Jeremy Beck IonSound Project (innova 797) In Flight Until Mysterious Night 9:56 for flute, clarinet, marimba, violin, cello and piano Sonata No. 2 for cello and piano 18:11 I. Animato 5:12 II. Grave 6:54 III. Allegro giocoso 6:04 In February 4:40 for soprano, clarinet, violin and piano Gemini 8:31 for flute, cello and piano Slow Motion 7:35 for vibraphone and piano Third Delphic Hymn 2:32 for solo violin September Music 17:16 for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano I. Youth 6:33 II. Retrospect 5:07 III. Joy Revealed 5:35 total time: 69:21 IonSound Project is Peggy Yoo, flute; Kathleen Costello, clarinet; Eliseo Rael, percussion; Laura Motchalov, violin; Elisa Kohanski, cello; Rob Frankenberry, piano. *** In the City of Bridges For the academic year 1998-99, I was invited to teach as a visiting associate professor of music at Chatham College in Pittsburgh. Upon moving there from Iowa, I quickly discovered the City of Bridges is one of this country’s hidden jewels. Pittsburgh has a tenacious beauty, rising in and around the Allegheny Mountains. From the west, one of the main access points into the city is on Interstate 376. The final approach to the city on that interstate brings one through the Fort Pitt tunnel. Emerging into the light, Pittsburgh snaps into full, glorious view: a stunning tapestry of colorful bridges and rising steel surrounded by three adjoining rivers cutting through rolling hills. Happily, the gritty energy of hope and promise I felt upon moving to Pittsburgh for that brief period in my life has been fulfilled many times over in my continuing relationship with that city and my musical colleagues there. I lived in an area of the ’Burgh known as Squirrel Hill, and spent many delightful days and evenings exploring the city’s distinct neighborhoods, admiring its architectural bounty, and enjoying the rich cultural and musical life thriving there. One of my colleagues at Chatham was a gifted musician named Rob Frankenberry, who was accompanying and coaching singers there at the time. As it turned out, Rob’s partner was the composer/conductor/violinist Roger Zahab, who was a friend of mine from our New York days. Roger and I had been out of touch for many years, but my renewed friendship with him and now Rob would lead to many new and important artistic collaborations. For example, when Pittsburgh’s Tuesday Musical Club commissioned my opera The Biddle Boys & Mrs. Soffel in 2000, I composed the role of John Biddle specifically for Rob (who, in addition to being a terrific pianist, is also a marvelous tenor and actor). With Roger conducting the premiere, it made for an opera production that was a great pleasure for me, one that I remember fondly, and which received glowing reviews from the Pittsburgh press. Given our history together and being that Rob is one of the members of IonSound Project, it was only natural that he and I would eventually discuss the idea of a collaboration between me and that group. IonSound Project first performed my September Music at the University of Pittsburgh in 2007, and I was so moved and impressed by that performance, I proposed to Rob and the group that we not only record that piece, but put together an entire CD of my compositions, using various combinations of the instruments found in their sextet. The members of IonSound Project readily agreed, and in addition to choosing the repertoire for the recording, I also set out to write a new composition for the group which would include all of its members. That composition emerged as In Flight Until Mysterious Night, the opening track of the CD. This is the fourth recording I have produced which is completely devoted to my own compositions. These works have been composed in many different parts of the country, from New York to North Carolina, from Iowa and California to Louisville. This music has been composed at various times from 1980 to 2009, or over a period of nearly thirty years. Despite the differences in geography, time, instrumentation, and perhaps even outward style, a sympathetic listener will perceive certain basic consistencies in my work. It is music that is direct and communicative and that reveals itself in an American tonal and rhythmic idiom. Whether lyrical or more angular, it is music that chooses in its own way to carry on certain traditions while continuing to engage in an active dialogue with those traditions, moving beyond them and extending them to our present day and inviting continuation towards the future. I admit it: I’m not a radical composer, not an adherent to what may be considered “downtown” or “uptown,” and certainly not distracted by the fallacy that only music of a certain bent is properly “New.” It’s all new, after all - I wrote it. Enjoy