SEASON

2320152016

dare to listen

Oboe BlissElinor Armer Sacred Forest 6 min WORLD PREMIERE Tom Nugent oboe • Anna Presler violin • Ilana Thomas violin Phyllis Kamrin viola • Leighton Fong cello

Anthony Porter five, six, heaven... 4 min Anna Presler violin • Phyllis Kamrin viola • Leighton Fong cello

Manuel De Falla from Siete canciones populares Españolas 10 minarr. by Kurt Rohde El Paño Moruno Asturiana Canción Nana Polo Stacey Pelinka flute • Tom Nugent oboe Anna Presler violin • Leighton Fong cello

I N T E R M I S S I O N

Elinor Armer Taking the Waters on Oling Island 5 min Phyllis Kamrin viola

Arthur Bliss Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet, Op.44, F.21 25 min Assai sostenuto - Moderato Andante con moto Vivace Tom Nugent oboe • Anna Presler violin • Ilana Thomas violin Phyllis Kamrin viola • Leighton Fong cello

Left Coast gratefully acknowledges the support of San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund Grants for the Arts.

Sunday, January 31, 7pm 142 Throckmorton Theatre, Mill Valley

Monday, February 1, 8pm San Francisco Conservatory of Music

ANGELS / $1,000 and moreTim AllenJonathan Arons and Claire Max

Carol ChristMartin and Kathleen Cohn Philanthropic FundThomas and Judith DunworthRichard FabianDenise Filakosky and Richard Bergmann Judith FlynnJohn and Paula GambsFaye HinzeDan Joraanstad and Bob Hermann Horizons Foundation Kate KnickerbockerThomas Laqueur and Carla HesseDavid Low and Dominique Lahaussois

Therissa McKelvey and Heli RoihaParker Monroe and Tere Darragh

Sam Nichols and LaurieSan Martin in memory of Marilyn San Martin

Will and Linda SchieberSean VarahLena ZentallAnonymous (3)Anonymous in honor of Mildred Oliva and Marilyn Shaw

BENEFACTORS / $500–$999Ayako EnglishCharlotte Gaylord and Barrie Cowan Ali Kerim Tore Olivia Davis Neel and Stephen Hartzog

Louise ShalitMillicent TomkinsSean VarahAnonymous

SUPPORTING PARTNERS / $250–$499Mildred Allen Ross Armstrong Jeffrey and Katherine H. BarrMary BerryPatricia BrisonBliss and Gita CarnochanAndrew Clason and Sherrod Blankner

Chris and Diane DaviesJanie Green in honor of Martin Cohn

Judith HardingCindi King

Henrietta and Cole Locklear Susan Shalit and Mary Logger Chris McCrum and Liz VelardeNed MoranRobert RichterBill and Carol RohdeMichael RoweFrances SingerElizabeth Theil and Brian KincaidMark Theodoropoulos and Nancy Hall

Anonymous (4)

PARTNERS / $125–$249 Chikara AbeNick and Maggie Benavides Ruth Berins CollierMargaret DorfmanKathleen HenschelMargot Golding Katherine HollandKenneth JohnsonAudrey KamrinRobert and Ann KamrinVictoria KirbyMartin Krasney in memory of Sarah KrasneyKaty LonerganSean Meehan and Richard Freeman

Susan Rosin and Brian BockRandolph and Frances StarnMark Winges

FRIENDS / up to $124John Abelson and Christine GuthrieTyler ArbourNancy AxelronCadence BanulisRoss Bauer Norman Bookstein and Gillian Kuehner

Charlie BowenJohn and Mary CarisJamie and Alan CarlsonLouise Clubb Maggie and David CookePhilip CrawfordBeth and Norman EdelsteinSusanna Elm and Karl NettesheimJonathan FaveroJo FloydElizabeth FracchiaRobert GayleKay Sprinkel GraceChris and Patricia GilbertPaula and Eric GillettChristina and John GillisKrista Gullickson and Abhay GhiaraKurt Hauch

Sarah HesseAgatha HoffRichard Hutson and Kathleen MoranBarbara ImbrieBen Janken and Paul HeinRoy and Frances JohnsMichael Kamrin and Katie SeeSally LandisPamela Lee and Geoff KaplanRichard and Marilyn Lonergan Gerald MendelsohnHarold and Hilary MeltzerJoan MurrayBruce C. Tarter and Gabriela OdellJanet PelinkaWayne PetersonAnn and Bill PutnamRyan Rey Carl SchimmelMilton and Sondra SchlesingerAlicia VaccaroMary WildavskyMartha WiseNancy Wright Ron WynnAnonymous

