Ravinia 2023 Issue 3

KRYSTLE CONYE (CLARK); BILL KEEFREY (ZWILICH) ; I I I ANTHONY BLAKE CLARK Recently named chorus director with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, conductor Anthony Blake Clark has prepared choral ensembles for performances with such or- chestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Balti- more, City of Birmingham, and Richmond Symphonies in collaboration with conduc- tors Marin Alsop, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Fa- bio Luisi, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, and Simon Halsey. He and his choirs have been featured at the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Konzer- thaus, Symphony Hall Birmingham and St. Martin-in-the-Fields in the UK, The Kenne- dy Center, and the Washington National Ca- thedral, among other major venues. As music director of Baltimore Choral Arts, Clark has been recognized with an American Prize in Choral Conducting and a nomination for the Chorus America/ASCAP Alice Parker Award. He annually conducts and produces the ensemble’s “Christmas with Choral Arts” television concert, which has received three regional Emmy nominations. After an enthu- siastically received UK tour, Clark and BCA was in residence with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus for perfor- mances of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and recently collaborated with the Vienna Singa- kademie alongside Alsop and the Vienna Ra- dio Symphony. Clark is also artistic director of Bach Vespers in New York City, present- ing Bach’s works using historically informed practices within the liturgical context with the Bach Choir and Players, and he has also served as director of choruses for the Rich- mond Symphony. Equally adept in the or- chestral field, Clark made conducting debuts with the Baltimore Symphony in 2021 and Richmond Symphony in 2022. A passion- ate teacher, composer, and arranger as well, Clark served as Director of Choral Activities at George Washington University in DC and was recently a guest conductor/lecturer for the Westminster Choir College Symphonic Choir. He is currently in doctoral studies of orchestral conducting at the Peabody Insti- tute under the guidance of Alsop. Last year, his new performance edition of Mozart’s Re- quiem was recorded by Acis Records. BENNETT GORDON HALL 2:00 PM SATURDAY, JULY 22, 2023 RAVINIA STEANS MUSIC INSTITUTE PROGRAM FOR PIANO & STRINGS PROGRAM TO INCLUDE: ZWILICH Double Quartet for Strings * Allegro moderato Lento Allegro vivo Adagio See tonight’s insert for complete program information. * First performance at Ravinia Ravinia is grateful for the Lead Sponsorship of Breaking Barriers 2023 In Honor of Sandra K. Crown . ELLEN TAAFFE ZWILICH (b.1939) Double Quartet for Strings Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, one of the most herald- ed American composers of her generation, played piano, jazz trumpet, and violin while growing up in Miami, FL. She attended Florida State University as a violinist and composer. After receiving her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Zwilich taught brief- ly in South Carolina before moving to New York City, where she further studied violin with Richard Burgin and Ivan Galamian as well as played in the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. Mean- while, she entered the doctoral program in composition at Juilliard. “At that time, the composition department was really quite remarkable,” Zwilich ex- plained in a PBS American Masters inter- view in 2000. “For one thing, it didn’t have a compositional point of view. You had peo- ple from Vincent Persichetti to my teach- ers, Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter, each of whom represented extremely different points of view. And I liked that because I think in the arts there’s too much teaching of taste and not enough of just sheer technique, and the whole issue for creative artists is finding your own voice.” Zwilich became the first woman to receive a doctorate in compo- sition from that institution. Unfortunately, the “first woman” designa- tion—rather than pure artistic merit—came to define her subsequent achievements in the minds of many. When Zwilich received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1983 for her Symphony No. 1, she once again broke barriers as the first female winner of this prestigious award. She instantly gained in- ternational attention as a composer, making gender issues irrelevant. Countless American orchestras and chamber ensembles have performed, commissioned, and recorded Zwilich’s music. Her awards in- clude the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Cham- ber Music Prize, A. I. duPont Composer’s Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Awards, and multiple Grammy nominations. She held the inaugu- ral post of Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall from 1995 until 1999. Her tireless efforts on behalf of established and up-and-coming American composers resulted in, among oth- er projects, the award-winning “Making Mu- sic” series. Musical America named Zwilich its 1999 Composer of the Year, and the Amer- ican Academy of Arts and Letters elected her into its membership in 2004. Zwilich current- ly serves as Marie Krafft Distinguished Pro- fessor at Florida State University. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Cen- ter commissioned and premiered Zwilich’s Double Quartet for Strings on October 21, 1984; the Emerson Quartet joined forces with a quartet of Society members on that occasion. Zwilich describes the relationship between the string quartets as an evolution- ary set of “tensions” taking place over four movements. Her vision calls for a spatial separation of the two ensembles, preferably on opposite sides of the stage. In the Allegro , musical ideas introduced in one quartet reap- pear in the other. Tension shifts in the Lento to a “competition between players of the same instrument,” initially with the cellos and later between the violas. The Allegro vivo begins with rapid antiphonal exchanges between quartets. The tension reaches its highest point before the instruments begin to blend into a single ensemble. This “dramatic unity of ef- fort” continues into the final Adagio . Zwilich anchors this score on the pitch D (the music shifts between major and minor modes) and two fundamental motives, one chromatic and the other a large melodic leap. Textures range widely from unisons to dense sonorities built on multi-stops in the strings. –Program notes © 2023 Todd E. Sullivan Ellen Taaffe Zwilich RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 35