SETH MORRIS, FLUTE Seth Morris serves as Principal Flute with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and previously held the same position with the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet Orchestras. He also was a member of the New World Symphony and West Michigan Symphony and has performed with ensembles across the United States including the Houston, Detroit, and Pacific Symphony Orchestras, American Ballet Theatre, Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Dallas Winds. Seth was a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, as well as a member of the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria, and performed at the Bay View Music Festival. A laureate of multiple competitions, Seth won first prize in the National Flute Association's Young Artist Competition, the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Competition, the Myrna W. Brown Artist Competition, and both the Kentucky Flute Festival's Young Artist and Collegiate Artist Competitions. In 2015, Seth won the bronze medal at the Ima Hogg Competition where he gave the Houston Symphony premiere of the Carl Nielsen Flute Concerto; other concerto performances include the Boston Chamber Symphony, the Bay View Chamber Orchestra, and the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. In addition to performing, Seth has taught at numerous universities and festivals around the country including serving as guest professor at the University of Michigan and University of Texas at Arlington. He has been a Guest Artist or featured clinician for the Texas Music Festival, Texas Flute Festival, Houston Flute Fest, San Diego Flute Club, Long Beach Flute Institute, Floot Fire Houston, and Kentucky Flute Festival, and has served on the faculty for Carnegie Hall’s NYO-USA and the Houston Youth Symphony. His articles have been published in The Flutist Quarterly and The Floot Fire Book: Advanced. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Seth went on to earn a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Music in Music Education at the University of Kentucky, a Master of Music at the New England Conservatory, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance degree at the University of Michigan. His teachers include Paula Robison, Amy Porter, Fenwick Smith, and Gordon Cole. Seth is a William S. Haynes Artist.

February 20, 2022 – Danbi Um, violin; Juho Pohjonen, piano ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD (1897-1957) Suite from Much Ado about Nothing, op. 11 February 20, 2022 – Danbi Um, violin; Juho Pohjonen, piano Erich Wolfgang Korngold showed an incredible gift for composition at an early age. Upon hearing him play his cantata Gold in 1907, Gustav Mahler proclaimed him a genius and recommended that he study with Alexander Zemlinsky at the Vienna Conservatory. At age eleven he composed a ballet, Der Schneemann, that so impressed Zemlinsky that the latter orchestrated and produced it at the Vienna Court Theater in 1910 to sensational acclaim. Richard Strauss was deeply impressed by Korngold’s Schauspiel Ouvertüre (1911) and Sinfonietta (1912), as was Puccini by his opera Violanta (1916). The pinnacle of Korngold’s early career came at the age of twenty-three when his opera Die tote Stadt achieved international recognition. By 1928 a poll by the Neue Wiener Tagblatt considered Korngold and Schoenberg the greatest living composers. In 1934 director Max Reinhardt took Korngold to Hollywood where the second phase of his career began. There he composed some of the finest film scores ever written—nineteen in all, including such classics as Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939); he became Hollywood’s highest paid composer at that time. Yet he was caught between two worlds and two eras. He was criticized in some quarters for selling out to Hollywood and for ignoring modern trends in music; in Hollywood he was criticized for writing scores that were too complex. Even while immersed in the film world he periodically composed works in other genres—the Violin Concerto (1937; 1945) has remained in the repertoire and has even enjoyed a surge in popularity beginning in the 1990s. Korngold’s incidental music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing was composed in 1919 for a production at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna in 1920, thus it dates from the same period as his successful Die tote Stadt. Though scored originally for chamber orchestra, Korngold arranged Much Ado for violin and piano—he himself played the piano part—when the run of performances was extended but no orchestra was available. He also fashioned several suites from the incidental music—one for violin and piano, one for orchestra, and one for solo piano. The violin and piano Suite consists of four movements. The Maiden in the Bridal Chamber, a graceful ternary-form movement, depicts Hero, the bride-to-be, on her wedding morning, happily unaware that Claudio has been tricked into doubting her fidelity. Occasional “modern” harmonies enliven the prevailing Romantic language. The second movement—Dogberry and Verges. March of the Watch—constitutes a mock serious march to accompany Shakespeare’s Dogberry, the pompous constable who comically confuses words (“comparisons are odorous”), his crony Verges, and the other men of the watch, who protect the good citizens of Messina. Sudden rhythmic shifts that throw the march off kilter add to the humorous effect. The third movement, a slow, flowing