Friday, June 18th, 7:30 PM, Into the Labyrinth...

JOEL GRESSEL - THIS WAY LIES MADNESS (2009) World Premiere
electroacoustic playback

RICHARD MCCANDLESS - VOYAGER (1999)
Jude Traxler, percussion, with electroacoustic playback

ELEANOR CORY - CELEBRATION (2008)
Christopher Oldfather, piano

RAYMOND LUEDEKE - THE ART OF LOVE, INTO THE LABYRINTH (2005) with actor Colin Fox, and the piano duo of James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton; New York Preview

JOHN MELBY - CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, PIANO, AND COMPUTER (2008) New York Premiere
Duo Diorama:  MingXuan Xu, violin; Winston Choi, Piano

LOCATION: LEONARD NIMOY THALIA AT SYMPHONY SPACE; Friday, June 18 7:30PM TICKETS LINK

JOEL GRESSEL
THIS WAY LIES MADNESS (2009) world premiere
electroacoustic playback

This Way Lies Madness (a misquotation
from Shakespeare) is the second of a set of three pieces, Blues States, that share and develop material from the progenitor, Blue States. The musical gestures for most of the piece
are not that dissimilar to those found in classical music of the past – whether
fanfare-like passages, low- and middle-register chords punctuated with
bell-like clusters, or melodic lines that overlap and proceed at different
speeds. But at two points in the piece,
sounds pile up on one another, gaining in intensity, until they seem like
agonized screams. To me there was
something very seductive about these passages, for which normal compositional
rules did not apply. I feared they could
lead to musical textures that I could no longer control and from which I might
never escape – madness.  Fortunately,
these passages are followed by very peaceful music, and are absent from my next,
very rational piece, String Theories.

            As in all
my music, the sounds are created solely by computer algorithms.  Rhythms are specified as measures and beats
that speed up or slow down using the same ratios that characterize the tempered
pitch system, and the pitches present 12-tone rows that are more like cousins
than siblings.

Joel Gressel (b. Cleveland, 1943) received a B.A. from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton University. He studied composition with Martin Boykan and Milton Babbitt, and computer music with Godfrey Winham and J.K. Randall. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State CAPS program. His computer music has been recorded on the Odyssey and CRI labels. He currently lives in New York, working as a computer programmer, maintaining and extending software that models tax-exempt housing-bond cash flows. The portrait of me (at left) for the  was drawn by my daughter, Katherine.


RICHARD MCCANDLESS
VOYAGER (1999)
Jude Traxler, percussion, with electroacoustic playback

This work takes its name from the Voyager 1 spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977. As it flew past Saturn, Voyager used that planet's gravitational field to propel itself toward deep space, becoming the first human-made object to leave our solar system. Voyager's journey is immense. Traveling about 1,000,000 miles a day, it will take 20,000 years to leave the gravitational field of the Sun. Voyager will then enter deep space and travel for billions of years. At some point during this journey, the Sun will be no more than a charred cinder and human beings may no longer exist. But Voyager will be traveling on.

 

Richard McCandless has been writing and performing music for percussion with and without electronics since 1973. His performance of his composition "Childhood" for solo speaking percussionist prompted the Washington Post to report that "Mr. McCandless showed himself to be a master of sounds -- subtle, emphatic, expertly shaped and richly expressive." The Washington Post has also commented that "Mr. McCandless clearly places a high priority on communication as well as innovation." In 2007, McCandless was featured in a profile concert on the North River Music series in New York City. Additional information is available at www.richardmccandless.com.

