Residence. As winner of the1996 USIA Duo Competition, she gave recitals and master
classes in seven African countries with pianist Christina Dahl. She has been a top
prizewinner in numerous competitions, including the Philadelphia Orchestra Concerto
Competition and the West Palm Beach Invitational Concerto Competition. Since coming to
North Carolina with her husband, UNCG cello professor Brooks Whitehouse and their two
sons, Ms. Orenstein has appeared as soloist with the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra, and
in recital at Lees-McRae and Mt. Olive Colleges. She has also performed at Meredith
College where the Guild Trio was resident ensemble for the 2003 NCMTA State
Conference. Her principal teachers include Joyce Robbins, Szymon Goldberg, Ivan
Galamian and Christine Dethier.
Andrew Willis performs in the United States and abroad on pianos
of every period. His recordings include the “Hammerklavier” and
other Beethoven sonatas for Claves, as part of the first Beethoven
sonata cycle on period instruments, a project directed by Malcolm
Bilson and presented in concert at New York, Utrecht, Florence, and
Palermo. His recordings of Schubert lieder and Rossini songs with
soprano Julianne Baird are available on Vox, Newport Classics, and
Albany records, and he has recorded music of Rochberg, Schickele,
Ibert, and others with flutist Sue Ann Kahn.
The Viennese piano played this evening by Andrew Willis dates from the period which
found such great Romantic composers as Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Liszt at
the height of their careers. Restored in 1988 by Edward Swenson of Trumansburg, New
York, it is an early example of the work of Ignaz Bösendorfer (1794-1859), whose firm,
founded in 1828, continues to make some of today’s finest pianos.
8 feet 3⁄4 inches long and 4 feet 4 1⁄2 inches wide, veneered in ash, the 1841 Bösendorfer
has a range of six and a half octaves, from CC to g4, with 81 keys of ivory and ebony, and
pedals for lifting the dampers and shifting the keyboard (una corda). The elaborate
nameplate of inlaid brass reads (in translation): “Ignaz Bösendorfer, Royal and Imperial
Court Piano Manufacturer.” As with earlier Viennese pianos, the action uses leather-covered
hammers attached directly to the keys, the stringing is parallel throughout the
scale, and the case withstands the string tension without the support of an iron plate,
making this Bösendorfer a direct descendant of the fortepianos used by Mozart, Haydn,
Beethoven, and Schubert.
The McIver Ensemble
John Fadial, violin
Scott Rawls, viola
Brooks Whitehouse, violoncello
with special guests
Andrew Willis, piano
Robert Bracey, tenor
Janet Orenstein, violin
Friday, April 16, 2004
7:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Trio, Op. 141b Max Reger
Allegro (1873-1916)
Andante molto sostenuto con variazioni
Viviace
On Wenlock Edge Ralph Vaughan Williams
text from A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad (1896) (1872-1958)
I. On Wenlock Edge
II. From Far, From Eve and Morning
III. Is My Team Plowing
IV. Oh When I Was In Love With You
V. Bredon Hill
VI. Clun
Intermission
Quartet in E-flat, Op. 47 Robert Schumann
Sostenuto assai – Allegro ma non troppo (1810-1856)
Scherzo: Molto allegro
Andante cantabile
Finale: Vivace
This work is performed tonight on an 1841 Bösendorfer
from the private collection of Andrew Willis.
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Patrons are encouraged to take note of the exits located throughout
the auditorium. In an emergency, please use the nearest exit, which may
be behind you or different from the one through which you entered.
Brooks Whitehouse (BA, Harvard College, MMA and DMA, SUNY
Stony Brook) is UNCG’s new Cello Professor. He comes to
Greensboro from the University of Florida where he spent a year as
Assistant Professor of Cello and Chamber Music. From 1996-2001
he and his wife, violinist Janet Orenstein, were artists in residence at
the University of Virginia in Charlottesville as members of The Guild
Trio. In his thirteen years as cellist of the Guild Trio Mr. Whitehouse
has performed and taught chamber music throughout the US and
abroad, holding Artists-in-Residence positions at SUNY Stony Brook,
the Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY, and The Tanglewood Music
Center. This ensemble was a winner of both the "USIA Artistic Ambassador" and
"Chamber Music Yellow Springs" competitions, and with the group Mr. Whitehouse has
performed throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in Norway, Turkey, the
former Yugoslavia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal, France and Australia.
