Concert 2 – “Three Lakes”
Jonathan Borja, flute | Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Sunday, November 3, 2024 @ 3:00 PM
Nola Starling Recital Hall
PROGRAM
Prayer by Amanda Harberg
Notes: Amanda Harberg is a composer whose work has been described by the New York Times as “a sultry excursion into lyricism.” Her writing for a wide range of instruments weaves classical Western tradition with contemporary influences to create a distinctively personal style which “conveys a thoroughly original sense of happiness in music,” according to Cleveland Classical. “She invigorates the brain and touches the soul,” says composer John Corigliano. “I love her work.”
Dr. Harberg completed her undergraduate and masters degrees at the Juilliard School and earned her PhD from Rutgers University School of Graduate Studies. She received a Fulbright/Hays fellowship to study for a year with composer/pianist Frederic Rzewski. Currently living with her family in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Harberg is on the faculty at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts and the Interlochen Arts Camp.
In her own words, "My music is often a reaction to personal experience. I composed Prayer shortly after finding out that a close family member was seriously ill. The piece comes from a deeply spiritual place, and for me it is both a meditation on life, and an expression of faith in the language that is most powerful for me, and on the powerful mysteries of healing. In this version for flute and piano, Prayer opens with the flute rising gently out of simple piano arpeggios.The melody flows seamlessly from beginning to end, with one long rising and falling line, punctuated periodically by gentle responses in the piano part. The work arcs twice, with the flute working its way up to the highest register, and then falling away to a place of peaceful surrender. Prayer was composed for and premiered by violist Brett Deubner. After requests from different instrumentalists, I’ve made several different versions of Prayer, including those for full orchestra, and for flute and piano. These versions are available through Theodore Presser Company."
Love Divided By (1992) by Phillip Glass (b. 1937)
Notes:
Philip Glass's Love Divided By was written in 1992 to a commission by Susan Charlotte, whose play of the same name was chosen to open the Titus II theatre of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and, while there, earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation. Upon his return to New York, he applied these Eastern techniques to his own music. By 1974, Glass had a number of significant and innovative projects, creating a large collection of new music for his performing group, the Philip Glass Ensemble, and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company, which he co-founded. This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts, followed by the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach, created with Robert Wilson in 1976, which will be revived in 2012.
Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His score for Martin Scorsese’s Kundun received an Academy Award nomination while his score for Peter Weir’s The Truman Show won him a Golden Globe. His film score for Stephen Daldry’s The Hours received Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award nominations, along with winning a BAFTA in Film Music from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Original scores for the critically acclaimed films The Illusionist and Notes on a Scandal were released last year. Glass has received an Oscar nomination for his Notes score. In 2004 Glass premiered the new work Orion—a collaboration between Glass and six other international artists opening in Athens as part of the cultural celebration of the 2004 Olympics in Greece, and his Piano Concerto No. 2 (After Lewis and Clark) with the Omaha Symphony Orchestra. Glass’ latest symphonies, Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8, premiered in 2005 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and Bruckner Orchester Linz at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, respectively. 2005 also saw the premiere of Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera based on the book by J.M. Coetzee. Glass’ orchestral tribute to Indian spiritual leader Sri Ramakrishna, The Passion of Ramakrishna, premiered in 2006 at Orange County Performing Arts Center.
Romance, Op. 23 by Amy Beach (1867-1944)
Notes:
Amy Beach's Romance was orginally composeed for violin and piano, and intended for virtuoso violinist Maud Powell. How Powell and Beach first met is not known, but they came together most notably at the Women’s Musical Congress, held in Chicago on July 5–7, 1893, during the World’s Columbian Exposition. On July 6, Maud Powell joined Amy Beach in the premiere of the Romance, Op. 23, which Beach had composed for the occasion and dedicated to Powell. The two must have taken special delight in this event. Born within two weeks of one another, they had both been child prodigies and had first performed with conductor Theodore Thomas in 1885. Each had already won impressive recognition in the maledominated music profession. Beach’s works were characterized by technical mastery, spontaneity, and originality―all traits crystallized in the Romance. The work was described as “graceful though difficult of performance” and “worthy of the author of the Festival jubilate,” which Beach had composed for the opening ceremony for the Woman’s Building.
