Program for Ensemble for These Times – November 8, 2024
Friday, November 8, 2024 at 8 pm
download a copy of this program here.
In Motion
Ensemble for These Times
Laura Reynolds, oboe
Lylia Guion, violin
Megan Charter, cello
Margaret Halbig, piano
Program
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Moto perpetuo from Cello Sonata, Op. 65 (1961)
Chartier, Halbig
Lisa Bielawa (b. 1968)
Synopsis #10: I Know This Room So Well (2008)
Reynolds
Vivian Fung (b. 1975)
Ominous Machine (2020–21)
Guion, Chartier, Halbig
Zhou Tian (b. 1981)
Majestic Bells (2022) California Premiere
Halbig
Darian Donovan Thomas (b. 1993)
Ubi Lux Floret (2023) World Premiere
Guion, Chartier, Halbig
Intermission
York Bowen (1884-1961)
Moto perpetuo from Suite mignonne, Op. 39 (1915)
Halbig
Mary Bianco (b. 1939)
Oboe Meets Piano (2024) World Premiere
Reynolds, Halbig
Sage Shurman (b. 2005)
composure (2021)
Guion, Chartier, Halbig
Ursula Kwong-Brown (b. 1987)
And I Made My Way, Deciphering That Fire (2024)
World Premiere
Guion, Chartier, Halbig
In Motion is supported in part, by grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission, SF Grants for the Arts, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, The Amphion Foundation, Inc. and the California Arts Council, a state agency. Ensemble for These Times is honored to be a fiscally sponsored affiliate of InterMusic SF, a non-profit organization dedicated to small-ensemble music in the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the music
This fall, E4TT is launching a new two-year project, Women Crossing/ Liminality, exploring the effects on women of migration, identity, transitions, and liminality, all of which involve moving from here to there or this to that. Music–sound waves perceived across time–is inherently about movement too. Therefore we are opening our season and the project with a conversation about movement in music, in a program that features works embodying action in sound or its contrast, stillness. To kick things off, we begin each half with a perpetual motion movement by 20th century British composers Benjamin Britten and York Bowen, respectively.
Synopsis X: I Know This Room So Well, by another E4TT favorite Lisa Bielawa comes from a series of 15 short solo pieces. Bielawa writes, “While working on this synopsis, I found myself looking back to an opera I never finished around 15 years ago. I was working with the gifted playwright Erik Ehn, and we completed a lyrical aria for our eponymous heroine Vireo, a 14-year-old girl visionary whose adolescence spans several centuries. She eventually gets thrown in jail as a witch, where she sings an aria about how happy and comfortable she is there. Erik gives her these words: ‘If in the dark a chair has moved, I can move around it. I know the room so well.’ In this little English horn piece I dip back into that aria, and into those feelings of comfort and familiarity we all have in our various jails, virtual and real.’”
Ominous Machine, which follows, is by a composer whose work epitomizes musical motion and who will be familiar to E4TT audiences, Vivian Fung. Fung describes her piece by saying, “the essential material of the opening measures features several short and quick figures in each of the instruments that interlock to form a whole. The opening measures set the tone and groove of a highly rhythmic and visceral piece, full of ‘glitches’ and repetitions that make the work unpredictable–but also playful–as it moves in many different directions.”
Zhou Tian’s Majestic Bells provides a moment of calm. The composer writes that “it draws its inspiration from the resonant bells of Buddhist temples. With a nod to the majestic atmosphere of these sacred spaces, the piece seeks a journey of both introspection and grandeur. I hope the juxtaposition of bold, resonant tones with delicate, ethereal passages convey a sense of movement and vitality, mirroring the vitality of life within and around the temples.”
The first commissioned World Premiere, Ubi Lux Floret (where light blooms) by Darian Donovan Thomas, closes the half, exploring the movements and patterns of light in shimmering sound.
In the second half, we continue the conversation with first Bowen and then the second commissioned World Premiere, by composer Mary Bianco, envisions a musical meeting between oboe and piano. The composer writes, “A little known secret is that I was interviewed by someone from the esteemed Interlochen summer program when I was 14 or 15 to attend the upcoming summer. A bit of a problem occurred when I was asked what instruments I played and I responded piano and tympani – only to be told that I would need to learn the oboe if I was to even apply. ‘Oboe?… no, I don’t like oboe,’ I replied. ‘Well then, you cannot apply,’ the rather unlikeable man responded. Looking back, that was a decision I often regret. I’ve come to love the oboe and thus the composition you shall now hear.”
composure by Sage Shurman follows, an exciting young composer who we chose in our Call for Scores collaboration with Luna Composition Lab. Shurman writes, “composure is about the way we handle nerve-wracking situations. It is about the way we conduct ourselves trying to find calm and containment in moments of distress. There are three key ideas in this piece. The opening idea is frenzied with explosive shifts of register, volume, and speed. It represents anxiety in musical form. The next idea is a reaction to that craziness. It is a bluesy theme providing a false sense of cool. It is people creating prescriptive security as a defense mechanism against emotional turbulence. As the first two ideas interact and evolve, the third idea emerges providing true composure. It is spacious and lyrical, transcending human worry.”
