Jonathan Bagg
viola
Donald Berman
piano
assisted by:
Arturo Ciompi, clarinet
Guest Artist Recital
Monday, November 6, 2006
7:30 pm
Organ Hall, School of Music
Program
“Tesserae” (2003) Arthur Levering
(b. 1953)
“A Bird came down the Walk” (1994) Toru Takemitsu
for viola accompanied by piano (1930-1996)
Four Pieces Quasi Sonata (premiere) Steven Jaffe
Paysage (lyric resonance; bell, dove, bones, the blues; lamentation) (b. 1954)
Dialogue of figures (mach-vivace; scherzo)
Solo (Calmo, dolce)
Tornello (kleine pop-musik)
Intermission
Impression of the “St Gaudens” in Boston Common Charles Ives
Study #2 (1874-1954)
Study #19
Study #23
Fairy Tales for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, Op. 132 Robert Schumann
Lebhaft, nicht zu schnell (1810-1856)
Lebhaft und sehr markirt
Ruhiges tempo, mit zartem ausdruck
Lebhaft, sehr markirt
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Notes
Four Pieces Quasi Sonata for viola and piano was composed in the summer of 2006, and is
dedicated to my friend and colleague, the violist Jonathan Bagg. Many of my chamber
compositions have featured viola, often melding in combination with other instruments: with the
mezzo-soprano voice and alto flute in Four Songs with Ensemble; with harp and flute in Offering;
in two string quartets. With piano, the veiled warmth, and the mournful quality of the viola offered
the discovery of new and poetic joinings, and also stimulated the challenge of imagining more
virtuosic utterances of which today’s players make the instrument capable of singing.
Four Pieces Quasi Sonata for viola and piano was commissioned with a grant from the Fromm
Music Foundation, Harvard University.
-S.J.
Performers
The New York Times has called Donald Berman a "thorough,
exciting, and persuasive musician." The Boston Globe describes him
as "essential." His solo recordings The Unknown Ives was issued by
CRI in 1999 and named among the best CDs of the year by Fanfare
and the Boston Globe. In the fall of 2002 Berman directed the
American Academy in Rome Concerts at Carnegie Hall. This series
featured the work of thirty-six American composers who have won
the Rome Prize in Music since its inception in 1921. In 2003 he was
featured at New York City's Miller Theater in a concert of new critical
editions of unpublished works by Ruggles and Ives, as well as at
Carnegie Hall's When Morty Met John in the new Zankel Hall. Other
recent performances have ranged from Mozart concerti with the
Columbus Symphony to American Music retrospectives to recitals
linking Haydn and Schubert with contemporary works, which the
New York Times called "thrillingly clear . . . positive and persuasive."
In 1998 Berman received a Visiting Artist Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome,
continuing an interest in performing important out-of-print and forgotten works. He has been
recitalist for the League/ISCM and Goethe Institute New York and Boston seasons; was a
prizewinner of the 1991 Schubert International Competition, Germany; and has been a member of
the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble since 1987. He has been a featured soloist at Merkin Hall in
New York; Masters of Tomorrow series in Germany; French Cultural Services (Fauré
Sesquicentennial); Soundways in St. Petersburg, Russia; La Foce Italy; Epidavrus; Tanglewood;
Emmanuel Music (Schubert Series); Fromm Foundation (Imbrie and Babbitt); Monadnock Music;
Lane Series, Vermont; Music on the Edge, Pittsburgh; Andover Chamber Music; NPR's Art of the
States, A Note to You, and The Connection; and with the Martha Graham and Mark Morris Dance
Companies. He has performed, taught master classes, and lectured at many universities. He has
premiered works for Nuclassix; Collage; Real Art Ways; Alea III; Core Ensemble (Harlem
Renaissance); and his own series, Pioneers and Premieres, recitals and lecture-demonstrations,
which include commissioned solo works. He created the Firstworks program for First Night
Boston and in 2002 joined Bright Sheng to present new works at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
In 2004-2005 New World Records will release The Unknown Ives vol 2 and The Uncovered
Ruggles Rome Prize Concerts. A four-CD volume of music of Rome Prize winners is also in
production for Bridge Records. Berman has also recently recorded works of Martin Boykan and
Scott Wheeler and Ruth Lomon's Songs of Remembrance, a song cycle derived from poems by
children of Terezenstadt and Treblinka.