Those who heard the Romance played that day by the pianist with the large, smiling grey-blue eyes and blond hair and the violinist with the dark, curly hair and expressive face were never more convinced that “there is no sex in music.” The “beauty and grace” of the composition and the “faultless interpretation by the brilliant composer and artist” were proof enough for these listeners. The audience “cheered to the echo” when the piece was completed, and the performance had to be repeated. During the encore, the thrill was heightened when the manuscript fell from Maud’s music stand, but “the beautiful thread of melody moved on and on, for Miss Powell had made it her own in every sense.” In a letter dated December 6, 1893, Powell thanked Beach for the “dainty, artistic edition” of the “charming Romanza,” which she had received the day before and continued to perform that season. She wrote: “Our meeting in Chicago and the pleasure of playing together made a most delightful episode in my Summer’s experience. I trust it soon may be repeated.”
- Click for full article.
Breeze (2023) by Mary Ellen Haupert
Notes: “Breeze” was written for flutist Iva Ugrčić and pianist Satoko Hayami for the Out of Our Minds Chamber Music performance of music by women composers on November 4, 2023.
The work was inspired by the sounds of lapping water, loon calls, and wind carried off the shores of Minnesota’s Lake Pokegama, where our family has a summer cabin. Loons are social migratory birds that communicate with each other via wails (calls to one another), tremolos (warnings to others about impending danger), yodels (territorial demonstrations), and coo-ing (quiet contentment). The opening of “Breeze” is a yodel in D Major that dissolves into a lapping piano accompaniment – the backdrop for a measured loon soliloquy. The piano restates the loon tune with the flute echoing in canon.
The loon echoes dissipate in an undulating transition to a B section featuring the traditional Irish tune, St. Columba, first published by George Petrie in 1855. The tune is presented in D Mixolydian over a repeated bass line that is meant to evoke the rhythmic paddling of a canoe. As the tune ends, the “loons” pick up their own improvisation over the bass line, again in canon. There are only slight alterations in the closing section, casting “Breeze” in a balanced ABA’ form.
- Mary Ellen Haupert (October 16, 2023)
Sonata (Three Lakes) by Daniel Dorff (b. 1956)
Notes: SONATA (THREE LAKES) was commissioned by and dedicated to flutist Cindy Anne Broz who has become a champion of my flute music in recent years. The work is both a formal sonata, and also a programmatic suite depicting lakes that have special memories for me.
I. LAKE WALLENPAUPACK is a dramatically beautiful oasis in the middle of the woods in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountain resort area. It looks like the glacial lakes of Maine even though it's actually manmade. This movement recalls a romantic getaway vacation on Wallenpaupack, and the music blends the free-floating flow of a gentle lake current with a lyrical love song, never quite leaving the feel of the hanging trees hiding the lake's mysteries.
II. KEZAR LAKE is in southwestern Maine; it hosts many summer cabins including a resort named Quisisana that hires young professional musicians to serve as the staff by day and entertainment at night. My parents vacationed there for over 20 years, and their ashes will live on together in Kezar for eternity. The movement is a memorial to my father who became part of Kezar Lake while the sonata was being composed.
III. SALMON LAKE is an exuberant scherzo following the moderate and gentle first two movements. Home to Whisperwood Lodge & Cabins in central Maine, my childhood summers included vacations there, and this movement is a recollection of my frisky 8-year-old self. Salmon Lake remains a mystical memory in a deep way, and a symbol of childhood playfulness.
- Daniel Dorff
GUEST ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
With performances described as “the highlight of the evening” (Kansas City Star), Jonathan Borja enjoys a varied career as a performer and educator. Dr. Borja is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse where he teaches flute and music history. He has been a member of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra since 2019, appearing as soloist in 2023.
Dr. Borja holds three graduate degrees from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance (Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance, Master of Music in Flute Performance, a Master of Music in Musicology) and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Principia College. Before coming to the United States, he studied at the National Conservatory of Music in his native Mexico City. His teachers and mentors include Marie Jureit-Beamish, Mary Posses, and María Esther García. He has appeared in master classes in both the United States and Europe with some of the world’s leading flutists, including Jeanne Baxtresser, Jacob Berg, and Peter-Lukas Graf.
