Harlem Quartet - Program and Notes
The Harlem Quartet
Saturday, January 29, 2011
8:00 PM
Bethel United Methodist Church Hall
PROGRAM
La Oración del Torero Joaquín Turina
(The Bullfighter’s Prayer) (1882-1949)
String Quartet no. 1 in B Minor, op. 50 Sergei Prokofiev
Allegro (1891-1953)
Andante molto – Vivace
Andante
Adventures of Hippocrates Chick Corea
Part 1 (b. 1941)
Part 5
Mi Menor Conga Guido López-Gavilán
(b. 1947)
INTERMISSION
String Quartet no. 7 in F-sharp Minor, op. 108 Dmitri Shostakovich
Allegretto – Lento – Allegro (1906-1975)
String Quartet no. 1 At the Octoroon Balls Wynton Marsalis
VII. Rampart Street Row House Rag (b. 1961)
II. Mating Calls & Delta Rhythms
V. Hellbound Highball
Take the “A” Train Billy Strayhorn
(1915-1967)
The Harlem Quartet appears by arrangement with
Sciolino Artist Management
230 Central Park West, 14-J
New York, NY 10024
This engagement of The Harlem Quartet is a Delaware Performing Arts Presenters Initiative project, made possible through funding by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Delaware Division of Arts.
The Artists
THE HARLEM QUARTET
Ilmar Gavilán ,violin |
The Harlem Quartet, comprised of First-Place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino string players, has a unique and challenging mission: to advance diversity in classical music while engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire, and highlighting works by minority composers.
Dedicated to education and outreach as well as to superb classical performance, this innovative string quartet serves as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at Walnut Hill School in Massachusetts, one of the world’s premier independent arts preparatory schools; and as visiting faculty at the Sphinx Preparatory Music Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit.
The Harlem Quartet made its acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut in 2006 at the Sphinx Organization’s tenth anniversary gala, earning rave reviews from the New York Times. A month later the quartet debuted at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem with a well-received performance of At the Octoroon Balls by Wynton Marsalis. The ensemble returned to Carnegie Hall in January 2007 as participants in Arts Presenters’ prestigious and highly competitive Young Performers Career Advancement program.
In addition to being avid chamber musicians, each member of The Harlem Quartet is a seasoned solo artist, having appeared with the New York Philharmonic; the Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore symphonies; the Boston Pops; and La Orquesta Sinaloa de las Artes in Mexico, among others.
As a quartet they have performed in cities across the country, including Detroit, New York, Atlanta, and Boston. In addition, they have appeared on WNBC, CNN, the Today Show, and at the White House and the US Ambassador’s residence in London. In 2009 the quartet performed by invitation with Itzhak Perlman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Harlem Quartet’s first CD, Take the “A” Train, was released in 2007 on the White Pine label. The quartet’s musicians have been featured individually on other recordings as well.
Ilmar Gavilán, violin, is a native of Havana, Cuba, where his studies began at the Havana Conservatory of Music. At age fourteen he was selected for advanced training at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Later studies took him to the Reina Sofía School of Music in Spain, and New York’s Manhattan School of Music.
Mr. Gavilán’s mentors have included Glenn Dicterow, Zachar Bron, Maia Glizarova, and Abraham Stern. He has also had private lessons with Yehudi Menuhin, Ruggiero Ricci, and Isaac Stern. Currently he is a Doctor in Music candidate at Rutgers University, mentored by Arnold Steinhardt.
Mr. Gavilán has featured as solo performer with, among others, the Detroit, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Denver, Phoenix, and St. Louis symphonies. He has also made solo appearances in Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Spain, Portugal, and Moscow.
Mr. Gavilán won First Prize at the Sphinx Competition, top honors at the Lipinsky-Wieniaswsky International Violin Competition in Poland, and the International Henryk Szeryng Violin Competition in Mexico. His US recording debut, Aires y Leyendas, was released in 2002, and his upcoming recording titled Gavilán Plays Gavilán is comprised of music composed by his father, Guido López-Gavilán.
Ilmar Gavilán is currently concertmaster of the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, performs as a regular substitute musician for the New Jersey Symphony, is first violinist with The Harlem Quartet, and teaches violin at the Juilliard School, Music Advancement Program, Pre-College Division.
