A graduation recital by cellist Branson Yeast.  Branson is a native of Houston, Texas, and studied at Curtis with David Soyer and Peter Wiley.  All of the selections are accompanied by Curtis staff pianist Elena Jivaeva. The program:

Beethoven: Sonata No.3 in A major, Op.69
This sonata dates from 1808, a particularly fertile period for Beethoven; that year also produced the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Violin Concerto and the Op.70 collection of piano trios.  As always, Beethoven was in the vanguard, producing the first cello sonatas in which both instruments enjoyed fully-formed parts.  And the composer deviates from the accepted "fast-flow-fast" arrangement of three-movement works.  Here, we have two quickly-paced movements, followed by an adagio which morphs into a concluding Allegro vivace.  (There goes Beethoven, breaking the rules yet again, and brilliantly so).

Faure: Elegie, Op.24
This short, lovely work from 1883 is all that remains of an aborted cello sonata by Gabriel Faure.  It opens in an elegaic c minor, but concludes with fast-paced intensity.  We hear the Elegie in its original chamber form; Faure later produced a version for cello and orchestra.

Schnittke: Sonata No.1 for Cello and Piano
Alfred Schnittke always lived as something of an outsider in 20th-century Russia, hailing from German stock in the Volga-German Republic of the RSFSR.  Nonetheless, Schnittke, who died in 1998, is widely seen as the musical heir of Dimitri Shostakovich.  The older composer's style is particular evident in this serious work, which like Beethoven's before him, alters the usual "fast-flow-fast" format; the three movements are marked Largo, Presto, Largo.

Musical Word of the Week: Double Stop
Two or more notes bowed simultaneously on a stringed instrument, as the violin. (from Dictionary.com)

A student recital. The program:

Renie: Legende for Harp
Elizabeth Anne White, harp
Henriette Renie was a French harpist and composer who lived from 1875 to 1956. She was a brilliant and accomplished artist at a time when women were not accepted in such roles.  Her harp techniques are still in use today.  Here, Renie creates a tone poem to the verse by Leconte de Lisle, an overheated tale about a forest, elves and tragic love.  Read the poem here:

http://members.shaw.ca/lbstudio/Elfestranslation.html

Bach: Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV 541
Patrick Kreeger, organ
Bach, of course, was the supreme master of the organ, creator of the greatest explorations of keyboard counterpoint.  Bach completed two large books of these preludes and fugues in his "Well-Tempered Clavier" collection.

Bartok: String Quartet No.6
Old City String Quartet: Joel Link & Bryan A. Lee, violins; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola; Camden Shaw, cello
This is Bartok's final string quartet, written in Hungary in 1939, prior to his fleeing the Nazis to spend his last years in America.  The most striking element is the use of the "mesto" (sadly) marking to open each of the four movements.  In fact, the mesto spirit pervades the entire final movement, prompted by news of the death of the composer's mother.

Musical Word of the Week: Fugue
1. Music: a polyphonic composition based upon one, two, or more themes, which are enunciated by several voices or parts in turn, subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually built up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at the end. (from Dictionary.com)

A student recital. The program:

Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, Op.70, No.1 "Ghost"
Nadir Khashimov, violin; Sarah Rommel, cello; Teo Gheorghiu, piano
This is the first of two piano trios in the Opus 70 collection by Beethoven, dating from 1808.  The trio's nickname (not given by the composer) refers to the strange and unsettling sonorities of the slow movement; some have said that it arose from sketches from a never-realized opera on Macbeth. The two outer movements are full of life and vigor.

Hoffmeister: Viola Concerto in D major
Hyo Bi Sim, viola; Curtis Chamber Ensemble
Franz Anton Hoffmeister was a respected contemporary of Haydn and Beethoven.  He is known today chiefly as a successful music publisher, but he also found time to try his hand at composition.  This viola concerto is among Hoffmeister's most familiar works, which we hear in its viola/piano reduction.

Tchaikovsky: None, but the Lonely Heart
(arranged by William Primrose)
Hyo Bi Sim, viola; Elena Jivaeva, piano
This arrangement of Tchaikovsky's beloved song is by William Primrose, the viola virtuoso who also taught at the Curtis Institute.

Zimbalist: "Tango" from Sarasateana
(arranged by William Primrose)
Hyo Bi Sim, viola; Elena Jivaeva, piano
The Curtis connection deepens here with Primrose's arrangement for viola of a violin piece by Efrem Zimbalist, who served as director of the Curtis Institute from 1941 to 1968.  In 1943, Zimbalist married Mary Louis Curtis Bok, the founder of the school.

Musical Word of the Week:  Arpeggio
1. the sounding of the notes of a chord in rapid succession instead of simultaneously.
2. a chord thus sounded.
(from Dictionary.com)

A recital of music by the American composer Joan Tower.

Ms. Tower was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission of sixty-five orchestras. Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony recorded Made in America in 2008. The album collected three Grammy awards: Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance. In 1990 she became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders, a piece she wrote for the St. Louis Symphony. Tower studied piano and composition at Bennington College and Columbia University. She co-founded the Da Capo Chamber Players in 1969 as pianist, but also wrote several well-received pieces for the ensemble. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972.