its tenacious beauty. -- JB *** NOTES In Flight Until Mysterious Night: Peggy Yoo, flute; Kathleen Costello, clarinet; Eliseo Rael, marimba; Laura Motchalov, violin; Elisa Kohanski, cello; Rob Frankenberry, piano. This work was composed in February, 2009, for the musicians of IonSound Project, specifically for this recording. It was premiered by them in Pittsburgh in June of 2009, the same weekend we began recording the CD. While composed in one movement, this composition unfolds in three sections: fast-slow-fast. The fast music is sparkling and animated, with a forward propulsion energized by lively, syncopated rhythms. The slower, middle section provides a thoughtful, lyrical contrast to this music. The piece then concludes with a return of the fast music, bringing the work to a vigorous close. The title comes from a phrase spoken by the character Ion in the Greek play by the same name. Written by Euripides sometime between 414 and 412 B.C., the play follows Ion in the discovery of his origins. Upon his entry in the play, Ion observes: “Gaze on the blazing car of the sun, Whose rays go streaming over the earth, And burn the stars’ light from the skies, In flight until mysterious night.” (Euripedes, “Ten Plays,” trans. by Paul Roche (Signet Classics, 1998)). The connection of the main character’s name to the group here is direct, of course, and the imagery from the play provided a stimulus and focus for the music I composed. *** Sonata No. 2: Elisa Kohanski, cello; Rob Frankenberry, piano. My second cello sonata was composed in the fall of 1988, when I had first begun my masters studies at Duke University with Stephen Jaffe. It is a large, expansive work, both in its three-movement structure and emotional depth. The opening progression presents the harmonic structure and interrelationship of the three movements, which is based on enharmonic major thirds (Ab-E-C-Ab). The first movement, Animato, is centered in Ab but ultimately closes in an area focused in E. The second movement, marked Grave, unfolds in a type of broad arch form. It is primarily centered in a C minor area, but feigns a close in Ab (recalling the first movement’s tonal center), before it shifts back to C minor. The final movement is a lively rondo (Allegro giocoso); as a tonal companion to the first movement, it is centered in E, but eventually travels back to the sonata’s opening tonality, returning us to Ab/G# through an aggressive and syncopated coda. I should note that my particular tonal dialect and its underlying architecture grows out of a synthesis of twentieth-century tonal, modal and atonal practices, as those practices are broadly understood. This means my use of tonal areas described as being centered in C minor (for example) simply indicates that while “home” may be in the harmonic area historically understood and heard as being “C minor,” there is little or no relationship to the functional use of that area, as “functional” is used in the classical sense. In other words, however a tonality may function in a given composition of mine, its particular functionality is wedded to the context of the individual piece. Sonata No. 2 for cello and piano was premiered at Duke University on April 26, 1989, by Fred Raimi, cello, and Jane Hawkins, piano. *** In February: Margaret Andraso, soprano; Kathleen Costello, clarinet; Laura Motchalov, violin; Rob Frankenberry, piano. Snow is on the Avenue; I drift endlessly ignored by you. It seems so strange, yet still – So true. Tonight it is a silent night. I listen to the voices and colors through the wind. I pretend they’re talking to me… Haunted by a silent, bitter agony Keeping passion smothered by cheap scenery: You enslave your love while mine burns free. Inside, I feel strong enough now to cry for you. For your loneliness, Your God-damn loneliness. I see your fear: caught in tangled, restless streams of thought. You are hiding in your dreams. I know those dreams, of colored fields of flowers unexpectedly revealed. No, I don’t miss you, darling, I don’t need you at all. Except when mornings whisper silent echoes through the hall. And clouds kiss the stars… The text is mine. In February was premiered on November 4, 1983, by Katherine Lloyd, soprano; Todd Palmer, clarinet; Rachel Durling, violin; and Michele Buselli, piano, at the Mannes College of Music when it was located on East 74th Street in New York City. (It was a cheerless day when the College later moved and those buildings were destroyed.) *** Gemini: Peggy Yoo, flute; Elisa Kohanski, cello; Rob Frankenberry, piano. The title of this trio for flute, cello and piano reflects the interconnected binary nature of the piece. The music begins slowly and deliberately, in a musical language which is tense and expressionistic. This