely around each other in any order, but for practicalities
of performance I have been obliged, like Escher, to fix them
in a specific relativity to each other, some recurring, some
interlocking. Some of the elements tax the playersÕ capabilities
to extremes: these are the dragons!
A.G.
The piece is clearly structured in 9 sections. The short figures
taken from X and Y sections makes the coda: A B X C D B E
C F G D Y E F Y A coda(xyxy) A, B, C, D, E, and F are the
main sections, representing the geometrical solids, and each
repeats two times with slight changes. The tempos of A and
B are moderate, while the tempos of C, D, and E are fast.
All of them are placed around the spacious, central G, which
is the only freely played, slow section in the middle of the
piece, and represents the big composite of interlocking stars.
X is also played only once in its entirety, but later combined
with Y in the coda.
M. Ö.
Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song by
Carlo Domeniconi
This is one of Carlo Domeniconi’s most successful works
based on Turkish folk music. The theme employed, Uzun ince
bir yoldayım, is a famous folk song written by Asık Veysel
(1894-1973), an influential Turkish folk musician. Domeniconi’s
variations reflect the quasi-improvisatory character of this
kind of music very well, especially in the final section of
the piece. Asık Veysel is one of the most renowned representatives
of the “asık” tradition in the 20th century, which
dates back to the 15th century in Anatolia. The Asık (a kind
of troubadour), singing poetry (mostly their own) and playing
the saz, has become the voice of common people, expressing
their relationship with their land; their loves, inner conflicts,
and expectations--generally depicting all aspects of rural
life. Veysel’s poetry is metrical, using predominantly
8- and 11-syllable meters. His melodic patterns, trills, and
particular emphases result in a unique musical character.
The video created for this piece by Gustavo Vazquez includes
two pictures of Asık Veysel: a photograph by Yücel Yönal
(provided by Asık Veysel Cultural Association, Ankara) and
a color painting by Rahmi Pehlivanlı, which is owned by the
Ankara State Painting and Sculpture Museum.
M. Ö.
Uzun ince bir yoldayım (I am on a long
and narrow road) by Asık Veysel
Uzun ince bir yoldayım
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Bilmiyorum ne haldeyim
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Dünyaya geldigim anda
Yürüdüm aynı zamanda
Iki kapılı bir handa
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Uykuda dahi yürüyom
Kalmaya sebeb arıyom
Gidenleri hep görüyom
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Kırkdokuz yıl bu yollarda
Ovada dagda çöllerde
Düsmüsüm gurbet ellerde
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Sasar Veysel is bu hale
Gah aglayan gahi güle
Yetismek için menzile
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
I am on a long and narrow road by
Asık Veysel
On a long and narrow road
Walking all day and all night
Unaware of the condition I am in
Walking day and night
From the moment I was born
I started walking right away
In an inn with two gates
Walking day and night
Walking even in my sleep
Seeking a reason for staying
Eyeing those who are leaving
Walking day and night
Forty-nine years on these roads
On the plains, mountains, and deserts
Stuck in these foreign lands
Walking day and night
In the depths of one’s mind
The distance seems so far
Yet it only takes a moment
Walking day and night
Veysel is bewildered to this situation
It makes him cry some, smile some
Trying to reach a destination
Walking day and night
(translated by Tolga Güngör and Mesut Özgen)
Surya for bansuri and guitar by Deepak
Ram
While I have written a few works based on elements of
Indian music for western classical musicians, this is the
first work that includes myself as a performer. I am thrilled
to perform this with guitarist Mesut Özgen. The guitar part
is all through composed, while the bansuri part, with the
exception of the main melody, is all open for improvisation,
which is the quintessence of North Indian Classical music.
To create open spaces for me to improvise and have meeting
points to synchronize with the guitar was an interesting challenge.
This piece, therefore would be different each time its performed,
and at some point I would score the improvised bansuri part,
making it available to be performed by a western flute or
oboe, also a new version for string orchestra, concert harp
and bansuri. The work is based entirely on a south Indian
raga known as Kirwani which has a scale comparable to the
harmonic minor scale E F# G A B C D# E, and has seven short
movements, each emulating an element of Indian music, such
as alap, jor, jhala, gat, and taan. It also uses three time
signatures: 4/4, 7/8 and 6/8. As a performer I am constantly
influenced and inspired by my teacher, the great master Pandit
Hariprasad Chaurasia, and as an aspiring composer my greatest
influence is the great master Pandit Ravi Shankar. I humbly
dedicate this piece to him. I decided to call this piece Surya,
which is one of the many names of the sun, Ravi being another.
