Tuesday, May 31, 2005

ESSENTIAL ART, ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS: EARTH TONES 
7:30 P.M. @ The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St. Chicago.
 
Essential Art, Essential Elements is a five-year series of Art, Music, and Literature inspired by the Essential Elements of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. This year we’re exploring “Earth”---observing the animal kingdom, contemplating the environment, and celebrating the diversity of its people.

Earth tones supply a palette rich enough to embrace every shade of human skin. Our musical investigation of earth culminates with a celebration of the colors and cultures that comprise the globe. Composers are Hannibal Lokumbe, Tania León, Randall Woolfe, and Duke Ellington

Guest Artist John Around Him, Lakota Tribal Elder
Jim Gailloreto, saxophone, Art Hoyle, trumpet

“Dance Chief Crazy Horse Dance”
Hannibal Lokumbe
(Waci Tasunka Wikto Waci)
Chicago Premier
John Around Him, vocalist
“Blue Marble”
Randall Woolf
World Premier
“Indígena”
Tania León
Chicago Premier
“Black Brown and Beige”
Duke Ellington/ Orch. Jeff Tyzik
“A Tone Parallel to the History of the Negro in America"
Jim Gailloreto, alto sax Art Hoyle, trumpet
Larry Kohut, Jazz bass, Jeff Stitely, drumsFulcrum Point Ensemble
Stephen Burns-Conductor/trumpet
Janice MacDonald-Flute
Scott Metlicka-Flute
Peggy Michel-Oboe
Jennet Ingle-Oboe
Dileep Gangolli-Clarinet
Wagner Campos-Clarinet
Leslie Grimm-Clarinet
Peter Brusen-Bassoon
Amy Rhodes-Bassoon
Jim Gailloreto-Saxophone
Gregory Flint-French horn
Christine Worthing-French horn
Melanie Cottle-French horn
Neil Kimmel-French horn
Kevin Hartman-Trumpet
Charles Geyer-Trumpet
Art Hoyle-Trumpet
Adam Moen-Trombone
James Campbell-Trombone
Tom Matta-Bass trombone
Rex Martin-Tuba
Jeff Handley-Percussion
Tina Keitel-Percussion
Jeff Stitely-Percussion
Robert Everson-Timpani
Michael Keefe-Piano
Kara Bershad-Harp
Sharon Polifrone-Violin Concertmaster
Teresa Fream-Violin Principal second
Mark Agnor-Violin
Lori Ashikawa-Violin
Pauli Ewing-Violin
Roberta Frier-Violin
Katherine Hughes-Violin
David Katz-Violin
Carmen Kassinger-Violin
Michael Shelton-Violin
Claudia Lasareff-Mironoff-Viola Principal
Loretta Gillespie-Viola
Matt Mantell-Viola
Benton Wedge-Viola
Mark Brandfonbrener-Cello Principal
William Cernota-Cello

Edward Moore-Cello
Collins Trier-Bass Principal
Larry Kohut-Jazz Bass

Program Notes

Welcome to “Earth Tones,” the final concert in Year II of our 5-year celebration Essential Art: Essential Elements. Last year we explored water in all its manifestations from oceans and rivers to rain and blood. The journey flowed from Africa and Asia to South and North America exploring water as a metaphor for discovery, Diaspora, creation, and revolution. New music influenced by Latin, Jazz, Rock, and Dadaism was juxtaposed with other works of neo-romantic, minimalist, and post-modern styles. The trajectory of the musical voyage propelled us deeper into the human experience with all its neurosis and addictions, passions and fancies.

That same eclectic sensibility is brought to bear this year on the element of Earth. In our first concert “Survival of the Fittest” we focused on her natural laws of nurturing, competition, and survival. In March we explored earth’s beauty, variety, and our love-hate relationship with nature and her natural resources in our concert “Love your Mother… Earth.” That journey traversed various landscapes of the earth-- through rain forests, gardens, corporate jungles, and woods-- culminating in the grandeur of mountain peaks.

