Ensemble Connect
Performers
Ensemble Connect
·· Rosie Gallagher, Flute
·· Yoonah Kim, Clarinet
·· Brandon Ilaw, Percussion
·· Lee Dionne, Piano
·· Mika Sasaki, Piano
·· Rebecca Anderson, Violin
·· Adelya Nartadjieva, Violin
·· Andrew Gonzalez, Viola
·· Madeline Fayette, Cello
·· Julia Yang, Cello
Program
BERNSTEIN Clarinet Sonata
MISSY MAZZOLI Still Life with Avalanche
COPLAND Sextet
STEVE REICH Different Trains
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 90 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.Additional support has been provided by Nicola and Beatrice Bulgari, Barbara G. Fleischman, Leslie and Tom Maheras, Susan and Elihu Rose Foundation, Sarah Billinghurst Solomon and Howard Solomon, and Trust for Mutual Understanding.
Public support is provided by the New York City Department of Education, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Ensemble Connect is also supported, in part, by an endowment grant from The Kovner Foundation.
At a Glance
LEONARD BERNSTEIN Sonata for Clarinet and Piano
Written a year before Bernstein’s highly publicized podium debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1943, the early Sonata for Clarinet and Piano combines a warmly lyrical idiom with the jazzy exuberance of his later ballets and musical theater scores. Bernstein dedicated the sonata to clarinetist David Oppenheim, who would later produce his path-breaking musical lectures for CBS Television’s Omnibus program.
MISSY MAZZOLI Still Life with Avalanche
Born in 1980, Brooklyn-based Missy Mazzoli is one of the most versatile and acclaimed composers of her generation. This engaging, percussion-rich chamber piece bears her fingerprints in its exuberant melodies, pulsating rhythms, kaleidoscopic colors, and minimalist-style repeating patterns. By turns controlled and chaotic, Still Life with Avalanche was commissioned by the new-music ensemble eighth blackbird.
AARON COPLAND Sextet
Frustrated by the inability of conductors and orchestras to master the complex rhythmic vocabulary of his Short Symphony in the early 1930s, Copland arranged the score for clarinet, piano, and string quartet, hoping to improve its chances of being performed. Both the Sextet and the Short Symphony illustrate the propulsive, sharply etched rhythms and wide-open intervals that are Copland’s stylistic trademarks.
STEVE REICH Different Trains
Scored for string quartet and tape, this powerful work pays eloquent homage to those who suffered and perished in the Nazi death camps. Reich used digital samples of Holocaust survivors’ recorded testimonies to generate much of the music’s thematic material and kinetic energy. Like many of his other pieces, Different Trains is characterized by hypnotic repetition, multilayered textures, and kaleidoscopic rhythm and melody patterns.