NOVA Chamber Music Series

Fry Street Quartet, music directors

Innovation & Tradition

Utah Museum of Fine Arts
01.29.2023 | 3pm

*Capricious Toccata: Dandelion Sky*

Augusta Read Thomas
(b. 1964)

Brant Bayless viola

In describing her work, Augusta Read Thomas says:

My music must be passionate; involving risk and adventure such that any given musical moment may seem surprising when first heard but, a millisecond later, seems inevitable. I think of my music as nuanced lyricism under pressure! That said, my primary artistic concern is to communicate in an honest and passionate voice, being faithful to my deepest inner promptings and creative urges. This way, any willing listener, irrespective of prior musical knowledge, training or background can engage with my music.

A toccata (from the Italian word for “touching”) is a piece of virtuosic music that features fast-moving technical passages that often have an improvised feel. In Capricious Toccata, jazzy dance rhythms give way to a central section in which the violist is instructed to play “clear and ethereal, like a translucent sky.” The “earthy and jazzy” music returns until it evaporates — “like a dandelion’s puff-ball blowing into the sky.”

*Beloved of the Sky*

Iman Habibi
(b. 1985)

The Fry Street Quartet
Robert Waters, Rebecca McFaul violin
Bradley Ottesen viola | Anne Francis Bayless cello

I. Forest
II. Beloved of the Sky
III. Woo
IV. Self-Portrait

Originally written for The Emily Carr String Quartet as part of my composer residency at Salt Spring Island’s ArtSpring, Beloved of the Sky pays tribute to one of Canada’s most iconic painters, Emily Carr. Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky is the title of an enchanting painting by Carr that I first encountered at the Vancouver Art Gallery many years before I started writing this piece. It shows an unusually tall isolated tree, reaching up to a bright spot in the center of the sky.

- Iman Habibi

Brant Bayless viola

Pulsar was inspired by “Star”, by poet Derek Walcott:

If, in the light of things, you fade
real, yet wanly withdrawn
to our determined and appropriate
distance, like the moon left on
all night among the leaves, may
you invisibly delight this house;
O star, doubly compassionate, who came
too soon for twilight, too late
for dawn, may your pale flame
direct the worst in us
through chaos
with the passion of
plain day.

Every listener brings their own unique perspective to the listening process. In Pulsar, I offer them aesthetic engagements with the world and with themselves as I, too, undertake a mission of self-discovery. Music of all kinds constantly amazes, surprises, propels and seduces me into wonderful and powerful journeys. I care deeply that music is not anonymous and generic — easily assimilated and just as easily dismissed and forgotten. Pulsar has passionate, urgent, seductive and compelling qualities of often complex (but always logical) thought allied to sensuous sonic profiles.

My favorite moment in any piece of music is that of maximum risk and striving. Whether the venture is tiny or large, loud or soft, fragile or strong, passionate, erratic or eccentric — the moment of exquisite humanity and raw soul! All art that I cherish has elements of order, mystery, love, recklessness and desperation. For me, music must be alive and jump off the page and out of the instrument as if SOMETHING BIG IS AT STAKE.

This artistic credo leads me to examine small musical objects (a chord, a motive, a rhythm, a color) and explore them from many perspectives. These different perspectives reveal new musical potentials which develop the musical discourse. In this manner, and in Pulsar in particular, the music takes on an organic, circular, self-referential character which, at the same time, has a forward progression.

- Augusta Read Thomas

*Source Code*

Jessie Montgomery
(b. 1981)

The Fry Street Quartet

The first sketches of Source Code began as transcriptions of various sources from African American artists prominent during the peak of the Civil Rights era in the United States. I experimented by re-interpreting gestures, sentences, and musical syntax (the bare bones of rhythm and inflection) by choreographer Alvin Ailey, poets Langston Hughes and Rita Dove, and the great jazz songstress Ella Fitzgerald into musical sentences and tone paintings. Ultimately, this exercise of listening, re-imagining, and transcribing led me back to the Black spiritual as a common musical source across all three genres. The spiritual is a significant part of the DNA of Black folk music, and subsequently most (arguably all) American pop music forms that have developed to the present day. This one-movement work is a kind of dirge, which centers on a melody based on syntax derived from Black spirituals. The melody is continuous and cycles through like a gene strand with which all other textures play.

- Jessie Montgomery

String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)

The Fry Street Quartet | Brant Bayless viola

Though Mozart had composed some 20 string quartets by the 1780s, he continued to experiment with alternate combinations, such as adding an extra viola to create a string quintet. In May 1787, he returned to this ensemble with two quintets: one in C major, and a second in G minor.

The String Quintet No. 4 in G minor is one of Mozart’s most pathos-filled pieces. Though it stays firmly within the constraints of conventional classical form, Mozart pushes boundaries in ways that intensify the tone of the work.

