David Ludwig’s “The Anchoress”
Rarely in one concert will you experience a string quartet with piano, a saxophone quartet, a woodwind quintet, and a poetic monodrama! Set to poetry by Portland-native Katie Ford, The Anchoress combines a chorus of nine wind instruments with the human voice to explore the medieval mystic tradition called anchorism—with the remarkably expressive Hyunah Yu inhabiting the role of the Anchoress. CMNW Protégé alums, the Kenari Quartet, perform Quantum Shift, “an 8-minute virtuosic powerhouse” for saxophones. Pianist Stewart Goodyear and the Catalyst Quartet also uncover Florence Price’s lively Piano Quintet.
This concert is sponsored by All Classical Portland.
PSU, College of the Arts, Lincoln Performance Hall
Sunday, 7/16 • 4:00 pm
Reed College, Kaul Auditorium
Monday, 7/17 • 8:00 pm PT
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- MISCHA ZUPKO “Quantum Shift” for Saxophone Quartet (2022)
MISCHA ZUPKO Quantum Shift for Sax Quartet (2022)
Quantum Shift is inspired by a component of quantum theory in physics, where electrons within an atom can quickly jump between discrete energy levels, i.e. orbits, surrounding the atom’s nucleus. While the scientific details of this phenomenon might be tough for the layman to understand, the music of Quantum Shift takes this basic concept and translates it into a high-velocity work for saxophone quartet, characterized by sprightly oscillating motifs that constantly transition between varying states of texture, dynamic, tempo, and gesture. Put simply, the piece can be thought of as a window into the sporadic lives of four electrons—in this case, the ‘Kenari Electrons’—interacting ceaselessly amongst one another in their subatomic world.”
Mischa Zupko is an award winning Chicago-based composer, pianist and professor of music at Chicago’s DePaul University.
- FLORENCE PRICE Piano Quintet in A Minor (1936)
FLORENCE PRICE (1899-1952)
Piano Quintet in A Minor (1936) (28’)I. Allegro non troppo
II. Andante con moto
III. Juba - Allegro
IV. Scherzo - AllegroFlorence Price, the first Black female American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, enjoyed considerable renown during her lifetime. Her compositional skill and fame notwithstanding, the entrenched institutional racism and sexism of the white male classical music establishment effectively erased Price and her music from general awareness for decades after her death in 1953. In 2009, a large collection of scores and unpublished manuscripts by Price were discovered in a house in rural Illinois. Since then, many ensembles and individual musicians have begun including Price’s music in concerts, and audiences everywhere are discovering her distinctive, polished body of work for the first time.
The daughter of a musical mother, Price was a prodigy, giving her first recital at age four and publishing her first composition at 11. At age 16, Price won admittance to New England Conservatory (she opted to “pass” as Mexican to circumvent prevailing racial bias against Blacks), where she double majored in organ performance and piano pedagogy. While at NEC, Price also studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick was an early advocate for women composers, and he believed, as did Antonín Dvořák before him, that American composers should incorporate the rich traditions of American vernacular music into their own work, rather than trying to imitate European styles.
Price, already inclined in this direction, was encouraged by Chadwick. In 1938, she wrote, “We are waking up to the fact pregnant with possibilities that we already have a folk music in the Negro spirituals—music which is potent, poignant, compelling.”
Price’s Quintet in A minor for Piano and Strings was unknown until its discovery, along with other Price manuscripts, in 2009. Its date of composition is unknown, but like Price’s other piano quintet in E minor, it was probably written in the mid-1930s. The A minor Quintet’s musical language combines neo-Romantic 20th century classical music vocabulary with American vernacular idioms, rhythms, and blue-note melodies. The Allegro non troppo, the longest of the Quintet’s four movements, juxtaposes an expressionistic first theme with a lyrical counter-theme featuring bent notes (flatted thirds) often found in blues melodies. The energy of this movement comes from the creative tension generated by these two contrasting music traditions. The Andante con moto, a rondo, begins with a serene quasi-hymn theme in A major; several unsettled counter-themes suggest underlying disquiet. The A major theme recurs several times, as if to soothe anxieties generated by the contrasting episodes. The Juba, also known as the hambone, was brought to America by enslaved people; the dance generates its own rhythm with hand claps, foot stamps, and body slaps. “In all of my works which have been done in the sonata form with Negroid idiom, I have incorporated a juba as one of the several movements,” Price observed, “because it seems to me to be no more impossible to conceive of Negroid music devoid of the spiritualistic theme on the one hand than strongly syncopated rhythms of the juba on the other.” The Quintet concludes with a brief, vivacious Scherzo.
