NEW

MU

SIC

NO

RTH

New Music for

Saxophone, Piano, and Live Electronics

Stathis Mavrommatis Saxophone

Derek Oger

Piano

Mark Nerenberg Live Electronics

Music by Argüello, Carastathis, Chepil Reid, Constantinides

Daravelis, Lemay, Lignos, Nerenberg, Rickard

7:30 pm, Thursday, February 12, 2009 St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

207 Brodie St. South Thunder Bay

www.newmusicnorth.org

08/09

New Music North Thursday, February 12, 2009, 7:30 p.m.

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Thunder Bay, Canada

Stathis Mavrommatis, saxophone - Derek Oger, piano - Mark Nerenberg, live electronics

Program George Daravelis Remembrance’s Suite op. 20 (2002) for saxophone and piano I. Vintage Ballad II. Meditation III. Bittersweet Dance IV. Eastern Memory V. Driving at Creta Sylvia Rickard Nagareboshi for piano (1997) I. Vital Sparks Fly Falling Down II. Where, Then, May They Rest? III. Oh! To Catch Hold of Just One! Darlene Chepil Reid Retro for saxophone (2008)* + Dinos Constantinides Fantasia for saxophone (1981) Constantine Lignos The E.M. Sax Blues (2009)* + for saxophone and piano

Intermission

Robert Lemay Tambour battant (2001) Aris Carastathis Cantilena for alto saxophone (2007)+ Mark Nerenberg Improvisations on Structure (2006) for piano and live electronics Alejandro Argüello Rhapsodic No.2 (2006)* + for saxophone and piano *world premiere + composed especially for Stathis Mavrommatis

Born in 1974, Stathis Mavrommatis is graduated in Saxophone from “F.NAKAS” Conservatory of Athens (First Prize) and from London College of Music (LLCM & FLCM diplomas). He has completed studies in Harmony, Counterpoint, Fugue, Conducting and Orchestration of Wind Instruments. He has attended various master-classes and perfecting programs in saxophone with the renowned professors Jean Yves Fourmeau, Claude Delangle in France and Eugene Rousseau in Teramo, Italy. He has received a degree in Mathematics from the University of Patras and, at present, he is working for a Ph.D. dissertation specializing in music for saxophone at the Music Department of the University of Athens. He has given many recitals, chamber music concerts and has performed with several Greek and orchestras abroad. As a soloist he has performed, among other, with the Athens State Orchestra, Cyprus State Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of Colors, Symphony Orchestra of the Greek Radio-Television, RAI Symphony Orchestra (Italy), Symphony Orchestra of the

Municipality of Athens, Louisiana Sinfonietta, Orchestra Medicilor, “Dr. Ermil Nichifor” of Bucharest, Hellenic Contemporary Music Ensemble, Youth Symphony Orchestra of Piraeus “Dimitris Mitropoulos” and the City of Athens Philharmonic. He also performed at the World Saxophone Congress XIII in Minneapolis in 2003. At present, he is particularly interested in performing music for saxophone of Greek composers some of whom have dedicated to him their compositions recorded in the CD “Music for Saxophone, Piano and Percussion by Greek Composers”, which was released in March 2006 receiving praiseworthy comments worldwide. His performances have been repeatedly broadcast on Greek Radio (ERA 3). He is a founding member of the “OLYMPIC TRIO” (violin-sax-piano) and artistic director of the ‘AKROAMA’ Saxophone Quartet aiming at interpreting a wide repertoire from baroque and renaissance to contemporary and jazz music, introducing works by important Greek composers. He is also a founding member of the Hellenic Saxophone Association, member of the French Saxophonists’ Association (A-SAX), the North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) and the Clarinet & Saxophone Society of Great Britain. Since 1996 he is principal saxophonist of the Athens Municipal Band, he is teaching saxophone at the “F. NAKAS” Conservatory of Athens and he regularly performs with the Athens State Orchestra.

