Clarinet, Ida Gotkovsky, Doina Rotaru, Valerie Coleman, Amanda Harber

Kinane, Lauren Rachel

English

Stony Brook University - SUNY

  This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree.    Lauren Kinane, clarinet  with   Naseer Ashraf, piano Savannah Gentry, flute  Tuesday, April 25th, 12:00PM Recital Hall | Staller Center for the Arts     Concerto for Clarinet Ida Gotkovsky (b. 1933) I.   Andante II.  Perpetuum Mobile III. Final   Fum Doina Rotaru (b.1951)   ~ INTERMISSION ~   Portraits of Langston Valerie Coleman (b. 1970) I.   Prelude: Helen Keller II.  Danse Africaine III. Le Grand Duc Mambo IV. Silver Rain V.   Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret VI. Harlem’s Summer Night  Savannah Gentry, flute Naseer Ashraf, piano    Sonata for Clarinet and Piano Amanda Harberg (b. 1973) I.   Gentle/Playful II.  Interlude III. Agitato Program Notes   Born to Russian immigrants and musicians in Calais, France in 1933, Ida Gotkovsky began composing at age 8. She went on to study at the Paris Conservatory with teachers such as Nadia Boulanger and Oliver Messiaen. Throughout her career, she won numerous awards for her compositions, including the Prix Lily Boulanger in 1967. She also went on to teach music theory at the Paris Conservatory.   Her Concerto for Clarinet was written in 1968 for the clarinet juries at the Paris Conservatory. The work is written in three movements, “Andante,” “Perpetuum Mobile,” and “Final.” The first movement opens with a quasi-cadenza solo clarinet line that according to Gotkovsky, “the entire composition is based on the microcosmos found in the opening theme [of the clarinet].” Following the opening theme, the rest of the first movement is quite dark and heavy in comparison. The second movement in contrast is an unrelenting movement in an almost rondo form. The final movement is the longest movement of the three, and was the movement used for the 1968 Paris Conservatory jury. Similar to the first movement, the third movement begins with a clarinet cadenza. Interjections of material from the first movement can be heard throughout the final movement. ****** Romanian composer Doina Rotaru was born in Bucharest and went on to study composition at the National University of Music in Bucharest. She later went on to teach and lead the composition department at her alma mater.  Fum, which translates to smoke, was written in 1995, and dedicated to the principal clarinetist of the George Ensescu Philharmonic, Emil Vişenescu. Rotaru gives the performer the option to play the piece next to an open piano with the right pedal pressed. The piece is written unmetered and instead has time markers throughout, giving the performer some freedom to really make each performance their own. Fum doesn’t follow a traditional structure, but is largely written in three sections. ****** Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1970, Valerie Coleman is a composer and flutist. As a flutist she was a founding member of the Imani Winds, nominated for a GRAMMY, and currently teaches at the Mannes School of Music. She also teaches composition at Mannes, and her works have been performed and commissioned by numerous orchestras and groups around the United States. Coleman includes the following program note in the score for Portraits of Langston:  ‘Portraits of Langston’, is a suite in six short movements, and is my take on Hughes’ poetic memories of Harlem and Europe (mainly Paris). I chose Langston not because of who he is in literature, but because he was in fact, an ‘eye-witness’ to legends born. His poems are so descriptive of the era, with references to particular settings and individuals that influenced him: Josephine Baker, Helen Keller, the nightlife/music of Harlem jazz clubs and Parisian cabarets. The imagery that Hughes provides gives me quite a historical palette that inspires me to illustrate a work truly unique to duo repertoire. Stylistically, this work incorporates many different elements that are translated into woodwind technique: the stride piano technique, big band swing, cabaret music, Mambo, African drumming, and even traditional spirituals.  See attached for the works by Langston Hughes. ******  A composer, pianist, and educator, Amanda Harberg studied composition and piano at Juilliard, and later went on to receive her PhD in composition from Rutgers. She currently is part of the composition faculty at Rutgers.   