waltz with Romantic modulations and sudden key shifts, accompanies an earlier “Scene in the Garden,” in which the plot unfolds to make the play’s other couple, Beatrice and Benedick, fall in love. The two targets, in turn concealed in the bushes, overhear different conversations meant for theirs ears each describing the love of one for the other. The “Masquerade” of the fourth movement actually occurs first in the events of the play described here. The second act begins with a masked ball, which provides a wonderful opportunity for word play between the confirmed bachelor Benedick and the sharp-tongued Beatrice. Korngold’s Hornpipe is a lively dance in rondo form, with a cheerful refrain containing delightful rhythmic shifts and episodes that include folk-like drones, brief touches of minor, and even a quick descending passage in whole tones. The piece ends with an unexpected humorous tag. By Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih Bohuslav Martinů (1809-1959) Cello Sonata No. 1 February 9, 2025: The Virtuoso Cellist, with Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih The life circumstances of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů made him an exile twice—first by choice, then by force; he ultimately became a wanderer. In 1923 he won a small scholarship to study in Paris and ended up making the French capital his home for seventeen years. Blacklisted by the Nazis, he and his wife were forced to flee in 1940, arriving in New York in 1941 after a series of delays. Never entirely comfortable in the United States, Martinů spent the seven years following World War II in and out of the country, unable to accept a position in 1946 in Czechoslovakia owing to a slow recovery from a bad fall and other personal considerations. With the help of a Guggenheim fellowship he relocated to Paris in 1953, then lived briefly in Nice, later in Italy, and twice more in the US, not to mention many shorter sojourns in various places. He finally “settled” in Switzerland, where he died in 1959. Martinů had been living in Paris for fifteen years by the time he wrote the First Cello Sonata in May 1939. Tension had gripped Europe with the Nazis’ rise to power, and his Czech homeland had been invaded just weeks before. Further, Martinů was in the midst of a personal crisis over his intense extramarital affair with young composer and conductor Vítězslava Kaprálová. Though works of art do not necessarily coincide with biographic events, the Sonata’s angularities, laments, and bristling drive have often been described as reflective of this stressful time in Martinů’s life. The composer dedicated the Sonata to French cellist Pierre Fournier, who gave the premiere with pianist Rudolf Firkušny, a fellow Czech exile, in Paris on May 19, 1940. Just nine days earlier Germany had invaded France, which prompted Martinů to look back on the concert as “a last greeting, a beam of light from a better world. . . . For several minutes we realized what music could give us and we forgot about reality.” The following month he and his wife Charlotte fled to the south of France and then to New York. Much of the first movement swings along like a dance, but its dark hues have suggested a danse macabre to several commentators. Martinů opts for an almost Neoclassic sonata form, the main exception being the coda’s expansive proportions and its introduction of new material that seems to challenge returning materials. In the impassioned slow movement, Martinů features an icily searching piano theme contrasted by a beautifully haunting cello melody. A great climax builds in the central section before the pathos of the opening cello melody returns. A series of piano chords and cello pizzicato evoke an eerie twinkling atmosphere that then sinks back into the opening lament. Propulsive energy permeates the final sonata-form movement. Martinů provides contrast to his driven main theme with a swinging, lighthearted second theme, but the rhythmic vigor builds up again almost immediately. The development grows ever more insistent and the recap and coda only magnify the perpetual motion to the final triumphant C major chord. —©Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 4, 2015 – Emerson String Quartet DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108 January 4, 2015 – Emerson String Quartet When Shostakovich announced the completion of his First Cello Concerto in the summer of 1959, he also mentioned that he had composed one and a half movements of a new quartet. He completed this—his Seventh—in March 1960, possibly having also worked on it the previous month while hospitalized for one of many treatments of his weakened right hand. (Only later was his condition diagnosed as a rare form of poliomyelitis.) The Beethoven Quartet (Dmitri Tsïganov, Vasili Shirinsky, Vadim Borisovsky, and Sergei Shirinsky) premiered the work on May 15 at Leningrad’s Glinka Concert Hall. From the time of Shostakovich’s Second Quartet they had become his friends and collaborators, premiering all his remaining quartets until the death of the cellist prevented them from their premiering his last, the Fifteenth. The composer was the first to credit the influence of their performing style on his music. Shostakovich had set up a tonal structure for his cycle of quartets, intending to write one in each of the twenty-four keys. He placed each quartet a third below the previous, beginning with C major (C–A–F–D–B-flat–G), but he broke his scheme by choosing F-sharp minor for his