Voices of the Soul featuring Fred Child
Music can be an extraordinary expression of personal suffering, loneliness, loss, and ultimately triumph.
Chinese-American composer Wang Jie’s World Premiere for Pierrot ensemble and narrator, Blame the Obituary, is simultaneously a whimsical, comical, and bleak musical picture of life during the trying last few years. Wang Jie’s husband and host of the radio show Performance Today, Fred Child, narrates with pathos and self-deprecating humor.
Blame the Obituary alongside the wild colors of Alexander Scriabin’s brilliant third piano sonata, the penetrating soulfulness of the folk songs of the great Armenian priest Komitas, and the symphonic scale of Richard Strauss’s epic Sonata for Violin and Piano make this one of the most wide-ranging and dynamic concerts of the summer festival.
OREGON POET PRELUDE:
Featuring Alicia Jo Rabins
PSU, College of the Arts, Lincoln Performance Hall
Sunday, 7/23 • 4:00 pm
Reed College, Kaul Auditorium
Monday, 7/24 • 8:00 pm PT
Buy Subscription
Buy Single Tickets
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- ALEXANDER SCRIABIN Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 23
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN (1871-1915)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 23 (20’)I. Drammatico
II. Allegretto
III. Andante
IV. Presto con fuocoAccording to several contemporary accounts, Alexander Scriabin’s egotism knew no bounds. He esteemed his own music with as much arrogance as his near-total contempt for almost every other composer’s work, Tchaikovsky, whose music, Scriabin claimed, “made him ill.” This dismissive attitude also applied to Scriabin’s assessment of his contemporaries, both within and outside Russia.
Unlike most of Scriabin’s sonatas, which feature a single movement, the Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp minor, Op. 23 has four. Over time, Scriabin appended several titles to this sonata, including “Gothic” and, some years later, “États d’âme” (States of the Soul). Scriabin also provided a programmatic description of each of the four movements:
“Drammàtico: The soul, free and wild, thrown into the whirlpool of suffering and strife.
Allegretto: Apparent momentary and illusory respite; tired from suffering the soul wants to forget, wants to sing and flourish, in spite of everything. But the light rhythm, the fragrant harmonies are just a cover through which gleams the restless and languishing soul.
Andante: A sea of feelings, tender and sorrowful; love, sorrow, vague desires, inexplicable thoughts, illusions of a delicate dream.
Presto con fuoco: From the depth of being rises the fearsome voice of creative man whose victorious song resounds triumphantly. But too weak yet to reach the acme he plunges, temporarily defeated, into the abyss of non-being.”
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- WANG JIE “Blame the Obituary” (2023)
WANG JIE Blame the Obituary (2023)
Blame the Obituary (or, I Scanned My Little Life), is a 20-minute Kafka-esque piece for narrator and quintet: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. It’s not a theater piece, but chamber music with a dash of theatrical flair. A musical picture of life during these trying last few years. At times whimsical and comical, at times devastatingly bleak, our narrator takes us on a journey into his lonely soul, writing his own obituary while engaging in lively conversation with the things around his small bare living space. A virtuosic quintet plays Wang Jie’s evocative music, while narrator Fred Child (host of America’s most listened to classical music radio show, Performance Today) narrates with pathos and self-deprecating humor. Creative conception and text by American screenwriter Charlie Peters (5 Flights Up, My One and Only). By the end, the audience will have memorable tunes and delicious harmonic passages in mind, and will have reflected on the meaning of their own loves, losses, and choices during these uniquely trying passages of life.
- KOMITAS VARDAPET Three Armenian Folk Songs for Violin & Piano
KOMITAS VARDAPET (1869-1935)
Three Armenian Folk Songs for Violin & PianoI. Chinar es
II. Qeler, Tsoler
III. KrunkThe story of Armenian composer Komitas Vardapet (1869–1935) contains both inspiration and tragedy. An ordained priest, Komitas spent his early career collecting folk melodies in the Armenian countryside. He used what he learned to help foster a national musical culture in the Armenian diaspora by arranging, publishing, performing, and composing music based on traditional melodies. Like so many others, however, Komitas’ creative potential was cut short by the mental toll of the Armenian genocide (1915–17), and he spent his remaining years in a mental hospital outside of Paris.
Despite the questions of what might have been, Komitas left behind a diverse and exceptional musical output. The majority of his songs are arrangements of folk melodies that combine Armenian musical elements with the Western classical tradition, which Komitas studied extensively in Berlin. Together, they present a profoundly impacting portrait of Armenia’s folklore, it’s past, and the perseverance of its culture to the present.
