MOMA Presents Summergarden 2010: New Music for New York, Begins 7/11

By: Jul. 11, 2010
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The Museum of Modern Art's Summergarden concert series returns to The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden for four Sunday evenings beginning July 11, 2010. Summergarden, a tradition that began in 1971, is part of MoMA's long history of presenting jazz and classical music, including several premieres, in the Sculpture Garden. MoMA once again welcomes the participation of The Juilliard School and Jazz at Lincoln Center, whose collaboration makes Summergarden possible.

Members and alumni of the New Juilliard Ensemble, under the artistic direction of Joel
Sachs, will perform new chamber music that has never been heard in New York, by U.S. and
international composers writing in a vast range of styles. The opening concert on July 11 will
feature music for mixed ensembles, including world premieres of Laurie Altman's Ways of Looking:
At Zurich (2008) and Michèle Rusconi's Entgiftung - Alat (GPT) 57 U/1 (2008), and New York
premieres of works by Reynold Tharp and Paul Desenne.

On July 25, a program of new music for strings and piano will include the world premieres
of Eleanor Cory's String Quartet No. 3 (2009) and David Snow's Nice Girls Don't (2002), along with
a Western Hemisphere premiere by Errollyn Wallen and a New York premiere by Laura Elise
Schwendinger.

Jazz at Lincoln Center has selected two jazz trios, each of which will premiere original
works. The first ensemble, performing July 18, is TRIO 3, a group seeking to combine different jazz
styles into a sound they call "futuristic music within the idiomatic continuum of jazz." The August 1
concert will feature the Don Byron Ivey-Divey Trio, headed by native New Yorker Byron, who has
made his mark as a composer, arranger, clarinetist, saxophonist, and social critic. With the Ivey-
Divey Trio, Byron seeks to re-create the joyful spirit of the classic 1940s Lester Young Trio with
Buddy Rich and Nat "King" Cole.

Summergarden 2010 is organized by Melanie Monios, Assistant Director of Visitor Services,
The Museum of Modern Art.

Major annual support for Summergarden is provided by The Ethel P. Shein Fund for Music
at MoMA, which is generously funded by Agnes Gund and by Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder.
Additional support is provided by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Gladys
Krieble Delmas Foundation, Paul D. Shein, and Elizabeth Pozen.

Summergarden 2010 Schedule

July 11
Juilliard Concert I: New Music for Mixed Ensembles
Joel Sachs, conductor. Members and Alumni of the New Juilliard Ensemble: Chelsea Knox, flute;
Titus Underwood, oboe; Gareth Flowers, trumpet; David Byrd-Marrow, French horn; Carlos Noain
Maura, clarinet; David Fulmer, violin; Eva Gerard, viola; Kye-young Sarah Kwon, cello; Jennifer
Chu, piano; Andrew Funcheon, percussion
Reynold Tharp (United States, b. 1973)
San Francisco Night (2008) New York premiere
Paul Desenne (Venezuela, b. 1959)
Number Nine (2008) New York premiere
Michèle Rusconi (Switzerland, b. 1960)
Entgiftung - Alat (GPT) 57 U/1 (2008) World premiere
Laurie Altman (United States, b. 1944)
Ways of Looking: At Zurich (2008) World premiere

Members and alumni of the New Juilliard Ensemble, directed by Joel Sachs, perform four New York
and world premieres for mixed ensembles. The evening's first piece is Reynold Tharp's San
Francisco Night (2008), inspired by Tharp's experience viewing evening fog in San Francisco and by
the death of composer György Ligeti, whose work was also influenced by the Bay Area. Weaving
together intricately detailed, floating textures while maintaining clarity of line and shape, the piece
traverses a variety of musical materials and moods bound together by similar falling contours that
recall the spreading fog.

Paul Desenne is a Venezuelan composer of French and American descent, whose music is
strongly influenced by his work as an improvising cellist with a deep background in Afro-Venzuelan
traditional music. In his Number Nine (2008), "nine" both refers to the time signature of the piece
and acts as a symbol of complexity. The composer compares the beginning of the piece to Olivier
Messiaen's Danse de la fureur pour les sept trompettes, with the instruments playing tightly
together in a series of collective and explosive movements. Over the course of the work, the group
opens up and individual voices appear, occasionally joining into severe rhythmic sections until they
separate once again at the piece's end.

