CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
American Composers Orchestra

Zankel Hall
Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 7:30 PM

American Composers Orchestra
Steven Sloane, Principal Guest Conductor
Anna Clyne, Cello
Steve Coleman, Saxophone
Susie Ibarra, Percussion
Scott Johnson, Electric Guitar
Makoto Fujimura, Visual Projections
Joshue Ott, Visual Projections
Special guest: gutbucket

SCOTT JOHNSON Stalking Horse for electric guitar and orchestra (World Premiere)
SUSIE IBARRA Pintados Dream (The Painted's Dream) for percussion, visual projections, and orchestra (World Premiere)
STEVE COLEMAN The Illusion of Body (World Premiere)

ANNA CLYNE Paint Box for Amplified Cello and Tape
CHARLES MINGUS Revelations
KEN THOMSON Wait Your Turn (World Premiere)

Program Notes:

SCOTT JOHNSON Stalking Horse
Born 1952, in New York, where he currently lives.

Johnson wrote Stalking Horse in 2007; tonight’s performance marks the work’s world premiere.

Scoring: flute, oboe, bass clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, horn, trombone, marimba, strings, and electric guitar.

Stalking Horse is not about ideas. As much as I enjoy writing pieces that are, this one is just about the nuts and bolts of combining America’s idiomatic rock guitar playing and African-derived rhythmic sensibility with the marvelous clockwork of that inherited European sound machine, the orchestra. The general idea that animates nearly all of my work remains: making concert music by transforming the materials of the popular vernaculars that are our culture’s native expression, broken and reassembled into a sort of Cubist folk music.

Slightly more specific is my interest in emotional associations that received limited air time in the avant-garde music that I grew up with. What would a contemporary equivalent of the sly, acerbic wit of the early Classical style sound like? How about the triumphal quality of many older styles; not the pompous silly versions, but the stuff that really worked? Tenderness or cheer without embarrassment? Modernism excelled at evoking a number of emotional states, but these may not be high on that list.

I am always reluctant to emphasize the untranslatable independence of music because it’s only partially true. Pristine separation from the rest of the culture became a self-fulfilling prophecy in the 20th century. But cross-cultural emotional connotations and moments of culture-specific style recognition are so ubiquitous in music that it seems absurd to think of it as a hermitically sealed system. The fact that connections are elusive, metaphorical, and dependant on association and suggestion doesn’t mean that they’re absent. I hope that Stalking Horse is full of such glimmers of recognition.

Stalking Horse is based on a movement from Rent Party, a 1994 work for violin and cello. Oh yes, the title. A stalking horse is a hunter’s tactic in the realm of stealth and camouflage. Many wild animals will flee at the sight of humans but are perfectly comfortable in the presence of large grazing herbivores. A stalking
horse is that large herbivore, taken out by hunters to misdirect the attention of their prey. In this instance, we have an orchestra to trick classical people into listening to an electric guitar, and an electric guitar to trick everyone else into listening to an orchestra.

—Scott Johnson


SUSIE IBARRA Pintados Dream (The Painted’s Dream)
Born 1970, in Anaheim, California; now lives in Forest Hills, N.Y.

Ibarra wrote Pintados Dream (The Painted’s Dream) in 2007; tonight’s performance marks the world premiere of the piece.

Scoring: flute (doubling bass flute), oboe, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, percussion, synthesizer, harp, strings, and drum set, with visual projections.

A reminiscence of dream that is and also is yet to come, Pintados Dream paints folkloric gestures of the Philippines and Japan and extends a bridge of cultures. It is woven in rhythmic repetition and melodic cycles inspired by the indigenous gong/instrumental and vocal music as well as the folkloric culture of the Kalinga and Maguindanaon people of the Philippine northern Skylands and southern Wetlands, as well as the native Ainu of northern Hokkaido Japan. The piece is inspired by personal visits to these people and my affinity for their music and art. Pintado was a colloquial name given to the tattooing/body painting of the indigenous such as the Kalingas.

