CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
American Composers Orchestra

Zankel Hall
Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 7:30 PM

American Composers Orchestra
Fred Ho, Baritone Saxophone
Seth Josel, Electric Guitar

KAMRAN INCE Domes (NY Premiere)
FRED HO When the Real Dragons Fly! (World Premiere)
GREG SPEARS Finishing (NY Premiere)

KEERIL MAKAN Dream Lightly for Electric Guitar and Orchestra (World Premiere)
CLINT NEEDHAM Chamber Symphony (World Premiere)

Program Notes:

KAMRAN INCE (b. 1960)
Domes

Domes was commissioned by Barry Jekowsky and the California Symphony and premiered in Walnut Creek, California, in May 1993; the work receives its New York premiere tonight.

The initial gut feeling for Domes started to emerge after being on a rooftop in Rome, where I lived for a year, and looking at the domes around me. Consequently, this made me think of Istanbul, Turkey, where I grew up and where I always felt mesmerized by the magnificent views of the domes there.

Of course, these domes in Rome and Istanbul are part of the churches and mosques that are probably the greatest creations of the Christian and Muslim worlds. What was interesting, though, was that I was not hearing church bells or sermons in association with these domes—I was hearing a peculiar, peaceful silence. The music came out of this peculiar silence. I was feeling a little religious, in a general way, and mysterious.

At times while writing the music for Domes, I felt as if a hand was helping me from above. I also felt I had to be in a certain type of mood when I was writing, and if I was not in that mood, I did not write. Frequently I had to wait a couple of days. I am bilingual, having lived half my life in a predominantly Christian world, and the other half in a predominantly Muslim world. While I was writing this piece, Muslim extremists bombed the World Trade Center and the incident between a Christian cult and the authorities in Waco, Texas, took place. Domes is very slow and washes the listener in string sounds with other instruments providing a touch of accompaniment. An organically interrelated nocturne of dipping-suspension-bridge design, the mood throughout is of spiritual obsessiveness, ever-descending lines searching for something, trying to feel what they are searching for, to seek out what they are feeling, rather like Whirling Sufi Dervishes.

—Kamran Ince


FRED HO (b. 1957)
When the Real Dragons Fly!

Composed in 2006; When the Real Dragons Fly! receives its world premiere tonight.

The title of this work is based on a traditional Chinese folk song used to say farewell. When the Real Dragons Fly! is a farewell to obstructionists and gatekeepers who prevent the real creative forces in humanity. It is a liberation song, meant to allow people who have been held down, blockaded, obstructed, marginalized, or ignored to fly and soar. It is dedicated to all the imaginative forces that want to work together to bring about human liberation and to free humanity from the slavish consumption of unneeded and foolish material items.

This is my first “outing” with a traditional Western-European orchestra. I’ve written for unique ensembles involving western instruments before but never had an interest in writing for standard configurations of Western-European genres.

This performer-composer relationship allows me to use an extreme amount of extended techniques and improvisation while keeping the orchestra’s role clearly defined. These days, it is nearly impossible to devote the time required to develop any sort of improvisatory relationship with an orchestra. Since that can’t happen immediately, I have approached the issue from the point of view of letting myself explore the cosmos, and I am the foil. All good composers can use the forces available to them to develop an architectural plan and ground strategy suitable for the capacity of the players. For example, in order to write for cross-cultural instruments (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.), one must understand the abilities of all those instruments, the architecture, etc., and you have to know their characteristics, capabilities, and capacities. With this architectural plan, as with any multi-cultural endeavor, you must know the elements you are dealing with and respect them. You must add your own creativity and imagination to stretch them but know they can’t become what they are not. They are what they are.

—Fred Ho


GREGORY SPEARS (b. 1977)
Finishing

Composed in 2002, Finishing receives its New York premiere tonight.

