"Spotlight On..." - Brian DeLay and Friends— February 20, 2004

SFNM's annual its annual "Spotlight On..." concert featuring musicians and composers who enjoy national and international renown, yet who call Santa Fe home. The 2004 concert presentation, "Spotlight On... Brian DeLay and Friends," featured guitarist Brian DeLay joined by flutist Susan DeJong, and pianists Marthanne Dorminy-Gardner and Toni Austin-Allen. The concert took place at 8:00 pm at the Santuario de Guadalupe in Santa Fe.

Works included in the program were Variations on Desire, a work for solo piano by Santa Fe composer Jamie Allen; Resound, for flute, guitar, percussion and tape, by Santa Fean Conrad DeJong; and a work for solo piano by world-renowned composer Peter Lieberson, The Ocean that has No West and No East, performed by pianist Marthanne Dorminy-Gardner. Three non-Santa Fe composers were also featured in the program: William Bolcom, and his work Tres Piezas Lindas, for flute and guitar; Michael Daugherty, with a work for flute and guitar entitled Yo Amaba A Lucy; and the venerable Terry Riley, whose work Cantos Desiertos for flute and guitar, was performed.

DeLay who has performed on guitar and lute throughout the U.S., Canada, and the former Soviet Union, was joined by a frequent musical partner, the acclaimed flutist Susan DeJong, heard with SFNM in April 2003 as part of Peter Garland's Conquest of Mexico concerts. Pianist Marthanne Dorminy-Gardner, who enthralled audiences as the featured artist in June 2003's "Spotlight On... " program, returned for her second concert appearance in Santa Fe. Toni Austin-Allen was heard with SFNM as part of the June, 2003 SFNM Youthfest concerts. The piece she played was written for her by her husband Jamie Allen.

"We have such a wealth of talent in Santa Fe," said Kennedy, "that it is an delight to put together a program like this and to explore some of the works of the many fine composers who call Santa Fe home. We're so pleased to present a work by Peter Lieberson, as well as Conrad DeJong and Jamie Allen's pieces. And the trio of "non-Santa Feans": Riley, Daugherty, and Bolcom, weave together a compelling neo-Latino theme that is altogether interesting and musically exciting."

Program Notes

In this spotlight on some of our wonderful local composers and performing artists, we might also make note of the fact that this program features the work of six different living American composers, who each come from very different stylistic and aesthetic perspectives. And with the three composers who are not local (Bolcom, Daugherty, and Riley), we have three Latin-focused works utilizing popular forms in distinctly different ways.

The guitar of course has a long and proud history in Hispanic music, and the fusions we hear tonight speak to how it has emerged as a favored instrument among contemporary composers as well. Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that thanks to rock and roll and the electric guitar, the guitar has in the past 25 years replaced the piano as the most widely played instrument. There is increasingly an exciting new repertoire for both acoustic and electric guitar (some of which has been assisted by the enlightened commissioning agenda of flutist Susan DeJong), and it is with pleasure that we bring this new music to you in the hands of such wonderful artists.

William Bolcom was born in 1938 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988; his music is characterized by an unabashed celebration of popular and vernacular music. Tres Piezas Lindas expresses Bolcom's love of Latin music. Bolcom wrote: "I have a crush on Spanish and Latin music, probably because I have none of either culture in my family. When I was a student in Paris, I bought a little car and drove up and down the Spanish coast, and in later years made two or three trips to Mexico. I've discovered the wonderful music of a little-known turn of the century Venezuelan pianist named Palacios, and Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934) from Brazil, both of whom wrote wild, wooly waltzes."

Tres Piezas Lindas is comprised of three pretty pieces – a ray of Mediterranean or Gulf coast sunshine to cheer people up in the middle of a long Midwestern winter. The work invokes a 1930’s movie veranda set: fig trees stand in the background and the scent of gardenias is in the air."

Jamie Allen is familiar to many in Santa Fe both as a composer and for his involvement with many of our prominent arts organizations. Mr. Allen received his B.M. from the University of Chicago, and his M.M. in composition from the University of Texas. Allen has won awards for his music from both ASCAP and the American Music Center, as well as commissions from the Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra, the Desert Chorale, and various chamber groups. Some comments from Allen on his Variations on Desire:

"Written for my wife on the occasion of our first anniversary, Variations on Desire starts with the smallest spark of a musical (and amorous) idea that builds sensuously through the piece, giving harmonic, melodic, and passionate structure to all four movements." Ms. Austin-Allen's performance of Variations on Desire is featured on In Memory of a Once New World, a CD collection of chamber music by Jamie Allen.

Born in Hull, Iowa, in 1934, Conrad DeJong received his Bachelor of Music degree from North Texas State University where he studied with Violet Archer; he later studied composition with Ton de Leeuw at the Amsterdam Conservatory. With over 30 published compositions and many national awards to his credit, and with work that sometimes incorporates dance, lighting projections, improvisation, and audience participation, DeJong has seen his work performed at the Kennedy Center, at New York's Town Hall, and at and venues throughout the world. DeJong was a member of the music faculty at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls from 1959 until his retirement in 1990, and he and his wife Susan moved to Santa Fe in 2000. Of Resound, he writes:

"Resound was named after and inspired by a golden sculptural painting by Yves Klein in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. With one exception (a quote of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells) Resound is written to have a free feeling without regular pulse or meter. Various types of imitation occur among the flute, guitar, and percussion, and these are sometimes echoed (resounded) by a digital delay system. There is some pitch bending in the flute and guitar and in performance there are some choices left to the players."

