2009-05-29 Feminist Theory and Music Two [recital program]

              School of Music
U N C G
Feminist Theory and Music 10:
Improvising and Galvanizing
Concert Two
Friday, May 29, 2009
8:00 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Gotta Love Judy Jaclyn Heyen
Jaclyn Heyen, electronics
Tale of an Unborn Child Hsiao-Lan Wang
Julie Smith, flute
Deborah Hollis, piano
Becoming a Redwood (2003) Lori Laitman
The Song
Pentecost
Curriculum Vitae
Becoming a Redwood
Lucy Hoyt, soprano
Deborah Hollis, piano
Taut
Tomie Hahn, dance and shakuhachi
Melanie Klein, sculpture
One Blazing Glance Beth Denisch
Part 1
I. All Night
2. Vestment
3. I Am Happy
4. Song for a Young Girlʼs Puberty Ceremony
5. poem in praise of menstruation
6. to a dark moses
Part 2
7. Thank you, my Dear
8. Miriamʼs Song
9. With Child
10. My Baby has no Name Yet
11. The Children
Part 3
12. Housing Shortage
13. why people be mad at me sometimes
14. The Healing Time
15. Facial
16. On Learning My Daughter is Pregnant
17. In November
Kathryn Wright, soprano
Wendy Rolfe, flute
Scott Rawls, viola
Helen Rifas, harp
Peter Zlotnick, marimba
Program Notes
Gotta Love Judy (electroacoustic) Jaclyn Heyen
The idea for this piece came from my admiration for Judy Garland, and in particular her
role in The Wizard of Oz. I was struck by how defining this movie was in her career, and
how she defined herself both as part and apart from it. Gotta Love Judy utilizes sound
clips from the film that hearken to this tension. Live-processed sounds from scraping a
piece of wood emulate the winds of a tornado. Additionally, the sounds spin around the
audience, placing the listeners in the middle of the tornado. As the piece progresses, the
sound files become less recognizable as themselves and instead begin to sound like
screaming, yelling, moaning and doors slamming. I approach this piece from a personal
perspective, reflecting on the demons Judy Garland faced professionally and personally
in dealing with expectations of gender and their mediation by the media. I am especially
drawn to how these issues are still relevant to women today.
Tale of an Unborn Child, for flute and piano (2006) Hsiao-Lan Wang
In the fall of 2005, I started to develop ideas for a piece whose main subject is abortion. I
became deeply sympathized with women who face the tough decision of abortion, for
whatever reasons. In Tale of an Unborn Child, the perspective comes from the woman, who
experiences confusion, joy, struggle, hope, and guilt about the pregnancy and the idea of
abortion. This work is really about a womanʼs battle within herself, and the music aims to
reflect her state of mind through her journey. As I started writing this piece at the end of
year 2005, I found out I was pregnant. The baby would be born in summer 2006.
taut
keep the line
between us
well traveled,
buzzing
rattling
Becoming a Redwood Lori Laitman
The Song
How shall I hold my soul that it
does not touch yours? How shall I lift
it over you to other things?
If it would only sink below
into the dark like some lost thing
or slumber in some quiet place
which did not echo your soft heartʼs beat.
But all that ever touched us—you and me—
touched us together like a bow
that from two strings could draw one voice.
On what instrument were we strung?
And to what player did we sing
our interrupted song?
Dana Gioia, The Gods of Winter
Pentecost
Neither the sorrows of afternoon, waiting in the silent house,
Nor the night no sleep relieves, when memory
Repeats its prosecution.
Nor the morningʼs ache for dreamʼs illusion, nor any prayers
Improvised to an unknowable god
Can extinguish the flame.
We are not as we were. Death has been our pentecost,
And our innocence consumed by these implacable
Tongues of fire.
Comfort me with stones. Quench my thirst with sand.
I offer you this scarred and guilty hand
Until others mix our ashes.
Dana Gioia, Interrogations at Noon
Curriculum Vitae
The future shrinks
Whether the past
Is well or badly spent.
We shape our lives
Although their forms
Are never what we meant.
Dana Gioia, Interrogations at Noon
Becoming a Redwood
Stand in a field long enough, and the sounds
Start up again. The crickets, the invisible
toad who claims that change is possible,
And all the other life too small to name.
First one, then another, until innumerable
they merge into the single voice of a summer hill.