Swiss composer Michèle Rusconi wrote Entgiftung - Alat (GPT) 57 U/1 (2008) while
experiencing fury about an event in her personal life. Entgiftung is a German word suggesting both
poisoning and intoxication, while "Alat (GPT) 57 U/1" is the result of a medical test of the
composer's liver, suggesting a slight chemical imbalance that can be brought about by emotional
stress. Reflecting the composer's mood, the piece involves tension between the ensemble and its
percussion. The ensemble is constantly driven and manipulated by the percussion until, near the
end, it declines to comply and does not respond properly anymore; it dies off, but then returns
aggressively at the end of the piece to drown out the rest of the ensemble.

The initial idea for Ways of Looking: At Zurich (2008) came to composer and jazz pianist
Laurie Altman when he began singing Stephen Foster's Swanee River while walking in Zurich.
Inspired by the unlikely joining of song and place, he began to re-imagine the ways in which
contemporary composers and listeners interpret traditional musical expressions. He describes this
process as "collage-like"-a "fitting-together of very diverse entries to arrive at, ultimately, a newer
way of looking, and a newer way of getting to where you have to go."

July 18
Jazz Concert I: TRIO 3
Andrew Cyrille, drums; Mark Helias, bass; Oliver Lake, alto saxophone
TRIO 3 combines the distinct talents of three jazz masters with a steadfastly democratic approach
to composition and improvisation. Deeply rooted in tradition-and taking inspiration from styles as
diverse as ragtime, blues, avant-garde, and bebop-the group describes its sound as "futuristic
music within the idiomatic continuum of jazz." Although for this performance the ensemble is
without founding member Reggie Workman, their philosophy of playing as a single organic unit
remains intact. On this occasion, bassist Mark Helias rounds out the group alongside the distinctive
multi-reedist Oliver Lake and drummer Andrew Cyrille.

For this performance, TRIO 3 presents the world premiere of Proximity, written for
trombonist John Bernard Gordon, a friend of Cyrille's who passed away several years ago.

July 25
Juilliard Concert II: New Music for Strings and Piano
Members of the New Juilliard Ensemble: Alicia Choi and Heidi Schaul-Yoder, violins; Eva Gerard,
viola; Mimi Yu, cello; Hsiang Tu, piano
Eleanor Cory (United States, b. 1943)
String Quartet No. 3 (2009) World premiere
David Snow (United States, b. 1954)
Nice Girls Don't (2002) World premiere
Laura Elise Schwendinger (Mexico/United States, b. 1962)
Song for Andrew (2009) New York premiere
Errollyn Wallen (Belize/United Kingdom, b. 1958)
Music for Tigers (2006) Western Hemisphere premiere
The performance opens with Eleanor Cory's String Quartet No. 3 (2009), which the composer
describes as a "labor of love" rather than a commissioned piece. Written five years after her second
string quartet, the work further explores the possibilities of the medium in a luxurious interaction
among the four instruments.
David Snow's Nice Girls Don't (2002) grew out of the composer's interaction with an allfemale
chamber music ensemble. Written with an impulse toward irony, the piece reflects Snow's
taste for the transgressive end of the pop-culture spectrum. The work is for piano trio with
recorded sound.
The evening's third piece, Laura Elise Schwendinger's Song for Andrew (2008), is dedicated
to the memory of Schwendinger's teacher, Andrew imbrie. The work opens with a violin line from
the second movement of Imbrie's Pilgrimage (1983), which Schwendinger isolates in its simplest
form, then combines with her own accompaniment. The result is an affectionate "conversation"
between the voices of teacher and student, which takes on a character of its own as it develops
and unfolds.

The program concludes with Belizean-British composer Errollyn Wallen's Music for Tigers
(2006), a work written on the occasion of a marriage and intended to express spirit, energy, and
good humor. The work's first movement makes use of silence, which, in the composer's words,
"tumbles out of the music like hiccups"; the second movement alludes to the atmosphere of the
French countryside; and the third and final movement draws on tango rhythms, eventually moving
into a whirlwind of motion.