Tonight’s concert is quite different in that it explores the diverse colors, textures, races, cultures and styles of expression in our world through music. In the way that tones can be differentiated in sounds and colors, “Black, Brown and Beige” can represent different races, ethnicities, or social standing depending upon one’s perspective. This program addresses our cultural and racial heritages from both within their worlds and from the external points of view. At the same time, this concert exemplifies the American melting pot in the panoply of sonic styles ranging from Native American and Blues, to Soul, Trip-Hop, Minimalism, Twelve-tone, Afro-Cuban, Jazz, and Symphonic performed tonight.

The arc of the program traces our cultural and racial heritages from both within their worlds and from external perspectives offering vibrant fusions, which create the innovative directions of new art music. This dynamic interplay between musical styles, forms, and traditions reveals an energetic symbiosis in which each genre influences and inspires the other resulting in new forms, as well as a deep appreciation for each tradition.

Please join us on July 19th as Fulcrum Point makes it’s Ravinia Festival debut with “Bridging Cultures: Building Peace” a concert of music, poetry, and politics from America and the Middle East.

The tone of opening work is both celebratory and solemn. “Dance Chief Crazy Horse Dance” (Waci Tasunka Wikto Waci) was composed in 1997 and scored for brass, percussion and Native American singer. It is a brilliant fanfare, which blends Native American drumming and song with Blues, and classic American, quartal harmonies. After an initial Native American invocation of Chief Crazy Horse, ecstatic Blues inspired trumpet calls cascade in alternation with soaring modal melodies. A trumpet cadenza and chorale constitute the central part of the work, which gradually builds adding layers of complexity and richness until all the parts join together for a rousing finale. In the words of the composer:
 
"Dance Chief Crazy Horse Dance," is the musical summation of a life-affirming trip to South Dakota. I took this trip to get permission from the Lakota people to, in fact, compose the work, and was honored to have received it. In addition I was honored with the name Firewalker, given to me by a Shaman known as Grandfather White. Much of what I learned as a result of the generosity of the people and land comes rolling out of this work. A wide-open expanse of green rolling hills, carpeted with yellow flowers. The warmth of the trumpets and horns emulate the sense of warmth, hope and trust I felt from the people. They gave me all that they had. In some small way I have tried to repay those gifts in this composition.   -- Hannibal Lokumbe

“Blue Marble” is a post-minimalist expressionistic work depicting the swirling textures and vibrant colors of our world. Like a vivid musical snapshot of the Earth from a circling satellite, “Blue Marble” uses the funky rhythms of Soul and the bleak atmospheres of Trip-hop to recreate the dynamic ever-changing energy of this azure sphere we call home. Randall Woolf describes it this way:
    

I think of my piece, “Blue Marble” as the view of the Earth from a camera with fantastic zoom capability, situated far away. Seen from the greatest distance, the Earth is massive, cold, and machine-like: completely subject to the demands of gravity. Seen from a very close view, the earth is teeming with life: billions of tiny life forms constantly interacting and changing in unpredictable ways. Seen slightly further away, the camera sees human life: emotional as well as physical, seemingly constantly advancing, yet ultimately as cold and machine-like as the earth itself. However, from all these vantage points, the constant dance of the Earth and its inhabitants is felt.  -- Randall Woolf

“Indígena” is a sophisticated blend of traditional Cuban musical culture with rigorous European late 20th Century chromatic poly-tonality. It echoes both the acerbic harmonies of Stravinsky and Schoenberg while reveling in the excesses of Dizzy Gillespie’s Afro-Cuban Jazz. Nervous woodwind cadenzas set a mysterious atmosphere to begin this surreal adventure, which alternates between jaunty rhythmic dance figures and oddly neurotic free sections. The work culminates in a raucous trumpet cadenza introducing a syncopated dance coda, which explodes brilliantly on the final chord, dissolving into rays of shimmering light.

Edward “Duke” Ellington is arguably America’s greatest Jazz symphonist. “Black, Brown, and Beige” is a singularly insightful work depicting the multi-layered world of African American society of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. This 1943 masterpiece amasses Ellington’s 20-year experience of composing, touring and performing into one extended-form, symphonic work championing the work songs, blues, improvisations, and stylizations that had evolved into the Jazz of the early 20th Century. This evening’s orchestration was created by Jeff Tyzik who filled out the string parts, transcribed and orchestrated many of Ellington’s piano solos, and adopted the structure of the historic January 23, 1943 Carnegie Hall concert.

