Program

Shulamit Ran

East Wind [6 minutes]
Emily Perryman, flute

Bright Sheng

Seven Tunes Heard in China
Andrea Yun, cello

Grazyna Bacewicz

Sonata per violino solo [11 minutes]
Maria Sampen, violin

R. Murray Schafer

The Crowne of Adriadne [20 minutes]
Amy Ley, harp

Andrew Mead

Let the Air Circulate [World Premiere]
Jennifer Goltz, soprano

Program notes
East Wind
by Shulamit Ran

Around the country, from Seattle to Baltimore to Houston, Shulamit Ran's
music has garnered such reviews as "gloriously human," "compelling not
only for its white-hot emotional content but for its intelligence and
compositional clarity," and "Ran is a magnificent composer." It is hardly
surprising, then, that her Symphony, which has drawn references to "the
superior quality of her musical imagination and artistic invention" and
"a work that will reward each new listening" should have won the 1991
Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Shulamit Ran was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she received her early training in music. She came to the U.S. at the age of fourteen to study, having received scholarships from The Mannes College of Music in New York and the America Israel Cultural Foundation. Among her numerous awards, fellowships and commissions are those from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, and many more. In 1990, Ms. Ran was appointed by Maestro Daniel Barenboim to be Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position she held for seven seasons. From 1994 to 1997, Ran also served as Composer-in-Residence with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She is presently the William H. Colvin Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, where she has taught since 1973.

Ran's East Wind (1987) for solo flute was commissioned by the National Flute Association for its annual Young Artists Competition and was first performed by the six semi-finalists at the 1988 San Diego NFA Convention. Ran dedicated the work to the memory of Karen Monson, a writer, critic, and friend, who died in February 1988 at the age of 42. It may or may not have been Ran's intention to embody a biblical force when she composed this piece, but one cannot deny the connection to the east wind as found in many scripture passages of the bible. It is the fiercest of all winds, the one in Exodus that brought the eighth plague of locusts and was powerful enough to part the Red Sea for Moses and his people. Ran's East Wind is also remarkably ferocious (and certainly uncharacteristic of the flute), but it is the so-called "calm after the storm" that the composer describes as East Wind's central image: "from within its ornamented, inflected, winding, twisting, at times convoluted lines, a gentle melody gradually emerges.
--Notes by Emily Perryman

Seven Tunes Heard in China for solo cello
Bright Sheng
Edited by Yo Yo Ma

1. Seasons (Qinghai)
2. Guessing Song (Yunnan)
3. The Little Cabbage (Hebei)
4. The Drunken Fisherman (Classical)
5. Diu Diu Dang (Taiwan)
6. Pastoral Ballade (Mongolia)
7. Tibetan Dance (Tibet)

Written for Yo Yo Ma
Commissioned by the Pacific Symphony for
Dr. George Cheng in honor of his wife Arlene
Dedicated to Arlene Cheng
The work is recorded on Sony Classical SK 64114 by Yo Yo Ma, Violoncello
Copyright 1995 by Bright Sheng & G Schirmer

Program note:
The work is based on seven folk tunes heard in China:

I. Seasons(Qinghai)
Spring is coming,
Narcissi are blooming,
The maiden is out from her boudoir seeking,
My love boy, lend me a hand, please.

II. Guessing Song (Yunnan)
Baby, I am testing you:
What is the long, long thing in the sky?
What is the long, long thing under the sea?
What is the long, long thing sold on the street?
What is the long, long thing in front of you, young girl?

III. The Little Cabbage (Hebei)
The little cabbage is turning yellow on the ground,
She lost her parents when she was two or three.
Mom, my Mom!

IV. The Drunken Fisherman
(Classical, based on a tune originally written for qin, a seven string Chinese zither, originated thousands of years ago.)

V. Diu Diu Dong (Taiwan)
The train is coming,
It is going through the tunnel!

VI. Pastoral Ballade (Mongolia)
White clouds are floating in the blue, blue sky;
Under the clouds, the grass is covered by the snow-white sheep.
The sheep are like pieces of white silver,
Spreading over the green, green grass.
How lovely!

VII. Tibetan Dance(Based on the music of a popular Tibetan folk dance)

The Crowne of Ariadne
Composer: R. Murray Schaffer

The Crowne of Ariadne forms part of the stage work by Canadian
born composer R. Murray Schafer (b.1933) entitled "Patria 4". This work
deals with the story of Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur and the
Labyrinth. As a stage production this piece would be performed with
dancers accompanied by harp. Yet as a solo work the harpist is, in a sense,
also a dancer, performing with ankle bells in "Ariadne's Dance" and
indulging in various elaborate gestures with percussion instruments which
also suggests choreography. "The Crowne of Ariadne" was first published
for harp and percussion in 1980.

Let the Air Circulate [World Premiere]
Composer: Andrew Mead

In many of her poems, Amy Clampitt wrote about a part of the coast of
Maine that coincidentally I know intimately, both from the shore and from
having spent many summers cruising its waters on my dad's sailboats.
'Tit Manan light is a lighthouse some miles offshore on a small rocky
island that can be seen from a considerable distance in all directions.