Dreams of Distant Galas: CD Release Party Program

Dreams of
Distant Galas
CD Release Party
Friday, June 26, 2020

Welcome to E4TT’s first-ever virtual gala and the close of our 2019/20 season! For tonight’s
program, we’re excited to be joined by several creators with Bay Area connections, guest
soprano Chelsea Hollow, composers Aleksdandra Vrebalov, Vivian Fung, and E4TT's David
Garner, and host Brennan Stokes, along with videos from our previous performances.
Tonight's program also celebrates the digital release of our third recording,
"Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan," honoring the centennial of the birth of this seminal poet.
Celan's poems speak to his personal experiences of loss, disempowerment, imprisonment, and
survival under a brutal regime. Sadly, the themes in his work and his words—along with those
of his contemporary Nobel Prize laureate Czelsaw Milosz, whose poetry is also on the
recording—have never been more relevant. The official release is next week on June 30, and it
should be available for sale at all digital music venues—or directly from us, of course.
In these extraordinary times, Ensemble for These Times has been responding to the challenges
of these times, to keep bringing you music that's relevant and original, give voice to the
voiceless, shine light upon the forgotten, and encourage women creators. Keep an eye out for
our 2020/21 season announcement, coming soon.
As this program goes to "press," we have been watching—and have been heartened by—the
ongoing peaceful protests; by time this gala takes place, we greatly hope that society will have
already moved towards putting substantive reforms into place.
Thank you for joining us online, stay safe, and be well!
- Nanette, David, Dale, and Anne
We're grateful for your support and have the following thank you gifts for you:
Timekeeper ($50-99)
A set of 6 E4TT stickers featuring all of the designs from our 2019/20 season concerts!
Contemporary ($100-249)
The reward from Timekeeper, plus advance, online access to the full digital album!
Time Traveler ($250-499)
The reward from Contemporary, plus a new, physical copy of the CD!
Time Master ($500-999)
The reward from Timekeeper, plus a signed physical copy of our new CD!
Time Lord ($1000+)
Your choice of either an invitation to a dress rehearsal for one of our concerts next November
or April, or tickets for our November concert (as permitted).
Please consider donating at: www.intermusicsf.org/E4TT

Pre-Gala Countdown
(Xin Zhao, piano; all countdown music from the new CD)
David Garner (b. 1954)
Libby Larsen (b. 1950)
Garner
Interlude 1 V / C / EH / P (from Die eichne Tür, 2017) *
4 ½: A Piano Suite P (2016)*
I.
II. left hand only
III.
IV. In Memoriam
V.
Interlude 2 V / C / EH / P (from Die eichne Tür, 2017) *
Program
Jared Redmond (b. 1986)
Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)
Juliana Hall (b. 1958)
Aleksandra Vrebalov (b. 1972)
Lajos Delej (1923-1945), attrib.
Kareem Roustom (b. 1971)
Garner
Vivian Fung (b. 1972)
Garner
Notturno S / V / C / EH / P (from Nachtlang, 2017) *
Barcarola Latinoamericana P (2007) **
here’s a little mouse)and S / C / P (from Lovestars, 1989)
Passion Revisited V / C / P (2005) **
Scherzo C / P
Hanjale C ** (2013)
Der Fragebogen S / P (from Phönix, 2013)
Keeping Time P1 (2011)
Espenbaum S / V / C / EH / P1 (from Die eichne Tür, 2017) *
S – Nanette McGuinness, Soprano
V – Ilana Blumberg, Violin
C – Anne Lerner, Cello
P – Dale Tsang, Piano
EH – Laura Reynolds, English Horn
* Featured on Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan
** Excerpt

