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Memphis Symphony New Music Readings

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The National Orchestral Composition Discovery Network
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c/o American Composers Orchestra 24q W. 35 St., Suite 405 New York, NY 10001

212-977-8495 fax: 212-977-8995

www. americancom posrs.org

David Loebel, Conductor Michael Gandolfi & Melinda Wagner, Mentor Composers

Wednesday & Thursday, May 21 &22,2009 Clark Opera Memphis Center 6745 Wolf River Parkway Memphis, TN

illlemohis Svmphonv New tr\rlusicRe'adin$s

Board and Administration

Executive Comrnittee
Dan Poag, Chairman Ryan Fleur, President and CEO Gerald Wade, Secretary Paul Rogers, Treaswer

Administration
Ryan Fleur, President & CEO
Rhonda Causie, Grants Manager Jenny Compton, Head Librarian and
Education Manager

20,2009 7:30 -'10:00P\lll; Session I

Wednesday,
M ay

Frank Wilson, atLarge

Sandra Burke, atLarge

Amy Clithero Gill, Director of Artistic

Operations

& Community

Engagement

Scott Moore, Orchestra Representative

CHRISTIAN

BALDINI

elapstng twilighf shades

Members of the tsoard Michael Barar

Paul Bert

Shelby Hue Terry, VP of Development Lisa Dixon, Chief Operating Officer I(eva Duckett, Marketing Manager Anthony Plummer, PR Director Shelby Johnson, Stage Manager

Dr. I(aren Bowyer PATRICIO DA

Diane LaCroix, Business Manager Assistant

SILVA

Three Pteces for Orchestra

Sandra Burke

Cecil Godman Steve Guinn Larry Hardy Scott Heppel Mary Ann Hodges
Randy Holt Buzzy Hussey

Anita Redden, Chief Financial Officer Marti Laslavic, Dirqctor of Development Nicole Ward, Marketing Assistant
Doug Mayes, Orchestra Personnel Manager
James Richens, Resident Composer

Thursday, May 21,2009 'l:30 - A:AhPfrll.; Session ll

Don Hutson
Florence Leffier

JEAN

AHN

Sa/f

Gordin McMurfry Mabel McNeill Bob Mednikow Dr. Lisa Mendel David Miller Gloria Nobles
Randy Patton Dan Poag, Chairman

ANDREIA PINTO-CORREIA Acanto

Robert Quirut
Paul Rogers Jeff Sanford

Allison Smith
Bridget Trenary Michael Uiberall
Chantal Veevaete Wade Watson Alonzo Weaver

EarShot is made possrb/e with the support of the Andrew W, A/lellon Foundation and the Aaron Copland Fund for lrlusic.

Jeff Weintraub Ruby Wharton Steve White

Orchestra Roster
Violin
I

Composer Participants
Jean Ahn: Salt
Clarinet
James Gholson Rena Feller Nobuko lgarashi

Susanna Perry Gilmore Paul Turnbow Marisa Polesky Barrie Cooper Wen-Yih You Jessica Munson

Bassoon
Jennifer Rhodes Michael Scott

Violin ll
Christine Palmer Gaylon Patterson Neal Shaffer Heather Trussell Lenore Mclntyre

French Horn
Samuel Cornpton lon Balu Caroline Kinsey Dan Vidican

Born in l(orea in 197 6, Jean Ahn began studying piano and composition at avery early age. She finished her B.A. and M.M. at Seoul National University under professor Baek Byoung Dong and received a Ph.D. in-2008 from UC Berkel.y, where her teachers included Edmund Campion, Cindy Cox, David Wessel, Jorge Liederman, and Richard Felciano. Her creative output includes works ranging from solo instruments to full orchesff&, as well as choral, dance, and electroacoustic music. She is currently a Lecturer atUC Berkeley and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two young children.
Salt was premiered by the UC Berkeley's University Symphory, under the baton of David Milnes in May 2008. The composer says of the piece, "Salt began its life in 2005, when I found myself driven by a chord of six notes.... In short, I experimented with all the possibilities opened up by this one chord. The idea of transfonning a single chord without losing its ftrndamentals, combined with the sparkling image of the ofiraments, reminded me of the properties of salt. Thus was born the title of the composition. Just as salt preserves its taste no matter what it is mixed with, the essence of the original chord of the piece is not lost throughout the entire work. In order to enhance the metaphor, the electronics used in the piece-built on the resonance model of the main chord with spectral transformation-employ the actual sound of dropping, spreading and touching salt. Finally, the title Salt also reflects my Christian faith and my musing on the words 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' Thus the piece has the touch, taste and also the meaning of salt."