“Black”—containing “Work Song”, “Come Sunday” and “Light” —starts out triumphantly celebrating the 19th Century work songs and spirituals of the African American slaves. The solos by legendary Ellington Orchestra members Johnny Hodges, Ray Nance, and Rex Stewart have been transcribed and at times orchestrated to enhance Ellington’s already rich tonal palette.

“Brown” is Ellington’s homage to the African American’s role in America’s military history. “West Indian Dance” is crammed full of Jazz tinged quotes of military musical references with the transition to “Emancipation” quoting “Yankee Doodle” sardonically. This riff anticipates the mournful trumpet and trombone duet Ellington wrote honor those emancipated, whose freedom sadly left them without homes and employment.

In this orchestration Tyzic chooses to leave out the unique vocalizations of Mahalia Jackson and Betty Roché, as well as Ellington’s transitional improvisations concentrating on the orchestral virtuosity of Ellington’s Orchestra. “Beige” is a musical portrait of the Harlem Renaissance with the main theme of “Sugar Hill Penthouse” (here entitled “Last of Penthouse”) spinning wistful and elegant melodies through the strings, woodwinds and muted brass. The smooth and sensuous tunes swirl effortlessly about in classic swing style. Ellington’s piano cadenza orchestrated here for the whole ensemble introduces the Finale, which is imbued with an overall sense of symphonic grandeur tinged with big-band boldness.

Next season Essential Art: Essential Elements takes to the Air with three concerts exploring the many manifestations of air: wind, breath storms, flight, pollution, and atmosphere. Composers will include Charles Ives, Toru Takemitsu, Melinda Wagner, Judith Weir, Tan Dun, Olivier Messiaen, Javier Alvarez, David Lang, Osvaldo Golijov, Chen Yi , Jimi Hendrix, and Daniel Schnyder. Please join us!
       Stephen Burns

Bios

Edward K. "Duke" Ellington

 Born 29 April 1899 in Washington DC, composer, bandleader, and pianist Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington was recognized in his lifetime as one of the greatest jazz composers and performers. Nicknamed "Duke" by a boyhood friend who admired his regal air, the name stuck and became indelibly associated with the finest creations in big band and vocal jazz. A genius for instrumental combinations, improvisation, and jazz arranging brought the world the unique "Ellington" sound that found consummate expression in works like "Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated Lady," and the symphonic suites Black, Brown, and Beige (which he subtitled "a Tone Parallel to the History of the Negro in America") and Harlem ("a Tone Parallel to Harlem").

 Beginning keyboard studies at the age of seven, Ellington's earliest influences were the ragtime pianists. He taught himself harmony at the piano and at 17, made his professional debut. Encouraged by Fats Waller, he moved to New York in 1923 and, during the formative Cotton Club years, experimented with and developed the style that would quickly bring him worldwide success and recognition. Ellington would be among the first to focus on musical form and composition in jazz using ternary forms and "call-and-response" techniques in works like Concerto for Cootie (known in its familiar vocal version as Do Nothin' till You Hear from Me) and Cotton Tail and classic symphonic devices in his orchestral suites. In this respect, he would influence the likes of Monk, Mingus, and Evans.

 Among Ellington's many honors and awards were honorary doctorates from Howard and Yale Universities, membership in the American Institute of Arts and Letters, election as the first jazz musician member of the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Tania León

Tania León, born in Cuba, a vital personality on today’s music scene, is highly regarded as a composer and conductor recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. She has been the subject of profiles on ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Univision and independent films.  Ms. León is currently featured on Univision’s “Orgullo Hispano” series, which celebrates living American Latinos whose contributions in society have been invaluable. León was recently the subject of a Composer Portrait concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, which the New York Times noted that “A hidden Latin American dance rhythm provides a fixed point upon which she attaches other overlapping and enormously varied rhythmic patterns.  Ms. León animates her tart atonal harmonies…. intense,  hard-driving yet elusive… the concert attracted a large, mostly young and encouragingly diverse audience.”  For the full review,  click here.