Vanishing Rainforest is a reflection of today’s living situations in these places. Today, indigenous people, like many, make up just a small population of the inhabitants on these islands and are being driven further into the forests and up the mountains. Sadly, it is a vanishing culture.

Night Tale of the Kingfisher and the Owl celebrates two beautiful birds that are revered and reside in the Philippines and Japan with an animated and upbeat procession.

Pintados Dream is an homage to these people and folklore that have survived. Its always a pleasure and honor to collaborate with visual artist Makoto Fujimura. We began collaborating in an opera work in progress, Shangri-La, I composed with Pulitzer poet Yusef Komunyakaa, in which Makato projected his artwork at The Kitchen in 2005. Our abstract aesthetic was apparent and compatible, and we started to collaborate in different figurations from sound and art installation to duet of live drum set/gongs and percussion with live painting. Pintados Dream explores the collaboration of large ensemble, chamber orchestra, with visual art set to film.

—Susie Ibarra


STEVE COLEMAN The Illusion of Body
Born 1956, in Chicago, Illinois; now lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Coleman wrote The Illusion of Body in 2007; it receives its world premiere at tonight’s performance.

Scoring: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, percussion, strings, and alto saxophone.

This story is ultimately about the Nature of Consciousness, in the local and universal sense. The idea is that the entire Universe is generated from Consciousness, and I use the idea of a Black Hole as a physical model of Consciousness. Influenced by the ideas of homeopath Wendy Howard, this piece explores the idea that Black Holes are a perfect model for the dynamics of Consciousness and that the nature of the movement of Consciousness creates Charge (the property of matter that is responsible for electrical phenomena, existing in a positive or negative form) and Angular Momentum (spin or rotation and revolution), which in turn create gravity.

Musically the basic idea that I have for modeling a Supermassive Black Hole comes in the form of rhythmic and melodic attractors. The tone “D” is symbolic of the Singularity of the Black Hole spinning in a matrix of rhythmic forms (a matrix in combined triple/duple time). There are certain musical figures that flow into this matrix that represent the Event Horizon of the Black Hole. Generally, the rhythms supply the Angular Momentum and the tonalities provide the Charge. From this initial Consciousness, represented by the Black Hole, the piece sketches the expansion of the Universe, the development of the Solar System and the creation of Life.

—Steve Coleman


ANNA CLYNE paintbox
Born 1980, in London; now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Clyne wrote paintbox in 2006; the work receives its Carnegie Hall premiere tonight.

Scoring: amplified cello, music box, and tape.

paintbox is composed entirely from a small palette of vocal and cello recordings. These primary materials were processed via a series of electronic manipulations and transformations to create an evolving sound-world. All elements were carefully constructed in a studio environment.

paintbox was premiered at The Stone in New York City, with subsequent performances at Galapagos Art Space, Cornelia Street Cafe and Los Angeles’ EdgeFest, with choreography by Hysterica Dance Company. The cello and vocals were recorded with cellist Jody Redhage and engineer Alan Labiner at Carfax Abbey, Brooklyn.

—Anna Clyne


CHARLES MINGUS Revelations
Born April 22, 1922, in Nogales, Arizona; died January 5, 1979, in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Composed in 1955, Revelations receives its New York premiere tonight.

Scoring: flute (doubling piccolo), tenor sax (doubling alto sax and clarinet), baritone sax, bassoon, trumpet, horn, trombone, guitar, harp, piano, percussion, and bass.

According to Mingus, this work recalls vivid and enduring impressions from his years of worship in the Holiness Church as a youth. That the piece utilizes both jazz and classical elements is clear enough, but what astonishes is the stark, dramatic manner in which Mingus wields these distinct forces. The opening evokes a profound sense of awe and wonderment (upon entering the hallowed house of the Lord)— solemn, chromatic, and intense, broken only by a few brief, searching solos in the brass. It bears little, if any, trace of jazz influence. Once inside, however, an abrupt shift to a bright, jazzy, “old church style” piano solo in 3/4 signals commencement of the service.