Seventh. (He would resume with Nos. 8 and 9, but in reverse, C minor and E-flat, then continue without break through No. 15.) Commentators speculate that he associated F-sharp minor with the Quartet’s dedicatee, Nina, his first wife and mother of his two children; she had died six years previously from undetected colon cancer. He had recently extricated himself from his unfortunate second marriage of four years, and had perhaps grown nostalgic about his first wife. Nevertheless, their twenty-two year marriage had been anything but smooth, perhaps reflected in the work’s conflicting moods—impish, agitated, haunted, belligerent, and introspective. Shortest of his fifteen quartets, the Seventh unfolds in three compact movements, linked not by continuous sound but by the “attacca” directive between movements so as to prevent disruptive pauses. The first movement begins impishly with the first violin descending in little three-note grouplets until it knocks three times on the home pitch. Not only does the light texture and soft volume add to the impishness, but Shostakovich plays metric games that keep the two types of three-note groupings delightfully off-kilter. The cello presents the stealthy second theme, made agitated by inner instruments’ insistent repeated notes—a Shostakovich hallmark. He cleverly alters the return of the first theme by evening out the rhythm and having the strings play pizzicato. Before the first theme ends, the strings don their mutes, keeping them on through the return of the agitated music and into the hushed ending with the three repeated notes. Still muted, the second violin initiates the slow movement with a rocking arpeggio, which provides a perfect backdrop for the haunting theme of the first violin. The viola and cello’s eerie theme in octave unison receives another of Shostakovish’s insistent repeated-note accompaniments in the second violin, which continues as the first violin floats in. The concluding somber four-note descent leaves the movement sounding open-ended. The finale crashes in with unexpected violence, whereupon we hear the slow four-note descent again. Shostakovich then launches a belligerent, thrilling fugue of irresistible forward momentum. Just when the intensity becomes nearly unbearable, he suddenly brings back the main theme from the first movement in a terrifically aggressive version, reminiscent at times of the Cello Concerto he had just completed. Miraculously, he then turns his fugue theme into a gentle, muted waltz. With a kind of nostalgic look at the impish material of the first movement, the piece dies away introspectively. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 14, 2024: Goldmund Quartet ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833-1887) String Quartet No. 2 in D January 14, 2024: Goldmund Quartet A medical doctor and professor of chemistry by profession, Aleksandr Borodin was what he modestly called “a Sunday composer.” Consequently he produced a relatively small body of works, leaving a number of them incomplete at the time of his fatal heart attack at age fifty-three. Yet his remarkable handling of musical materials shows him to be one of the most original composers to come out of Russia in the nineteenth century. As a child Borodin had loved to pick out tunes on the piano by ear and had been given flute lessons. He loved to play four-hand piano arrangements of symphonies with his friend Mikhail Shchiglev, and taught himself to play the cello (Shchiglev similarly learned violin) in order to play chamber music with friends. Once his scientific pursuits began, he continued to play chamber music as relaxation. Borodin composed his String Quartet No. 2, the last major work he completed, while on holiday in July and August 1881 in Zhitovo outside Moscow. Its first performance took place on March 9, 1882, at a concert of the Russian Music Society in St. Petersburg. (Some sources give a premiere date of January 26, 1882.) Dedicated to Borodin’s wife, the Quartet nostalgically and lovingly reflects their first months together in Heidelberg. The Quartet has become Borodin’s most frequently performed work outside of, perhaps, his Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. Some of its music became especially popular in the form of the Broadway show Kismet, which borrowed not only from the Polovtsian Dances and other Prince Igor music, but from the Quartet’s lively Scherzo for “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” and the lyrical Notturno for “And This Is My Beloved.” The first movement puts sonata form on parade in a sense, as if to say, “Even chemists know their Classical forms.” This has no negative connotation now, but in the late nineteenth century the “Mighty Handful” (or the “Russian Five”)—Borodin, Balakirev, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Cui—had taken naturalism to new levels and Borodin’s traditionalism sometimes received bad press. Nevertheless, Borodin’s Second Quartet sounds much more like a forerunner of Debussy and Ravel than the works of other contemporaries such as Brahms. Borodin featured the cello, his own instrument, in presenting the movement’s songlike main theme, quickly taken up by the first violin, said to represent his wife. The first violin also leads off the equally lyrical second theme, which also includes a martial portion. Borodin’s effervescent, waltzlike Scherzo also shows his knowledge of sonata form, thwarting the listener’s expectation of a middle trio by presenting a development