School of Music
U N C G
Robert Faub is an accomplished classical soloist, chamber musician and jazz artist. He
was formerly the alto saxophonist with the widely acclaimed New Century Saxophone
Quartet, with whom he performed extensively throughout the United States and in the
Netherlands. He appears on New Century's recordings A New Century Christmas and
Standards. As a soloist, he gave the first performance of Ben Boone's concerto Squeeze
with the University of South Carolina Symphony, adding to a long list of works he has
premiered. His recording of Andrew Simpson's Exhortation, included on Arizona University
Recording's America's Millenial Tribute to Adolphe Sax, was "immaculately played,"
according to The Double Bassist magazine. Robert Faub appears regularly with the North
Carolina, Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphonies.
Steve Stusek is Assistant Professor of Saxophone at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro. He performs frequently with Dutch accordion player Otine van Erp in the duo
2Track, was director of Big Band Utrecht and is a founding member of the Bozza Mansion
Project, an Amsterdam-based new music ensemble. The list of composers who have
written music for him include Academy Award winner John Addison. His many awards
include a Medaille d'Or in Saxophone Performance from the Conservatoire de la Région de
Paris, winner of the Saxophone Concerto competition at Indiana University, Semi-finalist in
the Concert Artists Guild Competition, Vermont Council on the Arts prize for Artistic
Excellence, and Finalist in the Nederlands Impressariaat Concours for ensembles. His
teachers include Daniel Deffayet, Jean-Yves Formeau, Eugene Rousseau, David Baker,
Joseph Wytko and Larry Teal.
Mark Engebretson is Assistant Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A former resident of Vienna and Stockholm, he
has received numerous commissions from the Austrian Ministry of Culture, STIM (Sweden)
and the American Composers Forum Commissioning Program. His Five Songs of Passion
was recently premiered in the Weill Recital Hall by the Eastwind Ensemble. Mark
Engebretson has appeared twice as a concerto soloist with the Brno (Czech) Philharmonic
Orchestra. He is well represented as a composer and performer on the Innova label and
has performed with Klangforum Wien, Swedish percussionist Anders Åstrand and the
Intergalactic Contemporary Music Ensemble. His principle teachers were Michel Fuste-
Lambezat, Frederick Hemke, Jean-Marie Londeix, M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros,
Marta Ptaszynska, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and Jay Alan Yim.
Red Clay
Saxophone Quartet
Susan Fancher, soprano saxophone
Robert Faub, alto saxophone
Mark Engebretson, tenor saxophone
Steven Stusek, baritone saxophone
Faculty Recital
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
7:30 pm
Organ Hall, School of Music
Program
Premier Quatuor, Op. 53 (1857) Jean Baptiste Singelée
Andante (1812-1875)
Adagio sostenuto
Allegro Vivace
Allegretto
Motherless Child Variations Perry Goldstein
(b. 1952)
Intermission
New York Counterpoint (1985) Steve Reich
(b. 1936)
arr. Susan Fancher
Tangos for Sax Quartet, arranged by Alejandro Rutty:
Don Agustín Bardi Horacio Salgán
Nunca Tuvo Novio Agustín Bardi
Hyperlink from Tango Loops Alejandro Rutty
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
the American Premiere of Martín Palmeri's Misatango with the Catskill Choral Society.
Recent performances include Hartwick College Choir's performance of Banchieri's La
Barca di Venetia per Padova. Rutty has worked as composer and music director for
theatrical productions and opera. Recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Rutty's
education includes degrees in composition, orchestral conducting, and choral conducting.
He has conceived and produced CDs featuring stories and artwork by special members of
the society. He is Founder of the Ensemble Lake Affect, a group dedicated to
interdisciplinary work with poets. Rutty's latest activities include his work as arranger and
pianist for Lorena Guillén's Argentine-Tango peformances. Alejandro Rutty is currently
Assistant Professor of Music at Hartwick College.
This set includes two tango standards and a new composition. Both “Nunca tuvo novio” and
“A Don Agustín Bardi” have been staples of the Argentine Tango repertoire for decades. A
link exists between them, since Horacio Salgán wrote “A Don Agustín Bardi” to honor the
composer of “Nunca tuvo novio”. Alejandro Rutty’s Hyperlink #3 is a very short piece
extracted from his composition Tango Loops (2004) for 14 instruments and Tango quartet
(bandoneón, violin, guitar, bass). In that piece, typical modern tango fragments are played
by the quartet, and “sound processed” by the large ensemble. The hyperlinks are those
fragments that the quartet plays during (and after) the performance of Tango Loops.
All of these pieces were arranged for saxophone quartet by Alejandro Rutty in 2005 for the
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet.
