Sunday, August 22, 3:00pm
Urbana Free Library (Lewis Auditorium)
Program
Elaine Fine – Windy Nights, from A Cellist’s Garden of Verses
Elaine Fine [b. April 30th, 1959] is a local American composer. After getting her bachelors of music, Elaine moved to Graz Austria to teach and perform with orchestras. She later left Graz and ended up in Vienna. Windy Nights is inspired by an arrangement of poems called “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The poem goes:
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.
Philip Glass – Movement 3, from Songs and Poems
Philip Glass [b. January 31st, 1937 ] is an American composer. At age 15, he enrolled at the University of Chicago to study philosophy and mathematics. He later studied composition at The Juilliard School of Music. His composition earned Oscar nominations for scoring the films Kundun, and The Hours and Notes on a Scandal. Songs and Poems was written for, and first performed by Wendy Sutter on February 13th, 2007.
David Popper – Gavotte, Op. 23
David Popper [b. June 16th, 1843 – August 7th, 1913] was a Bohemian cellist and composer from The Romantic Era. He studied music at the Prague conservatory under Gulius Goltermann. He soon attracted attention and was recommended to a position as Chamber Virtuoso in The Court of Prince Von Hochenzollern-Hechingen in Lowenberg. A Gavotte is a medium paced French dance that was popular during the 18th century.
William Henry Squire – Tarantella, Op. 23
William Henry Squire [b. August 8th, 1871 – March 17th, 1963] was a 20th century British composer and music professor. Tarantella means “Dance of the Spider”. The word Tarantella comes from the Italian word “tarantolla” which means tarantula. The tarantolla got its name from a village called Taranto in Puglia, where the bite of a local wolf spider was believed to be very poisonous and led to a condition called “tarantism”.
Camille Saint-Saëns – Allegro Appassionato, Op. 43
Camille Saint-Saëns – Le Cygne, from Le Carnval des animaux
Camille Saint-Saëns [b. October 9, 1835 – December 16, 1921] was a French composer from The Romantic Era. He is well remembered for his symphonic poems. He played piano and organ but was also a writer and poet. Allegro Appassionato means joyful, passionate, and it was previously meant to be the encore to a performance. Le Cygne means “The Swan” and it is the 13th movement of Carnival of the Animals. It was originally written for cello accompanied by two pianos, but has since been transcribed for many other instruments.
Heitor Villa-Lobos – O Canto do Cisne Negro, W. 122
Heitor Villa-Lobos [b. March 5th, 1887 – November 17th, 1959] was a 20th century composer, cellist, and classical guitarist. His works contained a blend of Brazilian folk music and stylistic rudiments from European conventional customs. He performed mainly in Paris and New York but moved back to Brazil to become a co-founder of the Brazilian Academy of Music. “O Canto do Cisne Negro” means “Song of the Black Swan.
Friedrich August Kummer – Andantino Pastorale, Op. 105 No. 3
Friedrich August Kummer [b. August 5th, 1797 – August 22nd, 1879] was a German cellist, oboist, and composer from the Romantic era. As a child, he studied with notable performers Friedrich Dotzauer and Bernhard Romberg. A pastorale is a piece of music that describes a simple, old-fashioned life in the country
Performers
Morgan Miner
My name is Morgan Miner, and I live in Champaign IL. I am fourteen years old, and I started playing cello when I was six. I wish to pursue music as my career and perform at a professional level.
I’ve recently performed with the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra along with the chamber orchestra of the Illinois String Academy at the University of Illinois.
I found my desire to perform when I went to my first concert when I was five years old. I became interested in other kinds of music when I went to Austria. I went to several concerts while I was there, but the most inspirational was in Salzburg. It was a chamber concert, where the performers were very detailed and dramatic in their characters, which was something I hadn’t heard before.
This year I will be attending The Interlochen Academy of Performing Arts in Michigan.
Jesse Cunningham
As a pianist, vocal coach and conductor, Jesse Cunningham has been exposed to diverse repertoire and has worked with a wide range of musicians, from young students to emerging artists and professional musicians. In the past, she has worked with Indianapolis Opera, Chicago Summer Opera, Bay View Music Festival for Opera, MIOpera, New York Lyric Opera and Lyric Theatre at Illinois and has held staff positions at the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, Eastern Illinois University and Mannes School of Music. Currently, Jesse works as the Chorus Master and Collaborative Pianist at Winter Opera St. Louis. Jesse has a DMA in Vocal Coaching and Accompanying from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MM and BM in Piano Performance from Florida International University.
Sam Araya
Sam (he/him) is an American-Swiss cellist of Chilean heritage (él habla español) living in Urbana, IL. He regularly plays, practices, performs, teaches, arranges, and composes Traditional Children’s Songs, Folk Songs, Western Classical Music, and Popular Music. His compositions and arrangements are published on IMSLP and Sheet Music Plus.