With the final commissioned World Premiere on the program, And I Made My Own Way, Deciphering That Fire, by Ursula Kwong-Brown, we move from aria, imprisonment and biography to poetry, freedom, and autobiography. The composer writes, “The title is taken from Pablo Neruda’s 1964 anthology Memorial de isla negra, a collection of over 100 poems fashioned into a kind of poetic autobiography. The poem that this line is taken from is titled simply La Poesía, which describes his process of discovering himself as a poet. It resonates deeply with my own experience as a composer, trying to express myself through melodies and rhythms, textures and timbres. Sometimes it feels like I am taking dictation–like I am inscribing something predetermined, something outside myself that needs to be apprehended and deciphered, and yet is somehow totally mine.”
About the composers
Mary Bianco is a Bay Area-based composer of primarily classical chamber music. A former wealth manager with Morgan Stanley, she earned an M.A. in Composition (Mills College), Executive MBA (Anderson School at UCLA), and B.A. with concentration in composing (Sarah Lawrence College. Bianco is the founder, president and executive director of the Moca Foundation and a board member of The Music Conservatory of Westchester as well as a former Trustee of Sarah Lawrence College. Currently studying with David Garner, her previous teachers include Darius Milhaud, Ezra Laderman, Meyer Kupferman, and Irwin Stahl. Bianco composed for the Carpenter Trio from 2011 to 2016 and currently composes for the Crescent City Chamber Players, Project: Music Heals Us, The Manhattan Chamber Players, and various California artists.
Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition. She has received awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, OPERA America, and was part of the inaugural Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps. She received a Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser. Bielawa’s music has premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, National Cathedral, Rouen Opera, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and Helsinki Music Center, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ROCO, and the Orlando Philharmonic.
Composer Benjamin Britten was one of the most well-known English composers of the 20th century. He composed for many genres, including chamber music, symphonic music, religious works, and vocal music, but is probably best known for his operas. Although many of his works involve mature themes, he also developed a more accessible style that audiences appreciated by writing children’s music. Characterized by their emotional depth and innovative use of texture, Britten’s works were often inspired by both current events of the time—world wars, as a major example—and English folk traditions, the latter of which reflects his deep love for his homeland. A key figure in promoting the works of contemporary composers, Britten co-founded the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. His legacy endures through his timeless compositions and dedication to music education.
York Bowen was an English composer, pianist, and pedagogue. A creative and prolific composer, he wrote for all kinds of ensembles including symphonies, string quartets, and piano trios, while also expanding the repertoire for instruments like viola and horn, on which he was proficient. However, the breadth of his oeuvre for piano and his idiomatic writing for the instrument earned him the sobriquet of “the English Rachmaninov.” A passionate teacher, Bown a accepted a teaching post a few short years after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in 1905—a job he held for fifty years.
JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. NPR calls her “one of today’s most eclectic composers,” and The Philadelphia Inquirer praises her “stunningly original compositional voice.” Upcoming season collaborations include the continuation and creation of Fung’s first opera, My Family // Cambodia, 1975, in collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek; a new song cycle song cycle for Andrea Núñez with Vavrek, as part of a residency at National Sawdust; a Del Sol Quartet commission for their project Songs of the Diaspora; and research to Guizhou, China with violinist Nancy Zhou. Born in Edmonton, Canada, Fung received her doctorate from The Juilliard School and currently lives in California.
Ursula Kwong-Brown is a composer, sound designer and arts technologist, originally from New York City but recently located to Los Angeles. Described as “atmospheric and accomplished” by The New York Times, her work has been performed in the United States, Europe, and Asia in diverse venues including Carnegie Hall, le Poisson Rouge, Miller Theatre, the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Honors include ASCAP and NACUSA awards, a Berkeley Symphony Composer Fellowship and grants from Chamber Music America and the Sloan Foundation. Ursula received her B.A. in Music & Biology from Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in Music Composition & New Media from the University of California, Her scores are published by Ursa Minor Music.