_____
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet is a professional chamber music ensemble formed in
October 2003 by four internationally recognized saxophonists. Susan Fancher has 15
years of experience as soprano saxophonist with the Vienna, Amherst and Rollin' Phones
saxophone quartets. Robert Faub has performed extensively throughout the US and
Europe as alto saxophonist with the New Century Saxophone Quartet. Steve Stusek,
saxophone professor at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, is an international
touring solo recitalist and chamber musician. Mark Engebretson is a veteran of the Vienna
Saxophone Quartet and is Assistant Professor of Music Composition at UNCG. The
RCSQ's repertoire includes original works for saxophone quartet by Alexander Glazunov,
Jean Baptiste Singelée, Michael Torke, Ben Johnston, Terry Riley, M. William Karlins and
Perry Goldstein, and transcriptions for saxophone quartet of music by Steve Reich and
Francis Poulenc.
Susan Fancher's efforts to develop the repertoire for the saxophone have produced
dozens of commissioned works by contemporary composers, as well as published
transcriptions of music by composers as diverse as Josquin Desprez, Ben Johnston and
Steve Reich. She has worked with a multitude of composers in the creation and
interpretation of new music including Terry Riley, Michael Torke and Charles Wuorinen, just
to name a few, and has performed in many of the world's leading concert venues and
contemporary music festivals. The most recent additions to her discography are a solo CD
entitled Ponder Nothing on the Innova label and a recording on New World Records of
Forever Escher by Paul Chihara. Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for the
nationally distributed Saxophone Journal. Her principal teachers were Frederick Hemke,
Jean-Marie Londeix, Michael Grammatico and Joe Daley. She is a clinician for Selmer and
Vandoren.
Jean-Baptiste Singelée:
Premier Quatuor
Jean-Baptiste Singelée (1812-1876) was born in Brussels and studied at the Royal School
of Music in Belgium. He was the violin soloist with the Royal Theater of Brussels and
directed orchestras there and in Gand. Singelée was one of the first composers to treat the
saxophone as a serious classical instrument, evidenced by his composing over 30 Solos de
Concours for Sax and his students at the Paris Conservatory. As a longtime friend of
Adolphe Sax (they met as students at the Royal School of Music) he encouraged Sax to
develop the four principal members of the saxophone family, and composed what is very
likely the first work ever written for the quartet, “Premier Quatuor, Op. 53,” completed in
1857. In addition to his saxophone works, Singelée is credited with composing 12
concertos, many solo works for violin and other instruments as well as music for ballet.
Premier Quatuor is different from the rest of Singelée’s work, written in a somewhat “old-fashioned”
style for the time that could be classified as post-classical. The piece has the
style and character of an overture, containing a two-part first movement (an introduction
followed by a theatrical allegro), a rhapsodic adagio second movement, a lively scherzo
third movement, and a rousing finale.
The four movements of this work pay homage to four renowned composers:
Andante — Allegro: Gioacchino Rossini
Adagio sostenuto: Ludwig van Beethoven
Allegro vivace: Felix Mendelssohn
Allegretto: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Perry Goldstein:
Motherless Child Variations
Perry Goldstein (born 1952 in New York City, New York) studied at the University of Illinois,
UCLA, and Columbia University, from which he received a doctorate in music composition
in 1986. His principal composition teachers were Herbert Brün, Chou Wen-Chung, Mario
Davidovsky, Ben Johnston, and Paul Zonn. He has received commissions from Juilliard
Quartet cellist Joel Krosnick and pianist Gilbert Kalish, The Aurelia Saxophone Quartet,
Slagwerkgroep den Haag, HET Trio, violist John Graham, the Guild Trio, and pianist Eliza
Garth, and his music has been performed throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada,
and Europe. A dedicated educator, he received the "Teacher of the Year Award in the Arts
and Humanities" in 1987 from Wilmington College of Ohio, and a 1997 "Chancellor’s and
President's Award for Excellence in Teaching" from the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, where he has taught since 1992.