—© Ethan Allred
- RICHARD STRAUSS Sonata for Violin & Piano
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Sonata for Violin & Piano (28’)I. Allegro, ma non troppo
II. Improvisation: Andante cantabile
III. Andante: AllegroRichard Strauss (1864-1949) made his name as a musical disruptor. Preferring free-flowing, narrative “tone poems” to traditional symphonies and sonatas, he helped transition German music from the formal rigidity that governed composers from Bach to Brahms to a more
open-minded approach to structure. As he once proclaimed, “What was for Beethoven a ‘form’ absolutely in congruity with the highest, most
glorious content, is now, after 60 years, used as a formula…”Early in his career, however, Strauss did experiment with several traditional forms, including the string quartet, the piano sonata, the piano quartet, and, finally, his splendid Violin Sonata (1887). Only 23 years old at the time of the sonata’s composition, Strauss was
already a skilled instrumentalist with a thorough understanding of both the violin and the piano. The sonata’s first movement combines Strauss’s already burgeoning sense of dramatic energy with his lyricism, both of which would come to the fore in his later operatic career. The Improvisation movement, indeed, is often described as a “song without words,” starkly emotive and free-flowing in its harmonic continuum.The Finale is especially well-crafted structurally, demonstrating how Strauss always paid close attention to structure despite his aversion to preexisting forms.
—© Ethan Allred
Artists
-
Fred Child
Narrator
-
Fred Child is an Emmy Award-winning classical music media host and personality. He’s Host and Senior Editor of the most listened-to classical music radio program in America, APM’s Performance Today.
He’s also Commentator and Announcer for Live from Lincoln Center on PBS. And he hosts musical events on stages across the country and around the world, enlightening and inspiring classical music audiences of all ages and backgrounds. While growing up in Portland, Oregon, Fred studied classical piano, and he has a remarkably wide range of musical experience. He dabbles in guitar, percussion, and bagpipes. One of his bands once opened for the Grateful Dead at the Oakland Coliseum. He has narrated musical works at festivals around the country. He leads annual international musical tours. His acting debut came in a feature-length video commissioned for the Partita for Solo Violin by Philip Glass.
Fred loves baseball (throws right, bats left) and soccer (he’s a fan of North London’s Tottenham Hotspur). He’s an avid rock climber, a licensed private pilot, and certified scuba diver. His better half is composer Wang Jie. They make their musical home in New York City, with a musical Sealyham Terrier named Pilot. -
Diana Adamyan
Violin, Protégé
-
Diana Adamyan is quickly gaining an international reputation as one of her generation’s most outstanding violinists. After winning the First Prize at the 2018 Yehudi Menuhin International Competition, the world’s most prestigious prize for young violinists, she went on to receive First Prize in the 2020 Khachaturian Violin Competition.
In summer 2022, Ms. Adamyan made her debut at the Aspen Festival performing Dvorak with Lionel Bringuier, and with the Boston Pops Orchestra performing Mendelssohn at Boston Symphony Hall. This season, she returns to the Göttinger Symphonieorchester to perform Beethoven, and the Niederbayerische Philharmonie in Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. She will also make her debut performing Sibelius with the Staatsorchester Darmstadt, and performing Beethoven with the Bruckner Orchester Linz in Munich’s Prinzregententheater, and will return once more to the Göttinger Symphonie in Dvorak. Recent and upcoming engagements also include recitals in Tokyo and France, and her debut with the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester at the Philharmonie in Berlin.
Since winning First Prize at the Menuhin Competition, Ms. Adamyan has received numerous proposals to participate in the concerts around the world, from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, to the Seiji Ozawa Academy in Switzerland, and the Matsumoto International Music Festival in Japan. Following an invitation from Maestro Pinchas Zukerman to participate under his guidance in summer masterclasses of the Ottawa National Arts Center, Ms. Adamyan was invited to appear as a soloist in Gala Concert of NAC, alongside Mr. Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Jessica Linnebach, and other renowned musicians. Later, she also appeared alongside Mr. Zukerman playing the Bach Double Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic at Cadogan Hall in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Born in 2000 in Yerevan, Armenia, into a family of musicians, Ms. Adamyan currently studies at the Munich University of Performing Arts with world-renowned teacher, Professor Ana Chumachenco, whose distinguished students have included Lisa Batiashvili, Julia Fischer, and Veronika Eberle. Previously, she studied at the Tchaikovsky School of Music (Yerevan) with Professor Petros Haykazyan and at Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory with Professor Eduard Tadevosyan.
Ms. Adamyan is the recipient of a scholarship from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and under the patronage of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) and “YerazArt” organization in Boston. She performed on a violin crafted by Urs Mächler for the Menuhin Competition, and now performs on an instrument made by Nicolò Gagliano in 1760, generously on loan from the Henri Moerel Foundation.
-
Zitong Wang
Piano, Protégé
-
23-year-old Chinese pianist Zitong Wang made her solo recital debut at age 13 in Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. She has performed at such venues as the Steinway Hall in New York, Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, Severance Hall in Cleveland, etc. She has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Galicia Symphony Orchestra, Hangzhou Philharmonic, etc. She has worked with conductors Jahja Ling, Xian Zhang, Lina Gonzalez-Granados, José Trigueros, and Yang Yang.
