News
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS
ANNOUNCES MAJOR AWARD FOR COMPOSER KURT ROHDE,
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF SAN FRANCISCO’S
LEFT COAST CHAMBER ENSEMBLE
New York, March 2, 2005 — The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today the recipients of this year’s awards in music, which include a $15,000 Charles Ives Fellowship for San Francisco-based composer Kurt Rohde .
Charles Ives Fellowship. Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties of Charles Ives’ music, which has enabled the Academy to give the Ives awards in music since 1970. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the Academy.
Kurt Rohde is the Artistic Director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, which has a regular concert season in San Francisco and Mill Valley, sponsored by the Chamber Music Partnership. In the Bay Area, Rohde’s work has been performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Players, the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and the Berkeley Symphony, among others. Rohde divides his time between San Francisco and Southern California, where he is on the composition faculty at UC Santa Barbara.
Rohde (b. New York City, 1966), is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He studied composition with Donald Erb, Ned Rorem and Andrew Imbrie, and the viola with Karen Tuttle, John Graham, and Caroline Levine. He has received Barlow Endowment for Music Composition awards, an NEA grant, the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the Walter Hinrichsen award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim fellowship. He is the winner of the 2004 International Bassist Composition Contest. Mr. Rohde has had residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program.
Rohde’s recent commissions include an oratorio for conductor Kent Nagano and tenor John Dukyers, to be performed by the Berkeley Symphony, and a work for the New York new music ensemble Sequitur.
Recent compact disc. Oculus, a CD of Rohde’s music performed by the New Century Chamber Orchestra, was released last year. Writing in the February 2005 issue of The Gramophone, reviewer Arved Ashby commented that the recordings “offer a stunning display of a formidable compositional imagination. Kurt Rohde is young, but no slave to fashion. Rohde’s is a rare muse in that the idiom is original but not prickly or pretentious, the vocabulary not obviously tonal yet at the same time consistently anchored.”
Next Bay Area performances of Rohde’s work. The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble will present a program of chamber music for strings, including a new piece by Rohde in May in both San Francisco and Mill Valley. The San Francisco performance will be in at 8 pm May 16 in the Green Room, 2nd Floor, SF Veterans Memorial, 401 Van Ness Avenue. The Mill Valley performance will be May 12, 8 pm, at the Throckmorton Theater, 142 Throckmorton Avenue. Information on performances and tickets is available at www.ChamberMusicPartn.org.
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 to ”foster, assist, and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts.” Each year, the Academy honors over 50 composers, artists, architects, and writers with cash awards. Other activities of the Academy are exhibitions of art, architecture, and manuscripts; publications on the Academy’s history and events; publications on the Academy’s history and readings and performances of new musicals. The Academy is located at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City.
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MAY 2002
CMP Artistic Director Wins Berlin Prize
Kurt Rohde, the Artistic Director of the CMP and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, has been awarded the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, a private, non-profit center for advanced study. This prestigious fellowship will take Mr. Rohde to Berlin January-May 2003, where he will compose music for the Deutsches Symphony-Orchester as well as American ensembles.
The Academy’s mission is to establish intellectual and professional ties between Germans and Americans in the arts, humanities, and public affairs. Each year, the Berlin Prize Fellowships bring leading American scholars and artists to Berlin. In the historic Hans Arnhold Center the Academy provides a home and work environment for emerging and established Americans engaged in artistic endeavors and scholarship. Benefits include a generous stipend, round trip airfare, and a private apartment-suite. A mentorship program for Fellows further provides wide exposure and meaningful contact with the local community.
Other recent awards Mr. Rohde has received include the Hinrichesen Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2001) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1999-2000).
While Mr. Rohde is in Europe, CMP violinist Anna Presler will serve as Acting Artistic Director.
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Left Coast Performs French Music May 20th in the Green Room
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble will perform music of four French composers and feature guest violinist Krista Bennion Feeney in the Green Room, 2nd floor, 401 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. The program includes Chausson’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet with Ms. Fenney on solo violin and Eric Zivian on piano, and works by Ravel, Boulanger, and Couperin. Tickets are $15 ($12 students/seniors) and are available at the door. Guest violinist Krista Bennion Feeney, concertmaster of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble (New York City), is also the Music Director and Concertmaster of the New Century Chamber Orchestra (Bay Area). Ernest Chausson’s Concerto “sweeps the listener into a world of passion and flight,” according to Kurt Rohde, Artistic Director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. “The performance by Ms. Feeney promises to be one to remember.” Chausson was considered one of the most promising composers of his generation, and was a contemporary of Debussy. Also on the program is a work by Lili Boulanger. Sister to the great pedagogue, Nadia Boulanger, Lili composed a handful of brilliant works before her untimely death in her 20’s. Her Pieces for Violin and Piano are examples of her tremendous lyrical gifts and her natural ability for harmonic clarity and form. The Duo for Violin and Cello by Maurice Ravel is one of the greatest chamber works by the French master. The Duo is a tour de force for both the violin and cello, and is brilliant for its dramatic shape and innovative approach to writing for two instruments. Long considered one of the greatest baroque composers, Francois Couperin’s richly varied compositions for early keyboard occupy a very important position in French music. His works are characterized by beauty and charm.