Just as a pearl is formed by the agitating sand in an oyster, and a diamond is created by
enormous pressure on coal, out of the misery of Black American’s affliction came some of
the United States’ most vital music. The black experience in America was manifested in
the energy of Jazz; pain was expressed in the development of the Blues (sung, as Abbe
Nileas put it, “by men [but] too dam’ mean to cry”); hope and faith were embodied in the
Spirituals. Writing in 1926, James Weldon Johnson states that “Spirituals were literally
forged of sorrow in the heat of religious fervor.” Spirituals were developed by groups of
people singing together, harmonies springing spontaneously in the moment. Spirituals
were sung to the swinging of the head and body. Spirituals were about conviction, faith,
misery, deliverance, freedom, and joy, and were heartfelt utterances rather than arty
contrivances. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is a mournful Spiritual of two
simple, heartbreaking stanzas. The words of the first stanza read: “Sometimes I feel like a
motherless child / Sometimes I feel like a motherless child / A long ways from home / A
long ways from home / True Believer / A long ways from home.” My Motherless Child
Variations (2002) is based on this Spiritual. I have treid to stay out of the way of the tune
and to present it in many guises, always careful to keep it recognizable. After a brief
introduction, the melody occurs in six versions, in various characters. It is introduced in a
somber duet between baritone and tenor saxes, alto and soprano joining in for a bluesier
four-part version. After a spirited, mixed-meter interlude, the tune returns in a new and
funkier manifestation, led by the baritone saxophone playing a repetitive bassline, as well
as a chorale version in which an unexpected harmonization unfolds in the instruments’
highest registers. (Perry Goldstein)
Steve Reich:
New York Counterpoint
Steve Reich is one of America’s best-known composers, and an acknowledged leader
among composers of so-called “minimal” music. I had the pleasure of meeting both Steve
Reich and video artist Beryl Korot after their stunning video opera The Cave was premiered
in Vienna’s 1994 Festwochen. I wrote to Steve asking if he thought any piece of his might
work in a transcription for saxophone quartet. He replied that New York Counterpoint,
originally for clarinet solo with tape or clarinet ensemble, could work well on saxophones
and encouraged me to make an arrangement for saxophone quartet and tape. My
arrangement of the work is published by Boosey & Hawkes. (Susan Fancher)
New York Counterpoint (1985) is a continuation of the ideas found in Vermont Counterpoint
(1982), where a soloist plays against a pre-recorded tape. The soloist pre-records ten
clarinet and bass clarinet parts and then plays a final 11th part live against the tape. The
compositional procedures include several that occur in my earlier music. New York
Counterpoint is in three movements: fast, slow, fast, played one after the other without
pause. The change of tempo is abrupt and in the simple relation of 1:2. The piece is in the
meter 3/2 = 6/4 (=12/8). As is often the case when I write in this meter, there is an
ambiguity between whether one hears measures of three groups of four eighth notes, or
four groups of three eighth notes. In the last movement, the bass clarinets function to
accent first one and then the other of these possibilities, while the upper clarinets
essentially do not change. The effect, by change of accent, is to vary the perception of that
which in fact is not changing. (Steve Reich)
Alejandro Rutty:
Tango arrangements for saxophone quartet
Nunca tuvo novio (She Never Had a Boyfriend)
Agustin Bardi (1884 -1941)
A Don Agustín Bardi (To Mr. Agustín Bardi)
Horacio Salgán (b. 1916)
Hyperlink # 3 (from Tango Loops)
Alejandro Rutty (b. 1967)
Alejandro Rutty is a composer, conductor and art-advocate with a unique profile. His output
includes work in avant-garde music, standard classical repertoire, Argentine traditional
music, and innovative community-based projects. His compositions have been played by
the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, the New York New Music Ensemble,
National University of Cuyo Symphony Orchestra, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, and
the Cassatt String Quartet among other groups. Recent events include recording by the
Kiev Philharmonic of Rutty's Tango Loops, for the ERM label. Also, Alejandro Rutty
conducted
Jean-Baptiste Singelée:
Premier Quatuor
Jean-Baptiste Singelée (1812-1876) was born in Brussels and studied at the Royal School
of Music in Belgium. He was the violin soloist with the Royal Theater of Brussels and
directed orchestras there and in Gand. Singelée was one of the first composers to treat the
saxophone as a serious classical instrument, evidenced by his composing over 30 Solos de
Concours for Sax and his students at the Paris Conservatory. As a longtime friend of
Adolphe Sax (they met as students at the Royal School of Music) he encouraged Sax to
develop the four principal members of the saxophone family, and composed what is very
likely the first work ever written for the quartet, “Premier Quatuor, Op. 53,” completed in
1857. In addition to his saxophone works, Singelée is credited with composing 12
concertos, many solo works for violin and other instruments as well as music for ballet.
Premier Quatuor is different from the rest of Singelée’s work, written in a somewhat “old-fashioned”
style for the time that could be classified as post-classical. The piece has the
style and character of an overture, containing a two-part first movement (an introduction
followed by a theatrical allegro), a rhapsodic adagio second movement, a lively scherzo
third movement, and a rousing finale.