In the pages that follow, Mingus’ daring structural imagination abounds, as the flow of energy alternately advances and recedes, melodiously surges forth and breathlessly suspends itself in air. The sense of restraint is at times almost unbearable. A shift to 4/4 meter changes all this, and a bouncy, almost comical, piano solo clears the ways for what Mingus regarded as the “preaching” session. From this point forward, the momentum builds continuously. With it, the improvisational element—delicately placed earlier passages—increases, as one instrument after another leaves the realm of notated music to sway and “shout” in improvisatory fervor over a simple repeating alternation of two chords—a famed Mingus hallmark. At length, the entire group is caught up in ecstatic improvisation.

Revelations was commissioned by the Brandeis University Festival of Creative Arts. The premiere performance was conducted by Gunther Schuller.

—John McGinn
—Note courtesy of San Francisco Contemporary Music Players


KEN THOMSON Wait Your Turn
Born 1976, in Berkeley Heights, N.J.; now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Thomson wrote Wait Your Turn in 2007; the work receives its world premiere performance tonight.

Scoring: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, percussion, and strings, with alto saxophone, electric guitar, electric bass, and drum kit.

There are times when I think there are two kinds of people in the world: patient and impatient. I don’t understand how those other people work; somehow, I’ve never forgotten my childhood outrage about waiting. Wanting to be always first in line. Ditching the pizza place that’s not serving fast enough. Secretly yearning to play every concert, even ones I’m in the audience for. Aching to scratch new countries visited off the list. It seemed through much of childhood that we were basically being taught to wait; education was about preparation. Middle school life was about “learn this for high school,” high school was “can’t wait to get out of here and go to college,” college was “and, someday, in the real world …”

After college, it took me some years to realize that I no longer should be preparing for something. I’m not actually supposed to wait anymore. This is my time! So, I want to celebrate this—do all the things I can do, act impulsively when I want, and … be myself!

In this piece, both groups have to wait their turn. The orchestra’s “introduction” goes on a little too long, and one realizes it’s not an introduction—they’re just playing the piece. After a while, someone flips the switch, and it’s gutbucket’s turn. The uncomfortable “soloist waiting for introduction” is turned on its head when the orchestra has to wait for gutbucket to play just as long as they have ... and, in fact, some of the very same material! The orchestra gets tired of waiting and comes back in, and gutbucket joins their theme from earlier— but the two don’t really get along. It’s left that the saxophone flies away as the two bands duke it out amongst themselves … and you’ll see who gets the last word!

I would like to thank Derek Bermel, Alarm Will Sound, Adam Sliwinski, John Altieri, Jean Cook, Bang on a Can, David Lang, Evan Ziporyn, Michael Geller, Ryan MacGavin, Susan Oetgen, Pat McCarty, and everyone at ACO; and Sibelius software.

—Ken Thomson

American Composers Orchestra
Steven Sloane, Principal Guest Conductor
Combining advocacy for eclectic repertoire, commitment to contemporary works, and a willingness to challenge convention, Steven Sloane often juxtaposes the music of divergent eras and styles, and has thereby established himself as a bold champion for the future of classical music. Now in his 14th season as General Music Director of the Bochum Symphony, Mr. Sloane was recently been appointed Artistic Director of RUHR.2010, Cultural Capital of Europe, and Chief Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra in Norway. Mr. Sloane also makes appearances this season with the Israel Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony. He returns to the Houston Grand Opera for Die Zauberflše and continues his relationship with ACO as Principal Guest Conductor after serving as the orchestra’s Music Director from 2002 to 2006. Other recent engagements include the June 2006 world premiere of Grendel, with music by Elliot Goldenthal, in a production by famed director and designer Julie Taymor, at the Los Angeles Opera and the Lincoln Center Festival. In the past season, Mr. Sloane also made his debut with the London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Sloane also maintains relationships with international leading orchestras in Europe, North America, and Asia, appearing with, among others, the San Francisco Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestra del Teatro di San Carlo (Naples), DSO (Berlin), Bamberger Symphony, and the radio orchestras of Frankfurt, Cologne, Berlin, and Munich. Born in Los Angeles in 1958, Steven Sloane studied viola, musicology, and conducting at UCLA, and continued conducting studies with Eugene Ormandy, Franco Ferrara, and Gary Bertini. He resides in Germany with his wife, the violist Tabea Zimmerman, and their three children.

AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA

Now celebrating its 31st anniversary season, American Composers Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers. Through its concerts at Carnegie Hall, recordings, radio broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings, and commissions, ACO identifies today’s brightest emerging composers, champions prominent established composers as well as those lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO also serves as an incubator of ideas, research, and talent; a catalyst for growth and change among orchestras; and an advocate for American composers and their music. To date, ACO has performed music by more than 500 American composers, including more than 125 world premieres and newly commissioned works. Among the honors ACO has received are special awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from BMI recognizing the orchestra’s outstanding contribution to American music. ASCAP has awarded ACO its annual prize for adventuresome programming 29 times, singling out ACO as “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States.” ACO received the inaugural METLife Award for Excellence in Audience Engagement. ACO recordings are available on ARGO, CRI, ECM, Point, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, Phoenix/USA, Tzadik, and New World Records. More information about American Composers Orchestra is available online at americancomposers.org.

Anna Clyne, Cello
London-born Anna Clyne is a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Her work, which includes collaborative projects with cutting-edge choreographers, filmmakers, visual artists, and musicians, has been commissioned and performed throughout the US and internationally. Recent honors include commissions from Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Roulette/Jerome Foundation; awards from ASCAP and SEAMUS; performances by the American Composers Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra; and a residency with the Los Angeles-based Hysterica Dance Company. Anna Clyne holds a first-class Bachelor of Music degree with honors from Edinburgh University and a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. She currently resides in New York.

Steve Coleman, Saxophone
Early in his career, after hearing groups from New York led by masters like Max Roach, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, and Sonny Rollins come through his native Chicago, composer and saxophonist Steve Coleman hitchhiked to New York, where he has built a legacy of projects involving creative expression and the exchange of information between international artists. In 1999, Mr. Coleman was commissioned by IRCAM to write a piece featuring his band, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, interacting with his own computer software program. In 2000–01 he withdrew from performing and recording and began a study sabbatical. Over the course of his career, he has traveled extensively to India, Indonesia, Cuba, and Brazil, and continued much of his research as a music professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Technology.

Susie Ibarra, Percussion
Composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra earned her degrees at Mannes College of Music and Goddard College. She studied drums with Buster Smith, Vernel Fournier, and Milford Graves, and learned traditional kulintang music of the Philippines with Danongan Kalanduyan. She has attended artist residencies at The Walker Art Center, Mills College, Bard College, Swarthmore College, Fundacio Joan Miro, University of Michigan, Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, and The New School. As a percussionist, she has performed Southeast Asian gong music, jazz, avant-garde, and improvised and solo concert works with many great artists such as John Zorn, Pauline Oliveros, Derek Bailey, Ikue Mori, Sylvie Courvoisier, Kavita Krishnamurti, John Lindberg, Wadada Leo Smith, Thurston Moore, Savath and Savalas, Prefuse 73, and Yo La Tengo. She currently performs as a soloist and with the Susie Ibarra Trio, Mephista, Shapechanger, the Mark Dresser & Susie Ibarra Duo, Mundo Ni–os, and Electric Kulintang. She has been nominated Best Drummer by the Village Voice, Downbeat, Jazziz, and The Wire. Susie Ibarra is a Yamaha, Paiste, & Vic Firth Artist.