Texts & Translations
All Translations by McGuinness and Garner
Notturno
by Paul Celan
Schlaf nicht. Sei auf der Hut.
Die Pappeln mit singendem Schritt
Ziehn mit dem Kriegsvolk mit.
Die Teiche sind alle dein Blut.
Drin grüne Gerippe tanzen.
Eins reist die Wolke fort, driest:
Verwittert, verstümmelt, vereist,
Blutet dein Traum von den Lanzen.
Die Welt is ein kreissendes Tier,
Das kahl in die Mondnacht schlich.
Gott ist sein Heulen. Ich
Fürchte mich und frier.
Nocturne
by Paul Celan
Beware. Do not sleep.
The poplars singing in step
Move along with the soldiers.
Your blood fills the ponds.
Within, green skeletons dance.
One sweeps away the clouds, bold –
Weathered, maimed, iced:
Your dream bleeds from strokes of the lance.
The world is a laboring beast,
Which, shorn, slinks in the moon light.
God is its wail. I
Fear and freeze.
here’s a little mouse)and
by e. e. cummings
here’s a little mouse) and
what does he think about, i
wonder as over this
floor (quietly with
bright eyes) drifts (nobody
can tell because
Nobody knows, or why
jerks Here &, here,
gro(oo)ving the room’s Silence) this like
a littlest
poem a
(with wee ears and see?
tail frisks)
“mouse”,
(gonE)
We are not the same you and
i, since here’s a little he
or is
it It
? (or was something we saw in the mirror)?
therefore we’ll kiss; for maybe
what was Disappeared
into ourselves
who (look). , startled
Der Fragebogen
by Rose Ausländer
Der Fragebogen
soll ausgefüllt werden
ja oder nein
verschollene Namen und Daten
woher wohin
unterschrifteidlich
Ja ich war einmal geboren
mein wiegenland ist tot
ich bin untermieter
In der Hölle
hab meinen Namen vergessen
drei eigene Kreuze
Amen
Espenbaum
by Paul Celan
Espenbaum, dein Laub blickt Weiss ins Dunkel.
Meiner Mutter Haar ward nimmer Weiss.
Löwenzahn, so grün ist die Ukraine.
Meine blonde Mutter kam nicht heim.
Regenwolke, säumst du an den Brunnen?
Meine leisse Mutter weint für alle.
Runder Stem, du schlingst die goldne Schleife.
Meiner Muttter Herz ward wund von Blei.
Eichne Tür, wer hob dich aus den Angeln?
Meine sanfte Mutter kann nicht kommen.
The Form
by Rose Ausländer
The form
should be filled in
yes or no
long-forgotten names and dates
where from where to
signed and sworn
Yes, I once was born
my native land is dead.
I am a boarder
In hell
have forgotten my name
Three crosses handwritten
Amen.
Aspen Tree
by Paul Celan
Aspen tree, your leaves peer white into the dark.
My mother’s hair was never white.
Dandelion, Ukraine is so green.
My blond mother never came home.
Rain cloud, do you linger over the well?
My silent mother cries for all.
Round stars, you tie a golden ribbon.
My mother’s heart was scarred by lead.
Oaken door, who lifted you from your hinges?
My gentle mother cannot come back.

About the Composers
Hungarian LAJOS DELEJ (1923-1945) was a young prodigy and a colleague of Janos Starker, György
Ligeti and Györgi Sebok among others; it was said that Delej could read five separate scores at once.
He was killed by the Nazis after trying to follow his sweetheart into imprisonment; sent to a different
concentration camp, she survived. The piece attributed to him on today's program (a Scherzo
from an otherwise missing cello sonata) was only preserved via a recording by the BBC in the 50s
and then transcribed more recently by violist Peter Barsony.
P.C. Mariah Tauger
P.C. Geneviève caron
P.C. frogsong photography
Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of
Lithuanian/Jewish descent, composer GABRIELA LENA FRANK (b. 1972) is currently serving as
Composer-in-Residence with the storied Philadelphia Orchestra; she was included in the
Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in history (August, 2017). Identity
has always been at the center of her music and she explores her multicultural heritage through her
compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Gabriela has traveled
extensively throughout South America in creative exploration. Her music often reflects not only her
own personal experience as a multi-racial Latina, but also refract her studies of Latin American
cultures, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical
framework that is uniquely her own. glfcam.com
Juno Award-winning composer VIVIAN FUNG (b. 1975) combines idiosyncratic textures and styles
into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. Fung’s 2019–20 season includes
performances of Birdsong by Midori, a new concerto for trumpeter Mary Elizabeth Bowden and
the Erie Philharmonic, Dust Devils by The Philadelphia Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony, Aqua
by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Earworms with the Vancouver Symphony, and
Pizzicato with the Fort Worth Symphony. Fung mentors composers at the American Composers
Forum, San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, London Symphony, and Cabrillo Festival.
Born in Canada, she received her doctorate from Juilliard. Fung lives in California and is on the
faculty of Santa Clara University. vivianfung.ca
E4TT composer and founding member DAVID GARNER (b. 1954) won The American Prize in 2015
for his String Quartet No. 2. Garner's music has been reviewed as "alluring" and "a heady and
touching revelation," and his works have been performed nationally and internationally by artists
such as Suzanne Mentzner, Catherine Cook, Crystal Philippi, David Krakauer, and Matt Haimowitz.
Garner's opera, "Mary Pleasant at Land's End,” is in the final stages of pre-production. A faculty
member in composition, chamber music, music theory and literature at the SF Conservatory of
Music, Garner is a member of BMI, American Composers Forum, and the American Music Center.
davidgarner.us
JULIANA HALL (b. 1958) studied piano and composition at the Yale School of Music, earning a
Master’s degree in Music Composition in 1987; she received a Guggenheim Fellowship two years
later. A highly-regarded composer of more than 50 vocal works, she has written for Dawn Upshaw
and been recorded by Susan Narucki. Hall's music has been performed at the 92nd Street Y, Library
of Congress, Théâtre du Châtelet, Wigmore Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, Norfolk Chamber
Music and Ojai Music Festivals, among others, as well as on the BBC and NPR. Her first solo CD was
released on the MSR Classics label. julianahall.com
One of America’s most performed living composers, LIBBY LARSEN (b. 1950) has created a
catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music
to massive orchestral works and over twelve operas. Grammy Award winning and widely recorded,
including over fifty CD’s of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres
by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a permanent
place for her works in the concert repertory. A vigorous, articulate advocate for the music and
musicians of our time, Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers (now the American
Composer’s) Forum, which has become an invaluable aid for composers in a transitional time for
American arts. A former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library
of Congress, Larsen has held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Charlotte and
Colorado Symphonies. libbylarsen.com

