JAPAN SONGS - notes and bios

PROGRAM NOTES

Japan Songs a Kyo-Shin-An Arts commission
Victoria Bond, Douglas J. Cuomo, James Matheson, Paul Moravec, Jay Reise and Aleksandra Vrebalov.

In April 2018, I received a Facebook message from Deborah Lifton’s manager politely telling me that this lovely soprano would like to work with Kyo-Shin-An Arts and do something with shakuhachi. That was quite irresistible. She and I met, we brainstormed, and we settled on a project to pursue. And it fell apart. I remember walking down the street in the Autumn of 2019, talking with Debbie and saying, “don’t worry, something will make sense” – and in that moment the flash. I wanted to commission a chamber music song cycle from a group of awesome composers, all of whom had previously been commissioned by KSA, and all of whom had written plenty of opera and art song throughout their careers. I started by asking six composers, and six composers said yes. And then the journey began. It is a pretty long story; multiple publishers to be consolidated into an arrangement with one publisher, learning that poems in the public domain still have translators with copyrights (with deep gratitude to Thomas E. McCauley and wakapoetry.net), and a small pandemic. Nonetheless by the end of the long summer of 2020, we had songs.

I was entranced during the first rehearsal. That was the moment that I realized I had not commissioned a song cycle, but rather a collection of independent gems. Each song captures the personality of its creator as well as the deep emotional impact of the pandemic during which it was written. Thank you to my wonderful friends the composers. – Meg Fagan

Avian Cradle by Kathleen Supové

Avian Cradle (2020) is inspired by these things: first, Randall Woolf's "A Face in The Crowd", which weaves poignant melodies with crashing clusters in service of capturing avian life; second, a fruitless attempt at an anagram for Terry Riley's "A Rainbow in Curved Air"; and finally, the work with lullabies (lull music) of the late composer Sorrel Hays. She so captured that moment when we're going to sleep, but don't want to, and we snap to, with a start, in a futile attempt to fight it.

Oblivion by Astor Piazzolla (arranged by Yves Dharamraj)

Argentine tango, bandoneón player and composer Astor Piazzolla wrote ‘Oblivion’ in 1982. It was famously featured in the 1984 Italian film ‘Enrico IV’ (‘Henry IV’) directed by Marco Bellocchio. The song has been described as “haunting” and “atmospheric,” and is considered to be one of Piazzolla’s most popular tangos.

 Density 21.5 by Edgard Varèse

“What is music but organized noises?" -Edgard Varèse

 Edgard Varèse was an experimental French composer who lived most of his life in the United States, and much of that time in NYC’s Greenwich Village. “Density 21.5” was written in 1936 to commemorate a friend’s newly purchased flute made of platinum, which has a density of 12.5 per cubic centimeter. He pushed the instrument to its extreme in exploring the timbral capacity of the western flute. A three-note core motif recurs three times to anchor the structure and his melodies emphasize the interval of the tritone, generally considered a dissonant sound. His music had a profound influence on the music of Frank Zappa.

 Varèse has always been one of my favorite composers and this was one of my favorite pieces to play in my earlier career as a flutist. I had all but given up ever playing it again when I turned to shakuhachi. However, with a new instrument I acquired two years ago, I took another look at it and realized that I could put forth a respectable version of it and the few spots that might appear to suffer would be more than compensated by the earthy tone colors that only a shakuhachi can muster. Varèse presumably never heard the shakuhachi. I like to imagine, given his pioneering approach to music and philosophy of “musical space as open rather than bounded”, it would have caught his imagination. 

PERFORMER BIOGRAPHIES

DEBORAH LIFTON, soprano, performs contemporary American opera and song with compelling artistry and a warm and expressively direct lyric coloratura voice. Her 2020 highlights include a world premiere by Jess Turner “If I am to Leave” for Soprano, Tenor and Wind Ensemble, a recording of the opera “Lotus Lives” with Magnitude 6 at WGBH in Boston and “Japan Songs” with Kyo-Shin-An Arts. In fall 2019 she was the soprano soloist for Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Hartt Orchestra at the University of Hartford. 2017-18 performances included concerts and masterclasses at the China Conservatory in Beijing and Zhejiang Conservatory in Hangzdou the role of Kwan Yin in Su Lian Tan’s “Lotus Lives” in Montreal at Le Gesu with the Magnitude 6 Ensemble, plus solo recitals at The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, the Cincinnati Song Initiative and the Rieth Chamber Series in Indiana. Roles have included Sally Follet in the Center for Contemporary Opera’s production of William Mayer’s “A Death in the Family” at the Avignon Opera and Millicent in the world premiere of Michael Dellaira’s “The Secret Agent” at the Szeged National Theater in Hungary.

