SAN FRANCISCO
COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Mark Alburger, Music Director
Under Deconstruction
8pm, Saturday, May 4, 2019
St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church, 1490 19th Street, San Francisco, CA
Mark Alburger and John Kendall Bailey, conducting
Program
Davide Verotta
Sonata Fantasia per il Pianoforte (2019)
Davide Verotta, Piano
Michael Cooke
Michael Cox
Impromptu M/M (2019)
Michael Cooke, Bassoon
Michael Cox, Trumpet
Davide Verotta
Incandescent (2019)
SFCCO Strings and Percussion
Michael Cooke
Symphony No. 4 ("Deconstructing Beethoven") (2019)
III. Tempo di Menuetto
I. Allegro con brio
Intermission
Mark Alburger
Broke Dance Suite, Op. 290 (2018)
I. Bourgeois Ouverture (Comedie-Ballet)
II. Allemande Left-Right (Brothers' Joy)
III. Au Courante (Sweet Expectation, Running)
IV. Varese Sarabande (Icy Folia)
V. Unkempt Gigue (Images from the Stark Land)
Book of Revelation, Op. 296 (2019, John of Patmos)
Chapter I - I Am the Alpha
Chapter II - Message to Ephasus
Chapter III - As for You, Sardis
Chapter IV - Come Up Here
Chapter V - Who Then Will Open
Chapter VI - A White Horse
John Beeman
Ishi (Carla Brooke)
Act I: Scene 9 (2019)
Ishi - Robert Vann (Tenor)
Dr. Kroeber - Kirk Eichelberger (Bass)
San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Mark Alburger Music Director and Conductor
Erling Wold Associate Music Director
John Kendall Bailey Associate Conductor
Piccolo / Flute / Alto Flute
Harry Bernstein
Bruce Salvisberg
Oboe / English Horn
Stardust
Clarinet / Bass Clarinet
Tom Berkelman
Alto Saxophone
Michael Cooke
Bassoon
Michael Cooke
Kat Walsh
Trumpet
Michael Cox
Horn
Bob Satterford
Piano
Davide Verotta
Percussion
Victor Flaviani
Benedict Lim
Kate Mangotich
Anne Szabla
Violin I
Kristen Kline
Violin II
Harry Bernstein
Kat Walsh
Viola
Charlie Sharzer
Cello
Ariella Hyman
String Bass
John Beeman
DONATIONS:
Archangel
(Contributing $1000 +)
Mark Alburger
Alexis Alrich
John Beeman
Michael & Lisa Cooke
John Hiss & Nancy Katz
Lisa Scola Prosek
Sue Rosen
Erling Wold
Angel
(Contributing $500-$999)
Adobe, inc
Anne Baldwin
George & Connie Cooke
Anne Dorman
David & Joyce Graves
Ken Howe
Kenneth Johnson
Hanna Hymans-Ostroff
Anne Szabla
Davide Verotta
Benefactor
(Contributing $100-$499)
Christopher & Sue Bancroft Kenneth & Ruth Baumann
Susan M. Barnes
Marina Berlin & Anthony Parisi
Bruce & Betsy Carlson
Patrick & Linda Condry
Rachel Condry
Steven Cooke
Patti Deuter
J.D. Deaver
Thomas Goss
James Henriques
Gail Hoben
Ann-Marie Hogan
Brian Holmes
Marilyn Hudson
Susan Kates
Ronald Mcfarland
Ken & Jan Milnes
Gail Piestrup
Elizabeth Powell
Roberta Robertson
James Schrempp
Stardust
Martha Stoddard
James Whitmore
Vivaty, Inc
Donor
(Contributing $50-$99)
Paul & Barbara Boniker
Mark Easterday
Sabrina Huang
Donna & Joseph Lanam
Harriet March Page
Larry Ochs
CF Peters
Kent & Catherine Smith
Barbara & Mark Stefik
Robert & Frances Stine
Patron
(Contributing up to $49)
Susie Bailey
Schuyler Bailey
Harry Bernstein
Joanne Carey
Hannes & Linda Lamprecht
Elinor Lamson
Anthony Mobilia
Deborah Slater
MARK ALBURGER (b. 1957) studied with Gerald Levinson and Joan Panetti at Swarthmore College (B.A.), Karl Kohn at Pomona College, Jules Langert at Dominican University (M.A.), Tom Flaherty and Christopher Yavelow at Claremont Graduate University (Ph.D.), and Terry Riley. He is Founder and Music Director of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra and The Opus Project, Conductor of San Francisco Cabaret Opera / Goat Hall Productions, Professor in Music Literature and Theory at Diablo Valley College, and Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music Journal. Alburger has been the recipient of many honors, awards, and commissions -- including yearly ASCAP Standard Awards; grants from Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, MetLife, and Theatre Bay Area; funding from the Marra, Zellerbach, Hewlett, and Getty Foundations; and performances by ensembles and orchestras throughout the world. Alburger's concert and dramatic compositions combine atonal, collage, neoclassic, pop, and postminimal sensibilities -- often in overall frameworks troped on pre-existent material. His complete works (327 opus numbers projected to July 15 this year) are being issued on recordings from New Music. 500+ videos of his compositions can be found on the DrMarkAlburger YouTube channel, as well as many other websites. Henry Miller in Brooklyn and Esther Xerxes (both from 1999), will be heard at Diablo Valley College Music Building, 8pm, Saturday, May 25, as part of The Opus Project presents Opus 77-78.