Among others, she is a first prize winner of the Rosalyn Tureck International Bach Competition and Virginia Waring International Concerto Competition, second prize in the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, and first prize in Princeton Festival Competition and France Music Competition. She most recently won first prize and “Nelson Freire Prize” in the XXXIII Ferrol International Piano Competition in 2022. A devoted chamber musician, Zitong has played alongside with Meng-Chieh Liu, Don Liuzzi, Vera Quartet, Zora Quartet, etc. She has toured with Roberto Díaz and musicians from Curtis. As an active member of Curtis 20/21 ensemble, she has worked with composers Unsuk Chin, Bright Sheng, David Ludwig, and Alvin Singleton. In 2019 she participated in the Intimacy of Creativity conference for composers in Hong Kong as a guest pianist.
Born in Inner Mongolia, China, Zitong began piano lessons at age three and previously studied with Hua Chang and Yuan Sheng at the Central Conservatory of Music Affiliated Middle School in Beijing. At age thirteen, she entered the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Meng-Chieh Liu and Eleanor Sokoloff. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at New England Conservatory with Dang Thai Son.
-
Third Sound
Ensemble
-
Laura Cocks, flute
Bixby Kennedy, clarinet
Karen Kim, violin
Michael Nicolas, cello
Steven Beck, piano
Patrick Castillo, composer“Forward-looking, expert ensemble Third Sound” (The New Yorker) is a collective of virtuoso performers drawn from New York City’s finest chamber musicians. The ensemble musicians—flutist Sooyun Kim, clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois, violinist Karen Kim, cellist Michael Nicolas, and composer Patrick Castillo—have appeared on the most prestigious series and stages around the world and garnered myriad honors, including the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant, and the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, among many others. Conceived from a desire to present the complete literature as a rich and dynamic continuum, Third Sound brings together an accomplished group of musicians equally skilled in—and equally passionate about—the work of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as that of composers ranging from Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Messiaen; Carter, Wuorinen, Adams, and Reich; to emerging composers of the early twenty-first century.
Third Sound recorded the title track of Wang Lu’s portrait album, Urban Inventory (New Focus Recordings), which was named one of The New Yorker’s Notable Performances and Recordings of 2018. In 2020, innova Recordings releases the ensemble’s debut album, Heard in Havana.
Third Sound made its debut in November 2015 at the Festival de Música Contemporánea de La Habana (Havana, Cuba), presenting a program of contemporary American music in partnership with the American Composers Forum. I Care If You Listen wrote of the ensemble’s festival performance, “Third Sound played with a level of commitment, joy, and ensemble cohesion that belies the short time they have worked together.” The ensemble has also appeared at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University (New York), National Sawdust (Brooklyn), Bard Music West (San Francisco), the Schubert Club (St. Paul, MN), and elsewhere.
-
Wang Jie
Composer
-
Wang Jie’s stylistic versatility is a rare trait among today’s composers. One day she spins a few notes into a large symphony, the next she conjures a malevolent singing rat onto the opera stage. Unveiling beauty in this world and paving new paths for lasting public engagement with classical music are at the heart of her artistry.
For the past three years running, Jie’s Symphony No. 1 has been the most-broadcast work on the most-listened-to classical music show on public radio. A popular concert opener, her Symphonic Overture - America the Beautiful is adored by tens and thousands of live audiences across the United States. During previous seasons, you might have heard about her pioneering opera, It Rained on Shakopee, based on her mentoring experience at the Minnesota state prison. Her career is made possible by trailblazers at The League of American Orchestras, American Composers Orchestra, Opera America, and the Toulmin Foundation, to name a few. She is a frequent collaborator with organizations that vitalize the beauty of classical music as relevant today as ever, such as the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Colorado Music Festival, Musica Sacra, The App, etc. She received degrees from Manhattan School of Music, the Curtis Institute of Music, and holds a PhD from NYU. Co-founder of the Emerging Composers Intensive in CA and a serious instrumentalist herself, Jie tirelessly mentors young composers with a focus on collaborative, musicianship-based approach in creativity. Born in Shanghai, Jie now considers herself a New Yorker.
-
Alicia Jo Rabins
Poetry
-
Alicia Jo Rabins is an award-winning writer, musician, performer, and Jewish educator. The New York Times calls her voice “gorgeous” and the San Francisco Chronicle calls her writing “a poetry page-turner, both sexy and humble.” She is the author of two books of poetry, Divinity School (winner of the 2015 APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (finalist for the 2018 Jewish Book Award). As a writer/performer, Rabins is the creator and star of the film musical A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, an independent feature about the intersection of finance and mysticism, which screened at Lincoln Center and which The Atlantic calls “a blessing.” As a musician, she has released three albums (and accompanying feminist Torah study guides) with Girls in Trouble, her indie-folk song cycle about Biblical women; toured across Central America and Kuwait playing bluegrass fiddle as a cultural ambassador for the US State Department; and was the violinist in NYC’s klezmer-rock band, Golem, for eight years. Rabins lives in North Portland with her husband and two children.