JARED REDMOND (b. 1986) is a musician based in Seoul, Berlin, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
He writes for new music soloists and ensembles, and develops experimental works and new
notation systems for Korean traditional performers. He is artistic director of new music collective
Geori, and performs as pianist in both Geori and Boston-based experimental ensemble Ehnahre. In
Seoul, he plays in free improvisation duo Beheaded. Jared has appeared as a piano soloist throughout
North America, Europe, and Korea, and composes for himself and others internationally. He holds
degrees from Brandeis University and the University of California at Berkeley, and has been a
researcher at the Academy of Korean studies and the Kyujanggak Institute of Seoul National
University. jaredredmond.com
Syrian-American KAREEM ROUSTOM (b. 1971) is an Emmy-nominated composer whose genre
crossing collaborations include music commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, conductor Daniel
Barenboim & the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, the
Dallas Symphony, & the Grand Teton Music Festival. Roustom is currently composer-in-residence
with the Württembergische Philharmonie in Reutlingen, Germany for the 2019-2020 seasons, and
has been the composer-in-residence at the Grant Park Music Festival (2019) and the Grand Teton
Music Festival (2018). Roustom’s music has been performed b orchestras that include the Minnesota
Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and
at renowned festivals & halls such as the BBC Proms, the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festivals,
and Carnegie Hall. kr-music.com
Serbian-American composer ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV (b. 1970) has composed over 80 works
ranging from concert music to opera and dance, with commissions or performances by the Kronos
Quartet, Serbian National Theater, Carnegie Hall, Belgrade Philharmonic, and Rambert Dance. A
fellow of MacDowell Colony, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, Djerassi, American Opera Projects, The
Hermitage, and Tanglewood, Vrebalov is the recipient of The Hoefer Prize, Harvard Fromm
Commission, The American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, Barlow
Endowment Commission, and MAP Fund grant. Her recent work “My Desert, My Rose,” cocommissioned
by Carnegie Hall, is part of Kronos Quartet’s “50 For The Future.”
aleksandravrebalov.com
About the Musicians
Violinist ILANA BLUMBERG has appeared across the United States and internationally, in solo
appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, the Albany Symphony (NY), Symphony Napa
Valley, and the Merced Symphony, as well as performances at the prestigious Santa Fe Chamber
Music Festival, the Marlboro Music Festival, the La Jolla Summerfest as a 'Rising Star', the Aspen
Music Festival, and many others. She appears frequently throughout the Bay Area with the Marin,
Silicon Valley, West Edge Opera, Berkeley, and California Symphonies, as well as with the Golden
Gate String Quartet, eco ensemble, and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. sfweddingviolinist.com
Cellist ANNE LERNER completed her B.A. in Music at Northwestern University as a Cello
Performance major after three years as a Spanish Literature major at Bryn Mawr College, earning
an M.M. in cello performance at the San Francisco Conservatory, where she earned a Master of Music
in Cello Performance. She has performed with numerous Bay Area orchestras and is a sought-after
chamber musician and performer of contemporary music. A dedicated educator, Anne conducts
two youth orchestras in the Marin Symphony Youth Program, is on the faculties of Dominican
University and San Rafael High School and maintains a large private studio. celloair.com
P.C. russ fischella
Soprano and E4TT co-founder and co-director NANETTE MCGUINNESS has performed in 12
languages on two continents in over 25 roles with the Silesian State Opera (Czech Republic), Opera
San Jose (Opera in the Schools), and West Bay, Pacific Repertory, Trinity Lyric, and Livermore
Valley Operas, among others. Solo concert engagements include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, as well
as Shéhérézade (Ravel), Nuits d’étés (Berlioz), Stabat Mater (Rossini), Requiem (Fauré), Gloria
(Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), Vesperae Solennes (Mozart), and Handel’s Messiah and
Solomon. Her CD of music by 19th and 20th century women composers, “Fabulous Femmes”
(Centaur CRC 2461) was called “perfect for the song recital lover” by Chamber Music Magazine and
features several premiere recordings. nanette.biz

