Alexandra Du Bois "Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello: L'apothéose d'un rêve (Apotheosis of a Dream)"

Piano Trio: L'apothéose d'un rêve (2005) was commissioned by pianist Menahem Pressler for the Beaux Arts Trio and was premiered by the Beaux Arts Trio at The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam on 16 January 2006 with consecutive performances throughout the Netherlands during the Trio's 50th anniversary season. Composed during Autumn 2005 and inspired, initially, by the breadth, length and depth of the Beaux Arts Trio's presence, the composition of the work began to internalize certain influences; Cathedral bells at Notre Dame de Paris on several storm-filled afternoons; Indiana's countryside--where I was based while pursing my Bachelor's degree while writing this piece, and other flat, Midwestern, land-locked landscapes.

At the heart of the piano trio is an emotionally suspended D-Minor theme that occurs, in its purest form, during the two Adagio cantabile, semplice movements near the beginning and at the very end of the work. The theme is first passed from cello to violin. The emotional differences in these two instruments' tessitura and the order in which the theme is heard represent specific meaning. The second time it is reversed: violin passes to cello--which is then interrupted by "bells" and the final notes. Throughout the middle movements, variations of this theme meander through different memories, atmospheres and times in my life in the five main sections made up of eight movements--all of which were composed and felt as if it were a dream.

Born 16 August 1981, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Alexandra du Bois grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she studied full-time at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and the Longy School of Music and while still in high school. She then received her Bachelor of Music degree in Composition and Violin from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where she was the recipient the Dean’s Prize in Composition, the Kuttner Quartet Composition Award, the Dean’s Award Scholarship and the Emma E. Clause Scholarship. Alexandra du Bois then received her Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School where she studied with Christopher Rouse and was the recipient of the Sylvia and Milton Babbitt Scholarship, the Piser Scholarship and the E. & J. Brenner Scholarship. Her teachers in composition include Sven-David Sandström, Christopher Rouse, Claude Baker, Don Freund, Osvaldo Golijov, Howard Frazin and David Patterson. Her teachers in violin have been Federico Agostini, Henryk Kowalski, Lynn Chang, Peter Haase and Suzanne Schreck.

Alexandra du Bois’ music has been performed on five continents and has been commissioned by ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, Bargemusic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The Beaux Arts Trio, Merkin Concert Hall, The Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Southwest Chamber Music, Present Music with the Milwaukee Choral Artists and the Milwaukee Children’s Choir, The Piano Project at the Kaufman Center in New York, The Savannah Music Festival, Bang on a Can Festival, Ascending Dragon Music Festival, Azure Ensemble, The University Chorus and Chamber Singers at the University of
Massachusetts-Boston, Duo Diez, MAYA, as well as musicians including Daniel Hope, Menahem Pressler, Wendy Sutter, Sato Moughalian, Mary Rowell, DaXun Zhang, Carson Cooman, Espen Jensen, Zefir Brezeanu, Aurélie Entringer, Sergio Puccini, Ian Ding, Randall Craig Fleischer and many others. Further performances of her music have been presented by ensembles such as JACK Quartet, Felici Trio, Southwest Chamber Music and American Modern Ensemble.