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Derek Oger maintains a large private teaching studio, and divides his time between performing, and teaching. He has an HBMusic degree from Lakehead University (1998), and his primary teachers have included Heather Morrison, Peter Longworth, and Helmut Brauss. He works regularly with vocalists, and frequently performs in both chamber and solo recitals. Derek has appeared in all of Thunder Bay’s chamber music series, and currently serves on the Boards of Consortium Aurora Borealis, and New Music North Concert Series. He has been recorded on a CD released by New Music North, part of which was recently broadcast nationwide on CBC Radio Two. He is accompanist and business manager to the Rafiki Youth Choir, which is a joint venture he shares with his wife Laurel, who conducts the Choir. In addition to his work as a pianist, Derek also spends time traveling

across Canada as a Music Festival Adjudicator and Workshop Clinician. He is a featured Clinician for the Ontario Registered Music Teacher’s Association, has served a term on ORMTA’s Provincial

Council, and is a member of the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicators Association. Derek is a member of Conservatory Canada’s Board of Examiners as both a Theory and Practical Examiner. Several of his students have received Medals of Excellence, and Scholarships from Conservatory Canada for their outstanding performances on Conservatory Exams. Outside of music, Derek has a keen interest in Metaphysics, and studying Healing Arts.

Originally from Edmonton, Mark Nerenberg (b. 1973) completed both a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Composition at the University of Alberta. He studied piano with Richard Troeger, Helmut Brauss, and Haley Simons. His composition instructors included Howard Bashaw, Malcolm Forsyth, and Laurie Radford. Mark currently resides in Toronto where he is working towards a D.M.A. in Composition, studying with Christos Hatzis. His compositions encompass a wide range of styles, genres, and techniques, including acoustic music, electronic music focusing on interaction between computers and performers, and collaborative multimedia works. Mark has written acoustic music for solo instruments, voice, and chamber ensembles. Many recent works have

involved collaborations with artists from varying disciplines, including Piece for Painter, Marimba, and Live Electronics, Piece for Saxophone Quartet, Video, Poetry, and Live Electronics, and Resonance (Suite for Solo String Instrument), choreographed by Miriam Esquitin and performed by the ORCHESIS dance group. Mark's music has been performed in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

George Daravelis is a Greek saxophone soloist and composer born in Athens, Greece. He studied saxophone and composition in Athens, London and Graz, where he received his Bachelor, LTCL and “Magister der Kunst” in saxophone and a Premier Prix for Composition studies from the Athens Conservatory. As a soloist he has performed with several orchestras and ensembles in Greece, Germany and Austria and has presented recitals including mainly new works dedicated to him. Composers such as Di Marino, Nicolau, Melloni (Italy), Archontides, Agourides, Constantinides (Greece), Wynn (UK), Kuehn (Austria), Castillo (Argentina), Visser (The Netherlands) composed music especially for him. He has composed mainly chamber and symphonic music, concerti, jazz ensembles and songs. Among them, the most known work is the Mediterranean Sonate for trumpet and piano, recorded twice in Italy and Greece, his Hot Dances a trio for clarinet, cello and piano and his Remembrance Suite for saxophone and orchestra (or wind ensemble) and the Sonatina for saxophone and guitar, dedicated to Joe Murphy (Pennsylvania University), performed many times in US and England. He is a music professor at Athens Conservatory and saxophone professor in Orpheion Conservatory of Athens. Since 2008 he is president of the Greek Saxophone Union. “Remembrance’s Suite is a work written in 2002 that carries the modality of my country as I have used traditional rhythms in these five movements. The first movement is in 10/8 including some percussive sounds for the saxophone (slap) with a (pp) ‘trick’ with the piano based in Aeolian mode, while the second movement is a sentimental song in Phrygian mode. The following movement is a joyful dance with a kind of ‘orientalism’ and then a slow dance based in the ‘Zeimpekikos’ not in the usual 9/8 Greek rhythm but in 8/8 reminiscent of the old ‘Attalikos-Zeimpekikos’ Greek-dance of Asia Minor. The last movement is a variation on Cretan rhythms well crafted for the instrument to perform and sing the Cretan way of life. They are five movements full of sun and remembrances from my various trips in Greece. The themes of the five parts are not traditional tunes and dances but original melodies.”