Melissa White, violin, is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied under the direction of Ida Kavafian. The First-Place Junior Division Laureate of the Fourth Annual Sphinx Competition, she has appeared as a soloist with many of the nation’s leading orchestras, including the Cleveland, Atlanta, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Colorado, New Jersey, Cincinnati, and San Antonio symphonies, and the Boston Pops.
Her 2006-07 season began with an appearance with the Chicago Sinfonietta, and a return to Carnegie Hall as a guest soloist at the Annual Sphinx Gala Concert. Ms. White recently made a solo appearance with the New York Symphonic Ensemble at the legendary Apollo Theater, and was named the 2006 Harmony Scholar by the Panasonic Corporation.
In addition to frequent solo appearances, Ms. White is an active chamber musician. She is a member of the Ritz Chamber Players in Jacksonville, Florida; Jupiter Symphony Chamber Musicians in New York; and The Harlem Quartet. As a member of the Ritz Chamber Players, she performed live at the 2006 NAACP Image Awards, televised nationally. In 2004 and 2005 she was a featured performer at the Hilton Head International Young Musician’s Festival, a chamber music series hosted by noted pianist and NPR host Chris O’Riley.
Ms. White began her recording career at the age of fourteen with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, under internationally acclaimed conductor Paul Freeman. Her recording of An American Concerto by Gwyneth Walker is available worldwide on Albany Records.
Along with her concert activity, Ms. White serves in the summer as a member of senior faculty of the Sphinx Performance Academy on the campus of Walnut Hill School. An important part of her career is sharing her music with young audiences and inner-city students. She conducts local outreach activities when performing with major symphonies, and works extensively with the Reading, PA, public school system and the Reading Youth Symphony.
Juan-Miguel Hernández, viola, was born in Canada in 1985. He began studying violin at the age of seven and changed to viola at the age of twelve. He has studied at the Pierre Laporte music school and the College Vincent d’Indy in Montreal with Madeleine Mercy and Jean MacRae. Currently continuing his studies with M. Paul Coletti at the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, he has been invited to play in masterclasses for Pinchas Zukerman, Roberto Díaz, Paul Neubauer, Steven Dann, James Dunham, André Roy, Elmar Oliveira, and Sydney Humphreys.
The Gold Achievement Award winner of the Ninth Annual Sphinx Competition presented by JPMorgan Chase in 2006, Mr. Hernández was also a first and second prize winner in the National Canadian Music Competitions, as well as a winner in the Sillery and Clermont Pepin Music Competitions in Seattle.
As a Sphinx artist, Mr. Hernández gave stellar performances with the Atlanta and Colorado symphonies and the Rochester Philharmonic, among others. His performance was characterized by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as “… tender, lyrical, loaded with personality.”
Among numerous solo recitals and as a soloist with orchestras, Mr. Hernández was invited to play in two gala concerts at the Pollack Hall in Montreal. He was also selected as a showcased artist in the I Palpiti Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Eduard Schmieder.
In 2004 Mr. Hernández gave his first recital for national broadcast by Radio-Canada, and appeared on local Canadian television programs featuring the viola. During the summers, Mr. Hernández serves as a member of senior faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at Walnut Hill School.
Mr. Hernández has participated in prestigious summer festivals such as the Banff Music Festival in Alberta, Canada, and Le Domaine Forget in Quebec. In the United States he has participated in the Colorado Springs Music Festival and the International Laureates Music Festival in California.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Hernández studied with Lorand Fenyves and Laurence Lesser, and is a member of the trio Lamoureux-Hernández-Pelletier. In the summer of 2005, he toured again with the prestigious I Palpiti under the direction of Eduard Schmieder in Slovenia, Salzburg, New Mexico, and Los Angeles; and in Israel in February of 2006.
Paul Wiancko, Cello
Acclaimed cellist Paul Wiancko made his solo debut at age 16 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. He has since performed on stages in South America, Asia, Europe, and across the United State. In 2007, Paul made his European and South American solo debuts, performing the Lutoslawski Cello Concerto with the Polish Radio Symphony in Warsaw and the Shostakovich Cello Concerto with the Bahia Symphony Orchestra in Brazil. Many of his chamber, solo, and orchestral performances have been broadcast on American, Polish, and online radio stations.
Paul is not recognized as a classical cellist - he has also garnered respect as a collaborator, composter and producer. He is a committed advocate for new music and finds great joy in collaborating with composers and performing new works. Capable of weaving his cellistry into any genre, Paul has produced and recorded a wide array of projects, form indie rock and electronic tracks to his own "Hip-Hop Cello Concerto No. 1," the New York premiere of which was hailed as "surprising, fun, fresh, and innovative"(Sequenza21). In 2006 Paul founded a recording studio devoted to the production of live strings in non-classical music. He has since collaborated with producers from around the country and written and recorded strings for various albums, films and commercials.
