≈ 90 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: January 10, 2024
Program
MISSY MAZZOLI Death Valley Junction for string quartet (10 min)
Yosuke Kawasaki, violin
Noémi Racine Gaudreault, violin
Tovin Allers, viola
Leah Wyber, cello
GITY RAZAZ Spellbound for solo viola (7 min)
Tovin Allers, viola
CAROLINE SHAW Boris Kerner for cello and flower pots (8 min)
Julia MacLaine, cello
Zac Pulak, flowerpots
AUGUSTA READ THOMAS Silent Moon for violin and cello (8 min)
I. Still: Soulful and Resonant –
II. Energetic: Majestic and Dramatic –
III. Suspended: Lyrical and Chant-like — “When twofold silence was the song of love.”
Yosuke Kawasaki, violin
Desiree Abbey, cello
JULIA WOLFE Early that summer for string quartet (12 min)
Yosuke Kawasaki, violin
Noémi Racine Gaudreault, violin
Tovin Allers, viola
Leah Wyber, cello
Sean Rice, host
Repertoire
Death Valley Junction for string quartet
Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (The New York Times) and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York), Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980) has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Opera, and many others. In 2018 she became one of the first two women, along with Jeanine Tesori, to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. She is Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012 to 2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. Upcoming commissions include works for Opera Philadelphia, the National Ballet of Canada, Chicago Lyric Opera, and Norwegian National Opera.
Mazzoli composed Death Valley Junction for string quartet in 2010 for Santa Fe New Music. As she describes, the piece “is a sonic depiction of the town of the same name, a strange and isolated place on the border of California and Nevada. The ‘town’ is home to three people and consists of a café, a hotel, and a fully functional opera house.” Mazzoli considers Death Valley one of her favourite places on Earth and is drawn especially to the “harshness of the landscape, the extreme weather, and the weird characters who live there.”
One of the town’s eccentric characters, Mazzoli notes, is Marta Becket, “the woman who resurrected and repaired the crumbling opera house in the late 1960s and performed one-woman shows there every week until her retirement [in 2009] at age 86.” Death Valley Junction is dedicated to Becket, who once compared herself to the single yellow flower that is able to, against all odds, flourish in the desert. This piece, which “begins with a sparse, edgy texture—the harsh desert landscape—and collapses into a wild and buoyant dance, attempts to depict some of her exuberant energy and unstoppable optimism.”
Spellbound for solo viola
Hailed by The New York Times as “ravishing and engulfing” and named a 2022 “Rising Star” by BBC Music Magazine, Iranian American composer Gity Razaz (b. 1986) writes music that ranges from concert solo pieces to large symphonic works. Her music has been commissioned and/or performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, Seattle Symphony, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, National Sawdust, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, former cellist of the Kronos Quartet Jeffrey Zeigler, cellist Inbal Segev, and the violinist Jennifer Koh, among many others. Her compositions have earned numerous national and international awards, including the Andrew Imbrie Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019.
Spellbound was commissioned by violist Maggie Snyder for the VIOLA2020 project in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment establishing American women’s right to vote. The piece appears on Razaz’s debut album The Strange Highway, released on BIS Records in August 2022, and has since garnered international praise. Born in Tehran before moving to the U.S. in 2002, Razaz often explores aspects of her immigrant identity in her music. In Spellbound, which “has the intimate quality of a reminiscing soliloquy”, she explains, “textures and soundscapes weave in and out of an original melody that conjures the improvisatory lyricism of traditional Persian music. I was particularly inspired by the mourning and sul ponticello [bowing very close the instrument’s bridge] sound quality that is inherent to Persian instruments such as the ney and kamanche.”
Boris Kerner for cello and flower pots
Caroline Shaw (b. 1982) is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She is the recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, several Grammy Awards, an honorary doctorate from Yale University, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. She has worked with a range of artists including Rosalía, Renée Fleming, and Yo-Yo Ma, and she has contributed music to films and TV series including Fleishman is in Trouble, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, and Beyoncé’s Homecoming. Her favourite colour is yellow, and her favourite smell is rosemary.