 

Eleanor Cory

ELEANOR CORY
CELEBRATION (2008)
Christopher Oldfather, piano

I. Balance
II. Innocence
III. Reverie
IV. Standards

Celebration is in four movements which can be roughly described as
animated, intense, abstract, and jazzy. Balance
starts simply with short rocking gestures. These build up to a bass vamp
overlaid with a right hand improvisation, and finally culminate in large chords
and racing scales.  The end the piece
slows to reminders of the simple rocking of the opening. The Innocence of the second movement is
created by two hands moving naively in
dyads to form tentative chords.  A fall from
innocence plunges the music into grinding motion over an agitated low bass line.
 A progression from the opening chords attempts
to reclaim the innocence.  The struggle
continues, before finally opening out into innocent dyads again. The music in Reverie, is ethereal.  Chords surround snatches of melodic material
in the middle range which turn into closely voiced chords. The beginning is then
repeated. Standards, as its title
suggests, is based on quotes from jazz standards, specifically Misty, How About You, I’ve Got You Under My
Skin, Laura,
and You Can’t Take That
Away From Me.
 Some are clear, others
more hidden. The overall texture of the piece is a combination of traditional
pianistic virtuosity and moody jazz.    --Eleanor
Cory

Eleanor Cory’s work has been recognized by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Fromm Foundation of Harvard University, Aaron Copland Fund, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Morse Grant of Yale University, MacDowell Colony, and PSC-CUNY Research Foundation. She has received an American Composers Alliance Recording Award, the Miriam Gideon Award from the International Association of Women in Music, as well as prizes from the Hollybush, Kucyna, and Music of Changes International Competitions, and the Davenport, and New Jersey Guild of Composers Competitions.

Her music is recorded on three solo CDs: Chasing Time (Albany CD 1031, 2008) Of Mere Being (CRI, 2002) and Images, (Soundspells, 1996) as well as on the CRI American Masters Series: Eleanor Cory and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (CRI CD 621); ACA Recording Award Winners (CRI SD 459); and The Music of Eeanor Cory and Edward Cohen (CRI SD 542). Additional recordings are on the Opus One, Capstone, and Advance labels. Her music is published by C.F. Peters, APNM (The Association for the Promotion of New Music), Soundspells Productions/Phantom Press, and the American Composers Alliance.

She studied at Sarah Lawrence College (BA), Harvard Graduate School of Education (MAT), New England Conservatory (MM), and Columbia University (DMA). Her compostition teachers include Charles Wuorinen, Chou Wen-chung, Bulent Arel and Meyer Kupferman. She has taught at Yale University, Baruch College, CUNY, Manhattan School of Music, Sarah Lawrence College, Brooklyn College, CUNY, and The New School for Social Research and currently teaches at Mannes College of Music Prep Division and Kingsborough Community College, CUNY.


RAYMOND LUEDEKE
THE ART OF LOVE, INTO THE LABYRINTH (2005)
Colin Fox, actor; James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton, pianos; New York Preview

I. Prelude
II. Labyrinth
2 Lust

III. Labyrinth
3 Love (excerpt)

IV. Labyrinth
4 Anger

How little humanity has changed! 4500 years ago the Greeks needed an excuse to invade Crete. They invented a story that has resonated throughout history. In Crete, they claimed, there ruled a Queen so morally corrupt and evil that she had mated with a bull and given birth to a monster, a creature half man-bull and half bull-man: the Minotaur. The monster, they said, had been imprisoned at the centre of an inescapable maze of underground tunnels: the Labyrinth. 

2500 hundred years later, the Roman writer Ovid used the legend as the centerpiece in his infamous book The Art of Love. A manual for seduction, the book claimed that women had sexual desires equal to or greater then men. The morally outraged Emperor Caesar Augustus banished Ovid to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire, where he would die, an outcast. And for the next 2000 years the book would remain in hiding, at first from the Empire and then from the Church. 

But human nature remains human nature. The legends of the Minotaur and of the Labyrinth remain powerful icons, refusing to remain hidden.

Around these and around the humanistic texts of Ovid, composer Raymond Luedeke has created an intensely moving and entertaining music drama.

Actor Colin Fox, with the verbal and musical collaboration of the famous Canadian piano duo, Anagnoson and Kinton, explores the legend in the form of three excerpts from The Art of Love / Into the Labyrinth: the labyrinths of lust, of love, and of anger.