Scott Johnson, Electric Guitar
Trained in both music and visual arts at the University of Wisconsin, composer and guitarist Scott Johnson has sought to forge a new relationship between classical tradition and the popular culture that surrounds it. Since the early 1980s, he has played an influential role in the trend towards incorporating rock-derived instrumentation into traditionally scored compositions and has often used taped, sampled and MIDI-controlled electronic elements within instrumental ensembles. His music has been heard in performances by the Kronos Quartet, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and his own ensembles; in dance works performed by the Boston Ballet, the London Contemporary Dance Theater, and the Ballets de Monte Carlo; in Paul Schrader’s film Patty Hearst; and in recordings on the Nonesuch, CRI, and Point labels.

Makoto Fujimura, Visual Projections
Born in 1960 in Boston, Makoto Fujimura graduated from Bucknell University in 1983 and received an M.F.A. degree from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with a Japanese Governmental Scholarship in 1989. He was invited to study in the Japanese Painting Doctorate program, a first for an outsider to this prestigious traditional program. During his studies in Japan, Fujimura began to assimilate the combinations of abstract expressionism explored in the US with the traditional Japanese art of Nihonga. Upon his return to the US, he began to exhibit his paintings in New York City, while continuing to show in Tokyo, and was honored in 1992 as the youngest artist ever to have had a piece acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. His works are represented by Sara Tecchia Roma Gallery in New York City and Sen Gallery in Tokyo.

Joshue Ott, Visual Projections
Joshue Ott is a multi-disciplined media artist and designer. Performing with SuperDraw, his custom-built visual software instrument, Ott bends lines and movements, creating improvised hand-drawn forms which rest in a comfortable space between minimalism, psychedelica, and curious simplicity. With the subdued use of color amidst stark black and white, Ott’s visual work complements music perfectly, highlighting contrast and maneuvering through moment-driven change. By taking advantage of the immediacy of on-the-spot art, made outside the computer, and transferred through it, Ott is able to unite the worlds of the physical and digital to make a perfect union of human control and computer-fueled chance.

Special guest: gutbucket
Flitting from hard rock to Latin to thrash to klezmer and back, often within the space of a few bars, gutbucket veritably attacks their music with the kind of ferocity usually reserved for punk, despite having earned their jazz bona fides. Over eight years, they have engaged in numerous projects, from film scoring to choreographed stage moves to collaborations with the string quartet Ethel. gutbucket has released 3 CDs; their latest is Sludge Test (2006, Cantaloupe Music). They have toured in 32 US states and 19 countries; and will debut at the London Jazz Festival next month, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. gutbucket is Ty Citerman (guitar), Eric Rockwin (bass), and Ken Thomson (saxophone). Tonight they welcome Adam Gold (drums). gutbucket endorses Sibelius software.

KEN THOMSON

Composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist Ken Thomson has been involved in music since he got his first xylophone at age 3. He plays saxophone and composes for the New York–based punk/jazz band gutbucket. He is a founding board member of Anti-Social Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the work of emerging composers. He has been commissioned to write for the Bang on a Can All-Stars for their People’s Commissioning Fund concert in February 2008. He has also written for gutbucket, Ethel, Alarm Will Sound, Anti-Social Music, Jody Redhage, and others; and he has performed in a variety of jazz, rock, chamber music and other settings, including Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Dirty Sock Funtime Band, No Net Trio, Signal, So Percussion, and the World/Inferno Friendship Society. Ken Thomson is a Selmer Artist.

JEREMY ROBINS

Jeremy Robins is a filmmaker and educator in Brooklyn. He is a freelance field producer on shows for MTV and PBS, and his dance-for-camera projects have screened at PS122 and Dance Theater Workshop. He is currently finishing a documentary on Haitian roots music in Brooklyn (othersideofthewater.org). He has taught video production to New York City high school students since 1998.