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- DAVID SERKIN LUDWIG “The Anchoress” (2018)
DAVID SERKIN LUDWIG (b. 1974)
The Anchoress (2018) (40’)
Poetry by Katie FordI. What Is My Life?
II. Once a Woman Went Down the Hill
III. What Are We to Make of Visions Lit?
IV. This Is the Four Burns of the Soul
V. One Night in Particular
VI. A Woman of the Village
VII. Be Not Assured
VIII. When I Woke Up Sighing
The Anchoress is a monodrama set to original texts by Katie Ford written originally for singer Hyunah Yu, the PRISM Quartet, and Piffaro, The Renaissance Wind Band (the version you are hearing now has been rescored for modern wind quintet with saxophones). The anchoress persona, her words, her visions, and her message– all come from Katie, and being able to set into music both voices of poet and character has been a provocative and inspiring journey for me. My goal was to bring these words to musical life with the sounds of a single vocalist set in a sonic landscape meant to evoke both the ancient and modern.
Anchorites (from the Greek anachōréō meaning “to withdraw”) were Christians who chose a life in extreme confinement in a quest for spiritual perfection; a practice that grew in popularity in late medieval Europe—particularly among women. A church would create a small cell looking into the sanctuary, and the anchorite would enter into it with no possessions other than coarse clothing and a Bible, and perhaps a few other texts. Members of the church would enclose the anchorite in the space by placing huge stones or bricking up a wall at the entrance. Then a priest would administer last rites for the anchoress living inside.
Ford writes: “The anchoritic life is one of the earliest forms of Christian monastic living. However, an anchoress was not a part of a monastic community. Instead, she lived in an enclosed cell, an ‘anchorhold,’ attached to a church. She had one small window through which to speak to townspeople coming to her for guidance. Her daily life resembled a prayerful funereal rite. She has withdrawn and chosen a form of death, which, in the eyes of the Church, transformed her into a ‘living saint.”
Many anchorites experienced otherworldly visions, and they were often consulted by visitors looking to glean guidance from their mystic spiritual reflections. Did anchorites feel alienation and were compelled to pull away from society so that they could objectively observe it? Or was their hermitage inspired by feeling too much connection and the need to find solace in separation? Two things can be true.
The austere anchoritic lifestyle feels so extreme from our modern vantage point, yet its greater aspirations to find solace and meaning are deeply relevant to our frenetic digital lives. I wrote this piece well before the pandemic, but close enough that it felt inextricably linked to that time. In our world of quarantine and isolation many of us asked “where and what is my community” as we felt ever more intensely disconnected from society writ large.Our Anchoress has chosen to withdraw from her world to comment as a witness. She defiantly speaks her truth—a mighty voice from within a small cell.
©—David Serkin Ludwig
Artists
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Stewart Goodyear
Composer & Piano
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Proclaimed “a phenomenon” by the Los Angeles Times and “one of the best pianists of his generation” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished concert pianist, improviser, and composer. Mr. Goodyear has performed with, and has been commissioned by, many of the major orchestras and chamber music organizations around the world.
Last year, Orchid Classics released Mr. Goodyear’s recording of his suite for piano and orchestra, Callaloo, and his piano sonata. His recent commissions include works for violinist Miranda Cuckson, cellist Inbal Segev, the Penderecki String Quartet, the Horszowski Trio, the Honens Piano Competition, and the Chineke! Foundation.
Mr. Goodyear’s discography includes the complete sonatas and piano concertos of Beethoven, as well as concertos by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Rachmaninov, an album of Ravel piano works, and an album entitled For Glenn Gould, which combines repertoire from Mr. Gould’s U.S. and Montreal debuts. His recordings have been released on the Marquis Classics, Orchid Classics, Bright Shiny Things, and Steinway and Sons labels. His newest recording, Adolphus Hailstork’s Piano Concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta, was released in March 2023 on the Naxos label.
Highlights for the 2024-25 season are his performances at the BBC Proms with the Chineke! Orchestra, performances at the Rheingau Musik Festival, and performances with the Vancouver and Toronto Symphonies, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, Frankfurt Museumgesellschaft, and A Far Cry in Boston.
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Hyunah Yu
Soprano
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Applauded for her “absolutely captivating voice with exceptional style” and “effortless lyrical grace” (The Washington Post), soprano Hyunah Yu has garnered acclaim for her versatility in concert and opera roles of several centuries, for her work in chamber music, for her support of newly commissioned work, and for her recorded and broadcast performances.
A recipient of the prestigious Borletti Buitoni Trust Award and known particularly for her performances of the music of J.S. Bach, Hyunah has appeared regularly with esteemed conductors, festivals, and orchestras throughout the US, Europe, and Asia.