Viola
Jennifer Puckett Marshall Fine lrene Wade Karen Casey

Trumpet
Scott Moore Susan Enger

Trombone
Greg Luscombe
Mark Vail

Cello
Ruth Valente Burgess lren Zombor Milena Albrecht

Tuba
Charles Schulz

Bass
Scott Best Chris Butler

Timpani
Frank Shaffer

Flute
Karen Busler Todd Skitch Jenny Compton

Percussion MichaelKarcz
James Baird

Piano
Adrienne Park

Oboe
Joseph Salvalaggio Saundra D'Amato

Librarian
Jenny Compton

Personnel Manager
Douglas Mayes

Christian Baldini: elapsing twilight shades Christian Baldini, born in 1 g78,is currently the Music Director and Conductor of the Symphony Orchesta at the State Universtty of New York at Buffalo. He regularly guest conducts in South America, England (Aldeburgh Festival) and the USA. Most recently he was invited by Leonard Slatkin to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC). This summer he will be conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra working with Marlyn Brabbins and will be a featured composer and conductor in Edenkoben (Germany). In the Fall 2009, Christian will begin his appointment as the director of orchestras at the University of California at Davis.

As Baldini describes his work, "elapsing twilight shades reflects my particular interest in creating sonic structures that behave in a quasi cubist fashion. In fact, listening to the piece is a bit like looking at an abstract painting. One idea is presented from several different perspectives. The 'space' around the idea is manipulated, folded, and viewed as if through a kaleidoscopo, repeated by many different lenses. This is the starting point for a work that gradually becomes inflected by a few humorous moments and a delight in symphonic tradition. There are two main critical arrivals in the piece, where the previous music is expanded into a more rhapsodic and quite different dimension. For me these moments represent a special ideal of collective beauff, achieved only through hope and freedom."

Prior to joining the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, David Loebel served as Assistant and then Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. A native of Cleveland, he is a graduate of Northwestern Universrff, which in 2000 honored him with an Alumni Merit Award.

Memphis Symphony Orchestra

The Memphis Symphony Orchestra was organized in 1952 and is well established as the Mid South's largest performing arts organization The MSO presents a 39-week season of Masterworks, Pops, and Chamber subscription concerts. Historic collaborations with other arts agencies and organizations allow the MSO to serve diverse regional audiences. Having received numerous ASCAP awards for advenfurous programming, MSO's mission is to create meaningful experiences through music, and its vision is to artistically engage. MSO artists are vital members of the Memphis community, providittg rich musical experiences for all ages.

Patricio da Silva: Three Pieces.for Orchestra

Patricio da Silva (b. 1973) received formal musicaltraining at the Escola Superior de Mirsica de Lisboa, where he studied piano with Jorge Moyano and composition with Ant6nio Pinho Vargas (8.M. in piano, 1995). He flren pursued his composition studies in the US, first as a recipient of the Betfy Freeman Foundation Scholarship in Composition with Morton Subotnick, Stephen L. Mosko, ffid Mel Powell Xthe California Institute of the Arts G/mA, L999), and lrtet, with support from the Fundageo Luso-Americanapara o Desenvolvimento (Portugal), he completed the Ph.D. program in composition at the Universlty of California (2003), having studied composition with William Kraft, computer music with Curtis Roads, and algorithmic composition and music with Artificial Intelligence with David Cope.
Further studies include work with Michael Gandolfi, John Harbisotr, Sydney Hodkinson, Augusta Read Thomas, Bernard Rands, Helmut Lachenman, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His post-doctoral work as invited researcher at IRCAM in France was followed in the UK by a research grant for computer music by the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technolory. Awards include the Intemational Barto Prize, the Gould Family Foundation Composers Award, the Ojai Festival Music for Tomorrow, the Otto Eckstein Family Fellowship, the Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His music has been recently heard at Tanglewood, Ojai Music Festival, Aspen, Ruhr Festival, Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, Historische Stadthalle Wupp ertal, Bayer Erholungshaus, London Festival of American Music,

About EarShot
The Memphis Symphony New Music Readings are apart of EarShot, the newly formed National Orchestral Composition Discovery Network that initiates partnerships with orchestras around the country; provides consulting, productior, and administrative support for orchestras to undertake readings, residencies, performances, and composerdevelopment programs; identifies promising orchestral composers, increasing awareness and access to their music; supports orchestras' commitment to today' s composers and enhances national visibilrty for their new music programs. EarShot is coordinated by American Composers Orchestra in collaboration with American Composers F'orum, American Music Center, the League of American Orchestras, and Meet The Composer. It brings together the artistic, administrative, marketing, and production resources and experience of the nation's leadirg organizations devoted to the support of new American orchestral music.

Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also conducted the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New Jersey, and Syracuse, the North Carolina Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the I(ansas City Symphory, the Louisville Orchestra, Symphony Silicon Valley, the Loui s iana Philharmonic Orche stra and the Calgary Philharmonic, among many others.

Piano Spheres, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Zipper Hall, Cistermrisica, International Music Festival P6voa do Varzim, Yamaha's YASI, SCRIME, and Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey. A new CD, Hyper-Counterpointt, is scheduled for release in May of 2009.