In March 2005, Ms. León will join forces with Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka, with whom she collaborated on her award-winning opera Scourge of Hyacinths.   Based on Soyinka’s “Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known”, the new work will mark the opening of the Shaw Center for the Performing Arts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Two of León’s piano works, Rituál and Mistica, will be featured in the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNow "Pierre Boulez's 80th Birthday Celebration".

In the past few years, León has appeared as guest conductor throughout Europe, including subscription series concerts of the Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Marseille, France, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Madrid, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Santa Cecilia Orchestra (Rome), Gewaundausorchester, Germany, as well as the Orquesta de la Comunidad y Coro de Madrid, Spain.

León’s hour-long multimedia work Drummin’, juxtaposes ethnic percussion ensembles with a large chamber orchestra. Presented with video and dance, the work has received spirited performances in Miami and Hamburg, highlighting percussionists from around the world.
Collaborations with award winning poets include… or like a with John Ashbery, Love After Love with Derek Walcott, Singin’ Sepia with Rita Dove,  A Row of Buttons with Fae Myenne Ng and Rezos with Jamaica Kincaid. 

In 1998 she was awarded the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award and in 1999 received an Honorary Doctorate degree from Colgate University. León has received awards for her compositions from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, NYSCA, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund, ASCAP and the Koussevitzky Foundation, among others. In 1998 she held the Fromm Residency at the American Academy in Rome.

In 1969 León became a founding member and first Music Director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem establishing the Dance Theatre’s Music Department, Music School and Orchestra. She instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series in 1978 and in 1994 co-founded the American Composers Orchestra Sonidos de las Americas Festivals in her capacity as Latin American Music Advisor. From 1993 to 1997 she was New Music Advisor to Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic.  She has made appearances as guest conductor with the Beethovenhalle Orchestra, Bonn, the Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Rome, the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa, Johannesburg, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Holland, and the New York Philharmonic, among others.

In 2002, León served as President of the Concorso Internationale di Composizione “2 Agosto” in Bologna, Italy.  León also traveled to the ISCM World Music Days 2002 in Hong Kong for the World Premiere of Axon.
León has been Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University, Visiting Professor at Yale University and the Musikschule in Hamburg. She has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University and Oberlin College.  In 2000 she was named the Tow Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College, where she has taught since 1985. 

Hannibal Lokumbe

Internationally acclaimed composer and jazz musician, Hannibal Lokumbe composes music informed by the spirituals he heard in the cotton fields of Texas where he once worked, to the drums of the Masai, with whom he lived in Africa. The well-traveled jazz musician, who plays regularly at the world's major jazz festivals, has collaborated with T. Bone Walker, Jackie Wilson, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, among many others. Mr. Lokumbe, who received a Grammy nomination for his Children of the Fire, has composed more than 150 compositions from string quartets and symphonies, to operas and masses. His works have been performed by the Kronos Quartet and by such orchestras as the Baltimore Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Saint Louis Symphony. Mr. Lokumbe is also the author of a book of inspirational poems -- the Ripest of My Fruit -- and a play, Diary of An African America. Most recently, he was commissioned by the Abyssinian Baptist Church to compose a mass, which he has entitled Eternal. Hannibal Lokumbe was born Marvin Peterson in Smithville, Texas. in 1948. Once drafted as a pitcher by the Texas Rangers, he chose music and spent about 25 years playing jazz in New Orleans. Hannibal Lokumbe was the 2004 Artist-in- Residence at U Penn Center for Africana Studies. Mr. Lokumbe is a Grammy Award nominated composer and jazz musician who has received awards and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of Arts and Letters, Meet the Composer, Abyssinian Baptist Church, the American Composers Orchestra and The Kronos Quartet, The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, and The New Orleans Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

 Lokumbe’s more than 150 compositions range from string quartet to symphonies, plays, operas and masses. Orchestras and music ensembles that have performed and recorded his work include The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, The Kronos Quartet, The Baltimore, San Antonio and Houston Symphonies, The American Composers Orchestra, and the Hamburg Orchestra. Lokumbe’s piano composition entitled, John Brown and Blue premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2001. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra recorded, his groundbreaking opera, African Portraits, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1990. He is currently composing six additional commissioned works for string quartet that will premiere at Carnegie Hall in 2005. Mr. Lokumbe has performed at numerous jazz festivals and events throughout the world, including two U.S. state department tours of South East Asia. His collaborations have included T. Bone Walker, Jackie Wilson, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Gil Evans.