D.R.
Be Kind All the Time by Benjamin Verdery
Be Kind All The Time is an electric classical guitar piece
using digital delay, loops, volume pedal, chopsticks, slide
bar, and paper clips in three connected sections. Each section
has one simple featured melody with the materials surrounding
being more harmonic and rhythmically based. The piece is in
scordatura tuning of C, A, Bb, F, C and E (from the sixth
string to the first). Both the harmonic and melodic materials
are derived from this tuning.
In the first section there is a brief passage
of two bars that are looped. The guitarist will record six
parts, which repeat a specific number of times. Nothing is
prerecorded. The opening motive serves as a driving force
of the last section. In the middle section, the performer
is asked to use a chopstick (preferably Japanese style), which
will be put underneath the strings at the 19th fret and slid
down over the frets to the fifth fret where it will act as
a capo. While repeated chords are being played and heard in
the delay, the guitarist will insert three paperclips on the
lower three strings. The rest of the section will be played
with the other chopsticks and a slide bar. The performer is
sometimes asked to play behind the chopstick on the fifth
fret. The middle and last sections utilize a digital delay
of three measures, allowing the performer to play in a duet
or trio with the delay.
The piece was commissioned by and written
for Mesut Özgen. It is dedicated to H.H. the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama.
B.V.
Gustavo Vazquez, film/video maker originally from
Tijuana and now living in San Francisco, is an assistant professor
in the Film and Digital Media Department at UC Santa Cruz.
Holds an MA in Film from S.F. State University (1991) and
a BFA from the S.F. Art Institute (1979). Vazquez has directed
over thirty productions, including documentaries, video installations,
and dramas. Vazquez was commissioned to produce and direct
a video installation, "Who Am I?", for "Chicano Now," an interactive,
multimedia exhibit currently touring museums in the United
States. Recently he won two major awards for his achievements
in film: The Rockefeller Media Fellowship Award and the Eureka
Visual Artist Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation.
David Lee Cuthbert has designed lighting in the Bay
Area for the Magic Theatre, Center Rep, San Jose Repertory
Theatre, and Foghouse Productions. He has designed two National
Tours for The New Pickle Circus. Regional credits include
I Think I like Girls, A Feast of Fools and Diva for the La
Jolla Playhouse, Faith Healer for The Globe Theatres, The
Universal Monster Show, Richard III and The Ghost Sonata for
Sledgehammer Theatre, Jaywalker and Zoot Suit for San Diego
Rep, The Piano Lesson and Art for San Jose Rep, The Summer
Moon and Tally's Folly for A Contemporary Theater, and The
Countess at South Coast Rep. Internationally, Cuthbert designed
the 25th anniversary tour of Terminal, directed by Joseph
Chaiken, which had it's world premier in Belgrade. For Universal
Studio's Islands of Adventure Theme Park in Orlando he is
Associate Lighting Designer for The Adventures of Spider-Man,
The Ride. He has been Director of Lighting for The Globe Theatres
and a resident artist at Sledgehammer Theatre, where his designs
include The Chairs, Frankenstein Project (Scenery and Lighting),
Furious Blood, Ghost Sonata (2000 KPBS Patte), Phenomenal
Acceleration, Alice in Modernland. His educational video series,
Conducting Light, is available through Theatre Arts Video
Library. Cuthbert is an assistant professor in the Theatre
Arts Department at UC Santa Cruz.
Peter Elsea began working in music technology in
the early 70's as a graduate student at the University of
Iowa, where he studied with Lowell Cross and Peter Tod Lewis.
After earning an MA in 74 he joined the U of I staff as electronic
music studio engineer. In this position he worked on development
of Cross's Laser projection systems as well as several innovative
analog audio and video synthesis systems. In 1980 he joined
UCSC as director of the Electronic Music studios, a job title
he still occupies, although the actual work has changed considerably.