BROKE DANCE SUITE, OP. 290 (December 10, 2018), takes its form from a standard set of Renaissance / Baroque dances associated with Germany, France, Spain, and the British Isles -- with breaks beyond Jean-Baptiste Lully, Darius Milhaud, Tielman Susato, Ludwig van Beethoven, Samuel Voelckel, J.S. Bach, Maurice Ravel, the La Folia bass line, G.F. Handel, Edgar Varese, William Kemp, and Claude Debussy.
BOOK OF REVELATION, OP. 296 (February 5, 2019), is an opera-oratorio, progressively revealed in 22 chapters of verses attributed to John of Patmos (AD 6-100). The first six movements in this instrumental performance feature apocalyptic meltdowns of musics by Arnold Schoenberg, John Stainer, Vladimir Rebikov, Igor Stravinsky, Georges Bizet, Wayne Shanklin, George Crumb, John Bacchus Dykes, G.F. Handel, Darius Milhaud, Franz Schubert, Louis Ferdinand Gottschalk, Gustav Holst, and Andre Previn.
JOHN BEEMAN (b. 1954) studied with Peter Fricker and William Bergsma at the University of Washington where he received his Master’s degree. His first opera, The Great American Dinner Table was produced on National Public Radio. Orchestral works have been performed by the Fremont-Newark Philharmonic, Santa Rosa Symphony, and the Peninsula Symphony. Mr. Beeman has attended the Ernest Bloch Composers’ Symposium, the Bard Composer-Conductor program, the Oxford Summer Institutes, and the Oregon Bach Festival and has received awards through Meet the Composer, the American Music Center and ASCAP. Compositions have been performed by Ensemble Sorelle, the Mission Chamber Orchestra, the Ives Quartet, Fireworks Ensemble, Paul Dresher, the Oregon Repertory Singers and Schola Cantorum of San Francisco.
ISHI, the last survivor of the Yahi tribe, lived alone for three years in the wilderness after the massacre of his people. In 1911, he was found and soon taken to the Oroville prison. The news of Ishi’s discovery reached anthropologists T.T Waterman and Alfred Kroeber of the new Museum of Anthropology. A plan was made to bring Ishi to San Francisco.
In this scene, the last of ACT I, Ishi is walking with Dr. Kroeber in Golden Gate Park. They stop for a moment and look back at the museum where Ishi lives. As they walk, Ishi recognizes the sound of a chickadee. Kroeber notices that Ishi is walking slowly so he suggests that they stop to rest. Ishi picks up a leaf and sings an aria. He thinks fondly of his mother and also muses of the difficult journey he has had.
The multi-instrumentalist MICHAEL COOKE (b. 1970) is a composer of jazz and classical music. This two-time Emmy, ASCAPLUS Award and Louis Armstrong Jazz Award winner plays a variety of instruments: you can hear him on soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones, flute, soprano and bass clarinets, bassoon and percussion. A cum laude graduate with a music degree from the University of North Texas, he had many different areas of study; jazz, ethnomusicology, music history, theory and of course composition. In 1991 Michael began his professional orchestral career performing in many north Texas area symphonies. Michael has played in Europe, Mexico, and all over the United States. Cimarron Music Press began published many of Michael's compositions in 1994. After relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, he has been exploring new paths in improvised and composed music, mixing a variety of styles and techniques that draw upon the creative energy of a multicultural experience, both in and out of America. In 1999, Michael started a jazz label called Black Hat Records (blackhatrecords.com) and is currently on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra. The San Francisco Beacon describes Michael's music as "flowing out color and tone with a feeling I haven't heard in quite a while. Michael plays with such dimension and flavor that it sets (his) sound apart from the rest." Uncompromising, fiery, complex, passionate, and cathartic is how the All Music Guide labeled Michael's playing on Searching by Cooke Quartet, Statements by Michael Cooke and The Is by CKW Trio. His latest release, An Indefinite Suspension of The Possible, is an unusual mixture of woodwinds, trombone, cello, koto, and percussion, creating a distinct synergy in improvised music that has previously been untapped..