In the works and life of Peter Lieberson, art and Buddhism are intertwined. After growing up in an artistic family – his parents were Goddard Lieberson, then president of Columbia Records, and the ballerina and actress Vera Zorina – Mr. Lieberson studied composition with Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Donald Martino, and Martin Boykan. In 1976, he began studies with Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist, and then went to Boston, where he both directed Shambala Training, a meditation and cultural program, and earned a Ph.D. at Brandeis University. For a time Lieberson was international director of Shambala Training. Today he and his wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, make Santa Fe their home.

Mr. Lieberson has written the following comments on The Ocean that has no West and no East: "This work is a short elegy in memory of Toru Takemitsu, who died in 1996. I first met Toru in Boston in 1983 and found him charming, inquisitive about life, gentle in character, and also slightly mysterious. Later on, I conducted a number of his pieces. One piece in particular, "How Slow the Wind," reminded me of Gagaku music in that the conductor has to breathe with the orchestra in order for the subtle beauty of the music to be made manifest... The title 'The Ocean that has no West and no East' comes from a line Toru wrote in a postcard that our mutual friend, pianist Peter Serkin, received some days after Toru died. The complete line read, 'I am enjoying swimming the Ocean that has no West and no East.'"

California Composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic In C in 1964. This seminal work provided a new concept in musical form based on interlocking repetitive patterns. Its impact was to change the course of 20th Century music and its influence has been heard in the works of prominent composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams, and in the music of Rock Groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Tangerine Dream, Curved Air, and many others.

Cantos Desiertos was commissioned by the Avedis Chamber Music Series and guitarist David Tannenbaum, who gave the world premiere on March 22, 1998. Riley composed the majority of the piece in 1996 during a family vacation in Puerto Vallarta.

"Cantos Desiertos are part of the cycle called the Book of Abbeyozzud (pronounced "ah-BYE-ah-ZOOD", a word without meaning, invented by Riley) a planned series of 26 pieces for guitar, multiple guitars and guitar in ensemble. Each has a Spanish title beginning with a different letter of the alphabet; so far, thirteen pieces are completed. Riley writes "All of the pieces have Spanish titles and take a different letter of the alphabet to begin their names. They are also indebted to great Spanish music traditions and to those traditions upon which Spanish music owes its heritage."

The first piece of the set, "Francesco en Paraiso" (Frank in Paradise) is dedicated to the amazing French composer and countertenor, Frank Royon le Mee, who died tragically a few years back at the age of 40 from AIDS. "Cancion Desierto" takes for its starting point a melody that I learned from a long time friend and collaborator, Rajastani sitarist and composer, Krishna Bhatt. I combined this with melodies of my own invention to create this rondoesque form.

"Quijote' (Dreamer) features a relentless accompanying figure in the guitar, which was culled from the Cancion Desierto theme. It is the retrograde of the flute melody appearing in mm. 10-12. An improvisatory countermelody was then composed on this ostinato. "Llanto" (Lament) is in a simple ABA form with the somewhat anguished middle section flanked by outer sections containing an introspective dialogue between the two instruments. The "Tango Ladeado" (Tango Sideways) is a piece that has no particular story except that everybody is writing tangos these days. I love them and it was time to give my particular take on one.

"The piece conjures up long walks on the beach in the cool daybreak mornings, spicy food dripping with chilies in the evenings, and holing up alone in the hotel during long hot afternoons, composing when everybody else was at the beach with the grandchildren. This was an experience I would like to repeat."

One of the most performed and commissioned American composers of his generation, Michael Daugherty has created a unique niche in the music world: composing concert music inspired by contemporary American popular culture. Daugherty came to international attention when his Metropolis Symphony (1988-93), a tribute to the Superman comics, was performed in 1995 at Carnegie Hall by conductor David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. From large orchestral works such as percussion concerto UFO (1999), Motor City Triptych (2000); chamber works Sing Sing: J. Edgar Hoover (1992) and Elvis Everywhere (1993); or his opera Jackie O (1997), Daugherty has enjoyed commissions, and performances by many of the leading ensembles and symphonies worldwide.

Daugherty acknowledges his debt to pop culture, saying:

"For me icons serve as a way to have an emotional reason to compose a new work. I get ideas for my compositions by browsing through secondhand book stores, antique shops, and small towns that I find driving on the back roads of America. The icon can be an old postcard, magazine, photograph, knick-knack, matchbook, piece of furniture or roadmap. Like Ives and Mahler, I use icons in my music to provide the listener and performer with a layer of reference. However, one does not need the reference of the icon to appreciate my music. It is merely one level among many in the musical, contrapuntal fabric of my compositions."

Yo Amaba a Lucy (I Loved Lucy) was inspired by Lucille Ball, the zany redheaded wife of Desi Arnaz. With its Latin guitar grooves (inspired in part by Arnaz's guitar playing) and percussive flute gymnastics, the work is a companion piece to a work for bongo soloist and woodwinds entitled Desi.

—John Kennedy, Artistic Director, Santa Fe New Music