Shaw composed Boris Kerner in 2012 for New Morse Code, a cello and percussion duo. The piece takes its title from the name of the German engineer, physicist, and author of Introduction to Modern Traffic Flow Theory and Control: The Long Road to Three-Phase Traffic Theory, which Shaw acknowledges she had discovered through “the serendipity of the internet, through some late-night research and musing on the idea of friction and flow in Baroque bass lines.” Thus, Boris Kerner, she says, takes a “fun, instinctive, intuitive little dive into this idea of a musical line as kind of a traffic pattern, something that gets stuck and then releases.” The work is one in “a series of expositions” on the phrase “the detail of the pattern is movement” from T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets. As for flower pots as the percussion instrument, she selected the everyday ceramic type for their “beautiful, bell-like sound,” finding that they have a “delightful imperfection about them” against the “very cultivated” sound of the cello.
As Shaw describes, Boris Kerner begins with “a fairly typical 17th-century continuo-style line in the cello that leans and tilts, sensitive to gravity and the magnetism of certain tendency tones, before getting stuck in a repeated pattern. The flower pots enter the scene as an otherworldly counterpoint to this oddly familiar character, introducing a slightly cooler temperature to the Baroque warmth, and sometimes interrupting and sometimes facilitating the cello’s traditional flow of melodic traffic.”
Silent Moon for violin and cello
I. Still: Soulful and Resonant –
II. Energetic: Majestic and Dramatic –
III. Suspended: Lyrical and Chant-like — “When twofold silence was the song of love.”
The music of Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964 in New York) is described as nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and colourful. A composer featured on a Grammy Award–winning CD by Chanticleer and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Thomas has composed an impressive body of works that “embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). Her discography includes 90 commercially recorded CDs. Thomas is also a Professor of Composition in Music and the College at The University of Chicago, and in 2016 founded the university’s Center for Contemporary Composition. She was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997–2006) and was central in establishing the orchestra’s thriving MusicNOW series.
For Thomas, music “is an embrace of the world—a way to open myself up to being alive in the world in my body, in my sounds, and in my mind.” Composed in 2006, Silent Moon was “commissioned by, and is dedicated with admiration and gratitude to, Almita and Roland Vamos”, celebrated pedagogues of the violin and viola who are also wife and husband. Tonight, the work is being performed in its violin and cello version.
As Thomas describes,
“Silent moon” is a reference to the break in the stillness of winter that is indicative of a gathering of energy. Like the silence before the storm, the “silent moon” offers an opportunity to cleanse the past so that we might better shift our attentions to future growth.
This concept is often depicted through certain double-visaged gods and goddesses such as Janus, who looks simultaneously backward at the past and forward to the future.
A silent moon exists in the deep silence of winter earth after the solstice celebration heralding the birth of energy and the return of ever-lengthening daylight.
This is a time for stillness.
The quality of this moon’s energy is vivid.
Unfolding in three movements of distinct character which are played without pause, the music of Silent Moon “goes full cycle, coming back to its exact starting point, as if we hear one orbit.” In the title of the third movement, Thomas quotes the final line of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem Silent Noon—“When twofold silence was the song of love”, thus adding a tender poetic layer to Silent Moon that alludes to the eventual arrival of summer in the future and the intertwining parts of the violin and cello as if lovers.
Early that summer for string quartet
The music of Julia Wolfe (b. 1958) is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. She draws inspiration from folk, classical, and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them. Her music, which ranges from works for solo/duo to chamber ensemble to orchestra, band, chorus, and opera, has been heard at major venues throughout the world, and has been recorded on Decca Gold, Naxos, Cantaloupe Music, Teldec, Sony Classical, and Universal labels. In addition to receiving the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Wolfe was a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. She received the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music, and was named Musical America’s 2019 Composer of the Year. Julia Wolfe is co-founder / co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can, and she is Artistic Director of NYU Steinhardt Music Composition.
Wolfe has written a major body of work specifically for strings, including quartets that have been described in The New Yorker magazine as “combin[ing] the violent forward drive of rock music with an aura of minimalist serenity [using] the four instruments as a big guitar, whipping psychedelic states of mind into frenzied and ecstatic climaxes.” Early that summer, which she wrote for the Lark Quartet in 1993, is one such work.
In her program note to the piece, Wolfe said she began composing the piece while living in Amsterdam in 1992. At the time, she was also “reading a book about U.S. political history and the author kept introducing small incidents with phrases like ‘Early that summer…’ The incidents would eventually snowball into major political crises or events. I realized that the music I was writing was exactly like this—that I was creating a constant state of anticipation and forward build.”
