THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2003

UTSA Recital Hall, 1604 Campus

7:30 pm FREE and open to all

MEMORIAL CONCERT FOR THE VICTIMS

of the

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 TRAGEDY

A concert of works written in response to the events of September 11, 2001

Click here to read the introductory comments read by Dr. Heuser before the concert.

Anthony Cornicello: Fractured Landscape, Suspended Song (2001)

for clarinet, violincello, percussion with tape

Larry Mentzer, clarinet

Andrea Yun, cello

Sherry Rubins, percussion

Meira Warshauer: In Memoriam, September 11, 2001 (2001)

Andrea Yun, cello

James Mobberley: Voices: In Memoriam (2002)

for piano and computer

performed by Kevin Richmond, piano

Ned Rorem: Aftermath (2002)

Gary Mabry, baritone

Eugene Dowdy, violin

Andrea Yun, cello

Christine Debus, piano

Timothy Kramer: Meditation (Noël Nouvelet) (2002)

Geoffrey Waite, organ

Program Notes:

Composer Anthony Cornicello (born in Brooklyn, New York, 1964) has been singled out by noted author Joan Peyser (in her book TO BOULEZ AND BEYOND) as ‘one of the most gifted composers under 40 in the United States.’ Cornicello has received fellowships and awards from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Meet The Composer, ASCAP, Rutgers University, and the American Music Center, as well as commissions from the Meet the Composer, New York New Music Ensemble, Dogen Kinowaki, and the InterEnsemble of Padova, Italy. Most recently, he has been commissioned to write a work for voice, chamber ensemble, and electronics, which was premiered as part of the Guggenheim Museum’s 2001 “Works and Process” series. Cornicello's works are published by C.F. Peters Corporation and APNM. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, where he is Director of the Electronic Music Lab.

The composer writes about Fractured Landscape, Suspended Song:

I was teaching Computer Music when my wife frantically phoned. Her words were filled with grief, anger, and despair on September 11. I listened in disbelief. I was a little boy living in Brooklyn when the WTC was being built. My dad took me to the site of the future world’s tallest building. At that point there was only a big hole in the ground. As an adult, I frequented the area, sitting at the fountain with Atlas holding up the world. When the Vermont Chamber Music Ensemble approached me about writing a work in response to the attacks, I was still overwhelmed with grief. For me, the piece needed to project a message of hope and understanding, in a time when hope and understanding were difficult concepts for me to grasp. As I began writing the work, my thoughts kept returning to current events. It became difficult to even think about writing. So I decided to write a piece about writing a piece after September 11. My work, a theatre-esque piece, is a chronicle of my own thoughts since the attack: disarray, confusion, followed by the eventual desire to return to work. The piece includes samples of eyewitness accounts, Hubert Parry’s choral anthem, “I was glad when they said unto me”, which makes use of the hopeful words of Psalm 112, “pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” as well as Arabic chant, quoting the opening incantation of the Koran, as well as a passage instructing Islamic believers to “repel evil deeds with good deeds, and then you will find that he with whom you had enmity will become your friend.” The writing of Fractured Landscape, Suspended Song was a catharsis for me as a composer, and I thank the Vermont Chamber Music Ensemble for the opportunity.

Meira Warshauer studied composition with Mario Davidovsky, Jacob Druckman, William Thomas McKinley, and Gordon Goodwin. Her works have been performed and recorded to critical acclaim throughout the United States and in Israel, Europe, South America, and Asia. She has received numerous awards from ASCAP as well as the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and the South Carolina Arts Commission. She was awarded the Artist Fellowship in Music by the SC Arts Commission in 1994, and in 2000, received the first Art and Cultural Achievement Award from the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina. Dr. Warshauer is an Associate Music Faculty member at Columbia College, Columbia, SC. Her innovative course, "The Healing Art of Music," is a cross-cultural, multidisciplinary approach to the experience of music as a source of healing. Warshauer has received commissions from the Dayton (Ohio) Philharmonic, the South Carolina Philharmonic (three orchestra works), the Zamir Chorale of Boston with the Rottenberg Chorale (NYC), Zemer Chai (Washington, DC), Gratz College (Philadelphia), Kol Dodi (New Jersey); the Cantors Assembly, clarinetist Richard Nunemaker, violinist Daniel Heifetz, and flutist Paula Robison. Her CDs include the soundtrack to the documentary Land of Promise: The Jews of South Carolina and Spirals of Light, chamber music and poetry (by Ani Tuzman) on themes of enlightenment, on the Kol Meira label, and Revelation for orchestra, included on Robert Black Conducts, MMC. YES! for clarinet and orchestra, written for and recorded by Richard Stoltzman and the Warsaw Philharmonic, is scheduled for release by MMC in 2004.

