Eighth Blackbird
Nathalie Joachim, flutes Nick Photinos, cello
Michael Maccaferri, clarinets Matthew Duvall, percussion
Yvonne Lam, violin Lisa Kaplan, piano
Concert: Jan. 23, 8 p.m.
Master Class: Jan. 24, 12:30 p.m.
Wilson G. Chandler Recital Hall
F. Ludwig Diehn Center for the Performing Arts
Nico Muhly: Doublespeak (2012)
Ted Hearne: By-By Huey (2015)
Timo Andres: Checkered Shade (2015)
INTERMISSION
Ned McGowan: The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures (2016)
Bryce Dessner: Murder Ballades (2013)
1. Omie Wise—Young Emily
2. Dark Holler
3. Wave the Sea—Brushy Fork
4. Pretty Polly—Tears for Sister Polly
Murder Ballades was commissioned by Eighth Blackbird and
Lunapark and funded by De Doelen Rotterdam, Muziekgebouw
aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam, and Muziekgebouw Frits Philips in
Eindhoven, with the financial support of The Van Beinum
Foundation in The Netherlands, with additional support from the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The Garden of Iniquitous
Creatures was commissioned by De Doelen Rotterdam for Eighth
Blackbird. By-By Huey and Checkered Shade are part of Hand
Eye, commissioned by the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation
for the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and by Carnegie Hall.
For the legal and physical safety of the artists and for the comfort
of the audience, cameras and other recording devices are not
permitted in the theatre during the performance.
An endowment established at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation,
made possible by a generous gift from F. Ludwig Diehn, funds this program.
An endowment established at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation,
made possible by a generous gift from F. Ludwig Diehn, funds this program.
Nico Muhly: Doublespeak (2012)
Nico Muhly (b.1981) is an American composer and sought-after
collaborator whose influences range from American minimalism
to the Anglican choral tradition. The recipient of commissions
from The Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, St. Paul’s Cathedral,
and others, he has written more than 80 works for the concert
stage, including the operas Two Boys (2010), Dark Sisters (2011),
and the forthcoming Marnie; the song cycles Sentences (2015),
for countertenor Iestyn Davies, and Impossible Things (2009), for
tenor Mark Padmore; a viola concerto for violist Nadia Sirota;
and the choral works My Days (2011) and Recordare, Domine
(2013), written for the Hilliard Ensemble and the Tallis Scholars,
respectively. Muhly is a frequent collaborator with choreographer
Benjamin Millepied and, as an arranger, has paired with Sufjan
Stevens, Rufus Wainwright, Joanna Newsom, and Antony and the
Johnsons, among others. He has composed for stage and screen,
with credits that include music for the 2013 Broadway revival of
The Glass Menagerie and scores for the films Kill Your Darlings; Me,
Earl And The Dying Girl; and the Academy Award-winning The
Reader. Born in Vermont, Muhly studied composition with John
Corigliano and Christopher Rouse at the Juilliard School before
working as an editor and conductor for Philip Glass. He is part of
the artist-run record label Bedroom Community, which released
his first two albums, Speaks Volumes (2006) and Mothertongue
(2008). He currently lives in New York City.
About Doublespeak, Muhly writes:
Doublespeak was written for Eighth Blackbird for the Music
Now! festival in Cincinnati, in honor of Philip Glass’s 75th
birthday. My mission in writing the piece was twofold: first,
to write 8bb the most fun piece possible for them, at just
the right length. The second was to in some way tip my hat
to Philip Glass, whom I admire broadly and deeply. Eighth
Blackbird has played so much fast, loosely repetitive music
over the years; I wanted to refine this kind of material into
Program Notes
its purest, most delicious form and point back to the ‘70s,
when classical music perfected obsessive repetition. The
piece begins by applying an additive process to a small
cell on the solo violin. This is the defining gesture of the
piece, and is subject to much variation. Occasionally, the
busy textures give way to drones under which we begin to
hear chords from Philip’s insanely beautiful Music in Twelve
Parts (1971-1974). The piece unfolds in similar episodes: fast
music offset by slow, melancholic memories of the music
of the late 1960s and 1970s (Aren’t those the intervals from
Violin Phase? Was that a cell from In C?). Towards the end
of Doublespeak, the language of Music in Twelve Parts
becomes more dominant, and gradually overtakes all
the busy material and the piece ends in a stylized dream-
state.
