SPECIAL EVENT: World Premiere of “Prophecies of Fire”
Be among the first to experience Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams’s final major work for chamber ensemble! Prophecies of Fire will be premiered by the mesmerizing Sandbox Percussion—remembered for their stunning CMNW performances of George Crumb’s American Songbook II and Andy Akiho’s Seven Pillars two summers ago—for an utterly immersive musical experience.
NOTE: A shuttle from downtown to Reed College will be offered.
We have a special tradition of “picnics” before concerts at Reed College’s Kaul Auditorium. Reed’s catering service Bon Appétit offers food and drink service beginning at 6pm. Alternately, you can bring your own picnic, but alcoholic beverages must be purchased on-site.
CMNW Co-Commission • World Premiere
John Luther Adams’s Prophecies of Fire was co-commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest with the generous support of the CMNW Commissioning Fund.
This concert is sponsored by Ellen Macke & Howard Pifer.
Reed College, Kaul Auditorium
Wednesday, 7/10 • 8:00 pm PT
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- GABRIELA LENA FRANK “Luciérnagas” (Fireflies)
GABRIELA LENA FRANK Luciérnagas (Fireflies) from Suite Mestiza for Solo Violin (2017)
Inspired by the mixed-race cultures of Andean South America, Suite Mestiza for Solo Violin draws directly on sights and sounds from trips to Perú taken with my mother as traveling companion. As joint personal journeys of remembrance and identity (my mother as a Peruvian born Chinese-Indian-Spanish “costeña” or coastal native who would emigrate to the States upon marrying my father; and me as the American-born Latina), experiences that might be deemed rather ordinary instead have a miraculous cast for us. Suite Mestiza was composed for my friend and colleague, Movses Pogossian, a musician of infinite skill and humanity, including the piece you will hear today, Luciérnagas, which was inspired by the virtuoso and fleet character of fireflies that are encountered everywhere in Perú.
—© Gabriela Lena Frank
- GABRIELA LENA FRANK “Zapatos de Chincha”
GABRIELA LENA FRANK Zapatos de Chincha for Violin and Cello (2010)
Hilos (Threads, 2010), written for the ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, is scored for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Alluding to the beauty of Peruvian textiles, both in their construction and in their pictorial content of everyday life, the short movements of Hilos are a kind of Peruvian “pictures at an exhibition.” Players are mixed and matched in various combinations, and draw on a myriad of sounds evocative of indigenous music. These include fanciful pizzicatos and widely-spaced tremolos suggesting guitar-like instruments, strong attacks and surging releases suggesting zampona panpipes and quena flutes, glissandi and scratch tones suggesting vocal coloristic effects, and so forth. Tonight’s performance includes the movement Zapatos de Chincha (Shoes of Chincha). This light-footed movement is inspired by Chincha, a southern coastal town known for its afro-peruano music and dance (including a unique brand of tap). The cello part is especially reminiscent of the cajon, a wooden box that percussionists sit on and strike with hands and feet, extracting a remarkable array of sounds and rhythms.
—© Gabriela Lena Frank
- JOHN LUTHER ADAMS “Prophecies of Fire”
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS Prophecies of Fire
CMNW Co-Commission • World Premiere
…and I come back to find the stars misplaced,
and the smell of a world that has burned.
— Jimi HendrixMy earliest musical awakening was as a drummer. From rock bands to playing timpani in a symphony orchestra, my deepest physical connections to music have been through percussion. Over the past five decades, my life’s work has led me to compose music for orchestra, string quartet, piano, human voice, electronics, and a wide variety of other media. Now, in my 72nd year, I’ve returned to the place I began.
At this stage in my creative life, I feel a special responsibility and joy in working with the next generations of musicians. Several years ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Sandbox Percussion perform my extended cycle for percussion quartet, Strange and Sacred Noise. Since then, these extraordinary musicians have performed songbirdsongs, …and bells remembered…, and Inuksuit. I’ve come to regard these four young men as the foremost interpreters of my percussion music. And I welcomed the invitation to compose Prophecies of Fire—a concert-length work specifically for them.
The musicians surround the listeners, enveloping them in a continuum of timbres, pitches, dynamics, and velocities, rising from the threshold of whispers, slowly swelling into a vast sea of sound— like the wildfires, superstorms, and tides of darkness rising all around us. But beyond any poetic or metaphorical associations, this work is a celebration of the elemental power of sound itself to touch, to move, and perhaps even to transform human consciousness.
—© John Luther Adams
Artists
-
John Luther Adams
Composer
-
For John Luther Adams, music is a lifelong search for home—an invitation to slow down, pay attention, and remember our place within the larger community of life on earth.