When the Lark Quartet premiered the work, Wolfe said that she asked them “to play it the way they play Beethoven,” as she admired the clarity and strength with which they played his string quartets, “full of fire and aggression.” Later in an October 2001 interview with David Krasnow for Bomb Magazine, she admitted that “I didn’t know how intense that was going to be live. It’s a feat, and I didn’t set out to do that. It’s almost like a stutter, it has this interrupted feeling where all these patterns fight against each other, and then finally they get to a place where they rip. That goes on for a long time and it’s physically strenuous. The first time I saw people play it, I thought, Oh, my God, their arms are going to fall off. I did wonder, How over the top is this? Not every group’s going to want to play it, but there’s an effect from it, a reason to do it.”
Program notes compiled and edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Artists
Since its debut in 1969, the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra has been praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary educational programs, and its prominent role in nurturing Canadian creativity. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, reaching and representing the diverse communities we live in with daring programming, powerful storytelling, inspiring artistry, and innovative partnerships.
Alexander Shelley began his tenure as Music Director in 2015, following Pinchas Zukerman’s 16 seasons at the helm. Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and former Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (2009–2017), he has been in demand around the world, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Stockholm Philharmonic, among others, and maintains a regular relationship with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the German National Youth Orchestra.
Each season, the NAC Orchestra features world-class artists such as the newly appointed Artist-in-Residence James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Joshua Bell, Xian Zhang, Gabriela Montero, Stewart Goodyear, Jan Lisiecki, and Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds. As one of the most accessible, inclusive, and collaborative orchestras in the world, the NAC Orchestra uses music as a universal language to communicate the deepest of human emotions and connect people through shared experiences.
Yosuke Kawasaki currently serves as Concertmaster of the NAC Orchestra and Guest Concertmaster of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. His versatile musicianship allows him to pursue a career in orchestra, solo, and chamber music. His orchestral career began with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra and soon led to the Mito Chamber Orchestra, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, and the Japan Century Orchestra, all of which he led as concertmaster. His solo and chamber music career spans five continents, collaborating with artists such as Seiji Ozawa, Pinchas Zukerman, and Yo-Yo Ma and appearing in the world’s most prestigious halls such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall, and the Royal Concertgebouw.
Yosuke’s current regular ensembles are Trio Ink and the Mito String Quartet. His passion for chamber music led to his appointment as Music Director of the Affinis Music Festival in Japan. He is also an artistic advisor to the chamber music festival Off the Beaten Path in Bulgaria.
As an educator, Yosuke has given masterclasses and performed alongside students in schools across Canada. Well-versed in the string quartet literature, he was entrusted by Seiji Ozawa as the youngest faculty member of the Ozawa International Chamber Music Academy at age 26. He was also an adjunct professor of violin at the University of Ottawa School of Music from 2013 to 2022 alongside the beloved pedagogue Yehonatan Berick.
Yosuke began his violin studies at age six with his father, Masao Kawasaki, and Setsu Goto. He was subsequently accepted into The Juilliard School Pre-College Division, where he furthered his education. He graduated from The Juilliard School in 1998 under the tutorship of Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Felix Galimir, and Joel Smirnoff.
A dedicated champion of contemporary music, Montreal-born violinist Noémi Racine Gaudreault is renowned for the virtuosity and sensitivity of her playing. She has performed as a soloist in orchestras across Canada, the United States, France, and Turkey. In addition to her career as a soloist, Noémi is a much sought-after chamber musician, playing regularly in contemporary and chamber music festivals. She has been the Principal Second Violin of the Orchestre Métropolitain and solo violin of the SMCQ, the ECM, and the Quartango Ensemble. She holds a First Prize with Great Distinction from the Montreal Music Conservatory and an Artist Diploma from McGill University. Noémi currently lives in the National Capital Region. She is Assistant Concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
Originally from British Columbia, Tovin Allers joined the viola section of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 2023. While an avid orchestral musician, he enjoys all avenues of performance. A few highlights include performing with his quartet in the Moody Mansion Music Series in Galveston, Texas, on behalf of Rice University; providing a quartet recital for the NAC’s 50th anniversary; and performing as a soloist with the Victoria Symphony in the annual “Symphony Splash” event.