Robert Bracey has performed throughout the United States and
made appearances in Canada, Russia, and Europe. He was
awarded first place in the 2002 Oratorio Society of New York’s
Annual International Solo Competition at Carnegie Hall. In 1999 he
made his Detroit Symphony debut at Orchestra Hall in performances
of Handel: Messiah. He made his debut at the Kennedy Center in
Washington, D. C. in 1994 performing Mozart: Requiem with the
Choral Arts Society of Washington and members of the National
Symphony.
Recent highlights include performances with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie
Hall, Pacific Symphony (CA), ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, Orlando
Philharmonic, Choral Arts Society of Washington, Southwest Florida Symphony, Grand
Rapids Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Wichita
Symphony, Duke University Chapel Choir, Independence (MO) Messiah Festival, Ann
Arbor Symphony, and the Greater Lansing Symphony. He has worked with such well
known conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Simon Preston, Norman Scribner, Carl St. Clair,
David Lockington, Hal France, Lyndon Woodside, and Gustav Meier.
Future 2004 engagements include performances of Handel: Messiah in Osaka and Tokyo,
Japan with an international cast of soloists. He will also perform Messiah in Kansas City,
MO under the baton of renowned British conductor, organist and editor, Sir Philip Ledger,
and again with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra led by New Zealand conductor Andrew
Sewell. He will perform two concerts of Beethoven: Symphony no. 9 with the Greater
Lansing Symphony and the Duluth-Superior Symphony this Spring.
A Regional Finalist in the New York Metropolitan Opera Auditions, he holds a Bachelor of
Music Degree in Music Education from Michigan State University, a Master of Music and a
Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Voice Performance from the University of Michigan. He
has previously served on the faculties at Bowling Green State University and Michigan
State University. He has also taught on the voice faculty of the Michigan All-State program
at the Interlochen Arts Camp for twelve summers. He joined the voice
faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2003.
Janet Orenstein enjoys and active performing career in the United
States and abroad as both a chamber musician and soloist. As a
founding member of the Guild Trio, she has won the USIA Artistic
Ambassador and Yellow Springs Competitions, and has toured
extensively with this group in Canada, Europe and the United States.
From 1996-2001 she performed and taught violin at the University of
Virginia where the Guild Trio held the position of Ensemble-in-
bridges that Thames runs under,
In London, the town built ill,
'Tis sure small matter for wonder
If sorrow is with one still.
And if as a lad grows older
The troubles he bears are more,
He carries his griefs on a shoulder
That handselled them long before.
Where shall one halt to deliver
This luggage I'd lief set down?
Not Thames, not Teme is the river,
Nor London nor Knighton the town:
'Tis a long way further than Knighton,
A quieter place than Clun,
Where doomsday may thunder and lighten
And little 'twill matter to one.
_____
John Fadial holds degrees from the North Carolina School of the
Arts, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Maryland.
As a United States Information Service Artistic Ambassador, he has
toured extensively on four continents. Recent recital appearances
have included performances at the Phillips Collection; the Kennedy
Center; the Sale Poirel, Nancy, France; and the American University
in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. A highly successful teacher, his students
has been accepted by such prestigious institutions as Oberlin
Conservatory, Peabody Conservatory, the Eastman School, The
Cleveland Institute, and the National Repertory Orchestra. They also
have included winners of the Pittsburgh Symphony Young Artist Solo Competition; and
winners and finalists in the MTNA National Competitions. John Fadial currently serves as
concertmaster of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, as well as violinist of the
Chesapeake Trio and the McIver Ensemble. His mentors include Elaine Richey, Charles
Castleman, and Arnold Steinhardt.