Yes, itʼs hard to stand still, hour after hour,
fixed as a fencepost, hearing the steers
snort in the dark pasture, smelling the manure.
And paralyzed by the mystery of how a stone
can bear to be a stone, the pain
the grass endures breaking through the earthʼs crust.
Unimaginable the redwoods on the far hill,
rooted for centuries, the living wood grown tall
and thickened with a hundred thousand days of light.
The old windmill creaks in perfect time
to the wind shaking the miles of pasture grass,
and the last farmhouse light goes off.
Something moves nearby. Coyotes hunt
these hills and packs of feral dogs.
But standing here at night accepts all that.
You are your own pale shadow in the quarter moon,
moving more slowly than the crippled stars,
part of the moonlight as the moonlight falls,
Part of the grass that answers the wind,
part of the midnightʼs watchfulness that knows
there is no silence but when danger comes.
Dana Gioia, The Gods of Winter
One Blazing Glance, for soprano, flute, viola, and harp Beth Denisch
One Blazing Glance, a song cycle in three parts for soprano, flute, viola, harp and
marimba, explores a womanʼs self-awareness, autonomy, and power as it chronicles her
life-cycle events. I spoke with friends and colleagues, searched printed and online
resources, and posted calls to poets and publishers to find the right poems. Multitudes of
women writers across the ages and the oceans became part of my creative world. Kathryn
Wrightʼs beautiful voice inspired me and we had many conversations about what
empowerment meant in the poems and to us. The original flutist, Wendy Rolfe, had just
returned from South America and our talks about women from Brazil and Ecuador and their
sound worlds, ghosts, and influences filled us. All of these connections changed the
solitary nature of composing into wonderful companionship circles of real and imagined
women; their lives and connections to life swirled around in my head as the poems fit
together like pieces in a puzzle and the music flowed from one piece to the next. One
Blazing Glance is in three parts: childhood to young adulthood; young love through
childrearing; and from mid-life to elder status. There are seventeen poems, ancient and
contemporary, by women poets from China, Korea, Romania, El Salvador, Greece and
Americans of indigenous, African, and Jewish descent. The texts are intimate, empowered,
first-person portrayals of women at important moments in their lives. One Blazing Glance
was originally made possible with support from Our Bodies Ourselves, The Open Meadows
Foundation, and the American Music Center.
Part 1
1. All night I could not sleep
because of the moonlight on my bed.
I kept hearing a voice calling:
Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes”.
2. Sometimes in the morning
I wake up frozen
And, still half asleep,
I pull, drowsy and shivering,
My young, warm, silky
Body over myself.
I wrap myself in it
Teeth chattering childishly,
Happy that for one more day,
One whole day
I will be
In a shelter from eternity.
3. Today I have discovered happiness.
Today I learnt
itʼs not that Iʼm on the way
or by the way
or with the way
I am the way!
4. I am on my way running,
I am on my way running,
Looking toward me is the edge of the world,
I am trying to reach it,
The edge of the world does not look far
away,
To that I am on my way running.
5. if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there
is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is
a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and abel if there is in
the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave
6. you are the one
i am lit for.
Come with your rod
that twists
and is a serpent.
i am the bush.
i am burning
i am not consumed.
1.”All Night” by Zi Ye (6th-3rd c. B.C.E.) - translated by Arthur Waley
2. “Vestment” by Ana Blandiana (Translated from the Romanian by Peter Jay & Anca
Cristofovici) (permission obtained from translator)
3. “I am Happy” by Delfy Gochez Fernandez - translated from the Spanish by Amanda
Hopkinson (permission obtained from translator)
4. “Song for a Young Girlʼs Puberty Ceremony” Traditional, Papago - translated from the
Papago by Frances Densmore
5. and 6. “poem in praise of menstruation” and “to a dark moses”(and 13. “why people be
mad at me sometimes”) by Lucille Clifton, from “Blessing the Boats: New and Selected
Poems 1988 – 2000” (Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. © 1987, 1988, 1991. All
rights reserved.)
Part 2
7. You came, and you did
well to come: I needed
you. You have made
love blaze up in
my breast – bless you!
Bless you as often
as the hours have
been endless to me
while you were gone
8. There is a song I hear,
Resting and rocking the warm air.
It enters me from out of old volcanic rock
As dense as the dark past;
I know it like my own blood running unseen
In the hidden chambers of my soul;
It resounds as thunder, appears as fire,
Becomes a pillar, clouds,
And wish-fulfilling stars.