LAURA REYNOLDS is an active chamber and orchestral performer throughout Northern
California. Principal oboist with the Santa Rosa Symphony, the California Symphony, and
English horn with Marin Symphony, Ms. Reynolds is additionally a member of the wind Trois
Bois and was a founding member of Citywinds, a San Francisco woodwind quintet dedicated
to contemporary repertoire. She is a past participant in the Carmel Bach Festival and Sun
Valley Music Festival and is currently a member of the applied faculty of Sonoma State
University and the Pre-College and Extension Divisions at the SF Conservatory of Music.
Pianist DALE TSANG earned her BM in piano performance from the University of Southern
California, studying with John Perry; her MM from the University of Michigan, studying with
Dickran Atamian; and her DMA from Rice University, studying with John Perry. Dale is a
faculty member at Laney College, teaches an inspiring assortment of adult students, and
serves as a competition adjudicator for many local and statewide piano competitions. A
winner of numerous competitions, and an active solo and chamber musician, she frequently
performs locally and in Europe and Asia. daletsang.com
P.C. frogsong photography
Pianist XIN ZHAO received a B.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and an
M.M. in Chamber Music Performance. Zhao received the San Francisco Conservatory’s
Mirina Grin Award, and the second annual Kristin Pankonin Art Song Award; she was also
the First Place winner in the Fresno Music Club Awards, receiving the Bell T. Ritchie Award.
Zhao has collaborated with the Master Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra and many prominent
musicians including Menahem Pressler, Richard Fleischman, Pinchas Zukerman, Jeff Nuttall,
members of Miro Quartet, and Jean-Michel Fonteneau. In 2016, Zhao’s piano trio, the
Capitoline, won the Berkeley Piano Club’s Emerging Artist Award. Zhao toured with E4TT
in the fall of 2018 and is the pianist on “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan.”
About Ensemble for These Times
Awarded second place for Chamber Music Performance in 2019 by The American Prize and a
Finalist for the 2019 Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music,
Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) consists of award-winning soprano and co-director Nanette
McGuinness, Van Cliburn competitor pianist Dale Tsang, cellist Anne Lerner, and co-director and
2015 The American Prize in Composition winner composer David Garner, regularly joined by
exemplary guest artists violinist Ilana Blumberg, English hornist Laura Reynolds, pianist Xin Zhao,
and others. Founded in 2007 as the Jewish Music & Poetry Project (which remains an important
group project), the group rebranded in 2015 and focuses on 20th and 21st century music that is
relevant, engaging, original and compelling—music that resonates with today and speaks to
tomorrow, that harnesses the power of artistic beauty, intelligence, wit, lyricism, and irony to
create a deep understanding of our times and the human condition.
E4TT performed at the 2016 Krakow Culture Festival and the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in
2017, was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest in 2014 for a four-city tour in Hungary, and
made its international debut in Berlin in 2012. E4TT has performed at the Los Angeles Museum of
the Holocaust, Paderewski Festival, and UCLA and in the SF Bay Area at the German Consulate
General, SF Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts,
and Noontime Concerts, among other venues. E4TT’s debut CD, Surviving: Women’s Words
(Centaur CRC 3490, 2016) won a Silver Medal in the 2016 Global Music Awards; Lesley Mitchell-
Clarke in The Whole Note wrote of it, “Now more than ever…the potent and timeless messages
of survival, love, tolerance and forgiveness contained on this brilliant presentation need to
resonate throughout the world.” E4TT’s second CD, “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus”
(Centaur CRC 3660, 2018) won a Gold Medal in the 2018 Global Music Awards.

Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan
For E4TT’s third recording, the group commemorates the centennial of the birth of
seminal 20 th century poet Paul Celan (1920-1970) with three pieces premiered in 2018 that
focus on his world and his work: Die eichne Tür (The Oaken Door), a seven-movement
cycle by E4TT composer David Garner, for soprano, violin, English horn, cello, and
piano, to poems by Paul Celan, including Espenbaum (Aspen tree), the poet's
heartrending reflection on his survival and his mother’s death; Nachtlang (Nightlong) by
Jared Redmond, setting Celan’s Notturno (Night) and Einmal (“Once”) for soprano, cello,
and piano; "A Song on the End of the World" by Stephen Eddins, setting a poem by
Celan’s Nobel Prize-winning contemporary, Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), also for
soprano, cello, and piano. The recording also features a fourth relevant work " “4 ½” for
solo piano, by world-renowned composer Libby Larsen (b. 1950, whose “Cowboy Songs”
McGuinness made the premiere recording of on her first CD, “Fabulous Femmes”). A
suite for solo piano, “4 ½” consists of five interrelated movements, the final one of which,
subtitled “In Memoriam,” is “an elegy for departed, beloved ones.”
Born to a German-speaking Romanian-Jewish family, Celan was of one of the most
important post-WWII poets, who greatly influenced 20th Century European literature
and was profoundly affected by the rise of Nazism. His parents perished in a
concentration camp and he barely survived a forced labor camp, only to commit suicide
in 1970. His poems—written in German, his mother tongue—speak to his experience of
loss, imprisonment, and survival under fascism and the themes in his work—the rise of
fascism, "strong men" leaders, and nations marching to the drumbeat of nationalism—
deeply resonate today with the global right-wing resurgence.
To preview the album, go to E4TT’s Discography page, or view our HearNow profile.
The recording will be available for purchase on all streaming and downloading platforms
on June 30.
Staff
David Garner, Co-Director
Nanette McGuinness, Co-Director
Stephanie Neumann, Marketing & Development
Brennan Stokes, Publicity & Design
Chelsea Holmes, Social Media
Advisory Council
Kathy Barr
Jeffrey Hoover
Alden Jenks
Kurt Rohde
Frederica von Stade
Cynthia Whitehead

Thank you to our 2019 and 2020 individual donors and foundations
for supporting our twelfth season of relevant, timely, rare,
contemporary music.
Time Lord ($1,000+)
Anonymous
Mary L. Bianco
Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University
Robin Feldman
InterMusic SF’s MGP Grant Program
Ross McKee Foundation
Dennis Schuman Charitable Foundation
Zellerbach Family Foundation
Community Arts Program
Time Traveler ($250-499)
Anonymous
Contemporary ($100-249)
Robert Berkowitz, in memory of Lajos Delej
John Bilotta
Lance Brick
Donna Cooper
Jacqueline Divenyi
Margret Elson
Dennis Estis
Joyce Goodman
James and Carole McGuinness
Bruce Nalezny
Nancy Quinn
Cynthia Whitehead
Erling Wold
Timekeeper ($50-99)
Carl Eggers
Allan Greene
Juliana Hall
Robert Korwin, in memory of Yala Korwin
Lawrence Kramer and Nancy Leonard
Daniel Lewis
Nicole Paiement and Brian Staufenbiel
Kabir Sehgal
Richard Sobel
Cherrill Spencer
Corinne Springarn
Poppy Tanner
Kathleen Krull Urban
Wayne Wong
E4TT thrives through your generosity!
Find out how to become one of our valued supporters with a tax-deductible donation
(one-time or recurring), subscribe to our newsletter, volunteer your skills or services, or
donate in-kind at www.E4TT.org/contact.html, or email us directly at info@E4TT.org.
E4TT is honored to be fiscally sponsored by InterMusic SF, a non-profit organization
dedicated to small-ensemble music in the San Francisco Bay Area.
List current as of May 1, 2020.

Cassandra
Coming 2020/21
Credits