Program Notes:



Program Notes:[1]

Astralis tells a story about mans’ changing view of the universe where music, images and connected interludes embody the quality of a particular place and time. The stars have remained essentially the same throughout human history and therefore provide a valuable constant to understand our past and present societies. The journey from the earliest hunter-gatherers to our present frenetic and technological civilization has generated many beautiful interpretations of the stars, each unique in its way of explaining the universe and our place in it. These views have reflected and informed the way people live their lives. In the end, every atom of our bodies, of the air we breathe and of the world around us is made up of ancient stars. We are intimately tied to them and their impact on us is profound.

What follows is an extremely brief synopsis of each of the world-views we have chosen to highlight.

Magic Period: 100,000 - 20,000 years ago

Interlude Image: The stars as they would have appeared exactly 100,000 years ago to the day of this concert over Southold Auditorium.

The magic period was a time where everything behaved independently. Man’s universe the world he believes to be the Universe endowed everything with life and spirit. It was a looking-glass universe where magic was “the mind made explicit in the external world.” Each rock, flower, animal and star was filled with spirits that influence the way they act.

It was the most intuitive and lucid universe internally. The magic universe reflected individuals and families. The stars might have been seen as campfire around which other, distant families gathered. Development to the mythic age was purchased at the cost of increased mystery and perplexity and the loss of magic and spirit as seen in all things.

Mythic Period: 5000 BC – 600 BC

Interlude Image: The stars as they would have appeared exactly 1000 years ago with the overlay of the constellations.

The life that was part of all things ebbed and the power was consolidated into gods who removed themselves from the sphere of man. Epitomized by the cosmic gods of the delta civilizations (Nile, Euphrates-Tigris, and Indus), the mythic period signaled the end of enchantment with nature. Gods endowed the world with order and design. Everything behaved as if jerked into obedience by strings. There was little harmony in the interaction between people and gods but great study of the stars by mythic priests. Because gods become primary, humans have the justification for large scale farming, hunting and of course, war, as individuals no longer are endowed with divine spirit. We find star charts, constellations of the zodiac and movement of the planets but as a history of the God’s actions not a coherent interrelationship.

Geometric Period: 600 BC – 500 AD

Interlude Image: An animated Robert Fludd graphic of the Ptolemaic universe.

Intellectual activity quickened everywhere and found its epicenter in the Ionian civilization, decedents of the mysterious Minoans. The Greeks dissected and speculated and once again awoke the dead matter of the mythic age. Anaximander conceptualized cause and effect and the scientific method. Parmenides wrote of absolute truth, beauty and goodness and as a society the Ionians split science from philosophy. The first was the study of how, the second of why.

The geometric universe is one of the mind as opposed to the earlier worlds of the gods. Anaxagoras postulated that the moon reflects light, that stars are fiery bodies, that things everywhere have similar laws. Pythagoras found the earth to be a sphere and the universe itself to be a finely tuned instrument of celestial spheres.

This was a universe where thought provided answers. Ptolemy’s description of the universe, the Almagest, was the last great achievement of the geometric universe.

Medieval Period: 500 AD – 1200 AD (zenith) – 1600 AD

Interlude Image: A series of Romanesque, Baroque and Renaissance paintings considering the western European view of the heavens.

This universe as described in the scriptures put God in a primum mobile far beyond the fixed space of stars. Humans were the center of all events “blessed by religion, rationalized by philosophy, and verified by geocentric science, the medieval universe gave meaning and purpose to life on Earth.” Space was overwhelming in greatness but satisfying in harmony. In fact the world was not the center but God.

The middle ages spawned a revolution in which specialized skills no longer remained confined to palaces. Arts, crafts and sciences blossomed. Ordinary people, under the hand of a caring God and church were released from drudgery while universities provided broader educations than even current incarnations.

The deathblow to the medieval universe came from within. The bishop Etienne Tempier condemned Paris scholars in 1277 for putting limits on the power of God who was infinite. This led the way to the Copernican revolution.