Berman co-directs the New Music Ensemble at Tufts University and is a tutor at Pforzheimer
House at Harvard University. He studied with and served as teaching assistant to Leonard Shure
at the New England Conservatory, where he received a Masters with Distinction in 1988. He was
an exclusive student of John Kirkpatrick and has a BA from Wesleyan University.
Jonathan Bagg is associate professor at Duke University and a
member of the Ciompi String Quartet. His career with the Ciompi
spans 20 years and includes hundreds of concerts across the
U.S. and abroad, in Europe, China, Israel, and South America, as
well as over a dozen recordings. His work outside the Ciompi
Quartet, as a solo violist and chamber musician, is substantial and
is distinguished by his interest in bringing new and unfamiliar
works to life, including many pieces written for him. In reviews of
his solo playing, The Washington Post has noted his “total
confidence, rock-solid technique and a deep sensitivity,” while
American Record Guide hailed him as “an excellent violist who
approaches the music with intelligence, passion, and clarity.”
Recitals have brought him to places such as the Phillips Gallery in Washington DC, Boston’s
Jordan Hall, and Manchester, New Hamphsire’s Currier Gallery. Concerto appearances include
the Pioneer Valley Symphony in Massachusetts, the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, the
New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the Monadnock Music Festival Orchestra. As a chamber
musician he has played at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit, and in North
Carolina at the Eastern Music Festival and the Highlands Chamber Music Festival. Bagg has for
many years been a mainstay at the Monadnock Music Festival in New Hampshire, where he now
serves as a board member and artistic advisor.
Bagg has recorded the solo music for viola and piano by Robert Fuchs (1847-1927), and also
contemporary solo works by Malcolm Peyton and Donald Wheelock. His most recent disc is of
music for viola and piano by Robert and Clara Schumann with pianist Jane Hawkins, on the
Centaur label. He also appears on an upcoming Bridge Records CD playing a work written for
him by American composer Arthur Levering. Mr. Bagg directs the chamber music program at
Duke University, where he served also for seven years as Director of Undergraduate Studies. He
graduated with honors from both Yale University (B.A.), and the New England Conservatory
(M.M.), where he was a student of Walter Trampler.
Arturo Ciompi was born into the world of music. Son of internationally famous violinist Giorgio
Ciompi, he became a classical clarinetist and conductor. His career includes performing with
Orpheus, Sylvan Winds, American Symphony and the New York City Opera Orchestra. He
performed at the Caramoor, Kneisel Hall and Chamber Music Northwest festivals. His teaching
career took place at The State University of NewYork at Albany, Princeton and Duke Universities.
In 1984 Arturo changed careers and followed his long time avocation of wine. He worked as a
retail wine manager from 1984-97. (During this period he had a wine spot on National Public
Radio that ran for two years.) Upon retirement from retail, he began wrote a wine column for the
Durham Herald-Sun newspaper from 1997-2003. He then moved to the Independent Weekly in
order to write longer, more informative stories-which he continues to do. In 2004, Arturo won first
prize from the Association of Food Journalists in recognition of his wine articles. He now
combines writing with teaching the clarinet, practicing furiously and playing public concerts with
more regularity.
Composer Stephen Jaffe's works include Concertos for Cello and Orchestra (2004) and Violin
and Orchestra (2000), as well as numerous chamber and orchestral compositions which have
been performed at major concerts and festivals throughout the United States, Europe and Asia,
by ensembles including The National Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin, conducting; the
Nottingham, Tanglewood, and Oregon Bach Festivals; Berlin's Spectrum Concerts, the San
Francisco and New Jersey Symphonies, R.A.I. of Rome, and many others. In addition to the two
concertos, now both recorded on the Bridge label, recent premieres have included Cut Time
(2005), also by Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony; Designs for flute, guitar and
percussion, introduced at the National Arts Center of Taiwan, 2002, and Homage to the Breath:
Instrumental and Vocal Meditations for Mezzo-soprano and Ten Instruments, with a text by Thich
Nhat Hanh, introduced at the Hirschorn Museum, Washington.