August 1
Jazz Concert II: Don Byron Ivey-Divey Trio
Don Byron, clarinet, tenor and baritone saxophones; Jason Moran, piano; Billy Hart, drums
New York-born Don Byron is a singular voice in a huge range of musical contexts, exploring widely
divergent traditions while continually striving for what he calls "a sound above genre." As
clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and social critic, he redefines every genre of music he
plays, be it classical, salsa, hip-hop, funk, klezmer, rhythm & blues, gospel, or any jazz style from
swing and bop to cutting-edge downtown improvisation.
Taking its name and much of its repertoire from Byron's celebrated 2004 album Ivey-
Divey, the Trio extends the record's affectionate tribute to saxophone legend Lester "Prez" Young
and his 1946 trio album with pianist Nat "King" Cole and drummer Buddy Rich. While playing
several tunes from that classic Lester Young Trio recording, Byron's Ivey-Divey Trio also interprets
compositions by MiLes Davis, John Coltrane, and Byron himself. Tonight, they premiere NA1, NA2, a
piece written by Byron during his recent tenure as a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.
Inspired by Byron's study of Bach's violin sonatas and cello suites, the work reflects a clear
European influence.

Summergarden is free and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. The Sculpture Garden may close if it reaches maximum capacity. Entrance to Summergarden is through the Sculpture Garden gate on West Fiftyfourth Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. The Sculpture Garden opens at 7:00 p.m., and concerts start at 8:00 p.m. and run approximately one hour to 90 minutes. The Sculpture Garden closes at 10:00 p.m. The Garden Cart will sell artisanal ice creams and sorbets from The Modern restaurant and homemade sundaes from the MoMA cafés. Wine, champagne, American craft beer, specialty coffees, and bottled water are also available for purchase. In the event of rain, concerts will be held in The Agnes Gund Garden Lobby, and the

Museum's Fifty-fourth Street entrance will open at 7:30 p.m. The exhibition galleries are closed during Summergarden. Full program information is available to the public starting in early June at MoMA.org.

About Jazz at Lincoln Center
With the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a yearround schedule of performance, educational, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, yearly hall of fame inductions, weekly national radio and television programs, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for students, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses, student and educator workshops, and interactive websites. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, Chairman Lisa Schiff, and Executive Director Adrian Ellis, Jazz at Lincoln Center produces thousands of events each year at home in New York City in Frederick P. Rose Hall, and around the world. For more information, please visit jalc.org or our Jazz at Lincoln Center Facebook page.

The New Juilliard Ensemble
Most performers in the Juilliard concerts at Summergarden are members of the New Juilliard Ensemble, directed by Joel Sachs, which is now in its seventeenth season. Focusing primarily on repertory of the last decade, the ensemble presents music by a variety of international composers writing in the most diverse styles.

Its players, current students at The Juilliard School, are admitted to the ensemble by audition. The ensemble is modeled on new-music chamber orchestras common in Europe, such as Frankfurt's Ensemble Modern, the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, and the London Sinfonietta, which have cultivated a repertory for chamber orchestra that is all too rarely performed in the United States. It brings many of these works to New York, presents American compositions for similar ensembles, and has commissioned many pieces from composers around the world. Although its primary goal is to train performers, the New Juilliard Ensemble offers opportunities for students in Juilliard's composition program through an annual audition from which one or two composers are selected to write for the group.

The New Juilliard Ensemble has also made its mark on tour. Abroad, it has been ensemble-in-residence at Poland's International Seminars for Young Composers and at the Moscow Conservatory, where it performed American music and compositions by students and faculty of that institution. In 2004 a group of New Juilliard Ensemble players and their counterparts from the Manson Ensemble of London's Royal Academy of Music joined to perform works by three composition students from each school in New York and London. In June 2009 13 members of the ensemble performed at Suntory Hall and other locations in the Tokyo region. On tour in this country, it played as part of the dedication festivities for the new arts center at the University of Maryland and gave the world premiere of Hearing Solutions, a cello concerto by Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan), the first recipient of the Siemens Corporation's Artist-in-Residence award, in New Jersey. In December 2009 the Ensemble gave a concert of aleatoric music at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with an exhibition of ancient Persian and Turkish "divining" manuscripts. In addition to appearing regularly in MoMA's Summergarden festival, it has been a featured ensemble at the Lincoln Center Festival four times. The ensemble's recording of Virko Baley's Violin Concerto, with violinist Tom Chiu, can be found on the TNC label. A CD of compositions by students at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and at Juilliard, recorded jointly by members of the Academy's Manson Ensemble and the New Juilliard Ensemble, with conductors Simon Bainbridge and Joel Sachs, has been issued by the Royal Academy. The New Juilliard Ensemble's 2010-11 concert series begins Saturday, September 25, at Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.


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