An avid chamber musician and recitalist, Hyunah has enjoyed engagements with Baltimore’s Shriver Hall Concert Series, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Vancouver Recital Society, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., Musicians from Marlboro, and many others.
A highlight of Hyunah’s opera career was singing the title role in Peter Sellar’s new production of Mozart’s Zaide in the joint production of the Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Barbican Centre, and the Wiener Festwochen played in New York, London, and Vienna. She has recorded Bach and Mozart arias on EMI’s Debut Series and solo recitals broadcast for the BBC Voices program.
Hyunah was a prizewinner at the Walter Naumburg International Competition and a finalist in both the Dutch International Vocal and Concert Artist Guild International competitions. Hyunah also holds a degree in molecular biology from the University of Texas at Austin.
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Catalyst Quartet
String Quartet
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Karla Donehew Perez, violin
Abi Fayette, violin
Paul Laraia, viola
Karlos Rodriguez, cello“Like all great chamber groups, the Catalyst Quartet is beautiful to watch, like a family in lively conversation at the dinner table: anticipating, interrupting, changing subjects.”
The New York Times, August 5, 2020Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished…playing with earthy vigor,” the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet was founded by the Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagine their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.
Catalyst Quartet has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., at Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center, and Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. The Quartet has been guest artists with the Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi on six national tours. They have been invited to perform by prominent music festivals ranging from Mainly Mozart in San Diego, to the Sitka Music Festival and Juneau Jazz and Classics in Alaska, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival, where they appear annually. Catalyst Quartet was Ensemble-in-Residence at the Vail Dance Festival in 2016. In 2014, they opened the Festival del Sole in Napa, California, performing with Joshua Bell, and as part of the Aldeburgh Music Foundation String Quartet Residency gave two performances in the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh, UK.
International engagements have brought them to Russia, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, along with regular concert tours throughout the United States and Canada. Residents of New York City, the ensemble has performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they were named Quartet-in-Residence for the MetLiveArts 2022-23 Season, City Center, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, The New School (for Schneider Concerts), and Lincoln Center. They played six concerts with jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant for Jazz at Lincoln Center. The subsequent recording won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. They are 2023 Artists-in-Residence with Chamber Music Northwest.
Recent programs and collaborations have included Encuentros with cellist Gabriel Cabezas; (im)igration, with the Imani Winds; and CQ Minute, 11 miniature string quartets commissioned for the quartet’s 10th anniversary, including works by Billy Childs, Paquito D’Rivera, Jessie Montgomery, Kevin Puts, Caroline Shaw, and Joan Tower. UNCOVERED, a multi-CD project for Azica Records celebrates important works by composers sidelined because of their race or gender. Volume 1 with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Stewart Goodyear includes music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Volume 2 with pianist Michelle Cann features music of Florence Price; it was nominated for “Recording of the Year 2022” by Limelight Magazine, Australia. Volume 3, released in February 2023 features music of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, George Walker, and William Grant Still. Uncovered is also the focus of live concerts performed throughout the US including Uncovered series with San Francisco Performances in 2021-22 and their Pivot festival in 2023.
Catalyst Quartet’s other recordings span the ensemble’s scope of interests and artistry. The Bach/Gould Project pairs the Quartet’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations with Glenn Gould’s String Quartet Op. 1. Strum is the debut album of composer Jessie Montgomery, former Catalyst Quartet violinist. Bandaneon y cuerdas features tango-inspired music for string quartet and bandoneon by JP Jofre, and Dreams and Daggers is their Grammy-winning album with Cecile McLorin Salvant.
Catalyst Quartet combines a serious commitment to diversity and education with a passion for contemporary works. The ensemble serves as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at the Juilliard School, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Curtis Institute of Music. Catalyst Quartet’s ongoing residencies include interactive performance presentations and workshops with Native American student composers at the Grand Canyon Music Festival and the Sphinx Organization’s Overture program, which delivers access to music education in Detroit and Flint, Michigan. Past residencies have included concerts and masterclasses at the University of Michigan, University of Washington, Rice University, Houston’s Society for the Performing Arts, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, The Virginia Arts Festival, Pennsylvania State University, the In Harmony Project in England, University of South Africa, and The Teatro De Bellas Artes in Cali, Colombia. The ensemble’s residency in Havana, Cuba, for the Cuban American Youth Orchestra in January 2019, was the first by an American string quartet since the revolution.
Catalyst Quartet members hold degrees from The Cleveland Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, The Curtis Institute of Music, and New England Conservatory. Catalyst Quartet is a Sphinx ensemble and proudly endorses Pirastro strings.