Infinite Period: 1277 AD – 1650 AD

After the introduction of Tempier’s Trojan horse, the world was opened for the Newtonian world. In addition, the Ptolemaic system whose geometric machinery had become labyrinthine was clearly inconsistent with Pythagoras’s harmonious motion. This period, as each following, was influenced by William of Ockham’s razor which states, “ it is foolish to accomplish with a greater number of steps what can be done with fewer.” From the 15C to the 17C universities added little to science as they were still mired in the Aristotelian universe. Work was left to theologians.

During this time Bishop Nicole Oresma liked the universe to a delicately adjusted clock and Nicholas Copernicus, a canon in Frauenburg, wrote Revolutions of the Celestial Order, in 1543 placing the sun at the center of the universe.In Rome, Geodorno Bruno, Dominican monk, championed the infinite universe and was burned at the stake. Tycho Brache confirmed that the earth was in fact not in the center and Kepler inherited his records and discovered the elliptical orbits of the planets, which set the stage for the mechanistic universe.

The world had been prepared for the Newtonian universe, which was the old atomist universe from the geometric period with an inlay of medieval spirit (in its belief that space was possible with its lack of matter).

Newton published in 1665 the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. It succinctly explained the nature of gravity and the motion of the planets and stars as well as falling apples and the motion of wheels. The simple explanation could only be the hand of God at work.

In the end, “no other proof for existence and the nature of God has ever matched the elegance and self-consistency offered by the Newtonians.” It introduced the mechanistic universe and deism supplanted theism.

Mechanistic Period: 1665 AD – 1900 AD

Interlude Image: Hale Bop traveling around the sun

The Mechanistic contains a whole cycle within itself. From the Age of reason through the reaction of the romantic age and on to the final dominance of the mechanistic universe, it is a story of the fall of the mythic universe.

During the Age of Reason in which Descartes stated, “I think, therefore I am,” the possibility of understanding all the riddles of nature was considered possible and the “world seemed bright and young, free of the dead hand of the Renaissance period with its conviction that all was senile and exhausted.” Lofty thoughts descended to street level and the question, ‘why?’ was removed further from consideration.

Laws of Nature supplanted the direct participation of a supreme being. The universe of sublime order was self-running. “God withdrew into a vague background of abstract being as the indispensable architect of it all.”

The relationship of human beings to Nature usurped the relation of human beings to God. The Age of Reason brimmed with bright hopes and utopian dreams.

Thomas Paine demanded “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Natural science was harnessed to industry. The development of the steam engine gave impetus to the industrial revolution and the torment of heretics by the church ceased. Everyone became project crazy.

The ancient world had been overtaken. It was a cuckoo universe, soon to attain such compelling power that it would enforce worldwide adoption.

Physical Period: 1900 AD – 2003 AD

Interlude Image: A fanciful trip into a star where fusion provides the building blocks for life and then on into the core of the hydrongen atom, the most abundant element in nature. Here we imagine our inner cosmos ending with subatomic particle tracks: the evidence for that which we can’t see.

Our bounding principle that is applied to delineate all that is part of our universe is that it is physical. All else is mythic in nature. There is vast wonder in this view enabled by technology and the brilliant work of scientists worldwide.

We have extended the boundaries of the knowable to an incredible extent. We can see back through time to over 14 billion years and deep into the reaches of inner space. We have found as we approach the extreme early universe (in our theories, for we can only “see” back to 1 billion years after the big bang and have evidence only in the form of background radiation back to the first moments of the big bang) change happens more quickly. After 1 second from the big bang most of history had already occurred. “The complexity of the extreme early universe reflects the complexity of the subatomic world, and our understanding of what happens, which is not very much, depends on what we know of the world of subatomic particles.”

“When the universe is the age of one Planck period, the entire observable universe fits into a size smaller than a hydrogen atom. Around us lies a foam of inconceivable chaos in which time and space are torn into discontinuities of cosmic magnitude. An orderly historical sequence of events has ceased to exist, and past and future have become meaningless.”

The Modern Period: 2004 A.D.

Interlude Image: Traveling from outside the Tully Database from the visible universe to our location here.

Light traveling at 186,000 miles a second from the sun takes 500 seconds to reach us and 5 hours to reach Pluto. Light from the nearest star takes years to reach us. 100 billion stars make up our galaxy. Light takes 100,000 years to travel the diameter of the Milky Way. The Solar System rotates around the galactic center once every 200 million years. Light from one of our neighboring galaxies, the Andromeda, takes 2 million years to reach us. There are trillions of galaxies in our observable universe.