Program Notes
□ TURINA
La Oración del Torero
Joaquín Turina, whose father was a painter, was brought up in Seville and that city’s music always had a big influence on his compositions. He began his musical “studies” at the age of four, improvising on an accordion that was a gift from a family servant. He made his formal concert debut on piano at the age of fifteen. Although he started out to study medicine, he always wanted to be a musician. He had piano lessons with Enrique Rodríguez and studied harmony with García Torres, who was in charge of music at the cathedral in Seville.
Soon Turina started to compose. He met Manuel de Falla, with whom he became lifelong friends. He lived in Paris from 1905 to 1914, where he studied piano with Moritz Moszkowski, and took composition lessons from Vincent d'Indy at his Schola Cantorum. While in Paris, Turina got to know the impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.
One of Turina’s first works to be performed publicly was a piano quintet. The style was similar to that of César Franck. Albéniz heard it and advised the young composer to make his music sound more Spanish.
In 1914 Turina returned to live in Spain. He was choirmaster at the Teatro Real in Madrid, and had his opera Jardin de Oriente (1923) performed there. He worked as a pianist, composer, and journalist, and in 1917 published his Enciclopedia abreviada de la música (Short Encyclopedia of Music). In 1931 he became Director of the Madrid Royal Conservatory, where he received many honors. Among his notable pupils were composers Vicente Asencio and Celedonio Romero.
La Oración del Torero means The Bullfighter's Prayer. Knowing that his honor and even his life are at stake, the bullfighter’s passion wells up from deep within. The influence of Debussy can be heard, especially in the use of lush descending parallel ninth chords; echoes of the music of Andalusian gypsies are also quite evident. This brief tone poem was written first for lute quartet, then for string quartet, followed by string orchestra, and became one of Turina’s most popular works.
Turina’s other compositions include the opera Margot (1914), the Danzas fantásticas (1920, versions for piano and orchestra), as well as chamber music, piano works, guitar pieces, and songs.
□ PROKOFIEV
String Quartet no. 1 in B Minor, op. 50
Sergei Prokofiev was born in 1891 in Sontsovka, an isolated rural estate in the Russian empire. Displaying unusual musical abilities by the age of five, his first piano composition was written down by his mother. At the age of nine he was composing his first opera, as well as an overture and miscellaneous other pieces. Recognizing his musical genius, Prokofiev's mother felt that the isolation of Sontsovka was restricting his further development; yet his parents hesitated to start their son on a musical career at such an early age.
Then, in 1904, while Prokofiev was in Saint Petersburg with his mother exploring the prospect of the family's moving there for his education, they were introduced to the composer Alexander Glazunov, a professor at the Conservatory. Glazunov was so impressed by the young Prokofiev's work that he urged the parents to have him apply to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.
Several years younger than most of his classmates, Prokofiev was viewed as eccentric and arrogant, and he often expressed dissatisfaction with much of the education, which he found boring. He developed a reputation as a musical rebel, making a name for himself as a composer, although frequently causing scandal with his forward-looking works. During the revolutionary upheaval of 1917-1918, Prokofiev saw no acceptance for his experimental music and fled to America. He spent the next several years living both there and in Europe.
The impetus for composing the First Quartet came during a tour of the United States in 1930, during which Prokofiev was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation to write specifically a string quartet. Prokofiev was not attracted naturally to composing chamber music, so in preparation for this assignment he made a study of Beethoven’s string quartets. “That is the source of the rather ‘classical’ language of the quartet’s first section,” Prokofiev said.
At the opening of the second movement, Prokofiev tricks us into thinking all of it will be slow. However, it soon turns into the quartet’s “scherzo,” a big A-B-A structure somewhat polyphonic like the first movement.
The Andante promised in the previous movement is delivered fully in the finale. Here is the most emotionally intense portion of the quartet. Soviet critics later deemed the Andante to be “a peculiarly Russian Romantic introspection,” interpreted as the composer’s longing to return to his homeland, which he did in 1935. Prokofiev liked the finale so much that he transcribed a version for string orchestra (op. 50a) and included a piano transcription in his opus 52.