With a skip and jangle, I follow
The trope, rising, swept dry by waves.
Where I move
To the music that I am,
Have been,
And always will be.
9. Now I am slow and placid, fond of sun,
Like a sleek beast, or a worn one:
No slim and languid girl – not glad
With the windy trip I once had,
But velvet-footed, musing of my own,
Torpid, mellow, stupid as a stone.
You cleft me with your beautyʼs pulse, and
now
Your pulse has take body. Care not how
The old grace goes, how heavy I am grown,
Big with this loneliness, how you alone
Ponder our love, Touch my feet and feel
How earth tingles, teeming at my heel!
Earthʼs urge, not mine – my little death, not
hers;
And the pure beauty yearns and stirs.
It does not heed our ecstasies, it turns
With secrets of its own, its own concerns,
Toward a windy world of its own, toward
stark
And solitary places. In the dark,
Defiant even now, it tugs and moans
To be untangled from these motherʼs
bones.
10. My baby has no name yet;
like a new-born chick or a puppy,
my baby is not named yet.
What numberless texts I examined
at dawn and night and evening over again!
But not one character did I find
which is as lovely as the child.
Starry field of the sky,
or heaps of pearls in the depth.
Where can the name be found, how can I?
My baby has no name yet;
like an unnamed bluebird or white flowers
from the farthest land for the first,
I have no name for this baby of ours.
11. Sometimes it seems
they came from nowhere,
arrived one Spring,
their quick minds perched on my fence
like precarious birds,
their limbs – wild iris
along my narrow road,
Having erased that time
when love pulled eagerly
at the thighs and the taking of seed
was a contrived joy,
and my belly, a ripe, golden sun.
It is as if
I never planned to bear them
turned suddenly to a gift
of young voices.
Yes, they are here, and firm
eating my days – wind rascals,
ogres.
I love them,
wanting them gone.
7. “Thank you, my dear” from Sappho: A New Translation by Mary Barnard (permission
obtained from the Bernard estate) 8. “Miriamʼs Song” by Rosie Rosenzweig (permission
obtained by the poet) 9. “With Child” by Genevieve Taggard 10. “My Baby has no name
yet” by Kim Nam-Jo – adapted from the translation by Ko Won
11. “The Children” by Susan MacDonald (permission obtained by publisher)
Part 3
12. I tried to live small.
I took a narrow bed.
I held my elbows to my sides.
I tried to step carefully
And to think softly
And to breathe shallowly
In my portion of air
And to disturb no one.
Yet see how I spread out and I cannot help it.
I take to myself more and more, and I take
nothing
That I do not need, but my needs grow like
weeds,
All over and invading; I clutter this place
With all the apparatus of living.
You stumble over it daily.
And then my lungs take their fill.
And then you gasp for air.
Excuse me for living,
But, since I am living,
Given inches, I take yards,
Taking yards, dream of miles,
And a landscape, unbounded
And vast in abandon.
You too dreaming the same.
13. they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering
mine
14. Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that sent me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy
holy.
15. Remember all the hands that loved your skin,
the soft plains of your cheeks, your jaw and chin,
and think of them, the way they ached to stroke
each inch, in need of all your face evokes.
Caress each wrinkle with a fingertip,
glide down the slope of nose, the curve of lip.
Each line that you embrace reveals a life
that no one else can know—each joy or strife,
each moment that your face can map for years—
the brows, the folds, the scars, the pores, the
fears,
the knowledge in your eyes, your regal head,
the selves youʼve painted on, then rinsed to
shed.
Be proud of all the progress you can trace
by touching every contour of your face.
16. Oh strange and lucid moment
When the Holy All pivots—
Plunges into our midst,
Reigniting what smolders,
Expectation, endless possibility,
With one blazing glance of cosmic
goodness.
I salute you: The new life coming
Is undoubtedly my own.
17. A seedling survived summer
drouth.
One pale pink hollyhock blossom
opened on Thanksgiving Day.
How brave and good, the late
blooming.
I give thanks and take the stairs
one at a time, slowly.
12.“Housing Shortage” by Naomi Replansky (authorʼs permission obtained) 13. “why
people be mad at me sometimes” by Lucille Clifton from “Blessing the Boats: New and
Selected Poems 1988 – 2000” (permission obtained) 14. “The Healing Time” by Pesha
Gertler (authorʼs permission obtained) 15. “Facial” by Allison Joseph (authorʼs permission
obtained) 16. “On Learning My Daughter is Pregnant” by Maryanne Hannan (authorʼs
permission obtained) 17. “In November” by Ethel Fortner.