Finishing is a meditation on endings. Within the piece the traditional chamber orchestra is augmented with the sound of mark trees, dog whistles, and small tape recorders to produce an ambient haze around a series of recurring trumpet calls. The title also refers to the practice of adding a seductive veneer to the cover of books—in this case depicted musically through shiny textures and an abundance of decorative flourish. I was also interested in the darker melancholic definition of “finish,” as that which causes one’s utter downfall or ruin.

Finishing was first “workshopped” by ACO at its Penn Presents Readings and Lab in spring 2007.

—Gregory Spears


KEERIL MAKAN (b. 1972)
Dream Lightly

Composed in 2008, Dream Lightly receives its world premiere tonight.

In Dream Lightly, we are placed in a world that is beautifully paralyzed, or perhaps paralyzed by beauty. The music does not move; it has fallen asleep but is not aware of it. It is stuck in a continual repetition of similar thoughts, slightly changing and rearranging them, cast in subtlety changing environments.

The guitarist almost always plays harmonics, which are notes produced by lightly touching the string at certain points to create sounds that are higher and more fragile than ordinary pitches. The world of harmonics hovers above the guitar, oftentimes slightly, but purposefully, out of tune with instruments played in a conventional manner. The traditional tuning of the orchestra reflects a desire to move forward, to be able to modulate, and is a compromise between this desire and the way vibrating strings and air columns naturally work. The tuning of harmonics is derived from the open string; it is a static world, complete unto itself.

The piece explores the dissonance that exists between the harmonics on different strings of the guitar, as well as between the tuning of the guitar’s harmonics and the tuning of the orchestra. All of the music is derived from or in response to the guitar. It is not a concerto in the traditional sense, as the soloist and the orchestra are not antagonists. Rather, it is as if the orchestra exists inside the guitarist’s head, helping, supporting, and coloring. There is a passage where the guitarist gently strums the instrument, not playing harmonics. Whether this is a moment of clarity or a deeper sleep is uncertain. After this, the music returns to its initial thoughts but eventually pushes forward, though whether to wakefulness or deeper slumber is uncertain.

—Keeril Makan


CLINT NEEDHAM (b. 1981)
Chamber Symphony

Composed in 2008, Chamber Symphony receives its world premiere tonight.

I originally envisioned a work inspired by the political scene of the 2008 presidential election, focusing primarily on the hard-fought Democratic Primary race. I was very much inspired by the historic and hopeful spirit that each campaign embodied. Sometime later I decided to broaden that thought and have the work’s overall goal focus on the larger idea of transformation—personally as well as universally.

The Chamber Symphony is constructed in three movements, which are played without pause. The titles suggest the general atmosphere each movement attempts to express. The outer movements act as the antithesis of each other in terms of texture and mood. The first movement, Hammering Out, employs an aggressive, relentless, pounding beat that frequently shifts and is often emphasized with metallic sounds. The third movement, Radiant Nation, is much lighter and optimistic and uses an upbeat groove throughout. The middle movement, Open-ended Echoes, is the proverbial calm after the storm. Unlike the outer movements, Open-ended Echoes is almost void of any stable beat. The movement attempts to create a peaceful, contemplative mood that transforms the volatile nature of the first movement to the radiant nature of the last.

Chamber Symphony was commissioned by ACO with the generous support of Mr. Paul Underwood, the happy outcome of my participation in ACO’s annual Underwood New Music Readings for Emerging Composers.

—Clint Needham

American Composers Orchestra
Now entering its 32nd year, American Composers Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers. ACO is extending its mission, making the creation of new opportunities for American composers and new American orchestral music its central purpose. Through its concerts at Carnegie Hall and other venues, as well as recordings, radio broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings, and commissions, ACO identifies today’s brightest emerging composers, champions prominent established composers as well as those lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO also serves as an incubator of ideas, research, and talent, as a catalyst for growth and change among orchestras, and as an advocate for American composers and their music.