Ted Hearne: By-By Huey (2015)
Composer, singer and bandleader Ted Hearne draws on a
wide breadth of influences ranging across music’s full terrain, to
create intense, personal and multi-dimensional works. The New
York Times included Hearne’s oratorio The Source on its list of
the best classical vocal performances of 2014, noting that the
work “offers a fresh model of how opera and musical theater
can tackle contemporary issues: not with documentary realism,
but with ambiguity, obliquity and even sheer confusion.” Law
of Mosaics, his 30-minute piece for string orchestra, was named
one of The New Yorker’s most notable albums of 2014 by Alex
Ross. His most recent collaboration paired him with legendary
musician Erykah Badu. Hearne is the recipient of the Gaudeamus
Prize in composition and the New Voices Residency from Boosey
and Hawkes. He recently joined the composition faculty at the
University of Southern California.
Program Notes
About By-By Huey, Hearne writes:
Robert Arneson’s painting “Bye Bye Huey P.” is a portrait
of 24-year-old Tyrone “Double R” Robinson, who murdered
Huey P. Newton (co-founder of the Black Panther Party) in
1989. Robinson, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family, is
painted with a giant praying mantis superimposed over his
face, its wings circling Robinson’s bloodshot eyes. When
I saw this work at the Frankel Gallery, my guide told me
Arneson included the mantis in the portrait because “they
eat their own.” Like Arneson’s painting, my piece By-By
Huey memorializes the (self-) destructive. The piano leads,
with aggressive and unhinged music that forces the other
instruments to follow or be left behind, but its strings are
muted for much of the piece, leaving its voice muzzled
and growling.
Timo Andres: Checkered Shade (2015)
Timothy Andres is a composer and pianist. He grew up in rural
Connecticut and lives in Brooklyn, NY. His compositions meld a
classical-music upbringing with diverse interests in the natural
world, graphic arts, technology, cooking, and photography. He
has been praised for his “acute ear” by The New York Times’
Anthony Tommasini and “stubborn nose” by The New Yorker’s
Alex Ross. An avid pianist from an early age, Timothy (Timo
for short) performs widely, focusing especially on music by his
contemporaries. His début album, Shy and Mighty, was released
by Nonesuch in May 2010. Andres earned both his bachelor’s
and master’s degrees from Yale. In addition to music, he
gravitated toward visual arts, and moonlights as a professional
graphic and web designer. An avid cyclist, Andres can often
be sighted commuting astride his 1983 Mercian. He is one-sixth
of Sleeping Giant, a composers’ collective of “talented guys”
(The New Yorker) who are “rapidly gaining notice for their daring
innovations, stylistic range and acute attention to instrumental
nuance” (WQXR).
About Checkered Shade, Andres writes:
The patterned pen-and-ink abstractions of Astrid Bowlby—
and by association, the work of Edward Gorey—inspired
the textures of Checkered Shade. The piece is structured
as a gradual zoom outward; tiny fragments of repeated
material resolve into larger patterns, which, at the urging
of the violin, eventually coalesce into an expressive
chorale.
Ned McGowan: The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures (2016)
“If you are having a slow day, his samples will wake you right up.”
(Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise)
Ned McGowan is a composer, teacher, flutist, improviser and
curator. Known for rhythmical vitality and technical virtuosity, his
music has won awards and been performed at Carnegie Hall, the
Concertgebouw and other halls and festivals around the world by
many orchestras, ensembles, and soloists. Ned’s compositions are
informed by his experiences as a flutist in European contemporary,
improvisational, and non-western musical circles and his main
artistic goal is to create self-contained musical worlds through a
process of cross-genre translation.
