Rawlins Piano Trio presents North American premiere of Diversions by Huang Ruo during Fall 2011!
Recently awarded First Prize by the prestigious Luxembourg International Composition Prize, Huang Ruo has been cited by the New Yorker as “one of the most intriguing of the new crop of Asian-American composers.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese folk, Western avant-garde, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “dimensionalism.” For more information, please visit: www.huangruo.com
Divergence, Concerto No.3 for Three Players, is the third piece for my first concerto cycle. The other three works are: Yueh Fei, Concerto No.1 for Eight Players, The Lost Garden, Concerto No.2 for Eight Players, and Confluence, Concerto No.4 for Fifteen Players. “Concerto,” in old Italian, means “to bring together” and was used to describe works in which individual lines, either instrumental or vocal, were assembled into a harmonious whole. The whole concerto cycle not only focuses on different individual instruments, but also on the ensemble as a dramatic whole and various combinations among them.
In English, “divergence” means departing away into many directions. The important thought is where the streams are going after they have diverged. Therefore, music doesn’t just simply ends on the last note, but travels in a journey which I will spend my whole life to compose.
Divergence has two main sections, but is played without pause. At the end of the piece, an ancient Chinese poem lyric is read by the musicians. The title of the poem is Sheng Sheng Man (Sounds Ever Slow), written by Li Qing-Zhao, a female poet lived in Song Dynasty (ca. 1081-1141).
Huang Ruo
Divergence was originally composed for five players. Huang Ruo transcribed it for piano trio and we are playing the North American premiere of the Trio version. Audiences are fascinated by the combination of influences in the piece and are enjoying it very much! Thank you, Huang Ruo!
Rawlins Piano Trio selected for prestigious New York showcase!
We performed on the Chamber Music America artist showcse on Friday, January 14, 2011 at the Westin Times Square.
Rawlins Piano Trio presents commissions by Emma Lou Diemer and Ruby Fulton!
We presented two more works in our series of commissioned compositions in a concert entitled “The Composer Speaks…Music as a Political Statement.” This concert featured three works in which the composers were inspired by modern world events. Emma Lou Diemer’s Piano Trio, No. 2, written in 2008-09, expresses optimism and hope surrounding the 2008 United States presidential election. Money Eyes by Ruby Fulton outlines the financial breakdown, in terms of vision and how the human eye works: Nearsighted, Farsighted and Eyes Closed. The concert was concluded with the Shostakovich great E minor trio, Op. 67 which cries out in mourning over the death of his dear friend and writer, Ivan Sollertinsky and for the fate of prisoners in Jewish death camps. The concert was held on Thursday, December 9 at 8:00 p.m. in Colton Recital Hall in the Warren M. Lee Center for the Fine Arts on the University of South Dakota campus.
Emma Lou Diemer studied composition at the Yale Music School and at the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D., 1960) and in Brussels, Belgium on a Fulbright Scholarship. Early in her career, she was composer-in-residence in the Arlington, VA schools under the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project and was consultant for the MENC Contemporary Music Project. She has taught on the faculties of the University of Maryland and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1991 she became Professor Emeritus at UCSB. She continues to be an active keyboard performer (piano, organ, harpsichord, synthesizer) and composer. She has fulfilled many commissions (orchestral, chamber ensemble, keyboard, choral, vocal) from schools, churches, and professional organizations. Most of her works are published. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards, the American Guild of Organists, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers/ASCAP (annually since 1962 for performances and publications), and many others.
Baltimore-based composer Ruby Fulton (b. 1981) grew up in Northwest Iowa. She holds degrees from Peabody, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Boston University. She plays violin, viola and accordion in the Baltimore bands Spoke Ensemble and Ike Shark, Incorporated. Along with composer George Lam, she is co-director of Rhymes With Opera, a company dedicated to bringing new opera to unconventional spaces. Her music has been played recently by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, orkest de ereprijs, Volti, REDSHIFT, the quux duo, and musicians from the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA and the A*Devantgarde Festival in Munich.
Rawlins Piano Trio presents commission by Timothy Hoekman!
The Trio presented the fourth in its series of commissioned compositions in its opening concert of the 2010-2011 season. Three Poems by William Butler Yeats by Florida State University pianist and composer Timothy Hoekman received its world premiere performance on Friday, September 24th in Farber Hall in the Old Main Building on the University of South Dakota campus. Soprano Carla Connors joined us for this work. A special preview performance of the work with comments by the composer took place on Thursday, September 23 for the University of South Dakota music students.
In January 2003 the Music Teachers National Association selected Timothy Hoekman as the 2002 MTNA-Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year. This honor came as the result of winning their annual composition competition. Hoekman’s winning composition, the song cycle To Make a Prairie with texts by Emily Dickinson, was commissioned by the South Dakota Music Teachers Association and is now published by the Theodore Presser Company. He has written extensively for singers. He was chosen as Composer-in-Residence for the 2004 Coastal Carolina Chamber Music Festival, for which he wrote North Carolina Songs for voice, violin, viola, cello, and harp. Other commissions have included the one-act opera Princess Gray Goose, premiered in 1996; Then Swims Up the Great Round Moon (a song cycle for vocal quartet and piano with texts by Walter de la Mare); Harlem Night Songs for SATB chorus and piano with texts by Langston Hughes; and fanfares for Glimmerglass Opera Company’s 2002 and 2008 seasons. Hoekman is Professor of Vocal Coaching and Accompanying at The Florida State University. He has performed as collaborative pianist throughout the U.S., as well as in Canada, Australia, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. He spends his summers in Cooperstown, New York, where he serves as a pianist, harpsichordist and coach for Glimmerglass Opera.
