Toshiro Saruya, DAWN PINK (AURORA BOREALIS) (CrossSound '99 Commission) for violin - Steve Tada, viola - Julia Bastuscheck, french horn - Bill Paulick, euphonium - Nathan Bastuscheck, flute - Sally Schlichting, oboe - Jan Coldwell

"When I heard that this piece would be premiered in Alaska, I remembered that on my childhood globe of the world, Alaska was colored pink, but I did not know why.

"Later I found out that the color was called "dawn pink" which suggested to me the goddess of dawn named Aurora in Roman mythology. In Japanese (as in English), we use the word "aurora" for the Northern Lights.

"When particles enter the atmosphere along the lines of the earth's magnetic field, they radiate light across the whole spectrum, as if they admire the grandeur of Aurora. I hope this piece conveys something of this mystical idea, and that the spectrum of the musical sounds expresses my longing for Aurora and appreciation for the natural beauty of Alaska." — Toshiro Saruya, 1999

Stefan Hakenberg, SIR DONALD (CrossSound '99 Commission) for kayagûm (Ji Aeri), baroque cello (Phoebe Carrai), and ch'anggu (Kim Woong-sik)

"When the opportunity came up to write for baroque cello in combination with kayagûm and changgu, the Korean-American composer Donald Sur had just passed away. Donald loved the kayagûm and was an ever curious scholar of Korean music. He was always, until his death, eager to share his insights into Korean music in a way that would be fruitful also for non-Korean music and musicians. In Korea Donald is was famous composer whose works found their ways into the court music tradition. Following the Korean custom, there he was called Sur, Donald which amused him because of the phonetic parallel between Sur and Sir. Thus I have called my piece "Sir Donald." It is dedicated to his memory." — Stefan Hakenberg, 1999

Hwang, Byung-ki, THE SILK ROAD (1977) for kayagûm (Ji Aeri) and ch'anggu (Kim Woong-Sik)

The motive of the piece comes from the mysterious light that filtered through glass vessels developed in Persia found in the ancient tombs of the Silla Dynasty (57 B.C. - 935 A. D.). The musical theme of "The Silk Road" not only refers to the ancient road that connected Eastern and Western goods and culture, but also the Sillian fantasy of mythic Asia spreading like silk over Eurasia. The piece uses a 7-note scale and is a departure from Dr. Hwang's earlier compositions.

SANJO Jong Nam-hi che, Hwang, Byungki ryu
kayagûm - Ji Aeri, ch'anggu - Kim Woong-Sik

Sanjo, literally meaning "scattered melodies, or modes," developed in Korea in the middle of the 19th century as a solo instrumental form out of the dramatic oral narrative songs called p'ansori. It is modal music based on various rhythmic cycles similar to Indian raga. Dr. Hwang's sanjo is based on the sanjo of Jong Nam-hi (1905-1984) to which, in addition to many alterations, he has added much new material to make it the longest extant sanjo in the repertoire today. Today we will hear a shorter version of his sanjo.

Elliott Gyger, SOUND CROSSING (CrossSound '99 Commission) for trumpet (Rick Trostel), horn (Bill Paulick), and euphonium (Nathan Bastuscheck)

"Sound Crossing is a set of five short pieces, designed to be performable either as a continuous suite, or broken up across a concert program to provide a "frame" for other music. The exact grammatical relationship between the two words in the title is deliberately ambiguous. However, the connotations are hopefully fairly clear: sound moving from one place to another, or different sounds being juxtaposed and mixed - ideas thoroughly appropriate in the context of the CrossSound festival.

"These ideas are brought out in the music in a number of ways. Sometimes two or three different layers of music are combined, either running simultaneously (e.g. in parts of the first piece, Triple Fanfare) or "cross-cut" as in a movie (e.g. in Scherzo with Distractions). Elsewhere, a single line of music will be broken up among different instruments: this is particularly important in Signals with Echo, where the horn's solo is gradually taken over by the trumpet and euphonium. Both techniques are prominent in the final movement, which reworks the Renaissance/Baroque model of the passacaglia. In its conventional form, the passacaglia is a set of variations over a repeated bass-line theme: as the title implies, this Double Passacaglia has two repeating themes, of different lengths, which are introduced separately and then superimposed.

"The elements described above are strongly related to another Renaissance-inspired feature of the music: the physical positioning of the players, which is different for each movement. The technique of dividing the performing forces for a piece into spatially separated groups has a long and illustrious history, but is particularly associated with the music of 16th-century Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli and his contemporaries. While Sound Crossing is not influenced by Gabrielis musical style, the basic reasons and principles for the use of spatial separation remain much the same: creating call-and-response patterns, dramatic entrances, echo effects, and more generally surrounding the listener with festive cascades of sound." — Elliott Gyger, 1999

Oliver Schneller, SUITE FOR FOUR (CrossSound '99 Commission) for baroque cello - Phoebe Carrai, flute - Sally Schlichting, oboe - Jan Coldwell, trumpet - Rick Trostel

"Formalism, costume, artifice, illusion - attributes of the Baroque that entered its music in various manifestations. Under the pronounced formalism in Baroque conversation and manners the most insignificant things gained great, often pompous importance.

"The idea of Suite for Four is not to invoke the spirit of musical form models of the Baroque with contemporary means, not to revisit its stylistic idioms. It is more a play on the "Baroquish" with what I perceive to be certain Baroque characteristics, for example masking, exaggeration, excessive ornamentation, sentimentality, affect . . . all this with complete disregard for authenticity." — Oliver Schneller, 1999

Cord Meijering, " . . . THERE IS NONE LIKE THEE AMONG THE DANCERS . . ."
(CrossSound '99 Commission) for kayagum - Ji Aeri, changgu - Kim Woon-sik, flute - Sally Schlichting, viola - Julia Bastuscheck

"The particular challenge in composing a piece for flute, viola, kayagûm and changgu lay not only in the fact that I was dealing with a combination of two Western and two Asian instruments, but also in the particular texture of this instrumentation.

"Concerning the experience of time in listening to a piece, I have long been interested in combining developmental processes with self-contained, daydream-like passages. A little over a year ago, in the composition of a duet for flute and clarinet, I discovered that it was most effective to limit the harmonic language (the duet only uses six different notes), while the sound gestures create the impression that the music develops spontaneously out of itself.

"In this quartet the fixed sound axis is played by the kayagûm. A further elaboration of this harmonic structure lies in the glissando effects typical of this instrument. The sound of the changgu is also a constant. While the Asian instruments present developments exclusively on a gestural level, the Western instruments are also capable of developing in the realm of harmony, as they have all twelve notes available to them. The creation of tension in the composition is thus based on the constant superimposition of developing and static currents.

"I have taken the title from Ezra Pound's "Dance Figure." The title relates in a freely associative way to the music." — Cord Meijering, 1999

Dan Coleman, EARTH YOUR DANCING PLACE (1993) for cello solo (Phoebe Carrai)

The title is borrowed from a 1936 poem by May Swenson:

Beneath heaven's vault
remember always walking
through halls of cloud
down aisles of sunlight
or through high hedges
of the green rain
walk in the world
highheeled with swirl of cape
hand at the swordhilt
of your pride
Keep a tall throat
Remain aghast at life

Enter each day
as upon a stage
lighted and waiting
for your step
Crave upward as flame
have keenness in the nostril
Give your eyes
to agony or rapture

Train your hands
as birds to be
brooding or nimble
Move your body
as the horses
sweeping on slender hooves
over crag and prairie
with fleeing manes
and aloofness of their limbs

Take earth for your own large room
and the floor of earth
carpeted with sunlight
and hung round with silver wind
for your dancing place