Prokofiev died on March 5, 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin. Because he also lived near Red Square, the throngs of mourners gathered for Stalin made it impossible for three days to remove Prokofiev's body for a funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composer's Union. He is buried in Moscow.
□ COREA
Adventures of Hippocrates
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is regarded as one of the most important jazz musicians and composers of his generation. Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards.
Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Corea is of Sicilian and Spanish descent. His father, a jazz trumpet player who led a Dixieland band in the Boston area in the 1930s and ‘40s, introduced Chick to the piano at the age of four. Growing up surrounded by jazz music, he was influenced at an early age by bebop stars such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, and Lester Young.
Corea developed his piano skills by exploring music on his own. A notable influence was concert pianist Salvatore Sullo from whom Corea started taking lessons at age eight. It was Sullo who introduced him to classical music, helping spark his interest in musical composition.
Corea eventually decided to move to New York, where he studied musical education for one month at Columbia University and spent six months at The Juilliard School. Among his Juilliard teachers was Peter Schickele, who described Chick as "the most awake student I ever taught."
Adventures of Hippocrates is a serious work rooted in Corea’s jazz background, and also influenced by twentieth-century styles. When the work was published in 2004, the composer wrote the following comments:
This is my first, and so far only, string quartet. It was written as a commission from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Society in 2004, specifically for the Orion String Quartet. The première was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 15, 2004.
Some advice on performance:
The rhythmic styles are from jazz and Latin music rather than from standard classical quartet repertoire. I suggest that the performers establish a basic pulse and “groove” with their bodies and/or tapping of feet on top of which the rhythmic phrases can sit.
Movement 1 is a kind of tango.
Movement 2 is a waltz.
Movement 3 is a brooding ballade.
Movement 4 is a 2/4 or 4/4 rock beat.
Movement 5 has a swift-moving tempo.
Movements 4 and 5 especially need a foot tapping / body pulse feeling. When the basic steady "groove" beat is strongly evident, that is when the rhythmic phrases sitting on top will make the most sense. It can be thought of as “poly-rhythmic” -- meaning the basic pulse is in rhythmic counterpoint to the upper rhythms.
What Hippocrates has to do with the piece is not explained.
□ GAVILÁN
Mi Menor Conga
Guido López-Gavilán received his conducting degrees from the Amadeo Roldán Music Conservatory in Havana, Cuba, and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Currently Maestro López-Gavilán is a professor and chief of the conducting program at the Instituto Superior de Arte of Havana, and is President of the city’s prestigious Contemporary Music Festival.
“I don't know any Cuban who hasn't danced a Conga,” writes his son, the Harlem Quartet violinist Ilmar Gavilán. “Neighbors would always organize a Conga after New Year's Eve. We would hear it from our tenth-floor apartment and often go down with a couple of loud dishes and join the crowd.”
The Conga is played and danced mainly as part of the Cuban carnivals, celebrated in each province during the summer. These festivities originated during colonial times as part of the season of Epiphany, the only time of the year when masters allowed slaves to play and sing their traditional African music. Mi Menor Conga was written in celebration of that festive spirit.
~ Based on liner notes for Take the “A” Train (White Pine Music WPM207)
□ SHOSTAKOVICH
String Quartet no. 7 in F-sharp Minor (op. 108)
This work was composed in early 1960 in memory of Shostakovich's first wife, Nina Vassilyevna Varzar, who had died in 1954 of cancer caused by radiation. Its première was performed in Leningrad by the Beethoven Quartet on May 15, 1960.
It consists of three movements, performed without a break, and is Shostakovich's shortest quartet.
Prior to Shostakovich, Russian composers demonstrated only an occasional interest in the string quartet. Highlights consist of a handful of works from Tchaikovsky, Borodin, and Prokofiev. As Russian classical music rose in the late nineteenth century, often with an agenda of creating a distinctly Russian national voice, the string quartet was typically shunned as a characteristic relic of Western, Germanic Europe.
This all changed with Shostakovich. He had a natural inclination toward the medium, its contrapuntal challenges, its unique emotional power, and its special qualities for personal, private, and even secretive communication. Shostakovich found a wonderful outlet for expression, producing fifteen string quartets over the course of nearly forty years.
At the midpoint of this series comes the String Quartet no. 7. Like the other quartets, it is a compact work, lasting a mere thirteen minutes. However, it covers a much broader expanse than its brevity might initially suggest. The work comprises three movements integrated by a cyclic design that has the final movement return to the themes of the first movement, essentially ending where it started. In between lies a musical journey that is unmistakably pure Shostakovich.