section instead. The merry movement takes its leave with an increasingly ethereal coda. The famous, poignant Notturno also highlights the cello with the initial presentation of the luxurious theme, followed by the first violin sweetly singing the tune in higher register. The second theme, with its resolute rising scale decorated by trills, does little to alter the movement’s lyrical impression. Borodin’s display of canonic techniques throughout this movement is striking for its unobtrusive Romantic unfolding. In the finale Borodin’s “naturalist” tendencies come to the fore with a folk-like melody that serves almost as a motto. He begins with a slow introduction in two questioning phrases that provides a wonderful foil for the ensuing energetic section as well as furnishing its main thematic material. A tender second theme reminds the listener of the work’s overall lyricism. Borodin achieves a brilliant climax and ends suddenly with four emphatic chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

EMI FERGUSON, BAROQUE FLUTE Emi Ferguson is a creative artist expanding the classical music world. Emi bridges genres and disciplines in many roles, as a director, flute player, singer, composer, arranger, radio host, and writer, she has always been excited about finding new ways for people to embrace classical music. She has spoken and performed at several TEDX events and has been featured on media outlets including The Discovery Channel, Netflix’s Explained (Vox), Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , and New York’s radio station, WQXR talking about how music relates to our world today. Emi’s ability to connect through music has resonated in some of the world’s most meaningful moments. Her performance of Amazing Grace at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor was broadcast globally and is now part of the permanent collection at the 9/11 Museum. As a radio host and programmer, Emi hosts WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase , a weekly show highlighting fantastic young classical musicians, and Once Upon A Composer , a series created for the youngest of radio listeners, introducing them to music through exciting stories about composers. Her book Iconic Composers co-written with Nicholas Csicsko and featuring artwork by David Csicsko, introduces music lovers of all ages to 50 incredible Western Classical composers from the past 1000 years. Emi first started working with New York’s WQXR as a member of their Artist Propulsion Lab, developing the podcast series T his Composer Is SICK! with Max Fine that explored the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin as a way to highlight contemporary case surges. Emi’s recordings celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Her debut album, Amour Cruel , an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th-century French court, was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending four weeks on the classical, classical crossover, and world music Billboard charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes , a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus, debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive ... a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times. Emi’s discography also includes releases on Decca Records, Verve Records, New Focus Records, Old Focus Records, Orchid Classics, Canteloupe Music, National Sawdust Tracks, Brontosaurus Records, Coro, and MSR Classics. A 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Emi enjoys performing as both a soloist and a collaborator, appearing at major festivals and concert halls around the world. She is the founder and artistic director of the ensemble, Exquisite Corpse , a collective dedicated to music and art that resists categorization. Its projects reimagine works of the past, revive forgotten voices, reframe classics, and bring history vividly back to life while also fostering new collisions amongst today’s composers, performers, and creators across disciplines. She collaborates regularly with AMOC*, Ruckus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society (where she is principal flute), the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque. Recent collaborations include projects with vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, dancers Julia Eichten and Bret Easterling, composer Michael Hersch, harpist Ashley Jackson, pianists Dan Tepfer and Reed Tetzlof, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, composer Roscoe Mitchell, and the Metropolis Ensemble. Chamber music and its spirit of collaboration has always been central with experiences at festivals like Marlboro, Lucerne, Ojai, Bach Virtuosi, and June in Buffalo deepening her ability to listen, respond, and create dialogue in front of and within an ensemble. Emi became the first student to earn Undergraduate and Graduate degrees with Scholastic Distinction (for her simultaneous studies in Epidemiology) in flute performance at The Juilliard School. She later earned a second Graduate degree in Historical Performance as the only flutist accepted into Juilliard’s inaugural Historical Performance class as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. As an educator, Emi has taught on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the Bach Virtuosi Festival, and the University at Buffalo in addition to being sought after for masterclasses at universities around the country. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York.