Excerpts from the program notes for Three Yeats Poems:
I. The Wild Swans at Coole is a contrapuntal movement in sonata-allegro form. It is filled with hectic activity, inspired by imagining 59 pairs of large wings flapping. The tempo slows as the voice enters, describing a beautiful twilit scene of autumn leaves, quiet water reflecting the sky, and 59 swans. In the second theme group, the poet’s heart is heavy with the realization of how much has changed in the 19 years since that first swan sighting. The recapitulation finishes the poem, musing about where the swans might go if they should desert this spot some day. The movement ends with a short coda that includes a motive that foreshadows the first vocal melody of the second movement.
Coole Park, in County Galway, was the estate of Lady August Gregory, a writer who helped Yeats and others to found the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre. These were important venues for the Irish Literary Revival, and her home at Coole Park served as a meeting place for leading Revival figures.
II. The Lake Isle of Innisfree: Inis Fraoigh, meaning “Island of Heather,” is a small island off the northwest coast of Ireland. Rather than translating the title of the island from Irish into English, Yeats used a transliteration—Innisfree—thereby adding a layer of metaphoric significance, describing a place where he could be free from the troubles of this modern world with its roadways and grey pavements. This movement is in A-B-A’-Coda form and makes use of two keys: E major and C major. All four performers weave their melodic materials together in constantly shifting textures.
III. The Cat and the Moon: this final movement is a rondo: A-B-A-C-A-B-A. The A section is an Irish jig in A major and G major; the singer tells about the cat running, dancing, and creeping through the grass. The B section, in G minor, is mysterious, and includes harmonics in the string parts. Here we learn that the moon troubles the cat’s blood and that the two are somehow related. The C section is a old-fashioned minuet in D major for the text: “Maybe the moon may learn,/Tired of that courtly fashion,/A new dance turn.” The cat’s name, Minnaloushe, comes from a cat which belonged to a friend of Yeats.
Rawlins Piano Trio presents commission by James Lentini!
During the winter of 2010, the Trio is performing the world premiere of James Lentini's Opposites Attract. The first performance is at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion on January 28th. Additional scheduled performances are in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Orange City, Iowa and in Ohio at Miami University, Cedarville University and Ohio Northern. Please see our calendar page for dates and times.
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James Lentini and The Rawlins Piano Trio |
Award-winning composer and guitarist James Lentini is a recipient of the Segovia International Composition Prize, the McHugh Composition Prize, and the Bluffton University Choral Competition (first prize), in addition to awards from Meet the Composer and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). A new CD of his works entitled Orchestra Hall Suite has recently been released on the Naxos American Classics Series, and his music also appears on the Capstone, MMC, and CRS recording labels. His composition entitled The Four Seasons for classical guitar was recently published by Mel Bay in their Contemporary Anthology of Solo Guitar Music for Five Fingers of the Right Hand. Lentini’s works have been performed by distinguished solo artists such as guitarist William Kanengiser and recorded by ensembles that include the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra, and the St. Clair Trio. Members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra have regularly performed his works, and commissions include those for the Hanson Institute for American Music and the Plymouth Symphony. He has participated as a juror in the Segovia International Guitar Competition in La Herradura, Spain, and he has been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. In 2007, Dr. Lentini accepted an appointment as Dean and Professor of Music of the School of Fine Arts at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Dr. Lentini describes his work:
In Opposites Attract, contrasting forces serve as the framework for the musical ideas and style of the composition. In the first movement, entitled Alpha Meets Omega, musical lines moving in opposite directions (contrary motion) open the piece in the right and left hands of the piano, beginning at a relatively close interval and then expanding. This is followed by the violin and cello playing pizzicato motives, again in contrary motion, beginning with a wide interval and then contracting. Musical motives and lines that move in opposite directions, while eventually coming together (attracting), become identifiable structural elements in the work. Another important opposite at play in the piece is the juxtaposition of dissonance and consonance that form harmonic and melodic structures. The first five bars, for example, present pitch material based on three or four-note pitch cells, with the interval of a major and minor second appearing frequently. In bar six, rhythmic and motivic ideas remain similar to the opening, but now the pitch center is more identifiable with the harmonic language increasingly diatonic. The contrasting ideas from the beginning of the work reappear in varied presentations throughout the movement, while lyrical melodic passages and interplay between the violin, cello, and piano elicit an overall expressive and reflective musical landscape.
The second movement, entitled Dance of the Yin-Yang, employs many of the elements of "opposing" and "attracting" musical ideas that appear in the first movement, but within a more forceful aggressive, and playful structure. There is a rhythmic sense of forward motion that permeates the movement, with lines bouncing in contrary motion that are often interrupted by sharp accented chords from the piano. A center section of the piece offers a more lyrical excursion to contrast the fast-moving opening, eventually leading to a syncopated dance-like motive that appears in various rhythmic formations, often alternating with a musical idea similar to the opening of the piece.
Opposites Attract displays my varied musical influences and interests, including a fascination with both tonal and non-tonal music, lyrical melodies, rhythmic vitality, and blended characteristics of classical, jazz, and other idioms. In my mind, many different styles of well-crafted music share a core quality when performed with commensurate musicality, passion, and care.
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