slow music is neither completed nor is it entirely interrupted by the fast music which follows; rather, there is a pause in its formal unfolding. The fast music is highly syncopated and its harmonic language less angular (it is tonally-centered in C). As this section progresses, suggestions of the slow music are heard until the climax of the fast music actually brings a further unfolding of the opening material. This return functions more as a continuation of the slow music rather than a recapitulation, as if, over the course of the fast music, the slow music had been striving to re-emerge, with an intention to complete itself. But again and as before, this more somber music loses its power and instead Gemini closes with a final burst of energy derived from the fast music. Gemini was commissioned by the Iowa Music Teachers Association and composed in the winter/spring of 1996 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It was premiered at St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, at the IMTA’s Annual Convention in June, 1996, by Janet Stodd, flute; Gregory Sauer, cello; and Thomas Sauer, piano. *** Slow Motion: Eliseo Rael, vibraphone; Rob Frankenberry, piano. In 1979, Gary Burton and Chick Corea collaborated on a series of ECM recordings, which blended jazz, folk and Latin styles in an integrated and complex manner. Inspired by Burton and Corea’s chamber combination of vibraphone and piano and the almost classical approach to their music, I composed Slow Motion in New York City in the first months of 1988. The title is tongue-in-cheek, as the body of the piece is quite fast and syncopated with a great deal of lively interplay between the two players. Along the way there are two contrasting sections that provide slower, simpler, and more meditative music. Still, the primary focus of the piece is on the rushing, buoyant interaction of the two instruments. Slow Motion was premiered by Ken Hodes, vibraphone, and Deborah Jamini, piano, at The New School in New York City on May 8, 1989, as a part of a concert series I was co-producing at the time with composer Stefania de Kennesey, Music at the Crossroads. *** Third Delphic Hymn: Laura Motchalov, violin. This piece was originally composed for solo viola in 1980; I then arranged the work for cello in 1996, and for violin in 2003. I composed this piece during my first semester of undergraduate study with David Loeb at Mannes. In fact, it was the first piece I composed there, so it is one of my earliest works (I was twenty years old). I had never written anything for an unaccompanied solo instrument, so my challenge at the time was to take a simple motive (the opening half-step), and then develop that into something more expansive. I chose to write for the viola because I had less knowledge of it at the time than of the other strings, and to gain experience with thinking in alto clef. Being that it was my first semester at Mannes, I was also enrolled in the first section of Music History which begins with the study of early Greek music theory. I came to learn that some of the earliest known notated pieces of music are two Delphic Hymns written for Apollo. These are monophonic works that were likely sung, so in thinking of a title for my lyrical solo viola piece, it occurred to me - centuries later - it was time for a third Delphic Hymn. In discussions of the two earlier hymns it is noted that the First Hymn utilizes two tetrachords (two groups of four notes each) which involve an initial half-step. I honestly cannot remember if I first learned about this element in Music History and then began work on my piece, or if my piece was first begun and then I latched onto this parallel relationship between my work and the First Hymn. My composition does begin with an ascending half-step and is organized around a tetrachord, but - unlike the Greek versions - the second two notes in my tetrachord are a decorated inversion of the initial half-step. Theory and history aside, as the earliest composition on this recording, it perhaps provides a window into the later and broader spectrum of my compositional work. Third Delphic Hymn was premiered by violist Mary Hammann at Mannes on March 12, 1981. At the time of this recording’s release, it had most recently been performed by Deborah Lander at the 2010 International Viola Congress. *** September Music: Peggy Yoo, flute; Kathleen Costello, clarinet; Laura Motchalov, violin; Elisa Kohanski, cello; Rob Frankenberry, piano. This composition is in three movements, subtitled “Youth,” “Retrospect” and “Joy Revealed.” It is a piece which doesn’t tell a story per se, but which had grown out of many of my thoughts and feelings at the time of its composition (early middle age). In the first