We find ourselves, having traveled to the limits of the microcosm, returning from the limit of the macrocosm to where we began: our precious planet and ourselves. Here, until we meet others from distant worlds, we will have to rely on our imagination and knowledge to understand our place in the universe.

We find we have come full circle. Our deep internal world and our distant external world has are still filled with magic and the unknowable. The cycle continues . . .

Evening Star: The future

Interlude Image: The magic of the stars once again. Images taken only weeks ago by the groundbreaking Hubble telescope.

The magic to be found in the first period has returned in the smallest and largest of spaces and times, inundating all life, time and space. Nellie Ruben’s Song at the beginning of these notes related how through song, the stars will return to us.

Maybe one day through a combination of music and science, through a song of the stars we will come to understand them and ourselves.

About the Premieres:

Robison Sextet: I wrote this piece specifically inspired by the life and death cycles of the universe. I took the position of a privileged audience to our interstellar theater where time rushes by through the vast eons leading up to the birth of life on earth (being the Earth-centric person I am). As we get closer to human emergence, time slows and we notice ever more detail. I wanted to paint the various stages of universal development. The piece opens with the rush of the big bang followed by the birth of the first stars. Their vast energy is represented in a kinetic choral to the their death and phoenix-like rebirth as the star which we now see as represented by a short fuge leading to a warm melody representing the emergence of earth and life. After the various motives expire. We end with the explosion of a star and the incredible release of energy that represents. I was interested in writing something fun and enjoyable that focused on the grandeur of the universe.

Walker Sextet: depicts the preparation and lift off of an imaginary space ship for distant worlds. It draws on the chord structure from John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, which is also the inspiration for the title. The first two sections depict the hustle and bustle of prepartions while the final section takes us out of our atmosphere and into interstellar space.

Interestingly although they were written without knowledge of each other and only with the most general theme in mind, the augmented triad, which is two major thirds on top of each other forms the harmonic basis for both the Robison Sextet and Walker’s Sextet.

Biographies:

Nicholas Walker is a Fulbright Scholar and a recipient of the Annette Kade Fellowship, Nicholas Walker studied at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and at the Nadia Boulanger Conservatoire de Paris. Walker has been honored with the Clifford Brown Memorial Young Talent Award, and with featured performances for the International Society of Bassists, the International Society of Jazz Educators, and the American String Teacher’s Association. Walker has performed throughout the United States and in over a dozen other countries, including solo recitals in Italy, France, Canada, and Australia. As a composer Walker writes music for a variety of venues including pieces for jazz combo, big band, musical theatre, string quartet, film, and for various chamber music combinations. In 1998 Walker was awarded the International Grand Prize for his composition ''EADG for Solo Bass'' by the International Society of Bassists. As a freelance musician he has collaborated with a diverse and impressive array of musicians, including recordings with Blossom Dearie, Anny Gould, Paquito D’Rivera, and Juan Pablo Torres. Walker is honored to have apprenticed with two master mentors: three years with swing-era saxophone legend Illinois Jacquet, and over ten years with the pioneer of the string bass, Francois Rabbath.

Omar Guey has performed as a soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician throughout Brazil, the United States, Taiwan, France, Italy, Israel and Norway. He has been a featured soloist with the Brazilian Symphony, Campinas Symphony, Goiania Symphony, Sao Paulo University and Sao Paulo Municipal Symphony Orchestras as well as performing with the Manhattan School of Music, Sao Paulo State and the Experimental Repertoire Symphony Orchestras as a winner of their concerto competitions. His recitals include a chamber music concert with Lynn Harrell at the Aspen Music Festival and a performance for the King Harald V of Norway. In 2001, he was a prize winner at both the Tibor Varga (Switzerland) and Rodolfo Lipizer International (Italy) Violin Competitions. Mr. Guey’s performances have been broadcast on television and radio and his recording of the Bach Concerto for Two Violins with Brazilian soloist Elisa Fukuda and the Camerata Fukuda was released on the Paulinas Label. Mr. Guey studied at Indiana University, Manhattan School of Music, where he received the Raphael Bronstein Award, and the Julliard School with teachers Sylvia Rosenberg and Robert Mann.