The first movement features a lightly tripping theme that falls downward into a three-note motive like a steady knock on the door. Initially frivolous, the theme is joined by a slow, rising three-note counter-motive in the lower strings that quickly undercuts any illusion of lightness with an ominous undertone. A second theme leads to a brilliantly distorted recapitulation of both themes, the first stripped to a biting pizzicato, the second shifted to an unsettlingly bitter harmony. The movement ends with the three-note knock, slow, unperturbed, but a most inconclusive conclusion.
With the second movement, Shostakovich reveals his expressive intent more transparently. A lonely ostinato sets the stage for an icy lament, passed among various solo voices in a thin texture clouded by passing wisps of sliding notes and the ominous groundswell of heavy lines in the lower registers. This is music of another world of strange, ghostly desolation.
The third movement abruptly interrupts as the second movement finishes. It begins like a related inversion of the first-movement theme, tripping up instead of down, showing a potential new-found energy to dispel the haunting chill of the previous mood. Quickly, however, the theme becomes the subject of a fugue with much manic force, complexity, and calculated chaos. Since the Baroque, great composers have used the fugue procedure not merely as an academic device, but as a technique of dramatic intensification where a single melodic fragment in dense, overlapping simultaneity represents something like unavoidable fate.
Shostakovich’s conclusion abruptly juxtaposes the frightening rage of his fugue with the sudden reappearance of the first movement’s main theme. Gone is the original impression of frivolity. Instead, the restatement is full of bitter irony, the three-note knocking now heavy, stinging, and unwelcome. The fugue theme transforms into a smooth, slow version of its former self, as a cool refrain swirling between recurrences of the first movement’s materials including a final, slow-motion knock on the door.
□ MARSALIS
String Quartet no.1 At the Octoroon Balls
Wynton Marsalis burst onto the music scene in 1984 as the first person to win back-to-back Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical music categories in the same year. Born near New Orleans to a musical family, he moved to New York to attend The Juilliard School. He subsequently left Juilliard to join Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and went on to co-found the Jazz at Lincoln Center program. He is known as a passionate defender of jazz tradition, and his classical compositions have stretched the boundaries of the concert stage. In 1997 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his oratorio, Blood in the Fields.
Marsalis’ String Quartet no. 1, At the Octoroon Balls, is a colorful work, alive with the history and textures of the New Orleans where he grew up. “Octoroon” described persons who were of one-eighth black ancestry, and the Octoroon Balls were a place where certain members of segregated society could mingle freely.
In his notes for the work’s première, Marsalis stated: “At the Octoroon Balls there was an interesting cross-section of life. People from different stratums of society came together in pursuit of pleasure and fulfillment. The music brought people together.”
Each movement tells a story, sometimes through the title or indications on the printed page, and sometimes through the voices of the instruments themselves. The score often calls for the players to step outside the traditional techniques of a string quartet.
VII. The Rampart Street Row House Rag might be heard coming through the door of any of the historic buildings found there, offering a hint of the delights to be found within!
II. Mating Calls & Delta Rhythms brings the scene into the ballroom, as the patrons begin to mingle. The music courses with sidelong glances and flirtatious outbursts. The dancing begins with the lilting rhythms of Creole Contradanzas. Different instrumental lines whirl about the floor with a freedom and grace that would doubtless turn many heads.
V. The Hellbound Highball is a train no one wants to ride. The clanging bells and screeching wheels are heard as it moves relentlessly toward its eternal destination. It seems to stop, but each time it takes off again, never giving its riders the chance to escape as it heads into the distance.
~ Based on liner notes for Take the “A” Train (White Pine Music WPM207)
□ STRAYHORN
Take the “A” Train
Billy Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, and received classical musical training in Pittsburgh. By the time he joined Duke Ellington’s band in 1939, he had already written the classic Lush Life. He rapidly became a vital part of this legendary ensemble, playing, arranging, and collaborating with Ellington on many songs. He was a close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and active in many civil rights battles of his day.
It is said that when Duke Ellington asked his new writer for the name of his latest tune, Strayhorn responded with the first thing he could think of: the directions he had been given to a meeting. Take the “A” Train quickly became one
of the most recognizable tunes in all of jazz. The Harlem Quartet presents it here in a new arrangement by noted film and concert composer Paul Chihara.
~ Based on liner notes for Take the “A” Train (White Pine Music WPM207)