In April, 2011, Ms. Tower spent several days at Curtis, working with the school's student composers, culminating in this concert:

Copperwave for Brass Ensemble
Composer note: Copperwave (2006) was commissioned for the American Brass Quintet by the Juilliard School for its centennial celebration. This commission was supported by the Trust of Francis Goelet. The work is dedicated with great admiration to the distinguished American Brass Quintet.

My father was a geologist and mining engineer and I grew up loving everything to do with minerals and rocks. Copper is a heavy but flexible mineral that is used for many different purposes and most brass instruments are made of copper. The ideas in this piece move in waves, sometimes heavy ones and at other times lighter — also in circles, turning around on the same notes. Occasionally, there is a latin type of rhythm that appears, which is a reminder of my years growing up in South America where my father was working as a mining engineer.

String Force
In String Force (2010), a solo violin work heard in a vigorous, colorful reading by Nikki Chooi, Ms. Tower explores fingerboard and bowing techniques, with sliding effects prominent among them.
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times

Ivory and Ebony
Composer note: Ivory and Ebony is about the black and white notes of the piano which alternate "thematically" but occasionally mix together. Since I am also a pianist, this was a fun and challenging piece to write for the upcoming piano virtuosos coming to the San Antonio competition. I hope they enjoy working on it and I very much look forward to their different interpretations.

Angels (String Quartet No.4)
Composer Note: Angels is my fourth quartet — a medium I really love. In fact, when Ida Kavafian asked me what I wanted to write for the Festival, I immediately said string quartet. Having written three prior quartets and gotten to travel extensively around the world of quartets, I have come to love the way string quartets are so deeply creative and passionate about the music they play. They are really like four "composers" at work. Angels is about 18 minutes long in one movement and is dedicated to the people who helped my younger brother George survive a major stroke this year. They include my sister Ellen, a former student of mine (Erin), a doctor (Dr. Stenehjem), a nurse (Courtney) and two real estate agents (Ann and Dale). These are caring people whose generosity of spirit and love of humanity make them very special "angels."

DNA for Percussion Ensemble
This piece was written for and premiered by the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, conducted by Frank Epstein, in April 2003.

DNA is written for percussion quintet as a way of capitalizing on the notion of DNA, and its role as the building block of all biological life. Deoxyribonucleic acid, as we know it chemically, is an elegant form, made up of double helixes and double strands in an endless spiraling ribbon. Using this feature as a starting point – the piece is built around pairs of instruments which are featured prominently throughout: high-hats, castanets, timbales, and snares appear in duos — and like the base pairs of DNA — conspire to make a whole work.

The fifth percussionist is primarily a soloist, an outsider to the pairs — playing on temple blocks, tambourine and congas — until he joins them in passages of trios, quartets and quintets.

Joan uses the basic concept of DNA in teaching all the time, when she is urging her students to find the "DNA," or building blocks of an idea for themselves.
(from G. Schirmer Inc.)

Musical Word(s) of the Week: White keys, black keys
The piano's white keys represent the tones of the musical alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. 
The black keys represent half-steps between various notes (sharps and flats). 
Together, there are 7 white keys and 5 black keys per octave, which together represent the twelve equally spaced tones of Equal Temperament. 
Originally, white keys were made of ivory (white), and black keys of ebony (black). But any two contrasting colors will work. Many old keyboards present the "naturals" (lower tier) as black, and the sharps/flats (upper tier) as white! (from wiki.answers.com)

A student/faculty recital featuring:

Francaix: Divertissement for Bassoon & Strings
Wenmin Zhang, bassoon; Barbora Kolarova and Kensho Watanabe, violins; Hyo Bi Sim, viola; Jiyoung Lee, cello; Alexander Jacobsen, bass

Jean Francaix embodied the French artistic ideals of urbanity, wit and joie de vivre, unmistakable attributes of his music.  In much of his chamber work, strings and winds join forces to present music that somehow combined wit and profundity.  This sextet was composed in 1942, but not published until 1968, with a dedication the English bassoon virtuoso William Waterhouse.  This performance comes from Wenmin Zhang's Graduation Recital from Curtis.

Schubert: Trio No.1 in B-flat major, D. 898
Amalia Hall, violin; Nathan Vickery, cello; Jonathan Biss, piano

This substantial and beautiful work was Schubert's only composition in this vein; it was begun in 1827 and completed in 1828, the year of his death.  The Trio would have to wait another eight years for publication.  Tonight, rising young star pianist Jonathan Biss returns to Curtis to coach the students in the trio, and join them for the performance.  He has since joined the piano faculty at the school.

Musical Word of the Week:  Tonguing
"Tonguing" is when a musician playing a wind instrument uses the tongue on the reed or mouthpiece to enunciate different notes. A silent "tu" (too) is made when the tongue strikes the reed or roof of the mouth causing a slight breach in the air flow through the instrument. The technique also works for whistling. (via reference.com)

A student recital of various works. The program:

Lili Boulanger: Pie Jesu
Sarah Shafer, soprano; Patrick Kreeger, organ; Vinay Parameswaran, conductor
Today, Lili Boulanger's reputation is eclipsed by her older sister Nadia, who shepherded the careers of a number of young composers a century ago in Paris.  Lili was considered to be the superior musician at the time, but her promising career was cut short by ill health; she died of Crohn's Disease in 1918 at the age of 24.  Her "Pie Jesu" is taken from the final couplet of the Dies Irae: "Kind Lord Jesus, grant them rest. Kind Lord Jesus, grant them everlasting rest."