Biographies - Composers
Beth Denischʼs music has been performed throughout North America, Greece, Ukraine,
Russia, and East Asia and recorded by Juxtab, Albany, and Interval record labels. Grants
and awards include ASCAP, Meet The Composer, The PatsyLu Fund, ACF, and AMC.
Commissioning organizations include the Handel and Haydn Society, Equinox Chamber
Players, Philadelphia Classical Symphony, and Chamber Orchestra Kremlin. Denisch is
Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and a member of Gender Research in
Music and Education. She was the founding director of American Composers Forum New
England and serves on the ACFNE and the Womenʼs Philharmonic Advocacy boards.
Jaclyn Heyen is a graduate student in Music Technology at Florida International
University. She received her BM in Music Technology and a Certificate in
Women Studies in 2008 at FIU. She is a musician/consultant for the Renfrew
Center of Florida (the countries first residential eating disorder treatment facility), where she
has been active in education on eating disorders. A singer, songwriter, and composer of
folk and computer music she has composed pieces for the American Dance Therapy
Association Annual Conference and ABCs of Eating Disorders Documentary. Her interest
in her graduate work is integrating music technology into music therapy.
Lori Laitman is one of Americaʼs most prolific and widely performed composers of art
song. “It is difficult to think of anyone before the public today who equals her exceptional
gifts for embracing a poetic text and giving it new and deeper life through music.” (Journal
of Singing) Laitman graduated from Yale College and received her M.M. in flute
performance from the Yale School of Music. Initially, she focused on composing music for
film and theatre, but in 1991 Laitman started composing for voice. Albany Records released
her debut CD, "Mystery — The Songs of Lori Laitman" in August 2000, "Dreaming" in May
2003 and “Becoming a Redwood” in October 2006, all to critical acclaim. Laitmanʼs songs
have been recorded on such other labels as Channel Classics, Gasparo, Capstone and
Naxos.
Hsiao-Lan Wang, a native of Taiwan, composes extensively for orchestra, chamber
ensembles, solo instruments, and multimedia. Her works have been heard in concerts,
music festivals, and on radio broadcasts in Taiwan, Belgium, Canada, France, the
Netherlands, Czech Republic, China, and throughout the United States. Ms. Wang is
currently a faculty of music technology at Montana State University and serves as the
president of International Alliance for Women in Music
Biographies - Performers
Alexander Ezerman recently joined the UNCG School of Music faculty as the associate
professor of cello. A prize winner in national and international competition, he has appeared
internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. Ezerman has been on the faculties at
Texas Tech University, the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, the Brevard Music
Center and the Killington Music Festival. An active advocate and performer of new music,
he has been involved in numerous premiers. Ezerman holds a BM from Oberlin College
Conservatory and a MM and DMA from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
His primary mentors include Timothy Eddy, Norman Fischer, David Wells and his
grandmother Elsa Hilger.
Tomie Hahn is a performer of shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), and of nihon buyo
(Japanese traditional dance) holding the professional stage name, Samie Tachibana. She
is Associate Professor of performance ethnology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Tomieʼs research spans a wide range of topics including: Japanese traditional performing
arts, Monster Truck rallies, issues of identity and creative expression of multiracial
individuals, and relationships of technology and culture; interactive dance/movement
performance; and gestural control and extended human/computer interface in the
performing arts. Her book, Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese
Dance (Wesleyan University Press) was awarded the Alan P. Merriam prize in 2008.
At the age of 10, soprano Jodi Hitzhusen made her singing debut as a soprano soloist in
Britten's Ceremony of Carols. Since then, she has performed all across the United States,
as well as in the Philippines, Panama, England, Canada and France. In 2003, Hitzhusen
made her operatic debut as Pamina in "The Magic Flute." She has been a voice and piano
instructor since 1999 and performs outreach programs in schools through Bostonʼs “Handel
and Haydn Society”. Hitzhusen is also a pianist and an advocate for ethnomusicology.
Most recently, she was awarded an Emerging Artists Grant to study in Scotland and
France.
Deborah Lee Hollis, pianist, received performance degrees from Oberlin Conservatory
and the University of Illinois and is completing her DMA in collaborative piano at UNCG.