Scott Rawls holds the B.M. degree from Indiana University and the
M.M. and D.M.A. from The State University of New York at Stony
Brook. His major teachers have included Abraham Skernick,
Georges Janzer, and John Graham, to whom he was assistant at
SUNY-Stony Brook. A champion of new music, Rawls has toured
extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians with recent
performances in San Francisco, Milan, and New York. He is a
founding member of the Locrian Chamber Players, a New York City
based group dedicated to performing new music. Rawls is invited
frequently as guest artist with chamber ensembles across the
country. He has recorded for CRI, Elektra, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels. In
addition to serving as viola professor and coordinator of the string area at the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, Rawls is very active as guest clinician, adjudicator, and
master class teacher at universities and festivals in America and Europe.
Ralph Vaughan Williams:
On Wenlock Edge from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad
A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad was first published in 1896. Through the 63 poems
which make up the complete work, Housman memorialises the Shropshire of the
ploughman or soldier, living and loving in a county which he describes as the "land of lost
content.” Housman's Shropshire is the Shropshire of the imagination and the heart, a rural
idyll to which the "Shropshire Lad" (whether in London or overseas) longs to return, but
cannot. The lyrics, in their mixture of regret, longing, nostalgia and understated and ironic
pessimism, have become cultural icons of one version of modern Englishness — rural,
provincial and understated in character — which has survived into the 1990s. In the years
after the First World War, A Shropshire Lad became immensely popular: with the death of
so many Shropshire lads in Flanders and on the Somme, Housman's verse spoke for a
whole generation of young men, slaughtered in the 1914-18 War.
I. On Wenlock Edge
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood:
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.
Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.
There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.
II. From Far, From Eve and Morning
From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.
Now -- for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart --
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.
Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.
III. Is My Team Ploughing
"Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?"
Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.
"Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?"
Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep,
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.
"Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?"
Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.
IV. Oh When I Was In Love With You
Oh, when I was in love with you
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
And now the fancy passes by
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.
V. Bredon Hill
In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.
Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.
The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away:
"Come all to church, good people;
Good people, come and pray."
But here my love would stay.
And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
"Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time."
But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.
They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.
The bells they sound on Bredon
And still the steeples hum.
"Come all to church, good people," --
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.
VI. Clun
In valleys of springs and rivers,
By Ony and Teme and Clun,
The country for easy livers,
The quietest under the sun,
We still had sorrows to lighten,
One could not be always glad,
And lads knew trouble at Knighton
When I was a Knighton lad.
The McIver Ensemble
John Fadial, violin
Scott Rawls, viola
Brooks Whitehouse, violoncello
with special guests
Andrew Willis, piano
Robert Bracey, tenor
Janet Orenstein, violin
Friday, April 16, 2004
7:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Trio, Op. 141b Max Reger
Allegro (1873-1916)
Andante molto sostenuto con variazioni
Viviace
On Wenlock Edge Ralph Vaughan Williams
text from A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad (1896) (1872-1958)
I. On Wenlock Edge
II. From Far, From Eve and Morning
III. Is My Team Plowing
IV. Oh When I Was In Love With You
V. Bredon Hill
VI. Clun
A Shropshire Lad is Housman’s (1859–1936) signature work. Mixing
the styles of the traditional English ballad and classical verse, the
young Housman takes on the growing pains of youth and young
love. His verse is noted for its economy of words and directness of
statement, pictures of the English countryside, and the fusion of
humor and pathos. These six poems are taken from a total set of 63
that comprise the full work.
Intermission
Quartet in E-flat, Op. 47 Robert Schumann
Sostenuto assai – Allegro ma non troppo (1810-1856)
Scherzo: Molto allegro
Andante cantabile
Finale: Vivace
This work is performed tonight on an 1841 Bösendorfer
from the private collection of Andrew Willis.
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Patrons are encouraged to take note of the exits located throughout
the auditorium. In an emergency, please use the nearest exit, which may
be behind you or different from the one through which you entered.