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Clavion and Left Coast Consolidate
Since 1992, the Chamber Music Partnership has sponsored two separate music ensembles formed from the same group of musicians. The larger of the two, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, is a consortium of ten musicians which introduces audiences to some of the finest new works, along with familiar masterpieces. Left Coast includes strings, winds, piano, and guitar, which are used as needed in diverse combinations.
The Chamber Music Partnership’s other ensemble, Clavion, included the strings and piano from Left Coast and emphasized classical and romantic masterworks. Clavion and its repertoire will be incorporated into Left Coast Chamber Ensemble beginning with the May 20 concert. This consolidation will expedite publicizing concerts and is in line with the Chamber Music Partnership’s mission to show that older music and contemporary music are not separate art forms, but part of a continuum that can be appreciated even more when perceived as a whole. Programming for 2002-03. “Though we will no longer be using the Clavion name, we will retain the programming concept behind Clavion,” according to Kurt Rohde, CMP’s Artistic Director. “We plan to have a significant older piece on each program, and along with it featured on each program will be a new work specially commissioned or selected to be performed alongside the traditional work. The new music will be related through using the same instrumentation, or through sharing the same them as the older piece. This will maintain our mission of playing pieces from the whole range of chamber music, and create a stronger tie among the pieces within each concert.” Left Coast composer and pianist Eric Zivian has agreed to compose one of the new pieces. Other composers are now being contacted, and the complete new season will be announced at the May 20 concert.
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April 2002 Review Recognizes Left Coast
The Left Coast’s April 1, 2002 concert was the subject of a recent review by Janos Gereben in the San Francisco Classical Voice. “Not for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble are dry academic exercises or wild excesses in juvenile attempts to shock the audience. For ten years now . . . the LCCE has reflected the eminently ‘centrist’ music of its founder-director, the violist Kurt Rohde. Perhaps even more than at previous concerts, with this 75th birthday tribute to Donald Erb, the Left Coasters offered an entertaining, novelty-filled but substantial program. “Entertaining? How can you do that with contemporary music? By trying your damnedest to communicate. That’s exactly what’s missing from academic and in-your-face music—the commitment to speak to the audience, with music, in words, in intention. That’s exactly what was present Monday night.” Mr. Gereben went on to note the “exemplary phrasing and diction” of guest artist Harold Sperry “who was accompanied excellently well by the musicians,” notably “Leighton Fong, who played brilliantly all evening long, in every piece.” The Donald Erb String Quartet No. 2 was called “was flowing, attention-gripping, dramatic, complex music, performed here to the highest standards.” For the complete review—and other informative reviews and articles—visit ww.sfcv.org. This web-based journal is edited by Robert Commanday, former classical music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. The site provides news and informed analysis of the whole range of Bay Area classical music.
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Save These Dates! Next fall the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble will begin its 10th season of familiar masterpieces and exciting new works. The concerts will be in the Green Room, 401 Van Ness, at 8 pm. Programs will be announced shortly. Monday, October 7, 2002 Monday, December 2, 2002 Monday, March 3, 2003 Monday, May 5, 2003
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Left Coast Ensemble to Collaborate with Lawrence Pech Dance Company Next Fall the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble will accompany the Lawrence Pech Dance Company in four San Francisco performances of “Angels: Fallen and Otherwise,” with new music by Kurt Erickson. The performances will be November 21-24, 2002 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission at 3rd Street, San Francisco. For more information, visit www.lpdance.org or call the Yerba Buena Center box office at 415/978-2787.
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CMP Board of Directors Welcomes Constance John and Andrew Clason The Chamber Music Partnership, Inc., the nonprofit corporation that sponsors the Chamber Music Partnership, welcomes two longtime supporters of the organization to Board membership. Constance John, formerly a researcher at University of California, San Francisco, is the founder of Mandalmed, a biotechnology firm that is developing ways to economically produce bioengineered pharmaceuticals. Dr. John is also an active volunteer with the Golden Gate Philharmonic, a youth symphony, and has a special interest in children’s programs. Andrew Clason is a Software Support Manager with Navis LLC. He joined the Board in 2001 after several years as an audience member and donor. Mr. Clason brings marketing and project management skills to the board.