Living for almost 40 years in northern Alaska, JLA discovered a unique musical world grounded in space, stillness, and elemental forces. In the 1970s and into the ‘80s, he worked full time as an environmental activist. But the time came when he felt compelled to dedicate himself entirely to music. He made this choice with the belief that, ultimately, music can do more than politics to change the world. Since that time, he has become one of the most widely admired composers in the world, receiving the Pulitzer Prize, a
Grammy Award, and many other honors.In works such as Become Ocean, In the White Silence, and Canticles of the Holy Wind, Adams brings the sense of wonder that we feel outdoors into the concert hall. And in outdoor works such as Inuksuit and Sila: The Breath of the World, he employs music as a way to reclaim our connections with place, wherever we may be.
A deep concern for the state of the earth and the future of humanity drives Adams to continue composing.
Since leaving Alaska, JLA and his wife Cynthia have made their home in the deserts of Mexico, Chile, and the southwestern United States.
-
Mark Kosower
Cello
-
Mark Kosower is a consummate artist equally at home on stage as soloist, chamber musician, and as the Principal Cello of The Cleveland Orchestra. He maintains a very active career as a soloist, having appeared with the Orchestre de Paris, the Bamberg Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the China National Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Detroit, Florida, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Oregon, North Carolina, Phoenix, and Seattle symphony orchestras. Mr. Kosower has collaborated as soloist with such eminent conductors as Herbert Blomstedt, Sir Andrew Davis, Christoph Eschenbach, Ton Koopman, and Franz Welser-Möst. Festival appearances include the Aspen, North Shore Chamber, Pacific, Ravinia, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Santa Fe Chamber music festivals. Mr. Kosower has recorded for the Ambitus, Delos, Naxos, and VAI labels, and is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient. He is also a much-sought-after teacher and regularly appears on faculty for Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, Colorado College’s Summer Music Festival, and California’s Hidden Valley Music Seminars, in addition to working with the fellows at the New World Symphony in Miami.
-
Julianne Lee
Violin/Viola
-
Named one of the best string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine, Julianne Lee joined the Dover Quartet as its violist in September 2023. She has forged a remarkable career as both a violinist and violist, frequently appearing as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. She holds the position of Assistant Principal Second Violinist at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and has been a member of the BSO violin section since 2006, serving as Acting Assistant Concertmaster from 2013 to 2015.
Ms. Lee has toured nationally and internationally with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Marlboro Music Festival, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, where she held the title of Guest Principal Violist. She also served as the second violinist of the Johannes String Quartet from 2015 to 2018. Throughout her illustrious career, she has performed as a soloist with orchestras in Germany, the United States, and South Korea, and as a chamber musician at numerous music festivals, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music at the Banff Centre, and the Marlboro Music Festival.
Ms. Lee graduated with a unanimous first prize from the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris in France. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, and a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, where she double majored in violin and viola. Ms. Lee holds a strong belief in the importance of teaching and shaping the next generation of musicians. She teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music and frequently gives masterclasses.
-
Sandbox Percussion
Percussion Ensemble
-
Described as “exhilarating” (The New York Times) and “utterly mesmerizing” (The Guardian), Grammy-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion is dedicated to artistry in contemporary chamber music. The ensemble was brought together in 2011 by a love of chamber music and the simple joy of playing together. Today, Sandbox Percussion captivates worldwide audiences with visually and aurally stunning performances.
Sandbox Percussion’s 2021 album, Seven Pillars, was nominated for two Grammy Awards—Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance and Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The ensemble performed the piece more than 15 times throughout the United States and Europe last season, including at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
In the 2023-24 season, Sandbox Percussion performs Seven Pillars at the VIVO Music Festival (Columbus, OH), the New School (New York), APERIO, Music of the Americas (Houston), the Frost School of Music (Miami), Brown University (Providence, RI), and the Peace Center (Greenville, SC), among other venues.
This season, Sandbox Percussion also releases their fourth album, Wilderness, featuring the piece of the same name by experimental composer Jerome Begin. Other season highlights include two performances at the Park Avenue Armory (New York), featuring premieres by Chris Cerrone and Viet Cuong, a performance at the 92nd Street Y with pianist and new-music champion Conor Hanick featuring the New York premiere of two works composed for them by Christopher Cerrone and by Tyshawn Sorey, and an appearance at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Sandbox Percussion will also continue to champion Viet Cuong’s acclaimed concerto for percussion quartet, Re(new)al, including performances with the Des Moines Symphony and with the Albany Symphony, which commissioned the piece.
Besides maintaining an international performance schedule, Sandbox Percussion holds the position of Ensemble-in-Residence and percussion faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and The New School’s College of Performing Arts. In 2016, Sandbox Percussion founded the Sandbox Percussion Seminar, introducing percussion students to the leading percussion chamber music of the day.
Sandbox Percussion endorses Pearl/Adams musical instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Remo drumheads, and Black Swamp accessories.