Randall Woolf

Randall Woolf studied composition privately with David Del Tredici and Joseph Maneri, and at Harvard, where he earned a Ph. D. He is a member of the Common Sense Composers Collective. In 1999-2000, he was a Guggenheim Fellow.

In 1997 he composed a new ballet of Where the Wild Things Are, in collaboration with Maurice Sendak and Septime Webre which has since been performed by the Washington, Colorado, Georgia and Louisville ballet companies. Last March, the string quartet Ethel premiered his quartet Gorillas, which they commissioned. For February 20, 2004 he has composed a theatrical work for flute and electronic soundtrack for Ransom Wilson’s solo recital at Lincoln Center, and Women At An Exhibition, for orchestra and electronics, for the Akron Art Museum and Symphony, with a video by Mary Harron (director of “American Psycho,” and “I Shot Andy Warhol”) and John C. Walsh. “Women At An Exhibition” was performed this season by the American Composer’s Orchestra at Carnegie Hall’s new multi-media venue, Zankel Hall. He works frequently with writer and director Valeria Vasilevski, having composed 6 works with her over the past 3 years. He recently arranged songs from John Cale’s new CD Hobo Sapiens for a BBC special on Cale.

His works have been performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, the New Millennium Ensemble, the EOS orchestra, conductor Ransom Wilson, Fulcrum Point, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Seattle Symphony, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Bang On A Can/SPIT Orchestra, California EAR Unit, American Composers Orchestra, twisted tutu, and others. He has also arranged music for John Cale, including his score American Psycho, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, Kronos Quartet, Siouxsie Sioux, the Mediaeval Baebes, Atau Tanaka, and David Lang. Cri/Emergency Music has recorded a CD of his works, entitled ROCK STEADY. Also on Emergency Music: Dancétudes (Kathleen Supové), My Insect Bride (Common Sense Ensemble), and Your Name Backwards (twisted tutu) and Where the Wild Things Are. Ransom Wilson and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two have recorded a CD of his works for chamber orchestra in the coming year.

Fulcrum Point New Music Project has built its reputation on boldly straddling the barriers between classical and world music. Artists in Residence with Performing Arts Chicago from 1998 to 2003 Fulcrum Point New Music Project’s mission is to present contemporary music in performances that explore the marriage of contemporary, classical music and popular culture to attract audiences to new art music.   Programs include modern compositions inspired by folk, rock, jazz, blues, Latin, and world music, commissioned works, and contemporary arrangements of traditional pieces by composers from around the world.  In a quest to redefine the concert experience, Fulcrum Point performances often incorporate elements of dance, film, literature, and the visual arts.  The concerts are purposely designed to encourage audiences of diversity to make cross-cultural connections and, thereby, gain greater insight into the world today. 

Audiences and critics alike have raved about this “barrier-busting” and “most energetic and innovative of Chicago’s younger musical ensembles.” The Chicago Tribune cited the November 11th “The New/Old Song ‘n’ Dance” performance as one of the Ten Best Classical Music Events of 1999.

John Around Him

John Around Him is a tribal elder of the Oglala Lakota Nation. A faculty member at Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota Mr. Around Him teaches the Lakota language, songs, and traditions to the younger generation of Lakota. In addition to his role as curator and transmitter of cultural lore, he is active as a translator and liaison in the South Dakota Prison System, he has co-written the "Everyday Lakota Language Dictionary” with Albert White Hat, Sr., and recorded “Lakota Ceremonial Songs” for Lakota Books, Inc.

Jeff Stitely

Special thanks to our media partner Chicago Public Radio
Please join us in the lobby for a reception courtesy of
Vin Divino and Jewel Events Catering

1.  Work Song
2.  Come Sunday
3.  Light
4.  West Indian Dance
5.  Emancipation
6.  Penthouse
7.  Finale