{ program notes
St. Lawrence String Quartet
The SLSQ, Geoff Nuttall, violin; Owen Dalby, violin; Lesley Robertson, viola and Christopher Costanza, cello, is renowned for the intensity of its performances, its breadth of repertoire, and its commitment to concert experiences that are at once intellectually exciting and emotionally alive. Highlights in 2016 – 2017 include performances of John Adams’ s Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic and with Marin Alsop and the BSO, as well as the European premieres of Adams’ s second string quartet.
The SLSQ’ s partnerships with Adams, Jonathan Berger, Osvaldo Golijov and many others hve yielded some of the finest additions to the quartet literature in recent years. The quartet is also especially dedicated to the music of Haydn, and is recording his groundbreaking set of six Op. 20 quartets in high-definition video for a free online release in 2017.
Established in Toronto in 1989, the SLSQ quickly earned acclaim at top international chamber music competitions and was soon playing hundreds of concerts per year worldwide. The group established an ongoing residency at Spoleto Festival USA and made prize-winning recordings of music by Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Golijov— earning two Grammy nominations and a host of other prizes— before being appointed ensemble-in-residence at Stanford University in 1999.
At Stanford, the SLSQ directs the chamber music program and frequently collaborates with other departments including the Schools of Law, Medicine, Business and Education. The Quartet performs regularly at Stanford Live, hosts an annual chamber music seminar, and runs the Emerging String Quartet Program
Leonardo Mascaro through which its members mentor the next generation of young quartets.
St. Lawrence String Quartet is making its BSO debut.
About the concert:
Double Play
T. J. Cole
Born in Athens, Georgia, 1993; now living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Composer’ s statement:“ While writing this centennial piece, I was thinking about a lot of‘ B’ words: Birdcalls, Baseball, Beyoncé and Baltimore.
I used an audience member’ s suggestion to celebrate the Baltimore oriole bird, a bird specific to the Baltimore region that is also the mascot for the city’ s baseball team.
Through the internet, I found audio recordings of oriole calls. I was surprised by the variety of calls that orioles produce, all of them catchy and song-like. I used about eight different oriole calls as rhythmic and pitch material. When listening to this piece, you hear an oriole call playing about 75 percent of the time. Sometimes the birdcall is obvious, but other times it’ s buried within a larger texture.
As a child in Atlanta, I grew up going to baseball games. There’ s a lot of starting and stopping in baseball, and I remember being bored when the players were paused. But then, the anticipation would make other parts of the game very exciting. In this piece, I tried to incorporate the idea of short and exciting moments feeling like payoff from longer sections of tension.
Right now I’ m interested in pulling artistic ideas from elements of modern
T. J. Cole pop music. Good pop production these days is incredibly abstract, creative, functional and deliberate. But the point of a pop song is to create something that people enjoy listening to. So I ended up combining more diverse influences in this piece than I usually do. For example, I was listening to the production of Beyoncé songs while looking at the orchestration of Shostakovich.
I think that as an artist, you have to trust that your audiences want to hear something that goes beyond pleasure. When people are willing to attend a live show, they’ re looking for deeper substance, whether it’ s creative, mental or emotional stimulation. I don’ t think a piece has to lack an element of fun in order to be thought-provoking, because when a piece is fun or entertaining, more people are willing to listen to it. My hope is that Double Play will offer something new for the Baltimore audience to listen to, as well as a fun experience.”
Instrumentation: Three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, three horns, two trumpets, two trombones, percussion, and strings.
Absolute Jest
John Adams
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, February 15, 1947; now living in Berkeley, California
Last spring, John Adams conducted the Baltimore Symphony in a program that combined Beethoven’ s“ Emperor” Concerto with his own powerful largeorchestra work Harmonielehre. And in October 2007, he also appeared on the BSO’ s podium during his two-week residency with the Orchestra to lead Beethoven’ s Seventh Symphony alongside two other Adams works. The vital connection continues with his Absolute Jest, in which Beethovenian themes and motives are actually incorporated into the score— notably the propulsive rhythms and pounding timpani of the second-movement scherzo of the Ninth Symphony we’ ll hear later.
50 Overture | www. bsomusic. org