Ray Luedeke, one of the most frequently performed composers in North America, was born in New York City. He attended the Eastman School of Music, the Vienna Academy of Music, and Dartmouth College, where he studied with George Crumb. His output is extensive and varied. It runs the gamut from entertaining theater pieces for children, through a long list of sophisticated solo and chamber music to colorful, carefully crafted pieces for orchestra. Since 1981 Ray has been a member of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and is a dual citizen of the U.S.A. and Canada. Ray will be leaving the TSO this season to live in his home town NYC and to devote himself to composing and to promoting his music theatre company, Voice Afire Pocket Opera and Cabaret. 

Recordings of his music include Shadow Music with the Louisville Orchestra, The Transparency of Time with pianist Andre LaPlante and the Winnipeg Symphony, The Moon in the Labyrinth with harpist Judy Loman and the Orford String Quartet, Brass Quintet  with the New Mexico Brass Quintet, Circus Music  with the Hannaford Street Silver Band, and Ah, Matsushima! with violin/marimba duo Jacques and Michael Israelievitch.  Quartetto Gelato has recorded Ray’s brilliant arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin and has performed it worldwide. 

The striking originality and meticulous craftsmanship of his music have been recognized by numerous grants and awards, among them prizes from the Percussive Arts Society, from the International Horn Society, and from Northwestern University. His contest winning orchestral Fanfare, opened Toronto’s Thomson Hall and his overture The North Wind’s Gift was performed throughout Europe in the 1991 tour of the Toronto Symphony. Six Canadian orchestras jointly commissioned Tales of the Netsilik for narrator and orchestra. 

Ray Luedeke is also an experienced librettist. He collaborated with playwright Sean Dixon for his first opera, Wild Flowers, produced at The Guelph Spring Festival. Subsequently, he worked with acclaimed director/dramaturge Tom Diamond to write the libretto for his second opera, The Magical Singing Drum, and the script for Into the Labyrinth. for two pianos and actor.  

In the summer of  2007, Ray started a new music theater company, Voice Afire Pocket Opera and Cabaret, and produced three shows, each reflecting a particular passion of the composer/arranger. I Confess, I Have Lived is based on the poetry of Pablo Neruda. The Pocket Madam Butterfly is an arrangement/adaptation of Puccini’s great masterpiece. Close Embrace is based on the Golden Age of Argentine Tango and reflects the fact that Ray and his wife, Dulce, are avid ballroom dancers.


John MelbyJOHN MELBY 
CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, PIANO, AND COMPUTER (2008) New York Premiere
Duo Diorama:  MingXuan Xu, violin; Winston Choi, Piano

The Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Computer was composed in 2008 for Duo Diorama. The work is one in a series of (at the time of this writing) eighteen concerti for instruments and computer that I have written and which includes works for the piano as well as for most of the standard orchestral string and woodwind instruments. The composition, which includes a cadenza for the two soloists, is in one extended movement which amalgamates the characteristics of the typical three-movement nineteenth-century concerto first-movement form and which reflects on a larger scale the formal structure of the three-movement concerto. In these concerti, the orchestra is replaced by a computer “orchestra” (though this should not in any sense of the word be construed as implying that an attempt has been made to “imitate” the sounds of traditional orchestral instruments). In this work, I have attempted to exploit to the fullest the extraordinary virtuosity and profound musicality of Minghuan Xu and Winston Choi. The computer-synthesized music was realized in my Macintosh- based computer studio using the MacCsound program for digital sound synthesis and C and FORTRAN data-manipulation routines of my own. The Concerto is dedicated to Minghuan Xu and Winston Choi. It is available, along with two other concerti, on an Albany CD, TROY 1124. —John Melby

John Melby attended the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University, studying composition with Vincent Persichetti, Henry Weinberg, George Crumb, Peter Westergaard, J.K. Randall, and Milton Babbitt. He taught from 1971 until 1973 at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. In 1973 he was appointed to the Composition/Theory faculty in the School of Music of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was Professor of Music until his retirement in August of 1997 and where he now holds the title of Professor Emeritus. John Melby currently lives in Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his music written for computer-synthesized sound, either in combination with live performers or for computer alone, though he has also written a series of large orchestral works. Melby's compositions have won numerous awards and have been widely performed both in the United States and abroad. He was the recipient of an NEA Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and an appointment as an Associate in the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study in 1989-90. His awards include several honors at the International Electroacoustic Music Awards (Bourges, France), where he received First Prize in 1979 for his Chor der Steine for computer-synthesized tape.