The composer writes:

Here are some of my thoughts on the piece:

October 1, 2001

In Memoriam, September 11, 2001

I wrote these sketches during the days of watching the horror of the attacks of September 11: the collapse of the World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon, the plane crash in Pennsylvania.

I didn't have a piece in mind, or consciously set out to write one. But the sketches seemed to belong together, afterwards, and to fit the solo cello. It is my way of holding each other in our loss.

It reflects my sadness, our collective sadness
the loss of loved ones
looking for survivors, not finding...
Hoping it isn't true, disbelief...
it is true...
The slow motion collapse of the towers (mm. 46-49), the only direct musical reference to the events that I am aware of
with that collapse, all of our losses
our national sense of invulnerability gone

humility
interdependence
prayer

with love,

Meira Warshauer

James Mobberley has been on the composition faculty of the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City since 1983, and has recently been named Curators’ Professor of Music. He also serves as Coordinator of the Composition Programs, and Director of the Musica Nova Ensemble. From 1991-1999 he was the Kansas City Symphony's first Composer-in-Residence. Other residencies include Composer-in-Residence for the “newEar” Ensemble (1999-2002), the Taiwan National Symphony, the Ft. Smith Symphony, the Composers Forum of the East at Bennington College, and many colleges and Universities throughout the U.S.

He has received numerous fellowships, grants, and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Composer’s Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2001 Van Cliburn Composers Invitational, the Lee Ettelson Composers Award, the Mrs. Ewing M. Kauffman Excellence in Teaching Award, and numerous others. Commissions have come from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, Meet the Composer, the St. Louis Symphony Chamber Series, the Kansas City Symphony, and numerous individual performers.

His music appears on the Capstone label, the Music from SEAMUS series, and on upcoming releases from Gothic Records and the CDCM Series. His most recent recording is an all-orchestral CD performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra on Albany Records. Mobberley's music spans many media, including orchestral and chamber music, music for film, video, theater, dance, and music that combines electronic and computer elements with live performance. Overall his music has received more than 650 performances on five continents.

The composer writes:

Voices: In Memoriam began as a commission from two wonderful and talented pianists: Leah Hokanson and Daniel Koppelman, both of whom have performed my music on a variety of occasions for many years, and both of whom are extraordinarily gifted interpreters of contemporary music. It also served as a re-entry for me into the world of instruments-with-electronics, which I had not worked in for four years. The medium of choice for 2001 is undoubtedly interactive electronics, where a computer system “listens” to the live performer and provides further interpretation and commentary on the instrument’s sound world. The advantage over pre-recorded materials is one of freedom for the performer, where the computer ‘accompanist’ reacts to the instrument’s sounds, rather than the reverse.

I had just started the composition when the attacks took place on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, and a month later I had made little progress. During a trip to New York in October, 2001, I found myself making a pilgrimage of sorts to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where I discovered a chapel area which had been dedicated, apparently for many years, to the Firefighters of New York. There I saw special displays by school children, a newspaper tribute to the 343 firefighters who were killed at the World Trade Center, and, most significant, I saw a letter, bravely hand-written by a school-age youngster to his father, who had been killed. Its sentiments were at once universal and specific—lauding a hero’s bravery and looking forward to a distant but much anticipated reunion. This, more than any of the television coverage, newspaper reports, or memorial ceremonies, brought home to me the full impact of this tragedy on the individual and collective spirit.