movement, there is a sense of the carefree, of limitless opportunity. The music is mostly optimistic, although it is framed by a more pensive introduction, which returns as a brief coda: the present revisiting the past. The second movement continues in this mood, one which reflects doubt, and asks many questions. Finally, there is a sense of epiphany in the final movement, where the music rediscovers some of the spirit of the opening, albeit in a new context. The overall title of the piece then is not only indicative of the actual season in which the piece was composed (the fall of 2002), but also of my own, personal place in this world when I was commissioned to write the work by composer Mark Carlson, the founder and artistic director of Pacific Serenades. September Music was premiered by Pacific Serenades (Mark Carlson, flute; Gary Gray, clarinet; Roberto Cani, violin; David Speltz, cello; and Ayke Agus, piano) at the home of the film director Paul Verhoeven in Pacific Palisades, California, in February of 2003. It was composed August-November, 2002, in Louisville, Kentucky. © 2011 by Jeremy Beck *** A dramatic and lyrical composer of works for varying orchestral, chamber and vocal forces, Jeremy Beck’s seventh opera, “Review,” was included in the spring 2009 Opera America and Houston Grand Opera New Works Sampler. Following this successful showcase, “Review” was then produced by the Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston in the fall of 2009 and premiered in New York by the Center for Contemporary Opera in February, 2010. With a libretto by Patricia Marx, “Review” was also named one of three finalists in the 2011 National Opera Association’s new Chamber Opera Competition. About Beck’s 2008 CD of chamber music, “Never Final, Never Gone” (innova 696), one critic described Beck as “an original voice celebrating music. Without self-consciousness, without paralyzing abstraction, Beck reminds us that music is movement, physically and emotionally.” Beck’s first two innova CD’s were included by Gramophone in its June 2006 Reviews: The best new recordings from North America. “pause and feel and hark” (innova 650), released in 2006, features some of his chamber music, including “Black Water” for soprano and piano. A monodrama based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, reviewers have found “Black Water” “enthralling … stunning in its intensity” while Oates herself has written of her “admiration for [this] beautiful and haunting composition.” Reviews of Beck’s “Wave” (innova 612) -- a Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra CD devoted to his music and released in 2004 -- describe his “Sinfonietta” for string orchestra as “harmonically inventive, thoroughly engaging ... sinewy and gorgeous” and “Death of a Little Girl with Doves” for soprano and orchestra as displaying “imperious melodic confidence [and] fluent emotional command.” At its world premiere, this operatic soliloquy based on the life of sculptor Camille Claudel was appraised as flowing “seamlessly through the use of a dazzling variety of instrumental and vocal color … a fresh, exciting piece by a major talent.” In addition, Beck’s opera “The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel” was named by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one of the Top Ten Cultural Events in Pittsburgh for the year 2001, while the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review hailed the work at its premiere as “superb ... more successful compositionally ... than many new works seen at major opera houses.” Another of his operas, “The Highway,” was presented by New York City Opera as a part of that company’s VOX series in 2000; at the premiere of this opera at Yale University, the New Haven Register declared that Beck’s “handling of dramatic relationships and superimposed time was masterful.” Jeremy Beck’s music has been performed internationally and has earned awards, grants and honors from the Wellesley Composers Conference, Oregon Bach Festival, the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Composers Forum, Millay Colony for the Arts, the arts councils of Iowa, California and Kentucky, Meet the Composer and the American Music Center. He holds degrees in composition from the Yale School of Music, Duke University and the Mannes College of Music, where his principal teachers included Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, Lukas Foss, Stephen Jaffe and David Loeb. Beck is also a licensed attorney, having earned his J.D. from the University of Louisville. He currently practices intellectual property (copyright and trademark) law, entertainment law, and general business law in Louisville, Kentucky. *** IonSound Project seeks to add to Pittsburgh's