As an educator, Ms. Lifton is passionately committed to equipping young singers with the technical and artistic tools for success. She has taught vocal performance at New York University, Ithaca College, and Western Connecticut State University – along with adjunct appointments at Syracuse University and Cornell University.  In 2015 she founded Vocal Audition Advantage, a program for young singers. She is currently an Associate Professor of Voice at The Hartt School in West Hartford, CT.

JAMES NYORAKU SCHLEFER, shakuhachi, is a Grand Master of the shakuhachi and one of only a handful of non-Japanese artists to have achieved this rank. He received the Dai-Shi-Han (Grand Master) certificate in 2001, and his second Shi-Han certificate in 2008, from the Mujuan Dojo in Kyoto. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Tanglewood and BAM, as well as multiple venues across the country and in Japan, Indonesia, Brazil and Europe. Schlefer first encountered the shakuhachi in 1979, while working towards a career as a flute player and pursuing an advanced degree in musicology. Today he is considered by his colleagues to be one of most influential Western practitioners of this distinctive art form. Known to his students as Nyoraku sensei, Schlefer established his own dojo in NYC in 1996. He also teaches shakuhachi at Columbia University, a broad spectrum of Western and World music courses at New York City College of Technology (CUNY), and performs and lectures at colleges and universities throughout the United States. As a composer, Schlefer has written multiple chamber and orchestral works combining Japanese and Western instruments as well as numerous pieces solely for traditional Japanese instruments. In December 2015, he was recognized by Musical America Worldwide as one of their “30 Top Professionals and Key Influencers” for his work both as a composer and Artistic Director of Kyo-Shin-An Arts. His writings about the shakuhachi and his career were published in 2018 on NewMusicBox and he was profiled by the National Endowment for the Arts’ “Arts Works Blog” in May 2016. His programming for Kyo-Shin-An Arts has also been recognized with two CMA/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming (2013 and 2016). His orchestral music can be heard on the recording Spring Sounds Spring Season MSR Classics. nyoraku.com

Argentinian violinist SAMI MERDINIAN has received worldwide recognition for his outstanding performances as a soloist and chamber musician. Sami has appeared as a soloist with the Montevideo Philharmonic, the Argentinian National Symphony, The Charlemagne Orchestre, the Gagneung Philharmonic in South Korea, Philharmonia of the Nations at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Rochester and South Carolina Philharmonics, among others. 

As a chamber musician, Sami received the First Prize and Gold Medal at the New England International Chamber Music Competition in Boston, and the First Prize at the Victor Elmaleh Concert Artist Guild Competition in New York with Sybarite5. Mr. Merdinian has been a prize winner in several international competitions including a Gold Medal in the XII International Young Solo Instrumentalists Competition in Argentina, and the New Talent Competition in Slovakia organized by the European Radio.

 Also highly sought-after as tango violinist, Mr. Merdinian has performed and recorded with some of the most prominent artist of the genre and has received a Grammy Nomination for "Masters of the Bandoneon" for Best Tango. Mr. Merdinian is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the New Docta International Music Festival and the co-host of podcast Down the Pit. samimerdinian.com

LAURA METCALF is the cellist of acclaimed string quintet Sybarite5, winner of the 2011 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, and Trifecta Trio. Sybarite5 made its Carnegie Hall debut at Zankel Hall in 2012, and their album “Disturb the Silence” recently reached the Top Ten on the Billboard Charts. She has been featured as a soloist with the Zagreb Philharmonic, One World Symphony , Laredo Philharmonic, the Ensemble 212 Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfonica Sinaloa. She has given concerts in nearly all 50 states, as well as Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Haiti, France, Kazakhstan. Nepal, India, Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Austria, and Canada.

In 2011, Laura was appointed to the cello-percussion quartet Break of Reality, with whom she has toured extensively worldwide. In 2015, she joined the Malek Jandali trio, featuring piano, cello and oud dedicated to new music and humanitarian causes. The ensemble has performed twice in Carnegie Hall , has toured to the United Arab Emirates., and has been featured in National Geographic and BBC World News. Laura also performs regularly as a duo with renowned classical guitarist Rupert Boyd, with whom she has toured to Australia, India and Nepal. Outside of the classical realm, Laura has appeared on the David Letterman Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, the Today Show and The View with such artists as Adele, John Legend, Donna Summer, Clay Aiken, Chromeo and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. She appears regularly with acclaimed Irish singer and composer Julie Feeney, both playing cello and singing backup vocals. A devoted educator, Laura has given career-guidance presentations at the Eastman School of Music, the Hartt School of Music and Oklahoma State University. She served on the faculty of Opus 118 Harlem School of Music from 2006-2011, through which she also founded the first-ever cello program in New York’s Public School 129. laurametcalf.com

