Charles Ives (1874-1954)

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Although not always popular during his own life, Charles Ives is now considered a quintessential American composer. Residing in New England and New York City for most of his life, Ives’ music is marked by the synthesis of traditional American hymns and tunes with the fledgling modernist movement, a manipulation of the well-known sounds of Americana in order to critique or comment on it. It is this reframing of traditional America which makes Ives the perfect foil for our program. His work has inspired all manner of musicians; Mahler, Bernstein, John Cage, Stravinsky and Frank Zappa, to name just a few. The songs we have programmed; “The Things Our Fathers Loved,” “Housatonic at Stockbridge,” “Feldeinsamkeit” and “My Native Land,” all exemplify a typical, Ives-ish irony and provide different reactions to typical Americana.

Extra Listening: Nov. 2 1920, The Indians, Three Places in New England

 

Bright Sheng (b.1955)

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Chinese-born American composer, pianist and conductor, Bright Sheng is highly celebrated for his compositions, mostly notably receiving a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001. Born in Shanghai, Sheng studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and then came to the states to pursue his Masters at Queens College CUNY. Among many other compositional influences, Sheng met and studied with Leonard Bernstein up until his death. Since his studies, Sheng’s music has been performed internationally by some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and opera companies. Much of his music mixes Western classical music with Eastern culture, including the folk songs he grew up hearing in the Qinghai province. In Three Chinese Love Songs, from which we have programmed “At the Hillside” and “The Stream Flows,” Sheng uses the viola to mimic the sounds of erhu, a traditional Chinese instrument. The pieces deal with distance and longing for a loved one, in this case expressing the difficult of being far from home as well as the desire to love openly.

 

Dan Shore (b. 1975)

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From Allentown, Pennsylvania, Dan Shore is a celebrated composer and playwright. Nationally recognized stage works include The Beautiful Bridegroom, An Embarrassing Position and Freedom Ride (written on the subject of the 1961 Freedom Riots). He holds degrees from New England Conservatory and the Graduate Center at CUNY and is currently on faculty at Baruch College, Emerson, Xavier University and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. His Five Songs of Anna Berkowitz, from which comes “Bin Ikh Mir a Meydele A Sheyns,” was commissioned for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and was premiered in 2021 by Bard fellows Jardena Gertler-Jaffe and Diana Borshcheva. Shore is one of many Jewish composers on this program and this song pays homage to the rich tradition of folk music in Yiddish song and serves as a playful opening paying hommage to my own Jewish heritage.

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George Crumb (1929-2022)

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Though he is known for his surrealist tendencies, theatricality and unconventional techniques, George Crumb had an intense empathy for the Classical and Romantic repertory. He was heavily influenced by Debussy and Mahler, and took a special interest in the use of hymnody by composers like Charles Ives. These influences are seen in his Three Early Songs (1947), from which the first setting of “Let It Be Forgotten” is taken. Though this song is clearly written with Crumb’s earlier compositional voice, it does not lack his trademark ethereal sound, which serves to elevate the evocation of memory and the inevitably of remembrance, even in the attempt to forget.

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William Grant Still (1895 - 1978)

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Known as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers”, William Grant Still Jr. wrote in every major classical genre. Born in Mississippi, Still grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas and graduated from Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied with George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgard Varèse. Still was the first African-American musician to conduct a major American orchestra. As a composer, he was the first Black American to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra, as well as the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company and on national television. Still synthesized traditional African-American folk music into the classical idiom, creating works like Symphony No. 1“Afro-American” and his opera Troubled Island. In his song, “Breath of a Rose,” Still sets Hughes’ poetry with a unique, dissonant tone, adding turmoil to the themes of love in the text.

 

Juhi Bansal (b. 1984)

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Juhi Bansal’s writing combines the musical traditions of India and China with western, classical techniques. Her music focuses on the issues of our time; the environment, cultural differences and the struggles of being a woman, particularly in Eastern cultures. She utilizes elements of Hindustani music, spectralism, musical theater and progressive metal with the goal of bringing new audiences to contemporary classical music. She has recently written for Beth Morrison Projects, the LA Philharmonic, New York Virtuoso Singers and the AIDS Quilt Songbook 20th Anniversary project, and her music is performed internationally. A conductor and pianist, as well, she is on faculty at the Hartt School and at Pasadena City College. Her cycle Love, Loss and Exile, from which “Tulip” comes, was premiered at SongFest in 2022. The cycle takes texts from the tradition of “landays,” poems passed down orally through generations of Afghan women. The cycle seeks to show these women in all their diversity and nuance. Bansal writes, “the landays tell women’s stories in their own words, unfiltered and unchecked by the men’s voices that surround them.” 