Her teachers include Anne Vanko Liva, Miles Mauney, Kenneth Drake, Claire Richards and
Andrew Harley. She is the official accompanist for the Long Leaf Opera Company, and has
also served as official accompanist for the Eastern Music Festival master classes with
Ryan Anthony and David Krakauer. She has served on staff at Duke University,
Northeastern University in Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and
is currently on faculty at Guilford College.
American soprano Lucy Owen Hoyt earned music degrees from Westminster Choir
College and James Madison University and is completing a DMA in Voice Performance
with a specialty in vocal pedagogy at UNCG. Ms. Hoytʼs teachers include Robert Bracey,
Robert Simpson, Helen Kemp, Sally Lance, and LaVerne Roberts. She has served on the
faculty at James Madison University, Central Piedmont Community College, and Piedmont
Virginia Community College. Ms. Hoyt is a certified vocologist and is a member of the
National Association of Teachers of Singing, the College Music Society, and the Lyrica
Society for Word-Music Relations.
Melanie Klein has long split her time between writing and various ways of making things
(sometimes known as running in several directions at once). She has exhibited sculpture in
California and New York and regularly reads poetry in New York and New Jersey. Since
2005 she has been living in Poughkeepsie, NY, and teaching English, creative writing, and
3D design at Dutchess Community College.
Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States,
Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Recent chamber music collaborations include
performances with Alex Kerr, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Gary Hoffman, Lynn Harrell, Bella
Davidovich and the Diaz Trio. His chamber music recordings can be heard on Centaur,
CRI, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels. Rawls has toured extensively as a member
of Steve Reich and Musicians since 1991. The ensemble has performed in major music
centers around the world including London, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, Prague, Amsterdam, Los
Angeles, Chicago and New York. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Viola in
the School of Music at UNCG.
Helen Rifas, harpist, earned degrees in music from Reed College and the University of
Oregon, where she was a recipient of the Ruth Lorraine Close Fellowship in harp. She is
currently principal harpist with the Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphonies, as well as
symphonies in Salisbury, Hickory and Greenville, South Carolina. Ms. Rifas is a member of
the Wake Forest Consort, an early music ensemble which performs on period instruments,
and frequently performs with flute and cello in church and concert settings. Ms. Rifas is
adjunct harp instructor at Wake Forest University and teaches Suzuki harp at Kids in
Koncert at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory.
Flutist Wendy Rolfe is one of the USA's leading performers on modern and historical
flutes. She performs, records, and/or tours with Boston's Handel and Haydn Society,
Boston Baroque, New York's Concert Royal, The Group for Contemporary Music, and her
own group, the Odyssey Chamber Players. Other performances include the BBC Proms
Concerts, Casals Festival (Puerto Rico) and in Brazil and Ecuador. Dr. Rolfe released the
CD "Images of Brazil” in 2006 and has recorded for Decca, Telarc, Analekta, with the
Hollywood Studio Orchestra, and for United States' National Public Radio and Television.
Dr. Rolfe is a Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts
(Manhattan School of Music, DMA, MM; Oberlin Conservatory, BM).
Julie Smith is a masters student at UNCG (M.M. Flute Performance). Prior to her arrival at
UNCG, she earned a B.S. in Music Education from Roberts Wesleyan College (Rochester,
NY). While at Roberts, Julie had the opportunity to study with renowned flutists Bonita
Boyd, Walfrid Kujala, Rebecca Gilbert, and Diane Smith. She is the 2004 and 2007 winner
of the Rochester Flute Association's annual competition, as well as winning the '06-'07
RWC Concerto Competition and the prestigious Presser Scholarship. Her future goals
include performing in a symphony orchestra and teaching at the collegiate level.
Peter Zlotnick is Principal Timpanist in the Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Salisbury
Symphony Orchestras. He also performs in the Philidor Percussion Group and the Amphion
Percussion Group. Peter has been a featured soloist with the Greensboro Symphony,
Rochester Philharmonic, Salisbury Symphony, and Northwestern University Contemporary
Music Ensemble. Peter serves as Education Manager for the Greensboro Symphony and
Percussion Instructor at Catawba College. He has served on the faculty of UNCG, Guilford
College, and the Hochstein School of Music. Peter holds degrees from Northwestern
University and the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Michael Burritt, John
Beck, and Ruth Cahn.