2009-2010 SEASON 2009-2010 SEASON Artist Roster Parlance Program Notes LOCATION At West Side Presbyterian Church 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450 For map and directions, click here . CONCERT AMENITIES Whee lchair Accessible Fr e e Parking for all concerts

QIAN-QIAN LI, VIOLIN Violinist Qianqian Li joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal, Second Violin Group, in December 2017. An avid chamber musician, she has performed with Donald Weilerstein, Roger Tapping, Natasha Brofsky, Brett Dean, Gilbert Kalish, Curtis Macomber, and Anthony Marwood. Her honors include First Prize at Kazakhstan’s inaugural International Violin Competition, the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Ishikawa Music Academy Award, and prizes won with the Clara Piano Trio, of which she was a member for one year. Ms. Li has performed at major music festivals including Aspen, Tanglewood, Yellow Barn, and Sarasota. As a soloist, she has performed with orchestras in major concert halls in Asia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. Her performances have been broadcast live on the radio, including by WGBH Boston. Before joining the New York Philharmonic, she served as a member of the first violin section of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for three years, after winning positions with the orchestras of Seattle, Atlanta, and St. Paul in the same period. She has also performed in the Boston, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta symphony orchestras and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Born in Nanjing, China, Qianqian Li received both her bachelor and master of music degrees from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and served as his teaching assistant, and was granted the Laurence Lesser Presidential Scholarship. Her other mentors include Malcolm Lowe and Lina Yu.

LOS ANGELES GUITAR QUARTET For over three decades on the concert stage, the members of the Grammy® Award-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet have continually set the standard for expression and virtuosity among guitar ensembles, while perennially redefining themselves in their musical explorations. Popularly known as the LAGQ, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, is recognized as one of America’s premier instrumental ensembles. As one of the most charismatic groups performing today, their critically acclaimed transcriptions of concert masterworks provide a fresh look at the music of the past, while their interpretations of works from the contemporary and world-music realms continually break new ground. The LAGQ has given recitals in many of the world’s top venues, including Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre, Tokyo Opera City, and New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. They have toured extensively in Europe and Asia, where they were featured at the Hong Kong, Singapore and Manila International Arts Festivals and recently made highly successful debuts in China and Australia. The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet kicked off their 2016-17 season with a tour ofGermany. Performances throughout the season continue to span the United States, bringing them to Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachussetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Premiere performances of a new work by guitar legend Pat Metheny, commissioned specifically for them begin in October at Denver’s Newman Center and continue into the 2017-18 season. They bring the electric Rodrigo “Concierto Andaluz” to the Waco Symphony Orchestra and, for the holidays they reprise their beloved “Nutcracker Suite” on subscription and family concerts in San Francisco. Continuing to grow the repertoire for guitar quartet and guitar orchestra, the LAGQ will premiere a new work written by composer and longtime LAGQ member, Andrew York, throughout Arizona in April 2017 and plans to reprise this project in the Washington DC area the following month. Among last season’s highlights are a collaboration with Dweezil Zappa on a new work at the Crown of the Continent Festival in Montana, a reprise of their “Night of Spanish Romance” collaborative program with mezzo-soprano Janelle DeStefano and L.A. Flamenco to capacity crowds, and a tour the Baltics. Additional highlights include LAGQ’s role as Artistic Directors of the 2015 Laguna Beach Music Festival. As the focal point of the festival, they treated audiences to four days of performances, outreach activities and celebrations including: a joint concert with the LA Percussion Quartet, in which the combined octet premiered a new work by composer Jeff Holmes, a “Latin Romance” Valentine’s program with flamenco dancers plus a vocalist, and a closing performance of “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote: Words and Music from the Time of Cervantes” with guest artist, Firesign Theatre veteran and voiceover actor, Phil Proctor. This last work was captured live at St Louis’ historic Sheldon Theater and released on DVD in March 2012. This multi-disciplinary project was originally developed and premiered in collaboration with the British actor John Cleese in Santa Barbara. Recent seasons have focused on many works written specifically for them including “Interchange,” the concerto written for them by Sergio Assad, and “SHIKI: Seasons of Japan,” a work written for them along with Guitar Orchestra. The world-premiere performance of “SHIKI” took place as part of an extended residency in Loudoun County (VA) a few days after the one-year anniversary of the