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VARSITY VIOLAS
Music for Viola Ensembles
with Young Violists

November 2, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.

The Sage Theater
711 7th Ave., 2nd floor, between 47th and 48th Sts.NYC

Admission: Free!
More information: (212) 592-7785

The Hartt Community Division Viola Ensemble
Directed by Melinda Daetsch and Lisa Humphrey

Members: Brennan Hartigan, Christine Heddon (violist and step dancer), Lily Peng, Rachel Margolis, Jesse Gray, Max Partyka, Ian Sunde, Eric Burt, Kristee Sylman, Grace McCormick, Nathan Kwak, Matthew D'Alessandro, Abby Tulchinsky, Austin Zhu, Eleanor Kang, Alexandria Paulette, Hou Tai Wong, Andrew Tang and Maggie Klucznik

Performing:

Francis Scott Key - The Star Spangled Banner, arranged for 8 violas by Marshall Fine

J.S. Bach - Gavotte from French suite no. 5, BMV #8/6 in G major, arranged for 3 violas by Elizabeth Stuen-Walker

A. Dvorak - Humoresque, arranged for two violas by Elizabeth Stuen-Walker

G.P. Telemann - Concerto in G major for two violas: lll. Adagio, lV. Vivace

Tradtional Irish - The Drunken Sailor, arranged by Thorp

Max Raimi's Quaalude and Feud for Four Violas
Performed by the NYVS Home Team: Daniel Perret, Erik Grossman, Isabel Hagen, and Ben Grossman

The Crane Viola Ensemble
Conductor: Andrew Albani
Director: Sarah Bleichfeld
Faculty Advisor: Shelly Tramposh

Members: Sarah Bleichfeld, Alyssa Raduns, Bill Makin, Dana Vollmuth, Kevin Marcinko, Austen Hoffman, Jordan Walker, Jason Ng, Rebecca Miller

Performing:

Bevan Manson - Hotel Viola
"Your C String Concierge Does it All"

The Penn State Viola Ensemble
Directed by Tim Deighton; Conducted by Nick Hodges

Members: Erin Ambrose, Culley Byham, Jinian Compton, Marlina DeFelice, Brett Detweiler, Alysa Harder, Caitlin Hartig, Nathan Johnson-McDaniel, Katie Kauffman, Becky Lewis, Di Lu, Lizzy Nicastro, Rachel Reimer, Hannah Sams, Ofir Tomer

Performing:

Marvin Lamb (b. 1946) - House of Dawn (world premiere)

Sergio Parotti (b. 1956) - Consort for Eight Violas, op. 324, no. 2 (world premiere)

Scott Joplin (1868-1917) (arr. Lieberman) - Magnetic Rag

Plus a Grand Finale Performance by All Participants:

Michael Kimber (b. 1945) - Festival Overture

About the Composers:

Marvin Lamb is Professor of Music and Head of the Music Composition Program at the University of Oklahoma. His music has been performed widely in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, South America and Japan. In addition, his orchestral works have been performed by the symphonies of Atlanta, Dallas, St. Louis, Colorado, Honolulu, the Cabrillo Festival, and recorded by the Czech Philharmonic Symphony. He has multiple awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, the Charles Ives Center for American Music and held a year long arts fellowship in orchestral composition awarded by the Tennessee Arts Commission. His publications and recordings number over forty and his principal publisher is Carl Fischer, Inc.

Sergio Parotti was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and studied at the Juan Jose Castro and Manuel De Falla Conservatories. He studied composition with Maestro Enrique Cipolla) as well as violin, viola, horn, and piano. His catalogue contains 330 works, many of which are published. His works have been recorded and performed at International Festivals. As a violist, he performs with the Lanús Chamber Orchestra. He is also a member of the National Polyphonic Choir of the Blind, where he coordinates the transcription of printed music into the Braille system.

After a twenty-five year career as viola professor, first at the University of Kansas and then at the University of Southern Mississippi, Michael Kimber moved to Iowa in 2004 with his wife, Marian Wilson Kimber, associate professor of musicology at the University of Iowa. A member of the Cedar Rapids Symphony viola section, he also plays with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, teaches viola at Coe College, and has served as visiting professor of viola at the University of Iowa. Active as a solo, chamber music and orchestral violist, he enjoys increasing success as a composer, with commissions and frequent performances of his music in Iowa, throughout the U.S., and abroad.

About the Performers:

The Crane Viola Ensemble was founded in fall of 2008 after five students from the Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam, attended the International Viola Congress in Tempe, Arizona. They were inspired by performances of viola ensemble repertoire at the congress and wanted to experience it for themselves and share it with their peers at Crane. The ensemble is open to any who wish to participate, and includes music education and performance viola majors, community members, and other Crane students.

In April 2009, The Hartt Community Division Viola Ensemble hopes to perform at the 15th World Suzuki Convention in Melbourne, Australia.

Melinda Daetsch, violist, holds degrees from Harvard University and the Juilliard School, and serves on the faculties of the Hartt School and the Luzerne Music Center. She regularly performs with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Luzerne and Gretna Chamber Music Festivals, and has been guest artist with the Lions Gate and Claremont Piano Trios, the Philadelphia Piano Quartet, and the Everest and St. Petersburg String Quartets. For the last four summer seasons, she has performed at the Assisi Festival in Assisi, Italy. She is equally passionate about performing and teaching, and has organized several European concert tours for her young students as well as a special performance for NYC school children at a school close to Ground Zero in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy.

Lisa Humphrey, viola. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Lisa has been playing viola since the age of ten and has performed throughout the United States, Russia, and Armenia. Lisa received her bachelor of music degree from the Hartt School where she was a member of the prestigious Performance 20/20 advanced chamber music program. She was a prizewinner in both the Paranov Concerto competition and the Emerson String Quartet competition. She holds a masters degree in performance from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. Lisa is a former violist for the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, Terre Haute Symphony, and Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. She teaches traditional and Suzuki violin and viola for the Hartt School Community Division and actively freelances in the Hartford area. Lisa is the violist for the West End String Quartet, based out of Hartford, Connecticut.

About the Pieces:

House of Dawn was written for Timothy Deighton and the Viola Ensemble at Penn State University. Its inspiration is drawn from the wonderful novel, House Made of Dawn by the Native American author N. Scott Momaday. Dr. Momaday was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this novel in 1969. The novel tells the story of a young American Indian man, Abel, home from the war and caught between the world of his heritage and the modern world. I was struck particularly by the description of music as a pervasive voice in his Native American society. The following passage best describes that pervasive quality and the artistic response leading to my piece:

"The drummer was there, on a rooftop, still beating on the drum, slowly, exactly in time, with only a quick nearly imperceptible motion of the hand, standing perfectly still and even eyed, old and imperturbable. Just there, in sight of him, the deep vibration of the drum seemed to Angela scarcely louder, deeper, than it had been an hour before and a half mile away, when she was in a room in the rectory, momentarily alone with it and borne upon it. And it should not have seemed less had she been beyond the river and among the hills; the drum held sway in the valley, like the breaking of thunder far away. Echoing on and on in a region out of time." House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday, author. Harper and Row, 1968

Consort for Eight Violas, op. 324, no. 2 was written for the Penn State Viola Ensemble and is conceived as an introduction to non-tonal chamber music for students. It is based around two ideas, one rhythmic and one melodic, which are shared within the ensemble throughout the various sections of this short work.

Festival Overture was composed in September 1999 for the Penn State University ViolaFest and was premiered there November 20, 1999. The piece begins with a flourish introducing the principal theme, which appears in numerous guises, among them a fanfare, a flowing melody, and a satirical waltz.