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Nico Muhly (b. 1981)

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Nico Muhly is an American composer who writes orchestral music, stage works, chamber music and sacred music. One of the most renowned composers of our time, Muly is frequently commissioned by major opera houses across the country. Known for his post-minimalist style, Muhly writes not only large scale works like his opera, Two Boys (2011) and chamber works like Music Revisited (2003), but he has also collaborated with popular indie songwriters like The National, Father John Misty, and Sufjan Stevens. Commissioned in 2020 for the Philadelphia Chamber Music, Stranger is a song cycle written for tenor and string quartet. It tackles themes of immigration and identity. In “All Men,” Muhly critiques the tenets of the American Constitution and calling out the oppression of Chinese immigrants and in, “My Love,” returning to themes of love, acceptance and distance similar to those found in the Sheng. 
 

Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990)

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For much of the mid and later 20th century, Leonard Bernstein was the face of American classical music. His mastery over conducting, composition and musicology combined with his sheer charisma made him a force to be reckoned with. As a composer, Bernstein was known for combining the aesthetics of late romanticism with more popular American idioms like jazz and musical theater, resulting in works that appealed to everyone. Some of his most well known stage works include Candide, West Side Story, On the Town and countless more. Bernstein was also an important gay figures of 20th century America, hiding his identity until 1976 when he came out publicly. Though he faced backlash for revealing his true self, his popularity did not falter, and he continued to compose music that reflected his personal experience. 

 

Rosephanye Powell (b. 1962)

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Rosephanye Powell is a widely sought-after composer in the contemporary choral sphere. From the small town of Lanette, Alabama, her experiences have led her to compose both in Western and African-American traditions alike. Her influences span the breadth of the classical genre from Bach to Barber, and her extensive research on William Grant Still gives her a unique place on this recital.

On May 25, 2020, Ms. Powell witnessed George Floyd’s murder along with the rest of this country. His merciless treatment and cries for his mother led her to break out in song, namely the spiritual “I Wanna Die Easy When I Die”. Her setting, entitled “Dying,” evokes the calmness of a quiet death, while showing the harsh reality that Black Americans face in trying to achieve one.
 

Abel Meeropol (1903-1986)

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Abel Meeropol was born to Russian Jewish immigrants and became an American songwriter and poet who spent most of his life in New York City. Sometimes writing under the pseudonym, Lewis Allan, he collaborated closely with names such as Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Billie Holiday, the latter of whom first recorded the song “Strange Fruit.” Meeropol wrote the poem under the title “Bitter Fruit,” and later collaborated on the music with Holiday. Living with limited exposure to these horrors, this poetry was written after Meeropol saw photos from the 1930 mass lynching in Marion, Indiana. The song, released in 1939, is cited as the beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States.

 

Chihchun Chi-Sun Lee (b. 1970)

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Taiwanese-American composer, Chichun Chi-sun Lee created her alias from the Chinese characters of her name read in two languages; Mandarin (Chichun) and Hok-lo Taiwanese (Chisun). Her music uses “Eastern techniques blended with sophisticated modern writing style” and she often writes for traditional Chinese, Korean and Japanese instruments. Highly decorated, she was the inaugural winner of the Brandenburg Biennial Composers Competition and was a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and her music has been performed all over the world. She was a student of Bright Sheng, another one of the composers on our program, providing a beautiful musical lineage and underscoring our theme of heritage. “Diamond Impressions,” comes from her 1996 song cycle, Sentiments and celebrates beauty that might in other contexts be described in a derogatory way. 

 

Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956)

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Ricky Ian Gordon is a leader in the contemporary American vocal repertoire, composing art song, chamber pieces, opera, and musical theater alike. His works most often draw on American material, be it scoring for operas and including saxophone and banjo or setting texts by quintessentially American poets. Langston Hughes is a particular interest of his, with Gordon having set three of his four songbooks to Hughes’ poetry. “Dream Variations” is one such Hughes setting, coming from the songbook Only Heaven, and captures the hopeful spirit of the text.