Japanese earthquake. Since the premiere in 2012, this work, inspired by and dedicated to those affected by the earthquake and tsunami, has been performed in numerous communities throughout the United States. Pushing boundaries once again, the LAGQ participated in the ground breaking 2015 premiere of “How Little You Are” for voices and guitars, by Nico Muhly, one of today’s most sought after composers. The works was hosted by Texas Performing Arts in partnership with the Austin Classical Guitar Society and Conspirare. The Telarc release of “Interchange,” marked the LAGQ’s first recording of concertos by Rodrigo and Assad. “Interchange for Guitar Quartet and Orchestra,” the concerto written specifically for these four virtuosi by Brazilian composer and guitar master, Sergio Assad and featured on the Telarc CD, received a Latin Grammy® nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. “Interchange” premiered at the Southwest Guitar Festival with the San Antonio Symphony in 2010 and was later recorded with the Delaware Symphony and Music Director David Amado, along with the Rodrigo “Concierto Andaluz”. Performing the work at the composer’s official centenary in Spain at the invitation of his daughter, for a “Live with the Boston Pops” television feature, and to a crowd of thousands at the Hollywood Bowl, are especially memorable events. Members of the Quartet also performed and recorded two works of Osvaldo Golijov with the Atlanta Symphony in Atlanta and at the Ojai(CA) and Ravinia(IL) Festivals. The LAGQ’s CD, “Guitar Heroes,” released on Telarc, won the group their first Grammy Award in 2005. It is a heartfelt salute to the great players who inspired the quartet, as individuals and as a group. It has received raves for its unique ability capture the feeling and fervor of diverse musical styles such as jazz, bluegrass, rock and flamenco. In November 2008, this recording joined those by artists such as the Who, Pink Floyd and Dire Straits on Sound and Visions “Top 10 Surround Discs of All Time”. Their first Telarc CD, “LAGQ – Latin,” features their popular transcription of Bizet’s Carmen, along with works from Chile, Cuba and some new original works by members of the quartet. This CD, which has received raves from listeners and critics alike, received a 2003 Grammy nomination and the Super Audio CD (SACD) version won the award for “Best Made for Surround” at the 1st Annual Surround Music Awards. The LAGQ’s release, “SPIN” (Telarc, 2006), shows yet again that the group is equally at home in a wide variety of musical genres and also features several commissioned works from their recent collaboration with percussionist Colin Currie. LAGQ-Brazil (Telarc, 2007) continues to receive raves and includes performances with singing sensation Luciana Souza. The LAGQ’s “Interchange” CD (Telarc, March 2010) features their long-awaited recording of Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto Andaluz” and the premiere recording of Sergio Assad’s “Interchange” with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. The DVD of “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote” (March 2012) appears on the Mel Bay Artist Series, along with their first live-concert DVD. Their newest recording, entitled “New Renaissance,” released in March 2015 is a modern take on classic works. It includes long-awaited instrumental works from “Music from the Time of Cervantes”, and new works by Bogdanovic and Krouse, among others.

JOSEPH JORDAN, OBOE

May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano JOHN DUKE (1899-1984) Three Songs May 15, 2016: James Morris, bass-baritone; Ken Noda, piano After early music training from his mother, a talented singer, John Duke attended the Peabody Institute where he studied composition with Gustav Strube and piano with Harold Randolph. He continued his studying composition in New York with Howard Brockway and Bernard Wagenaar and furthered his piano skills with Franklin Cannon. He gave his piano debut piano recital in New York’s Aeolian Hall in 1920 in a program of Chopin, Debussy, and Liszt, among others, and performed the Grieg Concerto with the New York Philharmonic on tour in his hometown of Cumberland, Maryland, the following year. Fully aware of the challenges of a career as a concert pianist, he joined the faculty of Smith College in 1923, where he taught piano until his retirement in 1967. He furthered his musical training on sabbatical in 1929–30, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and piano with Artur Schnabel in Berlin. He also spent a summer at Yaddo, the renowned artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York, and many summers at the Seagle Colony, a school for singers in Schroon Lake, New York. Though Duke composed a handful of orchestral and chamber pieces, the vast majority of his output features the voice—265 songs, several stage works, and a few choral pieces. His family background no doubt fostered his interest in song, though he himself said he was amazed at the way his career turned out. “In my early days, my ambition was to be a great pianist, and I could not have believed anyone who told [me] I was destined to be a song composer.” He came to believe that “vocal utterance is the basis of music’s mystery. The thing that makes melody a concrete expression of feeling and not just a horizontal design in tones is its power to symbolize the pull, the tension of our feeling of duration.” Duke was particularly interested in setting texts by American poets and he corresponded with many, among them Archibald MacLeish, William Rose Benet, Mark Van