PERFORMING ARTISTS FOR THIS CONCERT:

 

Jude Traxler is a performer and composer of experimental and conceptual music living in New York City. Jude's works have been performed across the United States by VOX Trio, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Tempus Fugit Percussion Ensemble, The Baton Rouge Brass Quintet, ChemoRocket, futureCities, and Hamiruge, among others. He has been presented with numerous awards including the Yamaha Young Artist Prize in 2006. Jude has performed and conducted works for Cat Crisis, Stanley Leonard Music, and New World Records. He also plays in rock bands, plays video games, and reads poetry.


Colin Fox, Actor 

Aside from a busy acting career spanning 40 years, including Broadway, the Stratford and Shaw Festivals, feature films and television, Colin Fox made his concert debut in 1974 in the title role of Lelio by Berlioz with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony.  He has also appeared on the concert stage in a variety of musical settings including performances with pianists James Anagnoson, Leslie Kinton and Anton Kuerti, The Hannaford Street Silver Band, The Penderecki Quartet, baritone Marc Pedrotti, guitarist Simon Wynberg, and more.  Colin has narrated a number of documentaries for the CBC, National Geographic, and Discovery Channel.  He is the recipient of the Tyrone Guthrie Award (Stratford Festival, 1966), a Genie Award (1971) for Best Actor, a Juno Award (1994) for Best Children’s Recording for his title role in “Tchaikovsky Discovers America”, and six Peabody Awards as Actor in various CBC Radio Dramas (1972-1992).

Mr. Fox has been a Nominee for both Emmy and Gemini awards. He has recently performed with the Gryphon Trio as narrator in "Giants in Music, Friends in Letters – Brahms & Dvorak”, with the Toronto Symphony in “Tales of the Netsilik” by Ray Luedeke in March 2008 and is working with him on the premiere of “Into the Labyrinth”with Anagnoson and Kinton.

This fall Colin will begin a Western tour of “The Schumann Letters” culminating in its appearance at Music Toronto in February, 2010 .  On the big  screen he has appeared with Sylvester Stallone and Claire Bloom in Universal’s “Daylight”; Chris Farley and David Spade in “Tommy Boy”; and with Chris Rock  in “Down to Earth”, and recently, in “One Week.”  On television: as Dr. Hendricks in  “psi Factor, and in A & E’s “Nero Wolfe” with Tim Hutton and Maury Chaykin as the redoubtable butler, Fritz.

"Synchronicity" is used to describe an intuitive, almost inexplicable co-ordination in timing between people. It could surely be used to describe the outstanding duo piano artistry of James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton. Rich in history, Anagnoson & Kinton are entering a remarkable fourth decade of performances. And like the finer things in life, their reputation and legacy grow richer each year.

That two pianists can produce a virtually seamless sound, over this many years, gives cause to marvel. The critics certainly have. As The Ottawa Citizen duly noted, “Anagnoson and Kinton's playing is everything that duo-piano playing should be.” This legendary duo has enchanted audiences throughout Canada, United States, Europe, and China. In 2008, Anagnoson & Kinton expanded their presence into Russia where they performed in St. Petersburg's Glazunov Hall.

As both performers and scholars, Anagnoson & Kinton hold distinguished places in academic circles. James Anagnoson is the Dean of The Glenn Gould School, The Royal Conservatory. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and received his Master of Music from The Juilliard School. Leslie Kinton is on the faculties at both the University of Western Ontario and The Glenn Gould School. Both his Master of Music and Ph.D. in music theory are from the University of Toronto.

Anagnoson & Kinton are Yamaha Artists.

 

Duo Diorama
MingXuan Xu, violin; Winston Choi, Piano

DUO DIORAMA comprises Chinese violinist MingHuan Xu and Canadian pianist Winston Choi.  They are compelling and versatile artists who perform in an eclectic mix of musical styles, ranging from the great standard works to the avant-garde.  It is a partnership with a startlingly fresh and powerful approach to music for violin and piano.  Comprised of two renowned soloists who can effectively blend their distinctive personalities together to create a unified whole, the duo maintains an active performing and touring schedule.