Elsea's creative field is development of tools for electronic
musicians. This ranges from studio design to software for
algorithmic composition. He has a large body of compositions,
which are proving grounds for techniques he develops and teaches,
and his "Lobjects" software has become standard in EM studios
around the world. The visualization series is typical of that
work. Combining the experimental ideas of John Whitney and
Lowell Cross, the ultimate goal of visualizations is a tool
kit that will allow musicians to integrate responsive computer
generated images into live performances.
Christopher Pratorius is a prolific young composer
who has lived in Santa Cruz, California for over twelve years
and a Lecturer in Music at UCSC. He received all of his formal
education in the Monterey Bay area, first at Cabrillo College
and then at UCSC where he was awarded a BA in Music with Highest
Honors in 1999 and then an MA in Music in 2001. He is currently
working on a guitar concerto, written for the New Music Ensemble
at the San Francisco Conservatory directed by Nicole Paiement,
and on his first opera, which will be completed as soon as
he decides whether the prima donna will survive the finale.
Sonata was his first major guitar work, written for and premiered
by Mesut Özgen at UCSC in 2002. His other compositional output
includes works for piano, violin and piano, voice and piano,
voice and string quartet, chorus, and orchestra.
Robert Strizich studied music at the University of
California at Berkeley, where he earned a B.A. in music and
an M.A. in composition. A Hertz Fellowship from UC Berkeley
enabled him to spend several subsequent years in Switzerland,
studying at the Musikakademie in Basel. After returning to
the USA, he completed a Ph.D. in composition at the University
of California at San Diego, where his principal teachers were
Robert Erickson, Will Ogdon, Bernard Rands, and Roger Reynolds.
During the 1996-97 academic year, he was a Visiting Scholar
at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music
and Acoustics (CCRMA). Strizich has composed a variety of
works for instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic media, many
of which are published by Fallen Leaf Press (Berkeley), Drake
Mabry Publishing (San Diego and Paris), and Brben Editore
(Ancona, Italy). He has fulfilled commissions from various
performers, ensembles, arts organizations and dance companies,
and his music has been performed in the United States, Europe,
and South America. His work has also been recognized by grants
and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, Wellesley College, and the Universities
of California at Santa Cruz and Berkeley (including UCB's
Eisner and Nicola de Lorenzo Prizes). Strizich's music has
been presented on the West Coast by both Earplay and Composers
Inc. in San Francisco, the Festival of New American Music
at California State University in Sacramento, and in Santa
Cruz by New Music Works and the new music festival April in
Santa Cruz. His works have also been performed by Ensemble
Nova, the new music ensemble at UC Santa Cruz, who have recorded
his Tombeau, Fantasia and Aphorisms on a CD of new music for
early instruments that was recently released by Musical Heritage
Society. Another of his works for early instruments -- his
Contreparties for baroque lute and harpsichord -- appears
on a recent Wildboar CD. Strizich's "still and still moving..."
for large chamber ensemble was premiered in 1998 by the American
Composers' Orchestra at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City,
and then performed again the following year by Mœsica Aperta
in Washington, D.C. His "look(ing)..."/five poems of e. e.
cummings for soprano, clarinet and piano was recently premiered
by the ensemble "Schwungvoll" in San Francisco. La Guitarra,
a work based on poetry of Federico Garc’a Lorca for soprano
and guitar, was recently commissioned by the Porter College
Hitchcock Poetry fund and written for guitarist Mesut Özgen.
The author of various papers on music theory and performance
practice, Robert Strizich has also taught composition, music
theory, music history and performance at Wellesley College,
Trinity College (Hartford), the San Francisco Conservatory
of Music, San Francisco State University, and the University
of California at Santa Cruz. He is currently teaching composition
at California State University, Fresno.
Pablo Victor Ortiz was first trained in his native
Buenos Aires, where he received a degree from the Universidad
Catolica Argentina. At 27, he moved to New York to study at
Columbia University. He studied composition with Mario Davidovsky,
Chou Wen Chung, Jack Beeson, Jacques Louis Monod, Fred Lerdahl,
Gerardo Gandini, and Roberto Caamano. At present, he is Professor
of Composition at the University of California, Davis. He
taught composition and was co-director of the Electronic Music
Studio at the University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 1994.