Doren, and Richard Nickson. Just as this correspondence attests to his choice of texts, his correspondence with prominent musicians—among them Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Daniel Gregory Mason, Mack Harrell, Ross Lee Finney, Roy Harris, Arthur Fieldler, William Warfield, and Douglas Moore—reflects the neo-Romantic orientation of his style. This afternoon’s selections, “Richard Cory,” “Miniver Cheevy,” and “Luke Havergal,” feature three of four songs that Duke set to poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson in 1945. Duke creates a perfect musical description of the elegant saunter of Richard Cory as a man about town with his jaunty accompaniment in 6/8 meter. The shocking suicide moment he treats bare of accompaniment, followed by a brief dissonant piano comment. Duke sets “Miniver Cheevy” as “a satire in the form of variations.” The nine colorful variations following the presentation of the theme are labeled Melancholy, Sprightly, Dreamy, Dolorous, Grandiose, Indignant, Puzzled, Tipsy, and Epilogue, all describing someone who thought himself born too late, said to be Robinson’s skewering of his own anachronistic tendencies and referencing his alcoholic brother. “Luke Havergal,” in which a voice from the grave encourages Luke Havergal to join his dead lover, follows a ternary form in which the rich outer sections flank a chilling central section and the final section becomes positively majestic before ebbing. The poem might bring to mind Aeneas of classic lore being led by Sibyl to Queen Dido, who has died by suicide, but coupled with Duke’s music the result especially embodies the nineteenth-century Romantics’ theme of an intense yearning for death so as not to have to endure grief-stricken loneliness. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

January 31, 2010 – Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson, flute; Stephen Williamson, clarinet; Yoon Kwon, violin; Abraham Appleman, viola; Joel Noyes, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; Gregory Zuber, xylophone; Gareth Icenogle, narrator CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) The Carnival of the Animals January 31, 2010 – Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson, flute; Stephen Williamson, clarinet; Yoon Kwon, violin; Abraham Appleman, viola; Joel Noyes, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; Gregory Zuber, xylophone; Gareth Icenogle, narrator Camille Saint-Saëns started life as one of history’s most celebrated child prodigies. His extraordinary level of talent, temperament, and musical knowledge often invited positive comparisons with Felix Mendelssohn. Like Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns composed fluently from his earliest years and became renowned while still a boy as one of the greatest pianists and organists of his day. As adults, both composers became known for their total musicianship, conservative tastes, classically refined sensibilities, and flawless compositional technique. And, like Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns became a highly influential teacher and a well-educated polymath, whose extramusical interests ranged freely across such diverse fields as mathematics, botany, archaeology, poetry, literature, and astrology. Unlike Mendelssohn, however, Camille Saint-Saëns lived long enough to see his musical oeuvre become obsolete. His 86 years spanned two completely different musical eras, beginning during the time of Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms, and ending during the period of Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Gershwin. The older he became, the more stubbornly he clung to the music of the past. He grew impatient with forward-looking composers such as Jules Massenet, Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, and Vincent D’Indy, and his increasing prickliness often drew critical fire. Fortunately, his innate brilliance and sense of fun always attracted a devoted circle of friends and admirers. In 1886, while vacationing in a small Austrian village, he decided to amuse his friends by composing the delightful zoölogical fantasy The Carnival of the Animals. Although the piece was a hit with his colleagues, Saint-Saëns became concerned that it would be considered too frivolous by the public at large and might even harm his reputation as a “serious” composer. With the exception of the touching cello solo, The Swan, he allowed only private performances of The Carnival of the Animals during his lifetime. After his death in 1921, the piece was finally published, and it quickly became one of Saint-Saëns’ most popular works. Inside jokes abound, as Saint-Saëns often pokes fun at other composers by inserting sly, incongruous musical references into the various animals’ portraits. The Tortoise, for instance, takes the frenetic, high kicking Can-Can from Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld and transforms it into a laggardly dirge. Similarly, The Elephant lumbers through ponderous versions of Hector Berlioz’s delicate Dance of the Sylphs and Mendelssohn’s gossamer Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Nor is Saint-Saëns above poking fun at himself. In The Fossils he parodies his own maniacal waltz Danse Macabre, turning the original xylophone solo into a rackety, duple-meter skeleton dance. In the end, no one escapes entirely unscathed, least of all his critics, who are portrayed as asses in “People with Long Ears,” and whom we hear braying away toward the end of the whirlwind Finale. By Michael Parloff Return to Parlance Program Notes