ORGANIZATIONSAaron Copland Fund for MusicThe Chamber Music NetworkAndrew W. Mellon Foundation

Distinguished Achievement Award granted to Thomas Laqueur

Ann & Gordon Getty FoundationThe Bernard Osher Foundation Fromm Music FoundationGrants for the Arts; City and County of San FranciscoSan Francisco Arts Commission

Cultural Equity Grants Program

University of California, Davis Chancellor’s Fellowship Zellerbach Family Foundation

Recent contributions may not yet be reflected.

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Anna Presler

ARTISTIC ADVISOR Kurt Rohde PRESIDENT Martin Cohn

VICE PRESIDENTLena Zentall

TREASURER Will Schieber

BOARDJonathan AronsCarol ChristJudith FlynnKate KnickerbockerParker MonroeAndrea PlesnarskiMarilyn Zivian

MANAGING DIRECTOR Nick Benavides

PUBLICITY Genevieve Antaky

MARKETING, WEBSITE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA Lena Zentall PHOTOGRAPHY Jordan Murphy Jeanette Yu

Lena Zentall

contributors

CONTACT US 1 Topaz Way, San Francisco, CA 94131

415.617.LCCE (415.617.5223)www.LeftCoastEnsemble.orginfo@LeftCoastEnsemble.org

20152016 season 23, program 3 - january/february 2016

Elinor ArmerTaking the Waters on Oling Island (2003)

Oling Island is a mythical place where weather and water takes the form of music. The Olo

River there has magical healing powers. In this piece a dignified gentleman steps into the flowing music, is soothed, exhilarated, and ultimately intoxicated before he steps out again, restored.

Arthur BlissQuintet for Oboe and String Quartet (1927)

Arthur Bliss wrote his Oboe Quintet in 1927, the same year Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust and

Bartok’s third string quartet came out, and the year Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite premiered in Vienna. Bliss’ work sounds all his own, but also resonates with the sounds of his era; we hear sweet singing dissonances that resolve unexpectedly and veer towards surprising chords, and a fascination with folk and popular influences mixed with determined modernism. This piece for oboe is part of a cluster of works for the instrument, all written with the same oboist in mind: Léon Goosens’ remarkably beautiful sound inspired not only Bliss, but also Elgar, Britten, Bax, Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold. The first movement unfolds gently with a violin duet, adding instruments one by one until the oboe takes over and moves from the introduction into the main dance-like part of the music. In the second, we first hear a melody made to take advantage of the Goosens sound and then a quicker B section. The third movement draws on Irish folk music, fierce and unpredictable. The continually lengnthening phrases defy expectations and keep us off balance. Brightening gradually, the music carries to a direct quotation of Connelly’s Jig. Bliss brings the movement to a rousing conclusion first with exciting rhythmic overlays, then a raucous tutti section, and finally a great oboe cadenza.

MSRI HARMONIC SERIESMusic for Violin and Piano by Debussy, Zivian and Schumann.

Berkeley • Simons Auditorium, The Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Thurs 2/18/16 5:15pm

SET 4 MENDELSSOHN & NEW VOICESA beloved masterpiece of chamber music literature, Mendelssohn’s D Minor Piano Trio has much in common with three trios by up and coming composers of our time: Craig Walsh, Sean Varah and Jeremy Podgursky.

Mill Valley • Throckmorton Theatre Sun 3/20/16 7pm

San Francisco • SF Conservatory *Tues 3/22/16 8pm

Berkeley • Simons Auditorium, The Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Thurs 3/24/16 5:15pm

Please note in your calendar: our March performance in San Francisco will be on

Tuesday, March 22.

SET 5 NIKKI EINFELD + LEFT COASTNikki Einfeld, the soprano who starred in our recent opera production, sings Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock, music by Charles Ives, and other exquisite music; she is joined by Jerome Simas and Eric Zivian.