Among those who have performed his compositions are the Buenos
Aires Philarmonic, the Arditti String Quartet, Speculum Musicae,
the Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva, Music Mobile, Continuum,
Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the San Francisco Contemporary
Music Players, and the Theatre of Voices. His music has been
heard at international festivals in Salzburg (Aspekte), Geneva
(Extasis), Strasbourg (Musica), Havana, Frankfurt, Zurich,
Sao Paulo and Mexico City. He was a fellow at the Composers'
Conference at Wellesley College in 1986 and 1988, and he was
commissioned by the Fromm Foundation in 1992. In 1993, he
received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1996 he received the
Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts
and Letters. In 1997 and 1998, Ortiz was commissioned two
chamber operas, Parodia and Una voz en el viento, by the Centro
Experimental Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. In 1999 he was
commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation to write a piece,
Raya en el mar, for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.
In 2000 he received a grant from Fideicomiso para la cultura
Mexico-US to write children's songs based on poems by Francisco
Alarcon, renowned Chicano poet and Mission artist. Recently,
he was commissioned by the Gerbode Foundation to write a piece
for Chanticleer and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players,
to be premiered in February 2004. His works include chamber
and solo music, vocal, orchestral, and electronic compositions,
and music for plays and films.
Robert Beaser is often cited as an important figure
among the "New Tonalists"--composers who are adopting new
tonal grammar to their own uses--and through a wide range
of media has established his own language as a synthesis of
European tradition and American Vernacular. Born in Boston,
Massachusetts in 1954, Beaser studied literature, political
philosophy, and music at Yale College and earned his Doctor
of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music. His
composition teachers have included Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown,
Toru Takemitsu, Arnold Franchetti, Yehudi Wyner and Goffredo
Petrassi. Currently, he is Professor and Chairman of the Composition
Department at the Juilliard School in New York. Beaser's compositions
have earned him numerous awards and honors. In 1977 he became
the youngest composer to win the Rome Prize from the American
Academy in Rome. In 1986, Beaser's widely heard Mountain Songs
for flute and guitar was nominated for a Grammy Award in the
category of Best Contemporary Composition. He has received
fellowships from the Guggenheim and Fulbright Foundations,
the National Endowment for the Arts, the Goddard Lieberson
Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
a Charles Ives Scholarship, an ASCAP Composers Award, a Nonesuch
Commission Award and a Barlow Commission. In 1995, when the
American Academy of Arts and Letters honored him with their
lifetime achievement award, the Academy Award in music they
wrote: "His masterful orchestrations, clear-cut structures,
and logical musical discourse reveal a musical imagination
of rare creativity and sensitivity...and put him in the forefront
of his generation of composers." Beaser's music has been performed
and commissioned with regularity both in America and abroad.
He has received major commissions from the New York Philharmonic
(150th anniversary commission), the Chicago Symphony (Centennial
commission), the Saint Louis Symphony, The American Composers
Orchestra, The Baltimore Symphony and Dawn Upshaw, The American
Brass Quintet, Chanticleer, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass,
and WNET /Great Performances. Shenandoah for solo guitar was
commissioned by Rodrigo Riera International Guitar Composition
Contest held in Caracas, Venezuela in August 1995. It was
premiered by Mesut Özgen at Yale Guitar Festival in November
1995.
For over three decades, the multi-gifted Anthony Newman
has been in the public eye as AmericaÕs leading organist,
harpsichordist and Bach specialist. No less prodigious as
a composer, his works have been heard in Paris, Vienna, Budapest,
Krakow, Warsaw, New York, and London. His compositions include
sonatas for piano, concerti, choral works, a complete set
of piano preludes and fugues in every key, three guitar works
(Suite, Ride the Wind Horse, and Prelude & Contrapunctus),
and others. In 2000, Albany records released a recording of
Anthony Newman’s first opera “Nicole and the Trial
of the Century,” on the subject of the infamous O.J.
Simpson trial in Los Angeles in 1995. His most recent major
composition “Requiem” for chorus, vocal soloists,
orchestra, and organ was released by Khaeon Klassical in 2001.
Time magazine described him as the “high priest of Bach.”
His prodigious recording output numbers more than 150 CDs
on Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, Vox, and Khaeon Klassical.
