Very Modern Ensemble to weave narrative, feature 2 world premieres
The concept of the narrative goes back at least as far as Homer, and probably beyond. It can take many forms, from heroic epics to poignant love stories and everything in between. On Saturday, March 2, the Lehigh University Very Modern Ensemble will present a musical program featuring four very different forms of narrative, from a haunting opera/ ballet to a tragic bar-room ballad.
Featured on the program are two world premieres by Lehigh music faculty member and composer Paul Salerni. “Haunted,” a one-act opera for baritone, dancers, string quartet, and percussion, and “The Ballad of Jesús Ortiz” for baritone and string quartet, are both settings of poems by internationally recognized poet Dana Gioia, the Poet Laureate of California, and former chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts.
Also on this uber-eclectic program are the String Quartet No. 5 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and “Le Corps Á Corps” by George Aperghis for voice and doumbek. Performers include baritone Keith Phares, the Dalí Quartet, Salerni's son Miles on vocals and percussion in “Le Corps Á Corps,” and dancers Alex Olivieri, Katharine Rygiel and Cynthia Anne Stanley. Choreography for “Haunted” is by Michael Spencer Phillips of the New York City-based Rioult Dance Company.
“The program is actually four different narratives done four different ways,” says Salerni. “There's a traditional art song with accompaniment in the form of a ballad, a more abstract narrative in the form of a string quartet that paints a portrait of Brazil, a solo recitation involving drumming, and a presentation of something that lies somewhere between an opera and a ballet.”
Salerni has enjoyed a long collaboration with Gioia that has included setting some of the poet's best-known poems, such as his “For Love or Money” of 2015. “I had been working with a collection of Dana's poems, and came to ‘Haunted,' which I thought was dramatic enough to be set as an opera,” Salerni says. “But Dana thought it was too wordy for that, and suggested something that included music, voice and dancing. I had already written a ballet for the Rioult Dance Company, so I was comfortable with the dance parts. So I started going through the text, deciding what was to be danced, what would be sung, and so on.”
“Haunted” is more of a psychological vision than a scary ghost story, although there is a ghost in it. “It is more a reflection of the subconscious turmoil in the mind of the narrator,” Salerni says. There's no ghost in “The Ballad of Jesús Ortiz,” but its narrative is equally unsettling, being the true tale of Gioia's great-grandfather, who was a cattle driver murdered in a Wyoming bar at the turn of the century.
It is in the style of a traditional ballad. As Gioia notes in his program description, “I wanted to write a poem that spoke to both a literary and general audience, to create something that the workingclass people I came from could understand. Every time I started, I gave up. The words felt lifeless. Finally, the obvious solution arrived—the cowboy ballad.
“Le Corps Á Corps” is a virtuoso showpiece for voice and any form of multipitched hand drum. Salerni will be performing on a doumbek, a gobletshaped drum used mostly in Egypt and the Middle East, while he sings, mostly in French. The work can be described as a melodrama in which the percussionist recounts the events of an intense race, including details about the participants' wounds, heroic leaps, clouds of dust flying and spectators erupting in cheer.
Like the other three works on the program, it too is a narrative. “Literally written to demonstrate the conflict between the musician's instrument and his breath, ‘Le Corps a Corps' is a vivid metaphor for an internal human struggle,” says Salerni in his program notes.
Gioia will appear at the Zoellner Arts Center as part of the Notations series for a poetry reading at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28. Admission is free.
Lehigh University Very Modern Music Ensemble, 8 p.m. Saturday, March 2, Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University campus, Bethlehem. Tickets: $18. 610758-2787, www.zoellnerartscenter.org
East Winds Quintet
There's something about the sonic variety of a woodwind quintet that always takes one by surprise when compared to the homogeneous sonority of a string ensemble. Just as the instruments in a wind quintet differ from each other considerably in technique and timbre, the music is quite different from typical string repertoire.
A case-in-point is the program Sunday, March 3 by the East Winds Quintet at the Zoellner Arts Center in Bethlehem. Featured will be Paul Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik, Six Bagatelles by György Ligeti, and Lehigh Music professor Paul Salerni's Sinfonietta Italiana.
Hungarian composer György Ligeti's early works closely follow the musical language of his countryman Béla Bartók, as is evident in his Six Bagatelles, composed in 1953. These six pieces were originally part of a 12-movement piano cycle, and were first performed for woodwind quintet in 1956 — that is, all but the final movement, which Soviet authorities censored for being “too dangerous.”