About The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures, McGowan writes:
Throughout The Garden of Iniquitous Creatures there is a
recurring rhythmical spine composed of a series of groups
with the lengths 7 7 5 5 5 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3. It is repeated,
built upon and altered throughout, an influential rhythmic
landscape on top of which much of the music travels. Also,
the lengths add up to 60, which is neatly divisible by 3, 4, and
5 (plus a few other numbers), another source for material.
Program Notes
For me this piece is inspired by the ferocity of the Swedish metal
band Meshuggah, the complexity of Carnatic rhythms from South
India, the harmonic movement of Reich, the tempo manipulations
of Nancarrow, the virtuosity of Zappa, the raw sounds of Zorn
and the mystical fantasy of Crumb. Does one also hear those
influences, or does it just sound like McGowan?
Bryce Dessner: Murder Ballades (2013)
1. Omie Wise—Young Emily
2. Dark Holler
3. Wave the Sea—Brushy Fork
4. Pretty Polly—Tears for Sister Polly
Bryce Dessner is one of the most sought-after composers of
his generation, with a rapidly expanding catalog of works
commissioned by leading ensembles. His orchestral, chamber,
and vocal compositions have been commissioned by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic, Metropolitan Museum of Art (for the New
York Philharmonic), Kronos Quartet, BAM Next Wave Festival,
Barbican Centre, Edinburgh International Festival, Sydney Festival,
Eighth Blackbird, Sˉo Percussion, New York City Ballet, and many
others. Recently Dessner was tapped to compose music for
Alejandro Iñárritu’s film, The Revenant, which received a 2016
Golden Globes nomination for Best Original Score. Recordings
include Aheym, a Kronos Quartet disc devoted to his music (Anti-
); St. Carolyn by the Sea on Deutsche Grammophon, with the
Copenhagen Philharmonic under Andre de Ridder; and Music
for Wood and Strings, an album-length work performed by Sˉo
Percussion (Brassland). Dessner’s music – called “gorgeous, full-
hearted” by NPR and “vibrant” by The New York Times – is marked
by a keen sensitivity to instrumental color and texture. He earned
his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University. Dessner
formed the instrumental quartet Clogs, and in 2001, co-founded
the critically acclaimed, Grammy-nominated band The National.
About Murder Ballades, Dessner writes:
When Eighth Blackbird asked me for a piece, I immediately
knew what to do: let great American folk music inspire
a great American new music ensemble. The “murder
ballad” has its roots in a European tradition, in which grisly
details of bloody homicides are recounted through song.
When this tradition came to America, it developed its own
vernacular, with stories and songs being told and re-told
over the generations.
In Murder Ballades I re-examine several of these old
songs, allowing them to inspire my own music. Omie Wise,
Young Emily, and Pretty Polly are classic murder ballads,
tales of romantically charged killings that are based on
real events. Dark Holler is my own composition, loosely
modeled on the clawhammer banjo style which would
have accompanied many of these early folk songs.
Brushy Fork is a Civil War era murder ballad/fiddle tune,
and Wave the Sea and Tears for Sister Polly are original
compositions woven out of the depths of the many months
I spent inhabiting the seductive music and violent stories of
these murder ballads.
Program Notes
Biography
Eighth Blackbird
Nathalie Joachim, flutes Nick Photinos, cello
Michael Maccaferri, clarinets Matthew Duvall, percussion
Yvonne Lam, violin and viola Lisa Kaplan, piano
Eighth Blackbird is “one of the smartest, most dynamic
contemporary classical ensembles on the planet” (Chicago
Tribune). Launched by six entrepreneurial Oberlin Conservatory
undergraduates in 1996, this Chicago-based super-group has
earned its status as “a brand-name … defined by adventure,
vibrancy and quality … known for performing from memory,
employing choreography and collaborations with theater artists,
lighting designers and even puppetry artists” (Detroit Free Press).