KATHLEEN SUPOVÉ, piano, is one of America’s most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists, known for continually redefining what it means to be a pianist/keyboardist/performance artist in today’s world. In addition to her compelling virtuosity, she is also known for her inventive ways of breaking down the wall between performer and audience. After winning top prizes in the Gaudeamus International Competition for Interpretation of Contemporary Music, she began her career as a guest artist at the prestigious Darmstadt Festival in Germany. Since then, Ms. Supové has presented solo concerts entitled The Exploding Piano, in which she has championed the music of countless contemporary composers. Among these are: Frederic Rzewski, Louis Andriessen, Terry Riley (including the all-star historic performance of “In C” in Carnegie Hall, curated by the Kronos Quartet, with the composer performing), Earle Brown, Chinary Ung, Giacinto Scelsi, Iannis Xenakis, John Adams, Morton Subotnick, Joan La Barbara, Jacob TV (Ter Veldhuis), Alvin Curran, Randall Woolf, Neil Rolnick, David Lang, Nick Didkovsky, Eve Beglarian, Missy Mazzoli, Mohammed Fairouz, Anna Clyne, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Gene Pritsker, Miya Masaoka, Orlando Jacinto Garcia, Alex Weiser, Dylan Mattingly, Corey Dargel, John Zorn, Carolyn Yarnell, Gene Pritsker, Paula Matthusen, Annie Gosfield, Daniel Felsenfeld, Jacob Cooper, Matt Marks, Marita Bolles, Phil Kline, Lukas Ligeti, Marti Epstein, Arlene Sierra, Patrick Grant, Michael Gatonska, Dan Becker, Elaine Kaplinsky, Dafna Naphtali, Jed Distler, Belinda Reynolds, Isaac Schankler, Gameboy composer Bubblyfish, and many others. supove.com

TRANSLATOR

Dr. Thomas E. McAuley is a Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, UK, where he teaches Japanese-English Translation and is also Director of Learning and Teaching. His research focuses on  premodern Japanese poetry and poetic criticism. 

Among his recent articles are: ‘Audience Attitude and Translation Reception: The Case of Genji Monogatari’ Babel (2015); ‘Viewing a Myriad Leaves: Man’yō Botanical Gardens in Japan’ International Journal of Contents Tourism (2016); and ‘A fine thing for the way: evidence, counter-evidence and argument in the Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds’ Japan Forum (2019). His complete translation and commentary of the Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds has just been published by Brill (2020) while over 5,500 of his translations of other Japanese waka are available at wakapoetry.net. 

COMPOSER BIOGRAHIES

VICTORIA BOND is a multifaceted career as composer, conductor, lecturer, and the artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts. She has composed eight operas, six ballets, two piano concertos and orchestral, chamber, choral and keyboard compositions. Bond has been commissioned by ensembles including the Houston and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, Cleveland and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestras, Michigan Philharmonic, Cassatt String Quartet, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Soli Deo Gloria Music Foundation, American Opera Projects, Young Peoples’ Chorus of New York City, Manhattan Choral Ensemble, Choral Society of the Hamptons, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Her compositions have been performed by the Dallas Symphony, New York City Opera, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Anchorage Opera, Irish National Orchestra (RTE), Shanghai Symphony and members of the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, among others. 

Bond’s opera, Clara, based on the life of composer and pianist Clara Schumann, premiered at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival in Baden-Baden, Germany in 2019. Recent compositions include The Adventures of Gulliver, commissioned by American Opera Projects; Blue and Green Music for the Cassatt String Quartet; Simeron Kremate for pianist Paul Barnes; The Voices of Air, for trombonist JoDee Davis; The Miracle of Light, commissioned by The Young Peoples Chorus of NYC and premiered by Chamber Opera Chicago and That Music Always Round Me commissioned by The Manhattan Choral Ensemble. victoriabond.com  

DOUGLAS J. CUOMO has composed for the concert, operatic and theatrical stage, as well as for television and film. His expressive musical language, with its arresting juxtapositions of sound and style, is a natural outgrowth of his eclectic background studying jazz, world music and ethnomusicology, with formative years on the road playing in jazz, pop and funk bands. Cuomo's upcoming premieres include Seven Limbs, an evening length piece for Nels Cline and the Aizuri Quartet and La Cita, a song cycle for Isabel Leonard and The Romero Guitar Quartet. Previous works include the chamber opera Savage Winter for Pittsburgh Opera and BAM, Doubt for Minnesota Opera, Arjuna's Dilemma for BAM, Black Diamond Express Train to Hell for the American Composer's Orchestra, Objects in Mirror for Orchestra of the Swan and pieces for Maya Beiser, Chanticleer, Seraphic Fire, Christine Brewer and the Young People’s Chorus of New York. Cuomo's work for television and film includes the themes for Sex and the City, NOW with Bill Moyers, music for Homicide; Life on the Street plus over twenty film scores. Douglas J Cuomo is published by Schott Music. douglasjcuomo.com