 

David Conte (b.1955)

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David Conte is best known for his art song, operas and choral works. His deep affinity for vocal music comes from his musical heritage, as he was one of the last students of both Aaron Copland and Nadia Boulanger, respectively. Conte’s choral works have been performed by many renowned choirs, including Chanticleer and the St. Olaf College Choir. The piece we have programmed, “Quilt,” displays Conte’s love of storytelling and depicting the forgotten history of one’s ancestors through the heirlooms handed down through generations.  

 

André Previn (1929-2019) 

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André Previn enjoyed a long and versatile career as a composer, pianist and conductor. Born in Berlin, Previn became a US citizen in 1943 and worked as a performer, conductor and composer of film music, jazz and classical contemporary repertoire. He acted as music director for the Houston Symphony Orchestra, LSO, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, LA Phil, Royal Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic. He was nominated for an Academy Award 13 times and was the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, in addition to ten other Grammy Awards. “Shelter” comes from his 1994 song cycle Four Songs, settings of Toni Morrison poetry. The song provides musical and textual reprieve, taking solace in the everyday, as well as in one's surroundings and provides a foil for a moment of solidarity in the following ensemble piece. 

 

John Musto (b. 1954)

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Born and based in New York City, John Musto is known both for his art song and opera output. Both a composer and pianist, Musto’s compositional style often utilizes jazz, elements of musical theater and contemporary classical techniques. Particularly interested in American poets, Musto’s art songs are lively, playful and deeply moving, many of them written for and premiered by his wife, Amy Burton. His setting of Langston Hughes’ Shadow of the Blues is especially beloved as a popular musical take on Hughes in the late 20th century. “Take Hands,” a setting of Jewish-American poet Laura Riding, depicts a moment of solidarity even in isolation and describes the transcendence of love over distance. 

 

Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867 - 1972) 

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Margaret Ruthven Lang was part of the “New England School” of composition, a group of composers writing during the turn of the century whose music heralded a marked change from their European heritage. Lang’s Dramatic Overture was performed by the Boston Symphony in 1893, one of the first compositions of a woman writer to be performed by a major American orchestra. Popular in her own time, Lang wrote over 200 art songs. The song we have programmed today, “Love is Everywhere,” is an outpouring of joy and feeling. It culminates a narrative of why many seek to be in the United States, in order to love freely and openly without persecution. While we are still very much struggling for equal and protected rights for LGBTQ Americans, this song is a moment of gratitude for the freedoms we do have in this country that still do not exist in others. 

 

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951)

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John Alden Carpenter was an American composer who came to recognition for his immense vocal music output. He was deeply influenced by artistic movements of the time, both domestically and internationally. These influences appear in his music in broad and varying ways; he used jazz as an element in his instrumental writing, while French, impressionistic ideals were a common thread through his vocal music, as is seen especially in his song cycle Gitanjali. “On the Seashore of Endless Worlds,” a song pulled from this cycle, is an English translation of a Tagore poem that highlights the openness and innocence that children exhibit in the face of the many trials of life.

 

Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022)

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Composing over 500 art songs during his lifetime, Ned Rorem continues the tradition of synthesizing popular American idioms with experimental and modernist classical techniques. Rorem was especially interested in art song as a vehicle for poetry and focused on text painting in both the voice and the piano in order to amplify the poetry. Ned Rorem’s setting of Walt Whitman’s That Shadow, My Likeness depicts Whitman’s confusion about his sexual identity by creating a meandering melodic motif repeated in both the voice and piano. At the end of the text, however, Whitman describes finding himself amongst his community even when he feels lost in his own identity, a common feeling among us on this program. 

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Alex Weiser (b. 1989)

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Born and bred in New York City, Alex Weiser’s music often explores Jewish identity and themes. His output, which includes opera, choral works, chamber music, orchestral music and song, combines historical grounding with “forward looking creativity”.  His 2019 album and all the days were purple, a half hour long, spiritual vocal chamber work setting both English and Yiddish texts and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020. He is the Director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the co-founder/artistic director of Kettle Corn Music. In addition to exploring Jewish themes, his music is deeply contemplative and meditative, as is his setting of “Let It Be Forgotten,” written in 2021 for Lucy Fitz Gibbon. The piece acts as a closer to our program, reiterating Sara Teasdale’s text and solidifying the idea that one can never move beyond one’s experiences, even forgetting is an act of remembrance.