He has performed throughout the United States and Mexico and has appeared in festivals devoted to the music of J.S. Bach, George Crumb, Gustav Mahler, Olivier Messiaen, and Elliott Carter. He has performed at Steinway Hall, Helzberg Hall, at the Facultad de Música (UNAM), the National Conservatory in Mexico City, the Sala Manuel M. Ponce, Sala Carlos Chávez, Sala Silvestre Revueltas (CCOY), and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Singapore. His continued advocacy for the music of our time has led him to collaborate with some of today’s finest composers, including Chen Yi and Zhou Long, George Crumb, Libby Larsen, Yehudi Wyner, Narong Prangcharoen, Arturo Rodriguez, and Samuel Zyman.
Dr. Borja’s research includes the music of Mexican composers Mario Lavista, José Pablo Moncayo, Silvestre Revueltas, and Samuel Zyman. In 2023, he commissioned and gave the premiere performances of Arturo Rodriguez’s Cuando Hablan los Vientos a concerto for two flutes and wind ensemble. His most recent album (Albany Records, 2023) features music for flute and piano by Mexican composers. He recorded the complete chamber music for flute by Samuel Zyman (Albany Records, 2020) and can be heard inSamuel Zyman: Un mexicano en Nueva York (Urtext Digital Classics, 2020). He also recorded the complete flute music of Icelandic composer Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson (Smekkleysa, 2015), and is featured in Narong Prangcharoen’s recording Mantras (Albany Records, 2010). He has contributed articles to The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time: A Guide to the Legends Who Rocked the World, and The Flutist Quarterly. Dr. Borja has presented his research at the National Flute Association Convention, College Music Society’s National and International Conventions, the Wisconsin Flute Festival, the North Central Council of Latin Americanists, and the Midwest Association for Latin American Studies. He was awarded the Excellence in Research Award from UWL’s College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities in 2023For updates and more information, please visit www.jonborjaflute.com.
Jonathan Borja, flute | Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Sunday, November 3, 2024 @ 3:00 PM
Nola Starling Recital Hall
PROGRAM
Prayer by Amanda Harberg
Notes: Amanda Harberg is a composer whose work has been described by the New York Times as “a sultry excursion into lyricism.” Her writing for a wide range of instruments weaves classical Western tradition with contemporary influences to create a distinctively personal style which “conveys a thoroughly original sense of happiness in music,” according to Cleveland Classical. “She invigorates the brain and touches the soul,” says composer John Corigliano. “I love her work.”
Dr. Harberg completed her undergraduate and masters degrees at the Juilliard School and earned her PhD from Rutgers University School of Graduate Studies. She received a Fulbright/Hays fellowship to study for a year with composer/pianist Frederic Rzewski. Currently living with her family in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Harberg is on the faculty at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts and the Interlochen Arts Camp.
In her own words, "My music is often a reaction to personal experience. I composed Prayer shortly after finding out that a close family member was seriously ill. The piece comes from a deeply spiritual place, and for me it is both a meditation on life, and an expression of faith in the language that is most powerful for me, and on the powerful mysteries of healing. In this version for flute and piano, Prayer opens with the flute rising gently out of simple piano arpeggios.The melody flows seamlessly from beginning to end, with one long rising and falling line, punctuated periodically by gentle responses in the piano part. The work arcs twice, with the flute working its way up to the highest register, and then falling away to a place of peaceful surrender. Prayer was composed for and premiered by violist Brett Deubner. After requests from different instrumentalists, I’ve made several different versions of Prayer, including those for full orchestra, and for flute and piano. These versions are available through Theodore Presser Company."
Love Divided By (1992) by Phillip Glass (b. 1937)
Notes:
Philip Glass's Love Divided By was written in 1992 to a commission by Susan Charlotte, whose play of the same name was chosen to open the Titus II theatre of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and, while there, earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation. Upon his return to New York, he applied these Eastern techniques to his own music. By 1974, Glass had a number of significant and innovative projects, creating a large collection of new music for his performing group, the Philip Glass Ensemble, and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company, which he co-founded. This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts, followed by the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach, created with Robert Wilson in 1976, which will be revived in 2012.
Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His score for Martin Scorsese’s Kundun received an Academy Award nomination while his score for Peter Weir’s The Truman Show won him a Golden Globe. His film score for Stephen Daldry’s The Hours received Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award nominations, along with winning a BAFTA in Film Music from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Original scores for the critically acclaimed films The Illusionist and Notes on a Scandal were released last year. Glass has received an Oscar nomination for his Notes score. In 2004 Glass premiered the new work Orion—a collaboration between Glass and six other international artists opening in Athens as part of the cultural celebration of the 2004 Olympics in Greece, and his Piano Concerto No. 2 (After Lewis and Clark) with the Omaha Symphony Orchestra. Glass’ latest symphonies, Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8, premiered in 2005 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and Bruckner Orchester Linz at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, respectively. 2005 also saw the premiere of Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera based on the book by J.M. Coetzee. Glass’ orchestral tribute to Indian spiritual leader Sri Ramakrishna, The Passion of Ramakrishna, premiered in 2006 at Orange County Performing Arts Center.
Romance, Op. 23 by Amy Beach (1867-1944)
Notes:
Amy Beach's Romance was orginally composeed for violin and piano, and intended for virtuoso violinist Maud Powell. How Powell and Beach first met is not known, but they came together most notably at the Women’s Musical Congress, held in Chicago on July 5–7, 1893, during the World’s Columbian Exposition. On July 6, Maud Powell joined Amy Beach in the premiere of the Romance, Op. 23, which Beach had composed for the occasion and dedicated to Powell. The two must have taken special delight in this event. Born within two weeks of one another, they had both been child prodigies and had first performed with conductor Theodore Thomas in 1885. Each had already won impressive recognition in the maledominated music profession. Beach’s works were characterized by technical mastery, spontaneity, and originality―all traits crystallized in the Romance. The work was described as “graceful though difficult of performance” and “worthy of the author of the Festival jubilate,” which Beach had composed for the opening ceremony for the Woman’s Building.
Those who heard the Romance played that day by the pianist with the large, smiling grey-blue eyes and blond hair and the violinist with the dark, curly hair and expressive face were never more convinced that “there is no sex in music.” The “beauty and grace” of the composition and the “faultless interpretation by the brilliant composer and artist” were proof enough for these listeners. The audience “cheered to the echo” when the piece was completed, and the performance had to be repeated. During the encore, the thrill was heightened when the manuscript fell from Maud’s music stand, but “the beautiful thread of melody moved on and on, for Miss Powell had made it her own in every sense.” In a letter dated December 6, 1893, Powell thanked Beach for the “dainty, artistic edition” of the “charming Romanza,” which she had received the day before and continued to perform that season. She wrote: “Our meeting in Chicago and the pleasure of playing together made a most delightful episode in my Summer’s experience. I trust it soon may be repeated.”
- Click for full article.
Breeze (2023) by Mary Ellen Haupert
Notes: “Breeze” was written for flutist Iva Ugrčić and pianist Satoko Hayami for the Out of Our Minds Chamber Music performance of music by women composers on November 4, 2023.
The work was inspired by the sounds of lapping water, loon calls, and wind carried off the shores of Minnesota’s Lake Pokegama, where our family has a summer cabin. Loons are social migratory birds that communicate with each other via wails (calls to one another), tremolos (warnings to others about impending danger), yodels (territorial demonstrations), and coo-ing (quiet contentment). The opening of “Breeze” is a yodel in D Major that dissolves into a lapping piano accompaniment – the backdrop for a measured loon soliloquy. The piano restates the loon tune with the flute echoing in canon.
The loon echoes dissipate in an undulating transition to a B section featuring the traditional Irish tune, St. Columba, first published by George Petrie in 1855. The tune is presented in D Mixolydian over a repeated bass line that is meant to evoke the rhythmic paddling of a canoe. As the tune ends, the “loons” pick up their own improvisation over the bass line, again in canon. There are only slight alterations in the closing section, casting “Breeze” in a balanced ABA’ form.
