Trio Afiori: Anthony McGill, Fleur Barron & Gloria Chien

NEW POWERHOUSE TRIO OF CMNW FAVORITES

Returning to CMNW this fall are three of classical music’s most brilliant musicians: the exceptional clarinetist and Avery Fisher Prize-winner Anthony McGill, Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, and our own Artistic Director, pianist Gloria Chien! Their new Trio Afiori will present one of our most unique programs yet, as these three illuminating musical minds join forces with repertoire specially arranged for the triple-threat of mezzo-soprano, clarinet, and piano. Come for an evening of stunning music by Brahms, Kian Ravaei’s mesmerizing Gulistan—a 2023 CMNW commission—and two brand-new works commissioned by CMNW for this outstanding trio: Moon Allegory by Alexander Ho and Angels by Valerie Coleman.

“Fleur Barron, Anthony McGill, and Gloria Chien are excited to offer a program on the theme of ‘Heritage,’ featuring works composed or arranged expressly for their trio.”

— MKI Artists

PSU, College of the Arts, Lincoln Performance Hall
Saturday, 11/8 • 7:30 pm

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SINGLE TICKETS

Program

Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.

BRAHMS Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91 (Arr. Kian Ravaei)

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897) Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91 (1884)

  I. Gestillte Sehnsucht. Adagio espressivo
  II. Geistliches Wiegenlied. Andante con moto

ALEXANDER HO “Moon Allegory” (2025)

ALEX HO (b. 1993) Moon Allegory for mezzo-soprano, clarinet in B-flat, and piano (8’)

WORLD PREMIERE • CMNW COMMISSION

For the last 3,000 years, the goddess of the Moon, Chang’e, has been celebrated during the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is tradition to gather with loved ones to share mooncakes and give thanks to the prosperity and joy we have around us.

Moon Allegory is an imagined portrait of Chang’e. It is said that she was exiled to the moon having drunk the elixir of immortality. Separated from her husband for eternity, Chang’e symbolises the enchantment of the moon in its distant beauty, its beguiling otherworldliness, and its comforting omnipresence.

BRAHMS Clarinet Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897) Clarinet Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2 (1894)

I. Allegro amabile
II. Allegro appassionato
III. Andante con moto — Allegro

In the fall of 1890, Brahms decided that he was through composing. At 57, he felt that he had said the things he wanted to, and he intended that his String Quintet in G Major, completed the summer before, should be his last work. He began clearing out his files, destroying old manuscripts he did not want to keep and publishing a few pieces he did. But he was fairly sure there would be no new music.

Then in 1891 Brahms met the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld and was captivated by his playing. Mühlfeld (1856-1907) had originally joined the Meiningen orchestra as a violinist. He taught himself to play the clarinet and soon became the principal clarinetist of that orchestra and later of the Bayreuth orchestra. So enthusiastic was Brahms about Mühlfeld’s playing that he came out of retirement and began to compose for him: from 1891 came a Clarinet Trio and the great Clarinet Quintet. Three years later Brahms wrote his final instrumental works for Mühlfeld, two sonatas for clarinet and piano.

Both sonatas share the autumnal quality of Brahms’s late music, though the Second Sonata is the more immediately friendly of the two. The opening tempo marking, Allegro amabile, sets the tone for the entire work, for this is indeed music full of love. The clarinet enters immediately with a lyric theme that seems to flow endlessly, and this quality of continuous lyricism extends throughout the movement. The poised and noble second subject (Brahms marks it sotto voce) helps maintain the mood of calm acceptance that characterizes this sonata. The Allegro appassionato is in the standard scherzo-and-trio form. The clarinet’s surging, twisting opening establishes the high energy level of this movement, and the trio section of characteristically Brahmsian nobility is all the more effective by contrast. The Andante con moto is a set of variations based on the clarinet’s opening theme. That theme undergoes four variations, all in 6/8 time, and then Brahms provides an unusual conclusion by shifting to 2/4 for the final variation and suddenly speeding the music up.

