1999-2007 - Music-USA.org

PROGRAM
Angel Songs received its material inspiration from my wish to write an .
ensemble work featuring celesta: The musical/spiritual inspiration for this
. work is from the depictions of angels in the Duino Elegies of Rainer Maria
Rilke, which provide an almost-antithetical inage to current, New Age-
- influenced portrayals of angels as benign spirits seeking to cooperate with
human beings. It's important to remember, though, that our record of past
angelic visits often has them bringing frightening and unfortunate news:
angels bearing flaming swords protect the tree of the knowledge of good *
- and evil in the Garden of Eden from further tampering by mankind, an
angel is sent to tell Lot of his city's imminent destruction: in Revelation,
angels pour out God's judgments on the earth. Even when angels bring to
shepherds the good news about the birth of Jesus, the shepherds are "sore
afraid."
The angels of Rilke's elegies appear as awe-inspiring, overwhelming
supernatural agents, more akin to their traditional Judeo-Chr$tian and
Muslim incarnations, and the poetic fragments which provide the texts
for the first two movements of Angel Songs concern the impact of such
visitations upon mortal human beings. In the reflective final song, the
focus shifts from the impact of angelic encounters to the paradoxical
human situation of longing to woo the angels and at the same time
realizing their essentially ungraspable nature. - SR
Scott Robbins has recently been appointed Assistant Professor of Theory
and Composition at the Converse College School of Music, following a
three-year term as Composer-in-Residence at Southwestern Oklahoma
State University. He holds degrees from Wake Forest, Duke, and Florida '
State Universities. His works have adueved recognition through the
ASCAP Foundation Grants to Young Composers and Standard Awards,
Composers Guild Award of Excellence, NACUSA Young Composers ,
Award, Second hternational Sergei Prokofiev Composition Competition,
and the Dale Warland Singers New Choral Works Commission.
NOTES
At Ends sets up a pair of themes that are at ends with each other, that is, which
contrast each other by their unique use of register, tempo, thematic and pitch
materials. In a type of rondo format, the "C" section of the piece brings
together various elements of the two themes.
At Ends was written in July of 1996 while I was a fellow of the CSU summer
Arts Composers Workshop held at Cal State Long Beach. Written specifically
as a virtuoso solo for Curt Macomber, a member of Speculum Musicae, the
title of the work also describes the limited time I had to get the piece-done!
I'd like to take this opportunity to extend a large thank you to Isabella Li pi
for so elegantly performing this work tonight. At Ends is approximately ve
minutes in duration.
- MGW
Michelle Green-Willner received her B.M. degree from the University of
Toronto and her M.A. and D.M.A. degrees from Columbia University New
York. Dr. Green-Willner has received numerous awards, most recently four
ASCAP Annual Awards, two ASCAP Foundation Grants to Young Composers, -
The Brian Israel Prize from the Society for New Music, and the Serge Garant
Award from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of -
Canada.
Her teachers have included Mario Davidovsky, Steven Mackey, David
Rakowski and Marc Kopytman at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem.
She has taught composition and theory at UC Irvine, CSU Long Beach, and
has founded and conducted the University of Judaism Chamber Players. She
is currently taking the year off to compose and spend time with her two very
little sons, Moshe and Asher.
- Program Ndtes are continued, next page -
R