Berkeley • The Hillside Club Tues 5/31/16 7:30pm

Mill Valley • Millicent Tomkins Art Studio 31 Shell Road Sun 6/5/16 7pm

San Francisco • SF Conservatory Mon 6/6/16 8pm

Elinor ArmerSacred Forest (2015)

Sacred Forest opens with a lament from the English horn. The strings join in, slowly urging forward.

Together they find a place of peaceful meditation; here the music quotes the simple language of plainchant—tonally neutral, monadic, and still. From this all emerge renewed, combining their earlier material into an energized, polytonal denouement. The title is meant to suggest a mythical, mystical space, and should let listeners imagine their own ‘scenery’. I thank the Left Coast ensemble for the opportunity to write for this ensemble, particularly the English horn with its warm, poignant, sometimes feral tone. Special thanks also to Tom Nugent for his artful rendering as protagonist in this gentle drama. -Elinor Armer

Composer Elinor Armer comes from a family of writers, artists, and inventors. Born in Oakland,

California in 1939, raised in Davis, and educated in the Bay Area, she has spent her life on the West Coast and closely identifies with Northern California. Armer earned a BA at Mills College, studying composition with Darius Milhaud and piano with Alexander Libermann, and an MA in composition from SF State University, working with Roger Nixon. Armer’s music, widely performed throughout the United States and abroad, includes solo, chamber, orchestral, vocal, and choral works, many devoted to word-setting. Last season Armer mounted nine restropectives of her music, including four one-woman shows and four world premieres, celebrating her 75th birthday in a Diamond Jubilee series. Among her best-known works for a variety of forces is ‘Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts’, an eight-part fantasy series created over a ten-year period with writer Ursula K. Le Guin. In addition, Armer is soon to begin work on an opera based on Le Guin’s novel ‘Lavinia’. For all of her adult life, Armer has taught piano, theory, composition, and music history at every level, in schools and at her home in Berkeley. For the last 46 years she has been affiliated with the SF Conservatory of Music, where in 1985 she established the composition department, and where she continues to teach composition.

Anthony Porterfive, six, heaven... (2015)

five, six, heaven... was written as a quirky miniature for the players of the 2015 LCCE Intersection

Workshop. Follow the viola as the number of repeated notes at the end of each hocketed accompaniment figure count (and ultimately disregard counting) their way up. -Anthony Porter

Anthony (Tones) Porter is a pianist and composer based in Berkeley. He received his BA in Music and

Education from UC Berkeley, and his MM in Composition from the SF Conservatory of Music, studying with Dan Becker. His music has been performed at the Kennedy Center, Outside Lands Music Festival, the Jewish Community Center, ODC Dance, and The Freight & Salvage. In addition to concert music, he has written for radio, film and dance. He is a long-time member of the piano ensemble New Keys (www.new-keys.org) and an amateur accordionist. www.tonesporter.com

Kurt RohdeSiete canciones populares Españolas (1926/arr. 2015)

De Falla’s Siete canciones populares Españolas is one of those pieces that can sort of survive anything. It

started out as his arrangement of popular traditional Spanish folksongs, and has been subsequently transcribed for violin and piano, cello and piano, flute and piano, solo guitar, and an array of other instruments, including a version for orchestra by Berio. This quartet arrangement sets five of the original seven folksongs. - Kurt Rohde

Violist and composer Kurt Rohde is a recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim

Fellowship, the Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize, and has received commission awards from the Barlow, Fromm, Hanson, and Koussevitzky Foundations. He received the 2015 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A Professor at UC Davis, Rohde was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies in 2012–13. He plays viola with the Left Coast and serves as their Artistic Advisor. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Peabody Institute of Music and SUNY Stony Brook, he enjoys triple IPAs, long distance running, Philip K. Dick, and pretty much any new movie that has just been released.

notes and biographies

20152016 season 23, program 3 - january/february 2016

notes and biographies

upcoming events

Share your thoughts on music and more with the Left Coast musicians at our after-concert gathering!

Following the San Francisco concert meet us for food and drinks at SAUCE, located just down the street at 131 Gough, between Oak and Page. See you there!

AFTER

THE

CONCERT

GUEST ARTIST

Violinist Ilana Thomas has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Highlights include

solo appearances with the SF Symphony and the Albany (NY) Symphony, as well as appearances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Thomas has appeared in Broadway productions in New York City and recorded music for the Nickelodeon cartoon, The Backyardigans.