In the Ottawa area, Tovin was a part of the Back to Bach Project, introducing music to elementary school students; he taught with the Allegro Music School and was a substitute teacher at OrKidstra. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tovin participated in outreach projects in which he recorded the violin solo from Cinema Paradiso with the Ottawa Pops Orchestra, as well as a chamber music program for the Eine Kleine Distanced Music project led by the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, Tovin joined the University of Ottawa Summer String Academy as the Administrative Coordinator.
Prior pursuits led him to Houston, Texas, where he completed his master’s under the tutelage of Ivo-Jan van der Werff. He obtained his bachelor’s from the University of Ottawa, where he studied with Michael van der Sloot and Yehonatan Berick.
Leah Wyber is a native of Medicine Hat, Alberta. Her introduction to the cello began in a school strings program at age eight. She received her advanced musical training at the University of British Columbia and the Banff Centre. Eric Wilson, Paula Kiffner, and George Kiraly are among her most influential teachers.
Leah is a former member of La Pieta of Montreal, Thirteen Strings of Ottawa, the Atlantic String Quartet, and Joe Trio of Vancouver. She was also the principal cello of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra for several years. Some of the many festivals and programs she has participated in include Ottawa Chamberfest, the Scotia Festival, the Whistler Mozart Festival, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra.
Leah has been a member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 1993. In addition to performing alongside the wonderful cellists in the orchestra, she enjoys playing chamber music and teaching. Other interests include gardening, hiking, cross-country skiing, and curling.
Assistant Principal Cello of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 2014, Julia MacLaine performs worldwide as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician in music ranging from classical to contemporary and from ‘world’ to her own arrangements and compositions.
Julia enjoys exploring the juxtaposition of music with other art forms, of different styles of music, and of contemporary and classical music. Her début album, Préludes, released by Analekta in January 2022, features six new Canadian works written for her, alongside the six Préludes from the Bach Cello Suites that inspired the new pieces.
During the ten years she spent living in New York City, Julia collaborated frequently with composers, giving voice to new chamber and solo cello works. She has given premieres of music by Ingram Marshall, James Blachly, and Mauricio Pauly and has been a champion of Pedro Malpica’s Pachamama’s Catharsis for solo cello. With three other members of Ensemble ACJW, Julia created and performed an immersive tribute to whales and ocean life at the Museum of Natural History, featuring new American music, original poetry, and live painting. From 2005 to 2014, she was a member of The Knights, with whom she performed the Schumann Cello Concerto in Central Park.
Julia has performed at the Mecklenberg‐Vorpommern, Lanaudière, Bic, Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, and Ravinia Festivals in Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, and throughout Europe, the U.S., and Canada. She has performed with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Les Violons du Roy and counted Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, James Ehnes, Cynthia Phelps, Inon Barnatan, Jamie and Jon Kimura Parker, and the Orion String Quartet among her chamber music partners.
Originally from Prince Edward Island, Julia studied with Antonio Lysy at McGill University and Timothy Eddy at the Mannes College of Music and The Juilliard School. She lives in Wakefield, Quebec, with her partner (also a musician) and their son.
Canadian cellist Desiree Abbey performs regularly with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra as Principal Cellist, as an extra musician with the NAC Orchestra, and with various other ensembles in the National Capital Region. She has appeared as a soloist with the Guelph Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and National Repertory Orchestra.
Desiree’s 2023–2024 season includes a premiere of a cello concerto written for her by Canadian-Jamaican composer Ted Runcie with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of Jean-Marie Zeitouni. Fascinated with neuroscience and how the growing brain learns, Desiree is a dedicated teacher, maintaining a private home studio.
Zac Pulak’s enthusiasm for performing and the music he brings to audiences of all ages is boundless. The Ottawa-based percussionist has gathered awards, accolades, and a steady stream of invitations and commissions, with the CBC declaring Zac one of Canada’s “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30”. He has also been called “truly virtuosic and intense” (Confluence Concerts) and “above all, a melodist” (The WholeNote).
Recognized as “one of Ottawa’s most dynamic musicians” (CBC), Zac loves collaborating with other musicians. As a freelance percussionist, Zac performs with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Ottawa, Thunder Bay, and Kingston. Zac has also lent his sound to performances with artists and ensembles such as the Gryphon Trio, Bennewitz Quartet, theremin virtuoso Thorwald Jorgensen, soprano Wallis Giunta, and more.