The four movements of this work pay homage to four renowned composers:
Andante — Allegro: Gioacchino Rossini
Adagio sostenuto: Ludwig van Beethoven
Allegro vivace: Felix Mendelssohn
Allegretto: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Perry Goldstein:
Motherless Child Variations
Perry Goldstein (born 1952 in New York City, New York) studied at the University of Illinois,
UCLA, and Columbia University, from which he received a doctorate in music composition
in 1986. His principal composition teachers were Herbert Brün, Chou Wen-Chung, Mario
Davidovsky, Ben Johnston, and Paul Zonn. He has received commissions from Juilliard
Quartet cellist Joel Krosnick and pianist Gilbert Kalish, The Aurelia Saxophone Quartet,
Slagwerkgroep den Haag, HET Trio, violist John Graham, the Guild Trio, and pianist Eliza
Garth, and his music has been performed throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada,
and Europe. A dedicated educator, he received the "Teacher of the Year Award in the Arts
and Humanities" in 1987 from Wilmington College of Ohio, and a 1997 "Chancellor’s and
President's Award for Excellence in Teaching" from the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, where he has taught since 1992.
Just as a pearl is formed by the agitating sand in an oyster, and a diamond is created by
enormous pressure on coal, out of the misery of Black American’s affliction came some of
the United States’ most vital music. The black experience in America was manifested in
the energy of Jazz; pain was expressed in the development of the Blues (sung, as Abbe
Nileas put it, “by men [but] too dam’ mean to cry”); hope and faith were embodied in the
Spirituals. Writing in 1926, James Weldon Johnson states that “Spirituals were literally
forged of sorrow in the heat of religious fervor.” Spirituals were developed by groups of
people singing together, harmonies springing spontaneously in the moment. Spirituals
were sung to the swinging of the head and body. Spirituals were about conviction, faith,
misery, deliverance, freedom, and joy, and were heartfelt utterances rather than arty
contrivances. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is a mournful Spiritual of two
simple, heartbreaking stanzas. The words of the first stanza read: “Sometimes I feel like a
motherless child / Sometimes I feel like a motherless child / A long ways from home / A
long ways from home / True Believer / A long ways from home.” My Motherless Child
Variations (2002) is based on this Spiritual. I have treid to stay out of the way of the tune
and to present it in many guises, always careful to keep it recognizable. After a brief
introduction, the melody occurs in six versions, in various characters. It is introduced in a
somber duet between baritone and tenor saxes, alto and soprano joining in for a bluesier
four-part version. After a spirited, mixed-meter interlude, the tune returns in a new and
funkier manifestation, led by the baritone saxophone playing a repetitive bassline, as well
as a chorale version in which an unexpected harmonization unfolds in the instruments’
highest registers. (Perry Goldstein)
Steve Reich:
New York Counterpoint
Steve Reich is one of America’s best-known composers, and an acknowledged leader
among composers of so-called “minimal” music. I had the pleasure of meeting both Steve
Reich and video artist Beryl Korot after their stunning video opera The Cave was premiered
in Vienna’s 1994 Festwochen. I wrote to Steve asking if he thought any piece of his might
work in a transcription for saxophone quartet. He replied that New York Counterpoint,
originally for clarinet solo with tape or clarinet ensemble, could work well on saxophones
and encouraged me to make an arrangement for saxophone quartet and tape. My
arrangement of the work is published by Boosey & Hawkes. (Susan Fancher)
New York Counterpoint (1985) is a continuation of the ideas found in Vermont Counterpoint
(1982), where a soloist plays against a pre-recorded tape. The soloist pre-records ten
clarinet and bass clarinet parts and then plays a final 11th part live against the tape. The
compositional procedures include several that occur in my earlier music. New York
Counterpoint is in three movements: fast, slow, fast, played one after the other without
pause. The change of tempo is abrupt and in the simple relation of 1:2. The piece is in the
meter 3/2 = 6/4 (=12/8). As is often the case when I write in this meter, there is an
ambiguity between whether one hears measures of three groups of four eighth notes, or
four groups of three eighth notes. In the last movement, the bass clarinets function to
accent first one and then the other of these possibilities, while the upper clarinets
essentially do not change. The effect, by change of accent, is to vary the perception of that
which in fact is not changing. (Steve Reich)
Alejandro Rutty:
Tango arrangements for saxophone quartet
Nunca tuvo novio (She Never Had a Boyfriend)
Agustin Bardi (1884 -1941)
A Don Agustín Bardi (To Mr. Agustín Bardi)
Horacio Salgán (b. 1916)
Hyperlink # 3 (from Tango Loops)
Alejandro Rutty (b. 1967)
Alejandro Rutty is a composer, conductor and art-advocate with a unique profile. His output
includes work in avant-garde music, standard classical repertoire, Argentine traditional
music, and innovative community-based projects. His compositions have been played by
the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, the New York New Music Ensemble,
National University of Cuyo Symphony Orchestra, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, and
the Cassatt String Quartet among other groups. Recent events include recording by the
Kiev Philharmonic of Rutty's Tango Loops, for the ERM label. Also, Alejandro Rutty
conducted