The inspiration for her Sonata for Clarinet and Piano came after hearing that a dear friend of hers passed away following a battle with cancer. Upon hearing this news, she leaned on the piano for support and the low F and B-flat came out accidentally and became the frame for the entire piece. The piece as a whole encapsulates the different emotions associated with the grieving process. The first movement, titled “Gentle/Playful,” is broken into three sections that take the listener on a journey through all the emotions someone may feel while looking through photos of a recently departed loved one. Movement two, “Interlude,” is a somber and emotional outcry depicting the stages of grief that are associated with trauma and loss. Movement two moves directly into the final movement, “Agitato.” Unrelenting from the start, Harberg juxtaposes a fast, leaping, and almost percussive motif with a singing and flowing motif throughout the first part of the movement. Material from both the first and second movements returns before a wild and rhapsodic cadenza closes out the movement. Helen Keller  She, In the dark, Found light Brighter than many ever see. She, Within herself, Found loveliness, Through the soul's own mastery. And now the world receives From her dower: The message of the strength Of inner power.   Danse Africaine  The low beating of the tom-toms, The slow beating of the tom-toms,        Low . . . slow        Slow . . . low —        Stirs your blood.                Dance! A night-veiled girl        Whirls softly into a        Circle of light.        Whirls softly . . . slowly, Like a wisp of smoke around the fire —        And the tom-toms beat,        And the tom-toms beat, And the low beating of the tom-toms        Stirs your blood.  Excerpt from The Big Sea – “Don’t Hit a Woman”  One night there was a terrific fight in the Grand Duc.  It began like this: a little French danseuse named Annette was going to have a child.  Feeling badly, no doubt, Annette began to be very spiteful to those clients who didn’t think that they could afford another bottle of champagne, so one night the owner of the place asked her not to come back anymore…He called an attendant to eject her. Annette would not go. The attendant laid hands on her and pushed her, struggling in her satin evening gown, toward the door.  As she passed the last table, Annette seized a patron’s champagne bucked – ice, bottle, and all – and flung it straight at the proprietor at his cash desk behind the bar; whereupon the attendant slapped Annette to the floor with one blow of his hand.  Then it was that Florence, the famous entertainer, that same Florence who snubbed millionaires nightly, arose from her table near the orchestra to defend the poor little French danseuse in her troubles. Florence wore an evening gown of gold and a spray of orchids in her hair. She swept across the floor like a handsome tigress, blocking the path of the waiters, who, at the bidding of the management, rushed to eject the little danseuse.  Florence said: “Don’t touch that woman! She’s a woman and I’m a woman, and can’t nobody hit a woman in any place where I work! Don’t put your hands on that woman.”  By that time the little danseuse had risen from the floor and seized another ice bucket, which she sent whirling into space. Customers dodged behind tables. The orchestra struck up “Tuck me to sleep in my Old Kentucky Home,” to drown out the noise.  A waiter did lay hands on the danseuse, but Florence laid hands on the waiter. Then the Negro manager laid hands on Florence, and a battle royal began between the women) and those who sided with the women) and the management (and those who sided with the men).  In Time of  Silver Rain  In time of silver rain The earth puts forth new life again, Green grasses grow And flowers lift their heads, And over all the plain The wonder spreads    Of Life,   Of Life,   Of life!  In time of silver rain The butterflies lift silken wings To catch a rainbow cry, And trees put forth new leaves to sing In joy beneath the sky As down the roadway Passing boys and girls Go singing, too,    In time of silver rain When spring   And life   Are new.  Jazz Band in a Parisian Café  Play that thing, Jazz band! Play it for the lords and ladies, For the dukes and counts, For the whores and gigolos, For the American millionaires, And the school teachers Out for a spree. Play it, Jazz band! You know that tune That laughs and cries at the same time. You know it.  May I? Mais oui. Mein Gott! Parece una rumba. Play it, jazz band! You've got seven languages to speak in And then some, Even if you do come from Georgia. Can I go home wid yuh, sweetie?  Summer Night  The sounds Of the Harlem night Drop one by one into stillness. The last player-piano is closed.  The last victrola ceases with the “Jazz Boy Blues.” The last crying baby sleeps And the night becomes Still as a whispering heartbeat. I toss Without rest in the darkness, Weary as the tired night, My soul Empty as the silence, Empty with a vague, Aching emptiness, Desiring, Needing someone, Something. I toss without rest In the darkness Until the new dawn, Wan and pale, Descends like a white mist Into the court-yard.       

Final Doctoral Recital

https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/context/electronic-disserations-theses/article/1018/filename/0/type/additional/viewcontent/Final_DMA_Recital_Program___Kinane.pdf

Final Doctoral Recital

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