The first movement is in traditional sonata form — two themes are stated, they grow and develop, and the movement concludes by restating the themes. But rather than providing a second theme in a major key, as was normally the case in minor key works, both themes here are in G minor. Pulsing chords under these melodies drive the music insistently forward, with only occasional glimmers of hope in brief major key moments.

Mozart calls the second movement a minuet, but aggressive chords on the weak beats undermine the dance rhythms, and the tone evokes more of a dirge than the popular upbeat dance. We encounter some respite from the melancholia in a G major trio section, but this doesn’t last, and we’re soon back at the opening minuet.

Played entirely on muted instruments, the third movement features one of the most yearning melodies Mozart ever composed. On hearing it for the first time, Tchaikovsky wrote, “I had to hide in the farthest corner of the concert hall so that others would not see how much this music affected me.”

The final movement begins with a sorrowful lament over the same pulsing chords which opened the quintet. However, after a pause, a joyful G major melody comes bounding in — a moment made all the more surprising by the darkness through which we’ve traveled up to this point — and it’s with playful exuberance that Mozart leads us to the finale.

artists

Featured

Brant Bayless

viola

Fry Street Quartet

string quartet, music directors

our sponsors

This concert has been made possibly by Salt Lake City Arts Council

The Fry Street Quartet is supported by Frank & Joan Hanson

Beloved of the Sky and Source Code are supported by The Amphion Foundation

Capricious Toccata, Pulsar, and Brant Bayless are supported by The Cultural Vision Fund

NOVA would like to recognize the following government, corporate, and foundation partners for their generous support of our mission:

Aaron Copland Fund for Music
The Amphion Foundation
Chamber Music America
Cultural Vision Fund
Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation
Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University
George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation
Marriner S. Eccles Foundation
iZotope
O.C. Tanner
Rocky Mountain Power Foundation
Salt Lake City Arts Council
Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Parks (ZAP) Program
Sorenson Legacy Foundation
Utah Legislature | Utah Division of Arts & Museums
Utah State University Caine College of the Arts Production Services

In-kind contributors include:

AlphaGraphics
Bement & Company, P.C.
Michael Carnes
Taylor Audio
University of Utah School of Music
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Utah State University Caine College of the Arts Production Services

our donors

impresario ($2,500+)

Michael & Fran Carnes
John & Linda Francis
Eric & Nancy Garen
Joan & Francis Hanson
Hugh & Cindy Redd
Richard Segal
Kathryn Waddell
Frank & Janell Weinstock

benefactor ($1,000+)

Miguel Chuaqui in memory of Andrew Imbrie
Hillary Hahn & Jeff Counts
Diane & Michael L. Hardink
Keith & Suzanne Holbrook
Gordon Irving
G. Ronald Kastner, Ph. D.
William & Pam Littig
Douglas & Julie Meredith
Dr. Glenn D. Prestwich & Rhea Bouman
Aden Ross & Ric Collier
Steven & Barbara Schamel
Richard & Jill Sheinberg
Shiebler Family Foundation
Paul Watkins in memory of Beverly Watkins
Gail & Ned Weinshenker
Rachel White

underwriter ($500+)

Madeline Adkins & John Forrest
Alan & Carol Agle
Doyle L. Arnold & Anne T. Glarner
Sally Brush
Gretchen Dietrich & Monty Paret
Mark Gavre & Gudrun Mirin
David & Sherrie Gee
Josanne Glass & Patrick Casey
Ann & Dean Hanniball
Fred & Annette Keller in honor of Eric & Nancy Garen
Rendell Mabey
Jeffrey & Kristin Rector
Hal & Kathleen Robins
Susan and Glenn Rothman
Michael Rudick & Lani Poulson
Catherine Stoneman
Richard & Anna Taylor

sustainer ($250+)

Lila Abersold
Suzanne & Clisto Beaty
Larry & Judy Brownstein
Anne & Ashby Decker
Denise Cheung & Brad Ottesen
Andrea Globokar
Janet Ellison
Darrell Hensleigh & Carole Wood
Joung-ja Kawashima
Kimi Kawashima & Jason Hardink
Dr. Louis A. & Deborah Moench
Lynne & Edwin Rutan
Barry Weller
Brent & Susan Westergard
Kristine Widner in memory of David Widner
Susan Wieck

friend (under $100)

David Budd
Cathey J Tully
Elizabeth Craft
Paul Dalrymple
Amanda Diamond
Mila Gleason
Kristin Hodson
Sarah Holland
Kathryn Horvat
Kate Little & Ron Tharp
Kathleen Lundy
Ralph Matson
Jon Seger
Janine Sheldon
Robert & Cynthia Spigle
Michael Stahulak
Kody Wallace & Gary Donaldson
Steve Worcester
Anonymous (3)

endowment contributors

Joan & Francis Hanson
Corbin Johnston & Noriko Kishi
G. Ronald Kastner, PhD
David Marsh
Steven & Barbara Schamel