2001 Performances
Saturday, February 10, 2001, 8:00 P.M.
with Paul Dresher Electro-Acoustic Band
Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University
Luminous Convergences
A Program of World Premieres
Karen recently joined forces with the Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band and will be touring with them during March on the East Coast. This is their first local concert. See below for more information, and see www.dresherensemble.org for the complete 2001 concert schedule.
Spring, 2001
with Paul Dresher
The Paul Dresher Electro-Acoustic Band kicks off its seventh touring season with a fresh take on the sacred cow of chamber music — the solo concerto. The mix includes three visionary composers — Paul Dresher, Anthony Davis and Terry Riley — two virtuoso soloists — Terry Riley and Joan Jeanrenaud — and the Ensemble’s powerful hybrid of traditional acoustic instruments infused and transformed by the latest electronics.
Boundaries between musical styles will crumble under a sonic flood drawn from the full range of musical expression, classical forms melding with world music, jazz idioms bouncing off new tonal walls, and masterful players meeting three of the most uncompromising musical voices in the world today.
Terry Riley, the archetypal alchemist of minimalism, will premiere his own playful Concerto for Piano and Electro-Acoustic Band, Banana Humberto 2000. Dancing on the border between notation and improvisation, the Concerto promises to delight, to fascinate and to groove. Anthony Davis, whose ensemble “Episteme” has explored his unique blend of jazz, world and classical music, has crafted a tour-de-force for the Ensemble and the phenomenally talented cellist Joan Jeanrenaud entitled Blue Funk into Darkness. Jeanrenaud, concentrating on her own musical vision as a solo artist following 20 legendary years with the Kronos Quartet, is the ideal soloist for Davis’ blend of notated and improvised forms.
Paul Dresher, founder and Artistic Director of the Ensemble, continues his own exploration of musical potentialities with a work that takes his own groundbreaking compositional vision into new territory, including sampling of his own invented instruments. His own Cello Concerto, Unequal Distemperment, also featuring Jeanrenaud as soloist, grew out of Joan’s interest in exploring performance with live electronics, the hallmark of both Dresher and the Ensemble players, and their mutual desire to create music together. Dresher, Davis and Riley share diverse visions in a common musical world. Experiencing all three works on the same concert program will move the audience in new and unexpected ways, as each disparate vision converges on the same time and place.
Read about Ravenshead, a collaboration with Steven Mackey and Rinde Eckert.
April 21, 2001
with the Palo Alto Junior Chamber Orchestra
Haydn: Violin Concerto in C major
Karen Bentley, violin
William Whitson, Conductor
Franz Josef Haydn: Violin Concerto in C major
Also on the program: Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in D minor, Op. 6, No. 10, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Serenade No. 6 in D Major, K. 239, and George Gershwin’s Lullaby.
April 27, 2001
with the San Francisco Concerto Orchestra
Haydn: Violin Concerto in C major
Karen Bentley, violin
Fabrizio Ficiur, conductor
This concert features the American debut of Italian conductor Fabrizio Ficiur.
Also on the program: Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony and Giuseppe Tartini’ Devil’s Trill Sonata with Joseph Gold, violinist.
Presidio of San Francisco
Main Post Chapel
130 Fisher Loop
May 4 and 5, 2001
with the Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band
The Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street @ Third Street
San Francisco
Uncommon Visions
The Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band
with Joan Jeanrenaud, cello soloist
Two concerti featuring former Kronos string quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud:
Paul Dresher: Unequal Distemperament San Francisco Premiere
Anthony Davis: Blue Funk into Darkness San Francisco Premiere
and
John Luther Adams: The Light That Fills the World World Premiere, Revised Version
Anthony Davis: A Walk Through the Shadow (transcribed by Mark Grey)
Paul Dresher: Dark Blue Circumstance
Paul Hanson: Pull of the Gold Rope
at the Next Generation Festival
Sponsored by WITF-FM in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Awadagin Pratt, music director, piano & narrator
Demmare McGill, flute
Beth Newdome, violin
Ken Waggner, violin
Karen Bentley, violin, viola & piano
Thomas Kraines, cello
Bach: Contrapunctus Trio Sonata from Art of the Fugue
Brandenburg Concerto #5
Frederic Rzewski: Attica
Arvo Part: Fratres
June 6-7, Lebanon Valley College, Zimmerman Recital Hall of the Suzanne H. Arnold Gallery, Annville, PA
June 8, York College of Pennsylvania, MAC Recital Hall, York, PA
June 11, Harrisburg Area Community College, Rose Lehrman Arts Center, Harrisburg, PA
June 12, Susquehanna University, Degenstein Theater, Selinsgrove, PA
June 13, Franklin and Marshall College, Barshinger Center for Musical Arts in Hensel Hall, Lancaster PA
June 11 – Next Generation Festival Children’s Program, YWCA of Greater Harrisburg (not open to the public)
June 13 – Next Generation Festival Chamber Music Master Class, Millersville University, Millersville, PA
October 4, 5, and 6, 2001, 8:00 P.M.