Fall, 2000 Chamber Music Partnership Newsletter
World Class Music in the Green Room
San Franciscans are proud of our world-class symphony, but not everyone knows that San Francisco also boasts a world-class chamber music scene. The Bay Area is especially strong in the field of innovative music. The Chamber Music Partnership’s ensembles will demonstrate the quality and of diversity San Francisco chamber music in six Monday night concerts, beginning October 16.
Both Clavion and Left Coast feature music from the whole continuum of chamber music, including recent works and familiar masterpieces from the 18th and 19th centuries. Clavion, an ensemble of piano and strings, emphasizes music from the classic and romantic repertoire. The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble includes the Clavion string players and pianist and adds horn, woodwinds, and guitar as needed. The Left Coast performs more 20th and 21st century music, but most concerts include one or more older works. Together, the two groups endeavor to offer the best of old and new music.
Clavion has moved from its former venue at Grace Cathedral and joins Left Coast in performing at the Green Room in the War Memorial Performing Arts Center. Bringing both groups together in the Green Room offers many benefits. The Civic Center is accessible by public transport and parking is available. The Green Room offers comfortable seating with good sight lines, an excellent concert grand piano, and a pleasant lobby for pre-concert hospitality.
The season begins Monday, Oct. 16, at 8 p.m. and features two trios and two quintets, including West Coast premieres of works by Zhou Long and Chen Yi. Complementing these newer works are two great Classical period works: the Piano Trio in E by Haydn, and the Piano Quintet in F minor by Brahms.
The season continues December 11, January 29, March 19, April 2 and May 7.
SEASON SUBSCRIPTIONS for the six concerts are $78 general admission, $70 seniors and students. Subscriptions for four Left Coast concerts are $52 General, $44 seniors and students. Two Clavion concerts are $27 general, $24 seniors and students. Single tickets are $15 general, $12 seniors and students. For advance tickets or information, please call 415/642-8054. For more information, check: www.ChamberMusicPartn.org
Left Coast Wins Funds to Highlight San Francisco’s Inspiration
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble has commissioned three leading San Francisco composers to compose new pieces that reflect the inspiration of San Francisco. The works will be premiered by the Left Coast Ensemble in the fall of 2001 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
The San Francisco Arts Commission has made an award of $13,500 to support the commissioning and performances, and the Yerba Buena Center will offer additional support.
The commissioned composers are Beth Custer, Pamela Z, and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez. The project will demonstrate the influence of San Francisco on these award-winning composers and showcase the vibrance and diversity of the Bay Area composing community.
Additional funding will be sought from friends and supporters of LCCE and the Chamber Music Partnership. For information about this major project, and how you can help, please visit www.ChamberMusicPartn.org or call.
Left Coast/Clavion Composers Awarded Commissions
CMP composers Eric Zivian and Kurt Rohde continue to receive nationally significant commissions.
Pianist Eric Zivian is one of several composers commissioned by the Brentano String Quartet to write quartets based on Bach’s Art of the Fugue. The Brentano Quartet will play the pieces in 2002. The Quartet won the Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, and is in residence at Princeton University and New York University. They collaborated with Jessye Norman in her 1998 Carnegie Hall recital. The Quartet is actively interested in the music of our time and recently commissioned the Sixth String Quartet of Milton Babbitt.
Mr. Zivian, a graduate of Curtis, Juilliard, and Yale, has also composed for the Seattle Symphony and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra.
CMP Artistic Director and violist Kurt Rohde has a full schedule of new works to write including a symphony for Kent Nagano, which Mr. Nagano will conduct with the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra on Thursday, June 21, 2001 at 8:00 pm in Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley (BerkeleySymphony.org or 510/841-2800). Mr. Nagano will also conduct Mr. Rohde’s orchestra piece next year in Germany with the Berlin Symphony.
Mr. Rohde is also composing a piece for viola virtuoso Nokuthula Ngwenyama, which she will premiere at the Kennedy Center in December 2000 in January 2001 and perform in New York City. Ms. Ngwenyama came to national attention when she won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions at age 17. She has performed with the Baltimore Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, and the National Symphony, and has performed in recital at Japan’s Suntory Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Louvre, and the White House.
The Barlow Endowment for Composition has commissioned Mr. Rohde to write a piece for cellist Emil Miland. A member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and principal cellist of the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Miland appears frequently as a guest soloist.
Mr. Rohde has recently been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. His music for string orchestra, performed by the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO), is expected to be released on compact disc early in 2001. For information about the CD and the NCCO’s performances visit www.ncco.org or call 415/433-6226.
LCCE Composition Contest Winner Announced Piece Will Be Performed in May, 2000
The Chamber Music Partnership is pleased to the announce that Jude Weirmeir is the winner of the 2000 Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Composition Contest for his piece Three Personae for Oboe, Viola and Bassoon. The members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble selected Mr. Weirmeir’s piece from over one hundred entries, each judged without knowledge of the composer’s identity. Honorable mentions go to David McMullin, of New York City; John Anthony Lennon, of Atlanta, Georgia, and Justin Merritt, of Bloomington, Indiana (last year’s winner).