Andreia Pinto-Correia: Acanto

Born in Lisbor, Portugal, Andreia Pinto-Correia is currently pursuing a composition doctoral degree at the New England Conservatoly, studying with Michael Gandolfi, after having received her Master's degree there as student of Bob Brookmeyer. She started her musical studies in Lisbon at the Academia de Amadores de Mrisica. Originally a performer, she dedicated herself to composition in 2002, after being unable to perform due to an accident. Acanto is an architectonic ornamentation inspired by the leaves of a plant native to Mediterranean humid climates (acanthus mollis). In Portuguese or Spanish language it may also be written as a canto meaning as in 'to sing'. The idea for this piece derives from the manipulation of a simple melodic cell, an ornament that travels through the work appearing in different instruments or combination of
instruments, registers, and pitch/rhyhmic mutations. Thus, the three movements represent varied texfuralrcalizations of the same ornament. Sometimes I use particular features of a movement across movement boundaries, resulting in an organic use of the concept of memory and anticipation. The third and last movement, Adagio molto, is modeled after the third movement of Three Places in New England by Charles Ives. Here, the Ltse of ornamentation is expanded to form a simple lullaby played by the vibraphone while the rest of the orchestra plays transformations, mainly texfural, of my original cell.

Internationally, Maestro Loebel made his debut in Japan with the Tolqyo Philharmonic Orchestra and toured Australia to great acclaim, leading the Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland, Western Australian, and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras. He has led family and educational concerts at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Operatic engagements include productions at Op eraTheatre of Saint Louis and Opera Memphis and he has appeared at summer festivals including the Grant Park Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and Woodstock Mozart Festival David Loebel is a recipient of the prestigions SeaverA.[ational Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award. An equally articulate communicator off the podium, he is a popular speaker and hosts The Memphis Symphony Radio Hour on public radio station WKNO-FM. His writings on music have been widely published, including program notes for Telarc recordings. With the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus he recorded the critically acclaimed CD Independence Eve
at Grant Park.

Active in the training of young musicians, Maestro Loebel has been Conductor-in-Residence of the New World Symphony and Music Director of the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra. He has also conducted the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the National Repertory Orchestra, and at conservatories including The Juilliard School, I.[ew England Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Indiana University. As a mentor to conductors, he has served on the faculties of the League of American Orchestras' Conducting Workshop, the I(ennedy Center's National Conducting Institute, and the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music.

Mentor Composers
Michael Gandolfi
Michael Gandolfi was bom into a musical environment in which his two older sisters, both accomplished pianists, were actively performing traditional classical repertoire. Concurrent with this exposure was a keen interest in the worlds of rock and jazz music. He quickly developed improvisational skills, beginning at age eight as a self-taught

guitarist, and became increasingly interested in music composition, taking formal study in his early teens. His early compositions earned awards from ASCAP and from the American Society of University Composers and fellowships for sflidy at the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, the Composers Conference, and the Tanglewood Music Center. He received his formal education at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Gandolfi recently completed a Meet The Composer Music Alive residency with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, during which the ASO premiered his new work The Garden of Cosmic Speculation. Following the premiere performance, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation was recorded and released on the Telarc label. A new recording of other orchestral and large ensemble works, Y2K Compliant, was also released in early 2008 by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.
Other ensembles who have performed his music include the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Gandolfi has taught at Harvard Universlf, Phillips Andover Academy, the New England Conservatory of Music (where he seryes as chairman of the composition department), Indiana University and is presently on faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center. The breadth of Gandolfi's musical interests encompasses not only contemporary concert music, but also jarz, blues, and rock, by which route he first became a musician. his music has been recorded on the Telarc, BMOP Sound, Detrtsche Grammophon, CR[, Innova, and

Wagner is the recipient of numerous honors, including an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Howard Foundation (Brown Universlty), three ASCAP Young Composer Awards, and commissions from the Barlow Foundation, the Charnber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Fromm Foundation (Harvard University), the I(ouss evrtzT<y Foundation, the Ernst and Young Emerging Composers Fund, the American Brass Quintet, and guitarist David Starobin.. In 1999, Ms. Wagner was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion. Her compositions are published by Theodore Presser. Wagner has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Syracuse Universlff, and Hunter College. She has lectured at many schools including Yale, Cornell, Juilliard, and Mannes College, and has served as Composer-in-Residence at the University of Texas (Austin) and at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.

Conductor
David Loebel
Noted for performances that combine innate musicality with interpretive insight, David Loebel celebrates his tenth anniversary as Music Director and Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra this season. Prior to his appointment in Memphis, he enjoyed a decadelong association with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, serving as Associate and then Associate Principal Conductor, as well as Artistic Director of its summer festival, Classics in the Loop. During Maestro Loebel's tenure the Memphis Symphony Orchestra has entered aperiod of notable artistic and organizational growth. He has broadened its repertoire, introducing over 150 works new to the orchestra and its audience. Under his leadership, the MSO has been honored four times by ASCAP and the League of American Orchestras for its advenfuresome programming of contemporary rnusic. He led the orchestra into its new home, the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, and helped spearhead its innovative community engagement initiatives. As a guest conductor, David Loebel has appeared with the Philadelphia

Klavier labels.

Melinda V/agner
Melinda Wagner received her graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Universlty of Pennsylvania, where she studied with Richard Wernick, George Crumb, Shulamit Ran, ffid Iay Reise. Her music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Society of New Music, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the I(ansas City Symphony, the Staatskapelle Berlin, and other leading organizations.