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Kenari Quartet
Ensemble
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Bob Eason, soprano saxophone
Kyle Baldwin, alto saxophone
Corey Dundee, tenor saxophone
Steven Banks, baritone saxophoneApplauded for their “flat-out amazing” performances and “stunning virtuosity” (Cleveland Classical), the highly acclaimed Kenari Quartet delivers inspiring performances that transform the perception of the saxophone. The quartet aims to highlight the instrument’s remarkable versatility by presenting meticulously crafted repertoire from all periods of classical and contemporary music.
The Kenari Quartet has found a home performing on many of the premiere chamber music series in the United States, often serving as the first ensemble of its kind to be presented. Recent engagements include appearances at Chamber Music Northwest, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and Chamber Music Tulsa. Advocating passionately for the music of living composers, Kenari has given world premieres of new works by Mischa Zupko, Joel Love, and David Salleras, and in 2016 the quartet received a Classical Commissioning Grant from Chamber Music America that allowed them to commission a new work from Corey Dundee, Kenari’s very own tenor saxophonist. The quartet has also collaborated with the Imani Winds, presenting the world premiere of J.P. Redmond’s 9x9: Nine Pieces for Nonet in 2018.
Kenari Quartet’s name is derived from the Malay word “kenari,” which may be translated as “songbird.” Expanding on the age-old idea that birds communicate through song, the Kenari Quartet seeks to exemplify this concept through concert hall performances. By not only connecting with their audiences via song, but also through physical movement, Kenari amplifies the standard concert experience with their striking visual communication and powerful stage presence. The Kenari Quartet is represented by Jean Schreiber Management.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
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WindSync
Wind Quintet
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Garrett Hudson, flute
Noah Kay, oboe
Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinet
Kara LaMoure, bassoon
Anni Hochhalter, hornVersatile and vibrant, the musicians of WindSync “play many idioms authoritatively, elegantly, with adroit technique, and with great fun” (All About the Arts), showing off the uniquely wide-ranging sounds of the wind quintet. WindSync’s charismatic and personal performance style, combined with a three-pronged mission of artistry, education, and community-building, lends the group its reputation as “virtuosos who are also wonderful people, too” (Alison Young, Classical MPR).
Highlights of WindSync’s 2024-25 season include a weeklong residency at Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall series, Chicago; a weeklong residency at Shelter Island Friends of Music, New York; performances at Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society with pianist Jon Kimura Parker; Harvard Musical Association, Cambridge, MA; Chamber Music Kelowna, British Columbia; and a return to Chamber Music Northwest and Emerald City Music, in Seattle and Portland. The group celebrated its 15th anniversary season in 2023-24.
WindSync has enjoyed an international touring career since winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The group has regularly appeared on notable stages throughout the United States and abroad, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Ravinia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, Rockport Music, and Emerald City Music. Building a new repertoire, WindSync’s recent premieres include works by Viet Cuong, Marc Mellits, Ivan Trevino, Mason Bynes, Nathalie Joachim, and Pulitzer finalist Michael Gilbertson.
WindSync has also served in residencies with the Grand Teton Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and the Lied Center, and they work with local partners to craft musical events for cities out of range of large arts organizations. Winner of the 2022 Fischoff Ann Divine Educator Award, the ensemble regularly coaches at training programs nationwide, collaborates with youth orchestras, and performs for thousands of young people each year.
On the heels of All Worlds, All Times, WindSync’s 2022 release that “will make you want to get up and dance” (The Whole Note), the quintet’s second commercial album, recorded with composer Miguel del Aguila at Abbey Road Studios, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Albums chart in 2024.
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Katie Ford
Poetry
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Katie Ford is the author of four books of poems: Deposition; Colosseum; Blood Lyrics; and If You Have to Go, all published by Graywolf Press.
Blood Lyrics was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the Rilke Prize. Colosseum was named among the “Best Books of 2008” by Publishers Weekly and the Virginia Quarterly Review and led to a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Prize. International invitations to read and lecture include festivals in Tunis, Morocco, Oslo, and Stockholm.
She completed graduate work in theology and poetry at Harvard University, and, following that, received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, and the Norton Introduction to Literature. She serves as Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.
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Zitong Wang
Piano, Protégé
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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.
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David Serkin Ludwig
Composer
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David Serkin Ludwig’s first musical memory was singing Beatles songs with his sister; his second was hearing his grandfather perform at Carnegie Hall – and a diverse career collaborating with many of today’s leading musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, and writers was to follow. His choral work “The New Colossus,” opened the private prayer service for President Obama’s second inauguration; in the next year NPR Music named him in the world’s “Top 100 Composers Under Forty.” Ludwig holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad. A recipient of numerous awards and honors, he recently received the prestigious 2018 Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage Fellowship.
David lives in Philadelphia with his wife, acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova, and their four beloved cats.