- Mary Ellen Haupert (October 16, 2023)
Sonata (Three Lakes) by Daniel Dorff (b. 1956)
Notes: SONATA (THREE LAKES) was commissioned by and dedicated to flutist Cindy Anne Broz who has become a champion of my flute music in recent years. The work is both a formal sonata, and also a programmatic suite depicting lakes that have special memories for me.
I. LAKE WALLENPAUPACK is a dramatically beautiful oasis in the middle of the woods in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountain resort area. It looks like the glacial lakes of Maine even though it's actually manmade. This movement recalls a romantic getaway vacation on Wallenpaupack, and the music blends the free-floating flow of a gentle lake current with a lyrical love song, never quite leaving the feel of the hanging trees hiding the lake's mysteries.
II. KEZAR LAKE is in southwestern Maine; it hosts many summer cabins including a resort named Quisisana that hires young professional musicians to serve as the staff by day and entertainment at night. My parents vacationed there for over 20 years, and their ashes will live on together in Kezar for eternity. The movement is a memorial to my father who became part of Kezar Lake while the sonata was being composed.
III. SALMON LAKE is an exuberant scherzo following the moderate and gentle first two movements. Home to Whisperwood Lodge & Cabins in central Maine, my childhood summers included vacations there, and this movement is a recollection of my frisky 8-year-old self. Salmon Lake remains a mystical memory in a deep way, and a symbol of childhood playfulness.
- Daniel Dorff
GUEST ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
With performances described as “the highlight of the evening” (Kansas City Star), Jonathan Borja enjoys a varied career as a performer and educator. Dr. Borja is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse where he teaches flute and music history. He has been a member of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra since 2019, appearing as soloist in 2023.
Dr. Borja holds three graduate degrees from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance (Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance, Master of Music in Flute Performance, a Master of Music in Musicology) and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Principia College. Before coming to the United States, he studied at the National Conservatory of Music in his native Mexico City. His teachers and mentors include Marie Jureit-Beamish, Mary Posses, and María Esther García. He has appeared in master classes in both the United States and Europe with some of the world’s leading flutists, including Jeanne Baxtresser, Jacob Berg, and Peter-Lukas Graf.
He has performed throughout the United States and Mexico and has appeared in festivals devoted to the music of J.S. Bach, George Crumb, Gustav Mahler, Olivier Messiaen, and Elliott Carter. He has performed at Steinway Hall, Helzberg Hall, at the Facultad de Música (UNAM), the National Conservatory in Mexico City, the Sala Manuel M. Ponce, Sala Carlos Chávez, Sala Silvestre Revueltas (CCOY), and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Singapore. His continued advocacy for the music of our time has led him to collaborate with some of today’s finest composers, including Chen Yi and Zhou Long, George Crumb, Libby Larsen, Yehudi Wyner, Narong Prangcharoen, Arturo Rodriguez, and Samuel Zyman.
Dr. Borja’s research includes the music of Mexican composers Mario Lavista, José Pablo Moncayo, Silvestre Revueltas, and Samuel Zyman. In 2023, he commissioned and gave the premiere performances of Arturo Rodriguez’s Cuando Hablan los Vientos a concerto for two flutes and wind ensemble. His most recent album (Albany Records, 2023) features music for flute and piano by Mexican composers. He recorded the complete chamber music for flute by Samuel Zyman (Albany Records, 2020) and can be heard inSamuel Zyman: Un mexicano en Nueva York (Urtext Digital Classics, 2020). He also recorded the complete flute music of Icelandic composer Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson (Smekkleysa, 2015), and is featured in Narong Prangcharoen’s recording Mantras (Albany Records, 2010). He has contributed articles to The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time: A Guide to the Legends Who Rocked the World, and The Flutist Quarterly. Dr. Borja has presented his research at the National Flute Association Convention, College Music Society’s National and International Conventions, the Wisconsin Flute Festival, the North Central Council of Latin Americanists, and the Midwest Association for Latin American Studies. He was awarded the Excellence in Research Award from UWL’s College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities in 2023For updates and more information, please visit www.jonborjaflute.com.