Not dangerous, but daring nonetheless, Hindemith's wind quintet from 1922 was a major departure in almost every way for audiences of the day, who grew up listening to music in the Romantic style. The work uses the standard woodwind quintet scoring but requires the flutist to play piccolo in the second movement.
Salerni's piece is in the form of a miniature three-movement Italian Symphony. “My idea was to write a piece that Mozart might write if he knew the Neapolitan songs of Bixio and Da Capua, or the film music of Nino Rota,” Salerni says. “The first movement is a set of variations, the second a procession (homage to the second movement of Mendelssohn's Italian
Symphony), and the last movement a saltarello with a quote from a recent Neopolitan pop song.”
Members of the East Winds Quintet are Robin Kani, flute; David Diggs, oboe; Deborah Andrus, clarinet; Jonathan Clark, French horn, and Ping Liang, bassoon.
East Winds Quintet, 3 p.m. Sunday, March 3, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University campus, Bethlehem. Tickets: $15. 610-758-2787, www.zoellnerartscenter.org
Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra presents all-Mozart program
No, it's not Mozart's birthday, or the anniversary of his death. But there doesn't have to be a reason to present an all-Mozart program, other than the fact that he's probably near the top of everyone's list of favorite composers. On Sunday, March 3, the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, under the baton of Allan Birney, will present an all-Mozart program, featuring three popular works.
Rebecca Brown, principal second violin with the Sinfonia for 30 years, is soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major, K. 218. Also on the program is the glorious Exultate, Jubilate, featuring soprano soloist Fiona Gillespie Jackson, and the Symphony No, 17 in G Major, K. 129.
Mozart's five violin concertos were all products of a single year, 1775, when the composer was 19 years old. It was with the last three that Mozart indisputably entered the age of his mature works, and are his earliest pieces now regularly heard in the concert hall. Of special note is the tender second movement, which, like many slow concerto movements of the 18th century, would not seem out of place in an operatic love scene.
Mozart was even younger when, in 1773, he wrote the exuberant Exultate Jubilate for, believe it or not, a male voice. Of course it was not just any male voice, but that of the renowned soprano castrato Venanzio Rauzzini. Today this stunning work is a favorite of female sopranos the world over, especially its final-movement Alleluia, in which Mozart sets to music just that one word.
Concert soloist and folk musician Fiona Gillespie, a Bethlehem native, is a lecturer in music at Muhlenberg College. She's a much-sought-after vocalist who has made numerous appearances with local groups and early music ensembles across the country.
A yet younger Mozart penned the Symphony No. 17 in 1772, although it is believed some sections might have been written even earlier. The shadow of J.S. Bach hovers over the opening movement, although not so much thereafter. The final allegro makes use of a device soon to become one of Mozart's favorites — the hunting call, although the strings do most of the work here, while horns play only a minor role.
Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, 4 p.m. Sunday, March 3, Christ Lutheran Church, 1245 W. Hamilton St., Allentown. Tickets: adults $35, $25; seniors 62+ $30, $20; students free. 610 434-7811, www.pasinfonia.org
Two Part Invention presents tangos and more
The duo Two Part Invention, composed of guitarist John Arnold and flutist Nora Suggs, will present a program of flute and classical guitar music from Latin America Sunday, March 3 at Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem. Featured will be works by Astor Piazzolla,
Heitor Villa-Lobos, Antonio Lauro, and others.
At least three countries and styles will be represented: the sultry nuevo tangos of Argentinian Piazzolla, the syncopated Venezuelan waltzes of Lauro, and the Brazilian chôros of Villa-Lobos.
Two Part Invention, whose name derives from a book of keyboard pieces by J.S. Bach, was formed in 2001, and with the exception of a brief hiatus, has been performing locally ever since. Suggs is flutist, founder and director of the popular chamber ensemble Satori, and Arnold, a music faculty member of Moravian College, is well-known to local audiences for his appearances with the Pennsylvania Sinfonia, Allentown Symphony Orchestra, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Gabriel Chamber Ensemble, and many others.
Two Part Invention, 2 p.m. Sunday, March 3, Old Chapel, Central Moravian Church, 73 W. Church St., Bethlehem. Tickets: $10 suggested donation. 610-435-6036, www.satorichambermusic.org
Steve Siegel is a freelance writer. clarimer@mcall.com Twitter @cklarimer 610-778-7993