Mr. Newman has also guest-conducted many of the world’s
great chamber orchestras, including those of Los Angeles,
the 92nd Street Y in New York, the New York Chamber Orchestra,
the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
A whole series of orchestral conducting triumphs with the
Seattle Symphony, San Francisco Baroque, and the New York
Chamber Orchestra raised him to the top ranks of Baroque and
Classical specialist conductors.
Anthony Gilbert is a London-born composer whose early
studies were with Matyas Seiber and Alexander Goehr. He came
to prominence in the 1960s with a series of brilliant virtuoso
chamber works performed at the international festivals. Larger
works followed: in particular a Symphony, premièred
at the Cheltenham International Festival, attracted wide public
interest. Soon after that, he commenced his long and fruitful
period here: 25 years interrupted only by spells in Australia,
a country he has grown to love greatly. He has now written
some 80 works in a wide range of genres, most recently a series
of virtuoso recorder works for John Turner in all shapes and
sizes from concerto to tiny miniature, and a violin concerto
On Beholding a Rainbow for the BBC. Among larger works are
an acclaimed symphony, Ghost and Dream Dancing for orchestra,
and two operas: The Scene-Machine for Staatstheater Kassel
and The Chakravaka-Bird, a BBC Jubilee commission. Special
interests include the classical music of Northern India, Balinese
music and Korean music. Anthony Gilbert was Director of Composition
Studies and Contemporary Music at the Royal Northern College
of Music in Manchester until his retirement in 1999.
Carlo Domeniconi was born in Cesena, Italy, in 1947
and studied guitar with Carmen Lenzi Mozzani. He gained his
first music diploma from the Conservatory of Pesaro and the
second one from the Music Academy of Berlin. He also went
on to study composition and as well held a lecturing post
at the College of Arts (Hochschule der Künste, Berlin)
from 1969 to 1992. Between 1977 and 1980, he taught guitar
at the Istanbul Conservatory, where he regularly worked with
Turkish folk musicians and played with various Turkish folk
ensembles. Domeniconi has written numerous pieces for solo
instruments, chamber groups, and orchestra. His compositional
output includes 13 concertos for one or two guitars and orchestra
as well as works for solo guitar and various ensembles with
guitar. His compositions are shaped by the Turkish, Indian,
and South American musical forms, rhythmical and tonal systems,
reflecting his search for the synthesis of East and West.
Deepak Ram, senior disciple of world renowned bansuri
maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, is a master of the bansuri
(Indian flute) and composer whose foundation is in North Indian
classical music. In 2000, Ram won the South African Music
Awards for Best Instrumental Album, for his album, Searching
for Satyam. He collaborated with numerous musicians of various
genres, including jazz pianists Darius Brubeck and Bheki Mseleku,
Tunisian oud player and vocalist Dhafer Yousseff, and the
popular South African band Tananas. Recently, Ram performed
with South African musicians like Sibongile Khumalo and Rwandan
diva Cecile, on Robben Island in South Africa's millennium
concert hosted by presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki.
Ram earned a Masters degree in Music (MMus) from Rhodes University,
South Africa, in 1996 for his thesis, "Exploring syncretism
between Indian and western music through composition." His
compositions combine Indian and western traditions, and include
works for chamber groups with flute and strings, choir, ballet,
and orchestra. He has been named as "Distinguished Artist
and Lecturer" by UCSC Porter College in 2003-04 academic year.
Benjamin Verdery has been described by Guitar Review
Magazine as "An American original; an American master." He
has performed and taught masterclasses throughout Europe,
Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Japan and South America, and has recorded
and performed with such diverse artists as Frederic Hand,
Leo Kottke, Anthony Newman, Jessye Norman, Paco Peña,
Hermann Prey and John Williams. He regularly gives flute and
guitar concerts with the Schmidt/Verdery Duo and with his
ensemble Ufonia. Since 1985, he has been the chair of the
guitar department at the Yale University School of Music.