Their name "Duo Diorama" captures the couple's artistic ideals.  In 19th-century Paris, the Diorama was a popular theater entertainment that prefigured cinema.  A marvelous landscape scene - one telling the tale of some mythic event - was painted on linen and brought to life using dramatic effects o lighting (executed using sunlight redirected by a series of mirrors); such were the skills of its virtuoso light artists that the Diorama's scenes would appear to take on dimensionality and motion - to literally come alive.  Duo Diorama seeks to bring sheets of music notation to life using similar sonic manipulations of color, feeling, and movement; thus transporting their listeners to realms of musical drama, profound emotions and inspiring aesthetic ideas.

Having already commissioned and premiered over 20 works in the last few years, Duo Diorama is a leading proponent of music of living composers.  Their insightful and dynamic interpretations of music of living composers have established the duo as a true champion of contemporary music.  They are committed to music from today’s culture and take a very personal approach to the presentation of these works – both those by the established modern masters and today’s emerging young composers.  Composers they have commissioned include Marcos Balter, George Flynn, Derek Hurst, Gregory Hutter, Felipe Lara, Jacques Lenot, Andrew List, M. William Karlins, John Melby, Robert Morris, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud, Kurt Westerberg, Daniel Weymouth, Amy Williams, Amnon Wolman, Jay Alan Yim, and Mischa Zupko.  Their many projects include performing multi-disciplinary works involving electronic media.  By juxtaposing their performances with colorful commentary, Duo Diorama’s unique performances emphasize the relevance and vivacity of classical music. 

MINGHUAN XU performs extensively in recital and with orchestra in China and North America. She is also a highly sought-after chamber musician, having collaborated with the St. Petersburg Quartet, Colin Carr, Eugene Drucker, Ilya Kaler, and Ani Kavafian. She delights audiences wherever she performs with her passion, sensitivity and charisma.  Xu was a winner of the Beijing Young Artists Competition and gave her New York debut at age 18 as soloist with the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra. Currently Assistant Professor of Violin at Grand Valley State University, she plays on a 1758 Nicolas Gagliano violin. 

WINSTON CHOI was Laureate of the 2003 Honens International Piano Competition (Canada) and winner of France’s 2002 Concours International de Piano 20e siècle d’Orléans.  He regularly performs in recital and with orchestra throughout North America and Europe.  Already a prolific recording artist, he can be heard on the Arktos, Crystal, l’Empreinte Digitale, Intrada and QuadroFrame labels.  Formerly on the faculties of the Oberlin Conservatory and Bowling Green University, he is Assistant Professor and Head of Piano at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

 

One of New York's most gifted, trusted, respected, often-requested, and well-liked pianists, Christopher Oldfather has
devoted himself to the performance of twentieth-century music for more
than thirty years. He has participated in innumerable world-première
performances, in every possible combination of instruments, in cities
all over America. He has been a member of Boston’s Collage New Music
since 1979, New York City’s Parnassus since 1997, appears regularly in
Chicago, and as a collaborator has joined singers and instrumentalists
of all kinds in recitals throughout the United States. In 1986 he
presented his recital début in Carnegie Recital Hall, and since then he
has pursued a career as a freelance musician. This work has taken him
as far afield as Moscow and Tokyo, and he has worked on every sort of
keyboard ever made, even including the Chromelodeon. He is widely known
for his expertise on the harpsichord, and is one of the leading
interpreters of twentieth-century works for that instrument. As a
soloist he has appeared with the MET Chamber Players, the San Francisco
Symphony, and Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, Germany. His recording of
Elliott Carter’s violin-piano Duo with Robert Mann was nominated for
two Grammy Awards in 1990. He has collaborated with the conductor
Robert Craft, and can be heard on several of his recordings.

LOCATION: LEONARD NIMOY THALIA AT SYMPHONY SPACE; Friday, June 18 7:30PM TICKETS LINK