nicole PAIEMENT
conductor

BluePrint
Lend an ear to burning issues
Artistic Director, Nicole Paiement

EVENTS SUMMARY

Event No. 1 Coming Together
October 18, 2008 8pm SFCM Concert Hall
Pre-concert showing of film documentary “Outside In” at 7:15pm
Informal post-concert discussion with Nicole Paiement, composer John Halle, and guest artist Carla Kihlstedt.
Composers Talk Shop (Friday, October 17, 2008; 1pm; room 207): John Halle

Nicole Paiement, conductor
John Harbison: Abu Ghraib with Jean-Michel Fonteneau, cello, and Chris Basso, piano
Bright Sheng: Postcards for chamber orchestra
Andrew Imbrie: From Time to Time for mixed chamber ensemble
Frederic Rzewski: Coming Together with narrator Carla Kihlstedt
John Halle: Homage for violin, cello, piano, and two percussionists

The BluePrint season begins boldly, with works that explore painful and controversial events of recent history. John Harbison’s Abu Ghraib is an intimate reflection on the emotional toll of the notorious events that transpired at Abu Ghraib prison in Irag, while Andrew Imbrie’s From Time to Time commemorates World War II’s Nanjing Massacre “for the dual purpose of remembrance and reconciliation among all nations.” Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together confronts the issue of injustice in our prison system, with text from a letter written by Sam Melville, one of the leaders of the 1971 Attica prison uprising, who was killed in its aftermath. John Halle’s Homage will also be presented, as well as Bright Sheng’s charming chamber orchestra work Postcards, inspired by the folk music from various regions of his native China.

Event No. 2: Transparent Walls
November 15, 2008 8pm SFCM Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk at 7:15pm with Aleksandra Vrebalov, Philip Collins, and Young-Shin Choi
Composers Talk Shop (Friday, November 15, 2008; 3pm; Recital Hall): Aleksandra Vrebalov and Philip Collins

Nicole Paiement, conductor
Alexandra Vrebalov: Transparent Walls for cello, percussion, and mixed winds
Philip Collins: Requies Ranarum for soprano, tape, and mixed ensemble
Giya Kancheli: Midday Prayers, with clarinet and soprano soloists
Young-Shin Choi: YX Unsquared

A more introspective engagement with today’s world, this concert presents Aleksandra Vrebelov’s newly commissioned Transparent Walls, as well as the premier of the final version of Philip Collins’ Reqiues Ranarum, a eulogy for eight recently extinct frog species, which includes recorded sounds of the frogs themselves. Giya Kancheli’s somber Midday Prayers has a meditative, religious quality, bringing the concerns for our world to a deeply personal and spiritual place, and Young-Shin Choi’s YX Unsquared rounds out the program.

Event No. 3: The Light Within
March 7, 2009 8pm SFCM Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk at 7:15pm with David Garner
Composers Talk Shop (Friday, March 6, 2008; 3pm; Recital Hall): David Garner

Nicole Paiement, conductor
George Crumb: Ancient Voices of Children with mezzo soprano and boy soprano soloists
David Garner: New commission on anti-war protest song melodies
Terry Riley: Y Bolanzero with the SFCM Guitar Ensemble, David Tanenbaum, artistic director
Sofia Gubaidalina: Concordanze
Stephen Hartke: The Rose of the Winds

The final concert of the season presents richly evocative works that offer hope for reconciliation, featuring the premiere of SFCM faculty member David Garner’s newly commissioned work Shards, which is based on fragments of anti-war protest song and uses the power of music to transcend the horrors of war. Sofia Gubaidalina’s Concordanze portrays this process of reconciliation with its own musical process of discordant elements gradually unifying into concord. George Crumb’s classic Ancient Voices of Children sets texts by Federico Garcia Lorca using an exotic ensemble including boy soprano, mandolin, and toy piano, evocatively capturing the poetry’s primal concerns with, as Crumb describes it, “life, death, love, and the smell of the earth”, while Stephen Hartke’s The Rose of the Winds is an invocation of a specific place, the desert landscape of Taos, New Mexico. Terry Riley’s Y Bolanzero brings in the Conservatory’s excellent guitar ensemble, led by David Tanenbaum.

Tickets: $20 general/$15 students, seniors and Friends of the Conservatory
50 Oak Street, San Francisco
415.503.6275 for tickets | www.sfcm.edu for more info