Jude Weirmeir is a conductor as well as a composer, working with the Machine Art Sextet and the EAR Unit. He recently won the 17th ALEA III International Composer’s Competition for his piece Fragments of Prometheus Unbound. Mr. Weirmeir received his M.M. from the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Composition at UC San Diego.
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble performs “Three Personae” Monday, May 7, 2001, at the San Francisco War Memorial Performing Arts Center’s Green Room. Also on the program will be a new work by Michael Theodore and the West Coast premiere of Andrew Imbrie’s Piano Quartet.
For information about the next Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Composition Contest, contact the CMP. The deadline for the 2001 Contest is January 15, 2001.
Spotlight on the Pulitzer Prize
Next Spring, Pulitzer Prizes will again be awarded. Wayne Peterson, San Francisco’s own Pulitzer Prize-winner for composition, will host the March 19 concert of the LCCE, which presents music by composers who have been awarded the Pulitzer. Dr. Peterson will talk about the significance of the Pulitzer in music. Of particular interest on the March 19 program is Hung Monophonies by the 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Lew Spratlan, which was composed for Left Coast Chamber Ensemble horn player Joshua Garrett
Summer Fund Drive Succeeds
Thanks to many contributions of all sizes, the CMP exceeded its fundraising goal. Two anonymous donors had pledged $6,000 if other donors would give at that amount. A $200 donation by cellist Bonnie Hampton put us over the top. The CMP Board wishes to thank Ms. Hampton and all of those who helped us with donations large and small. Our total raised was $12,425. Individual donations not only support our ensembles, but show community support, which is crucial to win support from foundations and governmental sources.
Not incidentally, the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund/Grants for the Arts again renewed CMP’s grant, this year for $9700, which is yet another increase.
Donations are still very much welcomed, and may be included with season ticket orders or made separately.
CMP Welcomes New Board and Staff Alison Salzinger, a long-time friend of the Chamber Music Partnership, has joined the Board of Directors. Ms. Salzinger, a dancer and choreographer, lives in San Francisco’s Mission district with her son, Sanjay, and her husband, attorney Selim Day. Her first project as a Board member was to update and redesign the CMP web site, www.ChamberMusicPartn.org
Liz Eckstein has been named administrator for Chamber Music Partnership. She replaces Karen Heather, who has taken a position at the San Francisco Conservatory. Prior to coming to the CMP, Ms. Eckstein worked for Margaret Spaulding Associates, a marketing and PR firm, and the Women’s Foundation. She brings considerable executive and development skills.
CMP 2000-01 Season
Monday, October 16, 8 p.m., Left Coast
Two Trios, Two Quintets, Two Premieres
Johannes Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor
Franz Joseph Haydn: Piano Trio in E
And West Coast Premieres of: Chen Yi: Sound of the Five for String Quintet
Zhou Long: Spirit of Chimes for Piano Trio
Monday, December 11, 8 p.m., Clavion
Music Composed in the Wake of World War I
Giacomo Puccini: Chrysanthemi for String Quartet
Bela Bartok: String Quartet #2
Maurice Ravel: Piano Trio
Monday, January 29, 8 p.m., Left Coast
Dvorak and Other Composers of Eastern Europe
Antonin Dvorak: Quintet for Strings in G major
Bela Bartok: String Quartet #2
Gyorgy Kurtag: String Quartet
Dusan Bogdanovic: Over the Edge for Violin, Cello, & Guitar
Monday, March 19, 8 p.m., Left Coast
A Pulitzer Sampler: Chamber music by Pulitzer Prize-winning Composers, Hosted by Wayne Peterson
Wayne Peterson: Duodecaphony for Viola and Cello
Mario Davidovsky: Festino for Guitar and Strings
Lew Spratlan: Hung Monophonies for Horn & Oboe, & Strings
Ellen Zwilich: TBA. And a traditional work, TBA
Monday, April 2, 8 PM, Clavion
Ultimate Romantic Composers: Beethoven and Webern
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Quartet
Ludwig van Beethoven: Grosse Fugue for String Quartet
Anton von Webern: Five Pieces for String Quartet
Anton von Webern: Langsamersatz String Quartet
Monday, May 7, 8 PM, Left Coast
An Evening of Premieres
New works by Michael Theodore and Kurt Rohde; West Coast premiere of Andrew Imbrie’s Piano Quartet, in celebration of his 80th birthday; Scott Wheeler’s Sleeping on a Wire for Two Violins; Jude Weirmeir’s Three Personae for Oboe, Viola, Bassoon, and a familiar work which was a scandal at its premiere