Mozart: Horn Concerto No.3
Adedeji Bailes Ogunfolu, horn; Curtis Chamber Ensemble, Francesco Lecce-Chong, conductor
This concerto is one of four light-hearted works Mozart wrote for his friend, Josef Leutgeb.  It was completed in 1787.  Leutgeb's virtuosity is evident in the difficulty of the works, especially in their original version for the natural horn of the period, which contained no valves.

Chausson: Poeme
Ji-Won Song, violin; Hugh Sung, piano
Dating from the mid-1890's, this work is based on a commission from Chausson's friend, Eugene Ysaye, for a violin concerto.  Chausson did not feel comfortable with the idea of dealing with a concerto's strictures, and instead created this more free-wheeling evocation of artistic emotion.

Ya-Jhu Yang: Rain Out at Sea
Sarah Shafer, soprano; Rebecca Anderson, violin
A unique work by this Curtis-based composer combines original verses by Jeanne Minahan with a stunning, floor-to-ceiling scroll, imparting a mysterious and mystical effect.

Musical Word of the Week: Dies Irae
noun: a Latin hymn on the Day of Judgment, commonly sung in a Requiem Mass.

A graduation recital by cellist Natalie Helm.  Natalie is a native of Louisville, Kentucky.  She entered Curtis in 2006 for studies with Peter Wiley.

The piano accompanist, Yekwon Sunwoo, also graduated in 2011.  His graduation recital has already been featured on this season's series.

The program:

Prokofiev: Sonata in C major, Op.119
Dmitri Shostakovich has gone down in the public imagination as the ultimate musical victim of Soviet tyranny, but his contemporary Serge Prokofiev endured his own scrutiny at the hands of Stalin's apparatchiks. By the time this work appeared in 1949, Prokofiev had only a few years left to live, and the fiery iconoclasm of his youth had long faded.  But the composer managed to find subtle ways to add a strong personal touch to this beautiful sonata, his only example of that form.  No matter how age and persecution may have smoothed out his style, this work is instantly identifiable as a vintage Prokofiev masterpiece. Two other giants of Russian music gave the premiere in 1950: cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

Chopin: Sonata in G minor, Op.65
This is also a late work, in fact, the last to be published in Chopin's lifetime.  Mainly a composer of smaller works, Chopin wrote only four sonatas, the other three of which were for, of course, the piano.  This is a lovely work, full of the aching lyricism that is a Chopin hallmark.  The sonata was written for and dedicated to Auguste Franchomme, who gave the premiere with Chopin at the keyboard in 1848. It would be the composer's last public concert.

Musical Word of the Week:   Sonata
A composition for one or two instruments, typically in three or four movements in contrasted forms and keys (from Dictionary.com).

A concert saluting pianist and pedagogue Mikael Eliasen's silver anniversary with the school. Mr. Eliasen is Artistic Director of the Curtis Opera Theatre and Head-of-Department Chair in Vocal Studies. The program:

Brahms: Liebeslieder Waltzes
Elizabeth Reiter, soprano; Jaziminia MacNeil, mezzo-soprano; Diego Silva, tenor; Brandon Cedel, bass-baritone; Danielle Orlando & Mikael Eliasen, pianos
It has been suggested that Brahms penned this choral suite of songs in 1868 as a confession of love for Julia, the daughter of Clara Schumann. Unfortunately for Brahms, Julia ultimately chose another man for her groom. In any event, this sweet-natured work serves as a perfect celebration of Mikael Eliasen's 25 years at Curtis.

Rorem: Aftermath (excerpts)
Elliot Madore, baritone; Pamela Frank, violin; Jeong-Hyoun Lee, cello; Mikael Eliasen, piano
Rising operatic star Elliot Madore returns to his alma mater to honor Mikael Eliasen with excerpts from this searing song cycle by another Curtis grad, Ned Rorem. Written on commission shortly following the attacks of September 11th, Aftermath addresses the composer's feelings of sadness and loss, set to a series of anti-war poems. Of this cycle, Rorem has said "If I was to be remembered only by one piece, it would be this piece, out of the several thousand works that I've written."

Richard Strauss: Two Songs (Die Nacht and Morgen)
Layla Claire, soprano; Mikael Eliasen, piano
Another rising young singer and Curtis grad, Layla Claire joins Mikael Eliasen for two beautiful and elegiac songs by Richard Strauss.

Musical Word of the Week: Solfege
Vocal exercises sung to the solmization syllables (do, re, mi, etc.) and, by extension, vocalizes, or exercises sung to a single vowel, often florid and difficult to master. The word solfege sometimes refers to an intensive course in the knowledge of musical intervals and their notation. (from Encyclopedia Brittanica)