To date, ACO has performed music by 500 American composers, including 150 world premieres and newly commissioned works. Among the orchestra’s innovative programs have been Sonidos de las Américas, consisting of six annual festivals devoted to Latin American composers and their music; Coming to America, a program immersing audiences in the ongoing evolution of American music through the work of immigrant composers; Orchestra Tech, a festival and long-term initiative to integrate new digital technologies in the symphony orchestra; Improvise!, a festival devoted to the exploration of improvisation and the orchestra; Playing it UNsafe, a new laboratory for the research and development of experimental new works for orchestra; and, of course, Orchestra Underground, ACO’s entrepreneurial, cutting-edge orchestral ensemble that embraces new technology, eclectic instruments and influences, and spatial orientation of the orchestra, engaging in new experiments in the concert format and multimedia and multi-disciplinary collaborations.

Among the honors ACO has received are special awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from BMI recognizing the orchestra’s outstanding contribution to American music. ASCAP has awarded its annual prize for adventurous programming to ACO 30 times, singling out ACO as “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States” and, most recently, awarding ACO the 2008 ASCAP Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming. ACO received the inaugural METLife Award for Excellence in Audience Engagement, and a proclamation from the New York City Council. ACO recordings are available on ARGO, CRI, ECM, Point, Phoenix USA, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, Tzadik, and New World Records. More information about American Composers Orchestra is available online at americancomposers.org.

Fred Ho, Baritone Saxophone
Fred Ho is a Chinese-American baritone saxophonist, composer, writer, producer, political activist, and leader of the Afro Asian Music Ensemble and Monkey Orchestra. He is breaking new ground in the world of contemporary music while remaining committed to political and social transformation. For two decades, he has created a new American multicultural music embedded in the most soulful and transgressive forms of African American music, with musical influences of Asia and the Pacific Rim. In addition to founding the Afro Asian Music Ensemble in 1982 and the Monkey Orchestra in 1990, Mr. Ho co-founded the Brooklyn Sax Quartet in 1997. In 2005, he founded Caliente! Circle Around the Sun, featuring the poets Magdalena Gomez and, originally, Raul Salinas.

As an innovator in the field of Asian-American Studies, Mr. Ho helped found the East Coast Asian Students Union, the Asian American Resource Workshop, and the Asian American Arts Alliance. He is co-editor with Ron Sakolsky of Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution, which won the 1996 American Book Award, and lead editor of Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian/Pacific America. His Wicked Theory Naked Practice is forthcoming, and his co-edited anthology with Bill Mullen, Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African Americans and Asian Americans, has just been published by Duke University Press.

Mr. Ho’s numerous awards include the McKnight Foundation Composer/Residency award, five Rockefeller Foundation grants, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, three New York Foundation for the Arts Music Composition fellowships, the 1988 Duke Ellington Distinguished Artist Lifetime Achievement Award from the Black Musicians Conference, and the 1987 Harvard University Peter Ivers Visiting Artist award.

Fred Ho holds a B.A. degree in sociology from Harvard University (1979). During fall 2008, he will be an artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching Afro Asian Revolutionary Spoken Word and Performance.

Seth Josel, Electric Guitar
Originally from New York and now residing in Berlin, Seth Josel has concertized throughout Europe, Israel, the US, and Canada. He has performed as a guest with leading orchestras and ensembles of Europe and has appeared at several major European festivals. As ensemble player and soloist, Mr. Josel has been involved in the premieres of more than 100 works. He has collaborated and consulted closely with such composers as Louis Andriessen, Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, and James Tenney. He has recorded for radio stations throughout Europe and appears as performer on major CD labels.

Mr. Josel is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music and holds a DMA from Yale University. His teachers included Manuel Barrueco, Eliot Fisk (who will appear on the third Orchestra Underground concert this season), and harpsichordist Richard Rephann. In addition, he has participated in the master classes of Oscar Ghiglia and Andrés Segovia.