with Paul Dresher Electro-Acoustic Band
ODC Theater: 3153 17th Street at Shotwell, San Francisco
ODC Theater presents
A Deep Dark Spoonful of New Music
And A Whole Lotta Pianos
Featuring the world premiere of Martin Bresnick’s Fantasia (On a Theme of Willie Dixon) with pianist Lisa Moore, the world premiere of Lois V Vierk’s Deep-water Waves, the San Francisco premiere of Terry Riley’s four movement piano concerto Banana Humberto 2000 with Riley as soloist, and Paul Dresher’s Concerto for Violin & Electro-Acoustic Band with violinist Tracy Silverman.
The virtuoso musicians of Paul Dresher Ensemble are joined by three major contemporary music soloists for a program featuring works by two godfathers of contemporary composition, Terry Riley and Martin Bresnick, along with two works from their musical godchildren, Paul Dresher and Lois V Vierk.
Terry Riley, who defined minimalism with his seminal works In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air, joins the ensemble as both composer and pianist in his first concerto, the playful, irreverent Banana Humberto 2000. Banana also features guest violin/violist Tracy Silverman (formerly of the Turtle Island String Quartet) and extraordinary bassoonist and Ensemble member Paul Hanson. This is a dream come true for Dresher, who hails Riley as both an inspiration and a mentor.
Martin Bresnick, himself an inspiration and teacher to some of today’s most exciting young composers, has created his own piano concerto, Fantasia (On a Theme of Willie Dixon), for the Ensemble. An homage to the great blues bassist Willie Dixon, whose primal performances inspired the archetypal riffs of rock and roll, Bresnick’s concerto will feature the amazing pianist Lisa Moore. Moore’s work, as a soloist and as a charter member of the Bang on A Can All Stars and Speculum Musica, has been praised by critics world-wide.
Lois V Vierk’s compositions evoke an esthetic that is rigorous, visceral and timeless. Her world premiere commission for the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Deep-water Waves, promises these qualities, coupled with the deceptively subtle power that has earned her compositions enthusiastic praise from critics and audiences world-wide.
Paul Dresher’s Concerto for Violin & Electro-Acoustic Band was originally composed for and premiered by the incomparable violinist David Abel, and continues to stand as one Dresher’s most important works. As interpreted by soloist Tracy Silverman, this reprise promises to shed a new and different perspective on the work’s two movements, Cage Machine and Chorale Times Two.
Terry Riley’s Banana Humberto 2000 was supported by a grant from the Ross McKee Foundation with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet The Composer and the Rockefeller MAP Fund.
Martin Bresnick’s Fantasia (On a Theme of Willie Dixon) was commissioned by Musical Traditions/Paul Dresher Ensemble and supported by a grant from the Ross McKee Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Lois V Vierk’s Deep-water Waves was commissioned by Musical Traditions/Paul Dresher Ensemble with a grant from from Meet The Composer.
Paul Dresher’s Concerto for Violin & Electro-Acoustic Band was commissioned by Musical Traditions Inc./Paul Dresher Ensemble with support from the Creative Work Fund and Meet the Composer.
October 7, 2001, 6:30 P.M.
In celebration of Leif Erickson Day at Henrik Ibsen Park
13800 Skyline Boulevard, Woodside, California
Recital featuring violinist Karen Bentley
and multipercussionist Ian Dogole
Suite for Solo Violin by Ole Saxe
Composed especially for violinist Karen Bentley
by Swedish composer Ole Saxe in 2000
Dances include Flamenco, Balkan Dance, Rhumba for Viola, Jig, Tango, and Salsa for Karen
Multipercussionist Ian Dogole will join Karen Bentley on Salsa for Karen, plus works by Bela Bartók, a Finnish Tango, a unique rendition of the hardangerfele tune Fanitullen, and a solo improvisation on the Hang, Dogole’s custom-built Swiss percussion instrument.