IMPROMPTU M/M features "sounds from the futures past."
Most American orchestras mainly play European composers from the 19th and 18th century. They very rarely play music by an American composer and if they do play one, it not a new composition. So in 2003, I wrote a symphony, Symphony No. 2 “Mozart ist Tot!” (https://blog.michaelkcooke.com/2003/04/symphony-no-2-mozart-ist-tot/) I personally do not wish to hear his music at any symphony concert again, unless the piece is altered in a way to make it new and interesting. SYMPHONY NO. 4 ("DECONSTRUCTING BEETHOVEN") is written in a similar vein. Right now on Amazon there are hundreds of CD's of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. If you played them you would notice very little difference between each recording. Symphony No. 4 tries to make Beethoven new and interesting again. It poses the question what if Beethoven traveled in time to now and absorbed many of the modern music advancements over the last 200+ years. The first movement if based on Beethoven’s first movement of his famous 5th Symphony. I followed the form and most of the original orchestration, but sonically drifted to an approach that one might equate with Carl Ruggles. I'm using a decaphonic series for the themes but not a serial approach. I made other changes to try and restore some of the surprises Beethoven wrote in but have lost there impact do to everyone know the music so well. The original 4 note theme has been expanded to a 5 or 10 note them. Rhythms have become more complex with a 4 in the space 3, or 5 in the space 4 but with an elongation of the beat. This can create a push and pull effect, which can create tension and interest instead of a standard straight beat. I this movement I feel you can hear the original it was based on as well as a complete new piece at the same time. The 3rd movement is based on the Beethoven 8th Symphony: III. Minuetto. For this one I used a computer program to make a sonic reduction of a live performance of this movement conducted by Bernstein. The entire music is reduce to a few lines and rhythms. Occasionally a measure would be left blank and in these cases I plugged in the original Beethoven parts. I took the results and orchestrated it in a Webernesque fragmentation style. I wanted to layer on modernist percussion and looked towards Varese. This creates a mosaic of sonic textures in which you hear original and something new at the same time. This is a work still in progress and the 2nd and 4th movement are being written. The 2nd will be based on Beethoven’s 7th: II in an aleatoric approach. The 4th will be based on the Beethoven 3rd: IV, perhaps mixed with Hindimith's style.
MICHAEL COX is a Bay Area Trumpeter and Composer who performs with San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, The Opus Project, and many other groups. He is co-composer of IMPROMPTU M/M with Michael Cooke.
DAVIDE VEROTTA (b. 1958) was born in an Italian town close to Milano and moved to San Francisco in his late 20's. He studied piano at the Milano and San Francisco Conservatories, and composition at San Francisco State University (MA) and The University of California, Davis (Ph.D. program). Emeritus Professor at UCSF, he is actively involved in the local new-music scene, and also teaches piano and composition at the Community Music Center and privately. Recent compositions include works for orchestra, string quartet, percussion, two pianos, piano solo and violin solo, and voice. He is recipient of multiple composition competition, ASCAP Plus, and Zellerbach foundation awards. Please visit his web site at www.davideverotta.com.
Fresh from winning Honorable Mention in the Opus Dissonus International Piano Composition Competition, SONATA FANTASIA PER IL PIANOFORTE (2019) is a single-movement piece in free form, divided in five tightly-bound sections, with the slowest one in the middle. The music makes extensive use of quintal harmonies and progressions, staring with a continuously winding arpeggio (on the notes C, G, D), played against a wide spaced three-note sequence a fourth apart (descending Db, Ab, and Eb). Thematically the first, third and last sections use the same, extremely simple, motives, while the second, and partly the fourth, utilize more lyrical ones.
INCANDESCENT (2019): To emit light and heat, to glow with heat.
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***
Another stupendous showcase!
The
day
beginning
with
a
different exhibition
(nearby real estate) --
34th
interval
of
summer,
high
back down 1 to 82 (ABA of 82-83-82 last 3 days)...
Pleasant Hill, 77
Berkeley, 59
San Francisco, 60
... to Cybercopy
to print programs,
then
through the
hills
and
over
the
bridge
to
yet
more
musical
marvels... Home late, to compose
Broke Dance Intermezzi: R, Op. 314
IVr4. Pegeen Letter Reel (Playboy of the Western World)
Ireland, Giacomo Puccini, Igor Stravinsky, Chieftains, Mark Alburger
[19 pages]
and edit page 7 new-edition Mice and Men, Op. 45: Act V, Scene 2