cultural life by programming innovative concerts, commissioning works of new music, collaborating with artists in a variety of disciplines, and exploring the boundaries between concert and popular music. Comprised of flutist Peggy Yoo, clarinetist Kathleen Costello, violinist Laura Motchalov, cellist Elisa Kohanski, pianist Rob Frankenberry and percussionist Eliseo Rael, the members of IonSound Project represent some of the most in-demand young musicians in the Pittsburgh area. Collectively, they perform with such ensembles as the Pittsburgh Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, Wheeling Symphony, Erie Philharmonic, and have also appeared with the Columbus Symphony, Charleston Symphony, Akron Symphony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Since giving its first concert in 2004, IonSound Project has presented more than 80 works by 20th- and 21st-century composers, demonstrating an ongoing dedication to presenting the music of our time by established and emerging composers from the Pittsburgh region and beyond. In 2008, IonSound Project was officially appointed as ensemble-in-residence with the Department of Music at the University of Pittsburgh, the first appointment of its kind in the history of the University. For more information about the ensemble and its current projects, please visit the IonSound Project website, at www.ionsound.org Peggy Yoo (flute) began her flute studies during an after-school music program and soon thereafter enrolled in the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School in New York. Her musical training, however, came to a complete halt when she attended Swarthmore College where she earned a degree in Comparative Religion. But she returned to the flute a few years after graduating from Swarthmore and later began studies at the Manhattan School of Music and then later, Carnegie Mellon University. She spent three years playing with the Chicago Civic Orchestra and is currently substituting with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Kathleen Costello (clarinet) is currently Principal Clarinetist of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Passionate about chamber music, she travels to Pittsburgh several times a year to perform with IonSound Project, an ensemble she helped to found in 2004. Kathleen graduated with a Master of Music degree from Duquesne University where she studied with Pittsburgh Symphony clarinetist Ron Samuels, and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University where she studied with Russell Dagon. She has also studied with the former Second and Eb clarinetist of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Dan Johnston. Prior to her appointment with the Alabama Symphony, Kathleen held positions with the Pittsburgh Opera, the Pittsburgh Ballet, and the Youngstown Symphony. Kathleen spends two weeks each summer performing with the Lancaster Festival Orchestra in Lancaster, Ohio. Laura Motchalov (violin) is originally from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She has been a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra beginning with its 2003-04 season. She completed her B.M. and Performer’s Certificate at the Eastman School of Music in 2001 and received her M.M. degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2003. She has studied with William Pruecil, Linda Cerone, Zvi Zeitlin, Oleh Krysa, and Edmond Agopian. Her past orchestral experience includes the National Repertory Orchestra, Associate/Acting Concertmaster of the Canton (OH) Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She has appeared as a soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, Pittsburgh University Orchestra and Calgary Civic Symphony. She has won prizes in several competitions including the Corpus Christi International Young Artist Competition, Austrian Canadian Mozart Competition and the Canadian Music Competition. She was also the Provincial Grand Prize winner in Alberta in 1997. Elisa Kohanski (cello) is currently principal cellist of the Pittsburgh Ballet Orchestra and the Wheeling Symphony, and a member of the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra and the Erie Philharmonic. In addition to her active orchestral career, Elisa is an avid chamber musician. She is a founding member of IonSound Project as well as an original member of the Rhode Island chamber music festival, Music on the Hill (www.musiconthehillri.com), founded in 2008. A passionate educator, Elisa serves as adjunct faculty at Grove City College, maintains a private studio, and coaches cello choir and sectionals at the Carnegie Mellon Summer Strings Program. She holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Carnegie Mellon University. Her primary teachers include Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra cellists Anne Williams and David Premo, as well as Pamela Frame, Timothy Terranella, and Elizabeth Reardon. Elisa loves to travel and has done so extensively, performing in an array of local and international venues, including the Schlossfestspiele in Heidelberg, Germany; the AIMS Opera Festival in Graz, Austria; Royal Albert Hall in London, England; and Carnegie Hall in New York. Rob Frankenberry (piano) leads a multi-faceted career as a vocalist, pianist, actor, and conductor. At the piano, he performs both standard and contemporary chamber music; in addition to his work with IonSound Project, he is also a member of the Music On the Edge Chamber Ensemble, Trio AnimeBOP, the Phoenix Players, and entelechron. On stage, he has performed roles ranging from Mozart in Amadeus and John Adams in 1776 to the title roles in The Tales of Hoffmann, Faust, and Don Carlo. He has also performed principal tenor roles in Tosca, Carmen, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Rigoletto. In addition, Rob has originated roles in works by Roger Zahab, Jeremy Beck, Seymour Barab, Daron Hagen, and Kieren MacMillan, and sung premieres of song cycles by Eric Moe, Roger Zahab, and David Del Tredici. Rob’s credits in musical direction cover a broad span of work, ranging from Sweeney Todd and The Tales of Hoffmann to Monteverdi’s 8th Book of Madrigals, Gluck’s Orpheus, and Hagen’s Vera of Las Vegas. Eliseo Rael (percussion) has forged a dynamic career of creative collaboration as a chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. His marimba playing has been described as “beautiful” by the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, and lauded as “talented” by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Eliseo has performed with many orchestras, including the Pittsburgh Symphony and UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, performing under conductors James Levine, Kurt Masur, and Manfred Honeck. He has also worked closely with many renowned composers including Joan Tower, David Stock, and Michael Gandolfi. Eliseo’s students have won numerous competitions including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Modern Snare Drum Competition, and they have been accepted by some of the country’s top music schools. Eliseo earned his Bachelor of Music at the University of North Texas, a Master of Music at New England Conservatory, and an Artist Diploma at Duquesne University. His teachers have included She-e Wu, Leigh Howard Stevens, Will Hudgins, Andrew Reamer, and Chris Allen. Margaret Baube Andraso (soprano) is an alumna of SUNY-Buffalo (B.M.) and Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (M.M.). Margaret is equally at ease performing opera, oratorio, madrigals, secular and sacred song (solo and ensemble) as well as chamber works. She has performed in productions of Otello, Cosi Fan Tutte, L’Elisir d'Amore, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, I Pagliacci, The Marriage of Figaro and Don Pasquale. She has been a featured soloist with both the Erie Philharmonic (PA) and the Erie Chamber Orchestra and appears regularly as a member and featured soloist with the Erie Renaissance Singers (ERS). Established in 2001, ERS is a small group of local artists devoted to performing madrigals, part-songs and chamber music in the Erie region. Margaret is also a church singer and a member of the voice faculty at the Sullivan Conservatory of Music at Mercyhurst College. She resides in Erie with her husband and their two children. *** In Flight Until Mysterious Night, In February, Third Delphic Hymn and September Music were recorded June 28-29, 2009. Sonata No. 2 and Slow Motion were recorded September 19-20, 2009 and Gemini was recorded December 6, 2009. All of the compositions were recorded in Bellefield Hall at the University of Pittsburgh. All compositions are published by Jeremy Beck Music (BMI). Scores and parts may be purchased directly from the composer. For further information, www.BeckMusic.org This recording was supported, in part, by a 2009 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council. innova is supported by the McKnight Foundation. *** Credits and Acknowledgments Producer: Jeremy Beck Recording Engineer: Riccardo Schulz Assistant Engineers: Michael Ralph (June, September); Nicholas Sciannameo (December) Editing and Mastering: Pittsburgh Digital Recording & Editing Company; Riccardo Schulz, Daniel Snoke Photo credits: Michelle Elliott, Studio E Photography (Jeremy Beck); Tom Altany (IonSound Project, group); Tom Little (IonSound Project, individuals) CD Design: Route 8 - A Design Firm innova Director: Philip Blackburn innova Operations Manager: Chris Campbell ***