I decided, even before leaving the cathedral, that I needed to start over—that this work should somehow memorialize these firefighters. Hence the tones of the piano honor their voices and create a sound world, while the computer does what computers do best – hold these voices in memory, and bring these memories back, changed – as memories always are – by time and by new experiences and associations. The piece itself is an example of this process of change: once the voices have been stated, there is a significant change of mood, and the sound world of the piece changes its context completely. Yet memory persists and, in the end, brings us inevitably back to these now-silent yet very audible voices. In fact, our memories argue convincingly that nothing that we love ever really leaves us.

Words and music are inextricably linked for Ned Rorem. Time Magazine has called him “the world’s best composer of art songs,” yet his musical and literary ventures extend far beyond this specialized field. Rorem has composed three symphonies, four piano concertos and an array of other orchestral works, music for numerous combinations of chamber forces, nine operas, choral works of every description, ballets and other music for the theater, and literally hundreds of songs and cycles. He is the author of fourteen books, including five volumes of diaries and collections of lectures and criticism.

Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana on October 23, 1923. As a child he moved to Chicago with his family; by the age of ten his piano teacher had introduced him to Debussy and Ravel, an experience which “changed my life forever,” according to the composer. At seventeen he entered the Music School of Northwestern University, two years later receiving a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia; he also studied composition under Bernard Wagenaar at Juilliard. (In New York he worked as Virgil Thomson’s copyist in return for $20 a week and orchestration lessons.) In 1949 Rorem moved to France, and lived there until 1958, before returning to New York.

Ned Rorem has been the recipient many awards and honors, among them a Fulbright Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for several of his books, and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize in music. In January 2000 he was elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Rorem is still an active composer and writer at the age of 77. He currently lives in New York City and Nantucket.

Aftermath was commissioned by the Ravina Festival in Highland Park, Illinois. The composer writes about Aftermath:

In the wake of the September 11^th shock, I asked what a thousand other composers must have asked: what is the point of music now? But it soon grew clear that music was the only point. Indeed, the future will judge us, as it always judges the past, by our art more than by our armies – by construction more than destruction. The art, no matter its theme or language, by definition reflects the time: a waltz in a moment of tragedy, or a dirge during prosperity, may come into focus only a century later.

My need though, as I pondered this instantly and forever changed world – with the Twin Towers in ruins and the Middle East in sorrow – was to reflect the immediate through the choice of texts to be used for this project for Ravinia. A week earlier I might have opted for a whole different slant.

As a Quaker, I was raised to believe that there is no alternative to peace. Perhaps it’s wrong, perhaps right, but I am not ashamed of this belief. As with war, so with love. Seven decades of observation has shown that love has as many definitions as there are definers. Having lost a great love three years ago, my mood at the close of my life is one of quizzical melancholy. As to whether that mood seems reflected in these songs is not for me to say here in words. Music speaks for itself.

Timothy Kramer’s works have been performed by Indianapolis, Detroit, Tacoma, and San Antonio Symphony Orchestras, the Winters Chamber Orchestra, North/South Consonance, the SOLI Ensemble, the ONIX Ensemble (Mexico), and the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings. He has received grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the MacDowell Colony, Meet the Composer, BMI, ASCAP, the American Guild of Organists, and the American Music Center among others. He is currently Associate Professor and Composer-in-Residence at Trinity University in San Antonio. His works are published by Southern, Earnestly Music, Hinshaw, and Selah and recorded on Calcante, North/South, and MMC

The composer writes about Meditation (Noël Nouvelet):

This work is the first work of mine written after the tragedy of September 11, and it is as much a mediation on how our world has changed as it is a personal reawakening for my work as a composer. The hymn tune Noël Nouvelet is associated with rebirth, renewal, and growth, and in that light, this piece begins in a dark environment and moves toward that melody. The melodic arabesques in the center of the work are integrated with elements of the old French carol and eventually the hymn tune emerges in the pedal. At the end, the ascent continues on and hovers in quiet stasis. The text (often sung with this melody) echoes in my memory “…now the green blade rises…”