The piano/percussion duo SHHH!! Ensemble is Zac’s main squeeze. Together with his partner Edana Higham they explore sonic worlds through a myriad of percussion instruments and piano. Working closely with composers such as Kelly-Marie Murphy, Harry Stafylakis, Monica Pearce, and Jocelyn Morlock, and others, they love to share the wonder of beautiful new sounds. SHHH!! Ensemble has released two albums to date: their debut album Meanwhile (2022, Analekta) was nominated for the East Coast Music Award’s “Classical Recording of the Year”, and SHHH!!’s sophomore album An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene (2023, Leaf Music) received a five-star rating by La Scena Musicale with them calling the project a “masterpiece” and “a much-needed reminder of the healthy world we’re all working toward”. SHHH!! has toured extensively across Canada, appearing at festivals such as New Works Calgary, Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival (Newfoundland), La Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (Montreal), Ottawa Chamberfest, GroundSwell (Winnipeg), and numerous others.
Originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Sean Rice has performed extensively throughout North America and around the world. His broadcasts include recitals with CBC Radio, performances for Swiss Radio DRS, and Lucerne Festival live streams for the 2016 New York Philharmonic Biennial and the 2019 Lucerne Festival Alumni Orchestra.
Recognized as an exciting interpreter of contemporary music, the New York Times has described Sean as a “technically precise, exuberant protagonist” in performance. Sean has performed at festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, Ottawa Chamberfest, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art Summergarden Series, the Toronto Summer Music Festival, and the Banff Music Festival. In addition to numerous New York Times reviews, Sean’s performances have received high praise from the Ottawa Citizen, Musical Toronto, and Artsfile. For a recent performance of Golijov’s Ayre at Ottawa Chamberfest, Musical Toronto wrote: “The performers were strong, especially NACO clarinetist Sean Rice, who unloaded a wailing solo that rivalled even the best Klezmer effort by Giora Feidman.”
Sean was invited at an early age to perform a concert with the National Arts Centre Orchestra during their 2002 Atlantic Tour and has subsequently appeared as a soloist with ensembles including the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Axiom, The New Juilliard Ensemble, and Symphony Nova Scotia. The recipient of numerous awards, Sean received first prize at the 2006 Canadian Concerto Competition hosted by the Orchestre symphonique de Québec. Following his 2007 Montréal debut at Jeunesses Musicales, La Presse wrote: “…clarinettiste canadien Sean Rice y révéla une technique impeccable, une authentique musicalité, une sonorité tour à tour éclatante et chaleureuse, et un vrai talent de chambriste.” Continuing the 2007–2008 season, Sean performed his first national tour with pianist Jean-Philippe Sylvestre for Jeunesses Musicales’ touring series. Since then, he has toured frequently throughout major cities across the United States, Europe, Malaysia, Brazil, and Japan.
As an educator, Sean has served as Visiting Professor at Memorial University (2017–2018) and Director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble at the University of Ottawa (2012–2017). He has been invited to give masterclasses at institutions such as the Royal College of Music, the Beijing Central Conservatory, the University of British Columbia, and the University of West England. Additionally, Sean has adjudicated numerous competitions, including the National Music Festival Competition held by the Canadian Association of Music Festivals. In the fall of 2021, Sean joined the clarinet faculty at the University of Ottawa.
As a conductor, Sean debuted in 2012 as the Director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble at the University of Ottawa. In 2017, he led an ensemble of musicians from the National Arts Centre Orchestra and made his international conducting debut at the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Vancouver. Recently, Sean conducted the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra for its 2021–2022 season opener—their first performance since the pandemic.
Outside the concert hall, Sean has developed a significant profile as a classical music podcaster and host. Under his tenure, the National Arts Centre NACOcast has enjoyed great success and international recognition, with Classic FM continuing to list his podcasts among the top ten in the world for classical music. Sean also hosts the NAC's WolfGANG Sessions — a contemporary music series he helped design and curate for the National Arts Centre.
Sean is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he received his Bachelor of Music while studying with Paul Bendzsa.
Continuing his studies under the tutelage of Charles Neidich, Sean graduated with a Master of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from The Juilliard School. Currently living in Ottawa, audiences can hear him perform regularly as a recitalist, chamber musician, and Second Clarinet/Bass Clarinet of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.