Sage Shurman is a Los Angeles-based composer and pianist. Among other accolades, she is a 2022 winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and National YoungArts Awards. Sage studies privately with Ian Krouse at UCLA and is a third year fellow in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program. Shurman has had her work performed by ensembles including the LA Phil, members of the LACO, Sandbox Percussion, ICE, and Triple Helix. Recently, she has been commissioned by Hub New Music, the Taos Chamber Music Group, and the Cincinnati May Festival.
Darian Donovan Thomas is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. He tours the world with Arooj Aftab, Balùn, Wild Up, Moses Sumney, and as a solo artist. His classical compositions have been premiered by Ensemble Signal, Sō Percussion, Adam Tendler, and many others in countries around the global west. Darian is also a ferociously gay Blaxican from Texas. Being at the intersection of so many identities means having the opportunity to speak to and create for multiple people at once. His goal is to create spaces where everyone feels heard, acknowledged, and communicated to, to remind people—even if for just a moment—that they’re alive right now, and present in this moment.
Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian’s music has been performed by leading performers such as Yuja Wang, Manfred Honeck, and the New York Philharmonic. His Concerto for Orchestra earned him a GRAMMY Award nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, making him the first Chinese-born composer honored in that category. The Wall Street Journal states his works “accomplish two important things: They remind us of how we got from there to here, and they refine that history by paying belated tribute to contributors who might otherwise be forgotten.”
About the musicians
Winner of The American Prize in 2021 for Chamber Music Performance, Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) consists of award-winning soprano/Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, pianist Margaret Halbig, and co-founder/ Senior Artistic Advisor composer David Garner. E4TT made its international debut in Berlin in 2012; was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest for a four-city tour of Hungary in 2014; and performed at the Krakow Culture Festival in 2016 and 2022, and at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017. E4TT has performed locally at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues. E4TT has released five albums, all of which have medaled in the Global Music Awards: Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood (2024) featuring chamber music and arrangements of music by composers who fled the Nazis for Hollywood and changed movie music as we know during WWII; The Guernica Project (2022), commemorating the 85th anniversary of the horrific carpet bombing of civilians and Picasso’s masterwork in response; Once/ Memory/ Night: Paul Celan (2020), honoring the centennial of the seminal 20th century poet; The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus (2018), with works by Hungarian émigré Miklós Rózsa, and three of his compatriots who perished in the Holocaust; and Surviving: Women’s Words, (2016), new music to poetry by women Holocaust survivors.
Cellist Megan Chartier is “unafraid to display gutsy abandon,” as described by the South Florida Classical Review. She has performed throughout North America and Europe as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral cellist. She currently holds positions as principal cellist of Opera San Luis Obispo and section cello in the Vallejo Symphony, following her positions as core cellist of the Astralis Chamber Ensemble, principal cellist of the Miami Symphony Orchestra, and extra cello of San Antonio Symphony. Chartier holds a Bachelor of Music degree in performance from Eastern Michigan University, and a Master of Music in performance from University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She teaches cello at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.
Violinist Lylia Guion has performed as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician in France and in the Bay Area. Her extensive orchestral experience includes the Orchestre Philharmonique of Radio-France (Paris) before moving to California in 1997, pursuing with Berkeley, Oakland, California, Marin and Skywalker Symphony, as well as Pacific Chamber Orchestra and Midsummer Mozart Festival. She served as concertmaster with Livermore and Pocket opera. As an avid educator, she has taught in various music schools, coached youth orchestras and organized community concerts. She became a Feldenkrais practitioner and now applies this method at her busy private violin studio in Alameda.
E4TT Pianist Margaret Halbig is in high demand as a collaborative artist in both the instrumental and vocal fields. She is currently associate chair of the Voice Department and principal vocal coach at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she also frequently collaborates with faculty and student singers and instrumentalists. In 2023, Halbig was appointed collaborative piano coordinator of Interlochen Arts Camp and has been the pianist for Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco since 2014. An advocate of new and contemporary music, she is the pianist and a board member of San Francisco-based new music collective Ninth Planet and has also. Halbig earned her DMA from the University of California Santa Barbara and performance degrees from the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory and University of Evansville, Indiana.
English hornist/oboist Laura Reynolds is an active chamber and orchestral performer throughout Northern California and serves as Principal oboist with the Santa Rosa Symphony, California Symphony, and second oboe and English horn with Marin Symphony. A chamber music enthusiast, she is a member of the wind quintet Avenue Winds and former member of the wind trio Trois Bois and wind quintet Citywinds. Reynolds is a member of the applied faculty of Sonoma State University as well as of the Pre-College and Continuing Education Divisions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she additionally works as an arts administrator. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, her principal teachers were Harry Sargous and William Bennett.