New York-based composer JAMES MATHESON is widely regarded as one of the most distinctive, vital, and creative musical voices of his generation. Among his commissions are works for the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago and Albany Symphony Orchestras, Carnegie Hall, Kyo-Shin-An Arts, and the St. Lawrence and Borromeo String Quartets. The American Academy of Arts and Letters honored him in December, 2011 with the Charles Ives Living Award. Matheson has also received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, the Bogliasco and Sage Foundations, ASCAP, and the Robbins Prize. 

A 2016 release from Yarlung Records features three major Matheson works: Violin Concerto (Baird Dodge, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Esa-Pekka Salonen); Times Alone, (soprano Laura Strickling and pianist Thomas Sauer); and String Quartet (Color Field Quartet). Commissions have included Unchained for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Violin Concerto, co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic; True South, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic; Still Life, commissioned by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; The Age of Air, co-commissioned by Kyo-Shin-An Arts and River Oaks Chamber Orchestra; String Quartet, for the St. Lawrence String Quartet; and Peace Talks, commissioned by Swarthmore College for its Sesquicentennial Celebration. From 2009 to 2015 James served as Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's innovative Composer Fellowship Program. jamesmatheson.com

PAUL MORAVEC, recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music, has composed numerous orchestral, chamber, lyric, choral and operatic works. Frequently commissioned by notable ensembles and major music institutions, Moravec’s oratorio Sanctuary Road, an oratorio about the Underground Railroad for Oratorio Society of New York, premiered at Carnegie Hall in May, 2018. His most recent opera is The Shining, to a libretto by Mark Campbell based on the Stephen King novel, which premiered at Minnesota Opera in May, 2016. Other recent premieres include The Overlook Hotel Suite for American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Nocturne for Orchestra of the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, and Winter Songs for the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society in Cambridge.  Recent recordings include Amorisms on Delos/Naxos and both Violin Concerto and Shakuhachi Concerto on Naxos American Classics.

A graduate of Harvard and Columbia universities, Moravec holds the distinguished rank of University Professor at Adelphi University, and recently served as Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as well as Composer-in-Residence at the American Academy in Rome. paulmoravec.com

Philadelphia-based composer JAY REISE is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and an artist with a substantial international career. His opera, Rasputin, for which he wrote both the music and libretto, was commissioned by Beverly Sills and premiered by the New York City Opera in 1988; premiered in Russia in 2008 with the Helikon Opera and performe in both Estonia (Saaremaa Opera Festival) and Paris (Opéra de Massy). In November 2017, it was presented in Moscow as part of the commemoration marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Reise’s Symphony II was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1983, and in 1997 the Philharmonia Orchestra commissioned and premiered The Selfish Giant, a tone poem based on the Oscar Wilde fairy tale. Maria Bachmann and Orchestra 2001 premiered and recorded his violin concerto The River Within in 2008. In 2015 his ballet The Gift to Urashima Taro was premiered by Exit Dance at the Newburyport Festival.

In December 2020, Reise’s fairy tale, The Warrior Violinist, was premiered by the English Symphony Orchestra on their 2020-21 Covid Digital Series. Recent performances of his chamber music have taken place in Cuba and on tour in the Middle East. Awards and fellowships include the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim, Fromm, and Rockefeller Foundations, and the US-Japan Friendship Commission. He is currently working on an opera Al Capone and Family based on the career and family life of the notorious gangster. jayreise.com

ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV is a freelance composer living in NYC. She has written 90 works ranging from concert music, to opera and dance. Her works have been commissioned and/or performed by Kronos Quartet, Serbian National Theater, Carnegie Hall, Belgrade Philharmonic, Kyo-Shin-An Arts in New York, The Forbidden City Orchestra in Beijing, Jose Limon and Rambert Dance Companies. Vrebalov, a fellow of MacDowell Colony, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, Djerassi, American Opera Projects, The Hermitage, and Tanglewood, is the recipient of The Harvard Fromm Commission, The American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, Barlow Endowment Commission, and MAP Fund grant. In past two years, Vrebalov made music with young refugees from Syria and Iraq at the Flying Carpet Festival on Turkish/Syrian border. Her works have been recorded for Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, Innova, Centaur, Records, and Vienna Modern Masters. aleksandravrebalov.com