—© Eric Bromberger

VALERIE COLEMAN “Angels” for Mezzo-Soprano, Clarinet & Piano

VALERIE COLEMAN (b. 1970) Angels
WORLD PREMIERE • CMNW COMMISSION

Angels gfr Mezzo-Soprano, Clarinet and Piano (18’)
1. Colossus
2. Human Family
3. Prayer

Inspired by a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address that appeals to the “better angels of our nature”, Angels is a three-movement work calling for global healing for our times. There is a common thread of storytelling within each movement, which transforms into the stirring of resiliency through anthems (by way of simple songs and driving grooves) meant to reach all walks of life.

The first movement, Colossus, sets and amplifies the words from poet Emma Lazarus’ iconic poem, The New Colossus, whose words were inscribed on a plaque inside the statue’s pedestal in 1903. A siren of emergency from the clarinet begins the moment, building from inaudible and distant into an ear-splitting presence. This wail is met with a war-like crash from the piano, whose force melts into an introductory cadenza depicting the remnants of the industrial age. The iron-forging sounds coalesce into a laboring march that brings in the mezzo-soprano and the first lines of the poem: not like the brazen giants of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land. The brutal yet profitable conditions and apathy is challenged by A mighty woman with a torch whose flame is the imprisoned lightning. Whereas the poem brings into focus the contrasts between conquerors and the statues’ compassionate identity as “Mother of Exiles,” the somber low and driving tone of the beginning eventually leads into a lighter current of water through a rippling groove of cooling and healing. The waves of the Atlantic lead into and crash against the base of the monument depicted twice by stepwise motion in clarinet and piano, the waves are met with the mezzo-soprano defiantly announcing, “Keep! Ancient lands, your storied pomp” before subsiding into the last section of the poem, which is perhaps one of the most familiar moments in American literature:

Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless, tempest-rosy to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Unleashing the ferocity between clarinet and piano within Human Family, the second movement tour-de-force, gave me the opportunity to address the cruelties of the world and how it has led to a time of divisiveness and trauma. However, it would be too easy to incorrectly label this fiery movement as an angry work. I hope to challenge the listener to instead find the message of hope through the lens of life- preserving determination, courage, resiliency, and defiance. A quieter contemplative sound ends the work acknowledging the ‘better angels of nature’ within us all, inspired by Afiori Trio member Anthony McGill’s powerful moment of “Two Knees.”

Imagining Fleur Barron’s voice humming a lullaby of love and safety to children all over the world was my inspiration behind the start of the third movement called, Prayer. This movement is a benediction of peace-through the embrace of humanity. To make its message clear, I chose to deliver (in contrast to a modern aesthetic that prizes intellectual complexity as sophistication) a simple melody powerfully sung without words but with intention, seven times—the divine number of completion.

KIAN RAVAEI “Gulistan” for Voice, Piano & Cello (2023)

KIAN RAVAEI (b. 1999) Gulistan (15-20’)
CMNW Commission World Premiere 2023

Part 1 (Sari Gelin/Wildwood Flower)
Part 2 (Saye Chaman/Seeds of Love)

In Gulistan, I bring together traditional songs from my Western and Middle Eastern heritage. The title comes from the thirteenth-century Persian poet Sa’di, whose monumental work Gulistan (“flower garden” in Persian) uses flowers as a metaphor for wisdom. Folk songs may be said to represent the collective wisdom of a culture, preserving generations of values and worldviews. Inspired by Sa’di, I chose folk songs that make reference to flowers, each with different metaphorical implications.

Part 1 combines the traditional Azerbaijani song Sari Gelin with the American folk song Wildwood Flower. The former describes a man helplessly longing for his distant lover, while the latter tells the story of a heartbroken woman whose lover has abandoned her. I intertwine the songs, suggesting a dialogue between two inconsolable lovers, each pining for the other.

Part 2 unites two metaphorical commentaries on the nature of love: the traditional Iranian song Saye Chaman and the English folk song Seeds of Love. I set the Iranian melody in an American folk style, and the English melody in a style evoking Iranian classical music. The melodies are often presented in counterpoint—a kind of musical metaphor for the mixture of cultures in my own life.

This work was written expressly for mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, who shares in common with me a diverse heritage comprising Eastern and Western cultures.

—© Kian Ravaei

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