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Yale in New York to Present SERENADE & METAMORPHOSIS at Carnegie Hall, 4/12

Yale-in-NY-presents-Strauss-Metamorphosen-wworld-premiere-by-Matthew-Barnson-412-20010101

The Yale School of Music's acclaimed YALE IN NEW YORK series presents "SERENADE & METAMORPHOSIS," the third of four evenings in its 2012-2013 season, on Friday, April 12, 2013 at 7:30PM in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Yale in New York surveys some of the important contributions to the canon of string serenades and works for similar string ensembles, a tradition that has evolved over time across musical eras, from Mozart, Dvorák and Strauss, through to Bartók and Stravinsky.

This program pairs Richard Strauss's profound Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings with a world premiere Yale commission by Yale School of Music graduate Matthew Barnson, entitled The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (Memento Mori after Gerhard Richter), scored for the exact same instrumentation as the Strauss. The balance of the program celebrates Tchaikovsky's popular 1880 Serenade for Strings.

Barnson's composing "is fresh and arises from a distinct personality" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and has been featured at ISCM, the MATA Festival in Brooklyn, and Aspen Music Festival, among other venues.

The string ensemble consists of Yale faculty, students, and alumni, led by faculty member and concertmaster Ani Kavafian, along with faculty violinists Kyung Yu and Wendy Sharp. Other notable young alumni include violinists Sunmi Chang, Geoffrey Herd, and Edson Scheid; violists Raul Garcia and Anne Lanzilotti; cellists Laura Usiskin, Hannah Collins, and Jacques Lee Wood; and bassist Aleksey Klyushnik.

MORE ABOUT THE MATTHEW BARNSON WORLD PREMIERE
Matthew Barnson's The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (Memento Mori after Gerhard Richter) is a three movement work, dedicated in memoriam to Barnson's grandparents, Garn and Bobbie Barnson, both of whom passed away as it was being composed. It is written for a 23-piece string orchestra, with separate solo parts for the principals of the violin, viola, and cello sections.

The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (1651)
A man is a bubble, (said the Greek proverb), which Lucian represents with advantages and its proper circumstances, to this purpose; saying, that all the world is a storm, and men rise up in their several generations, like bubbles descending a Jove pluvio, from God and the dew of heaven, from a tear and drop of rain, from nature and Providence; and some of these instantly sink into the deluge of their first parent, and are hidden in a sheet of water, having had no other business in the world, but to be born, that they might be able to die: others float up and down two or three turns, and suddenly disappear and give their place to others: and they that live longest upon the face of the waters are in perpetual motion, restless and uneasy, and being crushed with a great drop of a cloud, sink into flatness and a froth; the change not being great, it being hardly possible it should be more a nothing that it was before.

PROGRAM
Richard Strauss:
Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings, Op. 142 (1944-45)

Matthew Barnson '12DMA:
The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (Memento Mori after Gerhard Richter)
I. Praeludium
II. Ricercar ...All the world is a storm...
III. Passacaglia ...the dream of a shadow...
World premiere (2012)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky:
Serenade for Strings (1880)

PLAYERS
Yale faculty, students, and alumni
Led by concertmaster Ani Kavafian, Yale faculty, violin
Kyung Yu, Yale faculty, violin
Wendy Sharp, Yale faculty, violin
Sunmi Chang, violin
Geoffrey Herd, violin
Jiwon Evelyn Kwark, violin
Holly Piccoli, violin
Edson Scheid, violin
Raul Garcia, viola
Edwin Kaplan, viola
Anne Lanzilotti, viola
Eve Tang, viola
Yi-Ping Yang, viola
Soo Jin Chung, cello
Hannah Collins, cello
Laura Usiskin, cello
Jacques Lee Wood, cello
Alvin Yan-Ming Wong, cello
Nathaniel Chase, bass
Nicholas Jones, bass
Aleksey Klyushnik, bass