Over the course of two decades, Eighth Blackbird has
commissioned and premiered hundreds of works by composers
such as David Lang, Steven Mackey, Missy Mazzoli, and Steve
Reich, whose Double Sextet went on to win the Pulitzer Prize
(2009). A long-term relationship with Chicago’s Cedille Records
has produced seven acclaimed recordings and four Grammy
Awards for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance:
strange imaginary animals (2008), Lonely Motel: Music from Slide
(2011), Meanwhile (2013), and Filament (2015). Hand Eye, their
most recent recording released in March 2016 and featuring
the music of composer collective Sleeping Giant, was hailed as
“dazzling” and “vigorously, flawlessly performed” (WQXR).
Eighth Blackbird celebrated its 20
th
anniversary in 2016, winning
its fourth Grammy Award and the coveted MacArthur Award
for Creative and Effective Institutions. Anniversary celebrations
continue throughout the 2016-17 season with tours from its two
most recent and broadly acclaimed albums, Filament and Hand
Eye, as well as keystone performances celebrating Steve Reich’s
80
th
birthday, a fresh round of raucous shows with “Appalachian
post-punk solipsist” (The Wanderer) Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince
Billy), and world premieres by Holly Harrison, Pulitzer Prize-winner
David Lang, and Ned McGowan. This season marks debuts at
Biography
Justin Vernon’s (Bon Iver) and Aaron Dessner’s (The National) Eaux
Claires Festival, a collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony,
performances in Paris, France, and a three-week tour of Australia.
Eighth Blackbird’s mission—to move music forward through
innovative performance, advocacy for new music by living
composers, and a legacy of guiding an emerging generation of
musicians —extends beyond recording and touring to curation
and education. The ensemble served as music director of the
Ojai Music Festival (2009), enjoyed a three-year residency at
the Curtis Institute of Music, and holds an ongoing ensemble-
in-residence position at the University of Richmond. The 2015-16
season featured a pioneering residency at Chicago’s Museum
of Contemporary Art, serving as a living installation with open
rehearsals, performances, guest artists, and public talks. In 2017,
Eighth Blackbird launches its boldest initiative yet with the creation
of Blackbird Creative Laboratory, a tuition-free, two-week summer
workshop and performance festival for musicians in Ojai, California.
Eighth Blackbird’s members hail from the Great Lakes, Keystone,
Golden, Empire, and Bay states. The name “Eighth Blackbird”
derives from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens’ evocative,
imagistic poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird: “I know
noble accents / And lucid, inescapable rhythms; / But I know,
too, / That the blackbird is involved / In what I know.” Eighth
Blackbird is managed by David Lieberman Artists. For more
information, go to www.eighthblackbird.org.
Nathalie Joachim is a Burkart Flutes & Piccolos artist, Michael
J. Maccaferri is a D’Addario Woodwinds artist. Matthew Duvall
proudly endorses Pearl Drums and Adams Musical Instruments,
Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets, Zildjian Cymbals, and Black Swamp
Percussion Accessories. Lisa Kaplan is a Steinway artist.
Booking direction by David Lieberman - Artists Representatives
Post Office Box 10368 Newport Beach, CA 92658 714-979-4700
AUDITION DATES 2016: Oct 29 | 2017: Jan 7 | Jan 21 | Feb 20 | Mar 18 (Instrumental Only) | Apr 8 | Apr 25
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2016– 2017 Season
Sept. 26, 2016
Ethos Percussion Group
Oct. 17, 2016
Maniacal 4
Nov. 7, 2016
Brasil Guitar Duo
Jan. 23, 2017
Eighth Blackbird
Feb. 27, 2017
Kevin Bobo with the Norfolk Chamber Consort
March 27, 2017
Simone Dinnerstein
April 24, 2017
Dick Oatts with the John Toomey Trio
More at ODUArtsTix.com
An endowment established at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation,
made possible by a generous gift from F. Ludwig Diehn, funds this program.
F. Ludwig Diehn Concert Series