Elizabeth Silver is the technical director for the Staller Center. Concurrently she is the resident lighting designer for the Seiskaya Ballet and frequent collaborator with the Sullivan Dance Project.  She also designs for the Stony Brook Opera Ensemble and Stony Brook Stages.  Theater credits include The Rover directed by Paul Kassel, Polaroid Stories directed by Talvin Wilks and A Macbeth directed by John Lutterbie. Dance credits include Origins and Destinations choreographed by Amy Yopp-Sullivan, The Unicorn, The Gorgan and The Manticore choreographed by the Lumiere Dance Company and This woman stands... choreographed by Amy Yopp-Sullivan. Opera credits include L'incoronazione di Poppea stage direction by Ronald Luchsinger and Thief of Love stage direction by Ned Canty and Cosi Fan Tutte stage direction by Beth Greenburg.

Benjamin Robison has performed as soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician in France, Italy, Greece, Canada and the United States. Mr. Robison began studying the violin at age three. While still in high school he was a prizewinner in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. After a two-year sojourn studying theoretical physics, he returned full time to music in 1992 and won the grand prize at the Canadian National Music Festival. Since that time, he has won numerous competitions and performed as chamber musician and soloist in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean while collaborating with musicians like Anton Kuerti, Laurence Lesser and David Finckel. Most recently he was awarded the Prix de Fontainebleau for chamber music by Philipe Entremont. Mr. Robison earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a performance diploma from the Peabody Conservatory. He is currently pursuing his doctorate and teaching at Stony Brook University, studying with Ani Kavafian and Philip Setzer. His former teachers include David Cerone, Claude Richard and Steven Majeski. His interests include literature, architecture, chess, Go, hiking, and poetry.

Nicole Hanson has appeared as concerto soloist the Minnesota Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Sinfonia, and the Masterworks Festival Orchestra. Her competition successes include winning the Young People’s Symphony Concert Association auditions 1999, the National Alliance for Excellence Honored Scholars & Artists ALEX Award (twice), and the silver medal at the 26th Annual Stulberg International String Competition. Miss Hanson has appeared in recital at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, and performed as a guest artist on national public radio’s, A Prairie Home Companion, hosted by Garrison Keillor. Miss Hanson is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at Stony Brook University, where she is a student of Colin Carr. She has previously studied with Steven Doane and Peter Howard.

Laura Karney received her undergraduate degree in oboe performance from the Eastman School of Music. Recently, Laura completed a long-term residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts where she collaborated with international jazz and classical musicians including Christopher Millard, Mike Murley and Hugh Frasier. During the summer, Ms. Karney has performed at the Sunflower Music Festival, Yellowbarn Music Festival, Hot Springs Music Festival and with the Banff Centre Chamber Orchestra. Her teachers include Barb Bishop, Nancy Ambrose King and Richard Killmer.

Chi-Yuan Chen, born in Taipei, Taiwan is a two-time winner of the Taipei Viola Competition and a winner of National Taiwan Academy of Arts Concerto Competition. In 1999, Mr. Chen became the first violist ever to win the New England Conservatory Concerto Competition since its inception in1867. Besides his solo performances, Mr. Chen is also an active chamber music performer. His recent concert engagements include Taiwan, Japan, Germany and North America. Chen has performed as guest artist with numerous ensembles such as Boston Chamber Music Society, Metamorphosen and the Gardner Museum Chamber Ensemble in Boston. He has collaborated with artists such as George Perle, Elliot Carter, Yo-Yo Ma, Paula Robinson, Lawrence Lesser, James Buswell, and Lynn Chang among others. In 2000, his string quartet won the silver medal in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in South Bend, Indiana. A graduate of New England Conservatory with the highest distinction in performance in both Bachelor and Master degrees, Mr. Chen is currently pursuing his Doctoral degree at Stony Brook University, studying with Katherine Murdock. His former teacher includes Peng Pan, Ben Lin, James Dunham and Martha Katz.

-----------------------

[1] All quotations and many of the concepts in these notes are derived from Masks of the Universe by E. Harrison

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download