He has recorded numerous CDs on GRI, New World Records, Sony
Classical, and Windham Hill labels. His most recent CD Soepa:
American Guitar Music (Mushkatweek Records) is a follow up
to Ride the Wind Horse (Sony Classical) and features innovative
new music by Ingram Marshall, Jack Vees, Daniel Asia, John
Anthony Lennon, and Van Stiefel, as well as his own. As a
composer, Benjamin Verdery does do not see such a clear division
between popular music and classical music, between chamber
and ethnic music or jazz, further developing the American
music tradition. Many of his compositions have been performed
and published in recent years. Workshop Arts published the
solo works from his recording Some Towns and Cities (Sony
Classical). The recording includes fifteen original compositions,
and won the 1992 Best Classical Guitar Recording in Guitar
Player Magazine. In 1996, John Williams recorded Mr. Verdery's
duo version of Capitola, CA for Sony Classical. Benjamin’s
Scenes from Ellis Island, for guitar orchestra, has been extensively
broadcast and performed at festivals and universities in America,
Canada, New Zealand and Europe and the Los Angeles Guitar
Quartet performs it on their CD Air and Ground (Sony Classical).
Pick and Roll for guitar ensemble, two violins, soprano sax,
and basketball (commissioned with funding from the UCSC Center
for Teaching Excellence) was written for Mesut Özgen and premiered
by the UCSC Guitar Orchestra in "April in Santa Cruz: Contemporary
Music Festival" in 2001. Workshop Arts (distributed by Alfred
Music) has released Mr. Verdery’s book, Easy Classical
Guitar Recital as well as his instructional video The Essentials
of Classical Guitar (nominated for Best New Instructional
Video by Music and Sound Retailer, 2000). He recently completed
a series of compositions for solo guitar, entitled Eleven
Etudes.
Thanks to the supporters of "New Dimensions in Classical
Guitar":
"New Dimensions in Classical Guitar" is partially
funded by grants from the University of California Institute
for Research in the Arts, the UCSC Music Department,
Porter College, the Porter College Hitchcock Poetry
Fund, the UCSC Professional Development Fund,
and the following donors:
Donors:
David Kaun
Richard Josephson and Staff of Life
Leah and Necdet Erez
Ongun and Serap Alsac
Paul Halula
Linda and Ronald Hardert
Alan Heit
Jeff Traugott
Rolf S. Augustine
Steve Reed and Laurie Kiguchi
Zeynep Kılıc and Ali Akoglu
Edip and Zeynep Kırdar
Donna and Olaf Schiappacasse
John and Nancy Lingemann
Marty Kendall and Joe Weed
Nicholas and Ruth Royal
In-Kind Support:
Gil Carnal
Classical Guitars
Rick Turner and
D-TAR/Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research
Steve Palazzo and Amy Haberman
Sabri Oguz, Güray Özbek, and Nomadic Arts Home Furnishings,
San Francisco
Asık Veysel Cultural Association
Richard Gellis, Union Grove Music, and Line 6
Yücel Yönal Photography
Colleen and Dan Clark
Production Staff:
Recital Hall Manager: Dave Morrison
Sound Engineer: Brook Nielsen
Recording Engineer: Bill Coulter
Video Production Assistant: Carlos Gutierrez
Lighting Assistant: Rob Robertson
Stage Manager: Patrick Reidy
Program Design: Moon Rinaldo
Postcard design and mailing: Sherry Morgan
Publicity: Moon Rinaldo
Project Fiscal Officer: Lynda Marks
Fundraising: Ann McCrow
Project Coordination: Mesut Özgen
Thanks and more thanks to:
Anatole Leikin
Ann McCrow
Tandy Beal
Gina Fatone
Adam Cotton
Linda Burman-Hall
John Schechter
Leta Miller
Lynda Marks
Bill Coulter
Rick Turner
Paul Nauert
Dave Morrison
Bill Walker
Brook Nielsen
Chip Lord
Ates Temeltas
Levent Altun
Ahmet Erenli
Liberty Lana
Devrim Tipi
Murat Özcan
Frank Koonce
Chuck Hulihan
Michelle Witt
Moon Rinaldo
Pamela Mason
Sabrina Eastwood
David Tristram
Mark Plummer
Orang Kamkar
Murat Özbey
Steve Palazzo
Amy Haberman
Tolga Güngör
Paul Schraub Photography
Yücel Yönal Photography
Special thanks to David Kaun for his very generous
support and encouragement.
Many thanks to UCTV and Lynn Burnstan for video support.
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