Born in Toronto, Sylvia Rickard made her home in Vancouver for 28 years. Piano and theory gave way to a University of British Columbia Bachelor of Arts degree in French, German and Russian. In the 70's Rickard studied composition and theory privately with Jean Coulthard. During that time, Rickard was a frequent winner of the Okanagan Composers' Festival. From 1976 to 1979, she was exposed to many compositional styles and techniques at the summer schools of Shawnigan Lake, B.C. and the Banff Centre. Known especially for her vocal chamber music, Rickard was, at the invitation of Taras and Gaelyne Gabora, the first resident composer of the Oberlin in Casalmaggiore International Festival (Italy) in the summer of 1999. Her output includes solo instrumental, chamber music, opera, radio play, cabaret songs and symphonic music. “I composed Nagareboshi (Shooting Stars) in 1997 inspired by the sight of shooting stars in the August sky of the English countryside. The three movements form, in their titles a sort of Haiku. I tried to use the deepest, broadest compass of the piano, and from the inner strings evoke ‘other worldly sounds’. I also tried to suggest the vastness of the dark skies, against the showers of these tiny ‘plums in the sky’, whose brilliance is quite arresting. This piece was composed for my dear friend Toshiko on the occasion of her birthday on August 10. Since then I have learned that Toshiko’s birthday is supposed to be the best night of the year for nagareboshi!” Darlene Chepil Reid is a life-long resident of Thunder Bay. She is a graduate of McMaster University (BSc Chemistry, 1981), Lakehead University (HBMus, 2003) and the University of Western Ontario (MMus Composition, 2005). She came to composition later in her life after pursuing careers as a chemist, mother, childbirth educator, women’s health care advocate and piano teacher. She has studied with many Canadian composers including Aris Carastathis, Peter Paul Koprowski and David Myska. Darlene is currently enrolled in DMus in composition at the University of Alberta and studying with Allan Gordon Bell. Among other awards and scholarships she has received to study composition, she is a Killam Scholar and SSHRC CGS recipient. In 2007, Darlene was chosen to work with Gary Kulesha and John McCabe at the Young Composers Program at the National Arts Centre. Her compositions have been performed throughout Canada and the US and broadcast on CBC Radio. She is an active promoter of living composers and concert producer of contemporary music in Ontario through New Music North. Darlene is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre. “Retro is a collection of various interpretations of one melody. Some of the variations involve melodic gestures, others rhythmic material. Multiphonics play an important role in recreating the sonic field of the melody. Finally, the work ends with the melody but played backwards or, in musical terms, in retrograde. Retro is dedicated to saxophonist, Stathis Mavrommatis.” The music of Dinos Constantinides has been performed throughout the world. He is the recipient of many grants, commissions and awards, including first prize in the Brooklyn College International Chamber Opera Competition, the First Midwest Chamber Opera Conference, and the Delius Composition Contest. He also received the American New Music Consortium Distinguished Service Award, the Glen Award of l'Ensemble of New York, several Meet the Composer grants, numerous ASCAP Standard Awards, and he was honored as a Distinguished Teacher White House Commission on Presidential Scholars. Constantinides resides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and he is Boyd Professor of Composition at Louisiana State University and Director of the Louisiana Sinfonietta. “Fantasia for Solo Saxophone is written for any saxophone. The work is part of a series of solo works with the same title. The form is ABA. The outer sections are quasi-free and the middle very rhythmic and dance-like. The entire piece implies a dialogue between two saxophones that is achieved through different registers.”

Constantine A. Lignos studied in Athens at the Greek Conservatory, had lessons with J. A. Papaioannou and continued in London at the Post-Graduate Composition Course of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. In the UK, he attended seminars with W. Lutoslawski and H. W. Henze. He is a member of the Greek Composers Union and editor of the Union’s magazine “Polytonon”. Since 1990 he lives in Athens. His music has been presented, recorded and broadcast in Greece, Britain, USA, Istanbul (under the auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew), Australia, Mexico, Italy, Israel, Yugoslavia and Cyprus. He has written music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, solo instruments and has collaborated with E. Mavrommatis many times. His vocal writing includes a staged cantata, a musical, songs and song-cycles with piano or chamber ensembles, works for a capella choir and music theatre. “The E. S. Sax Blues was written for my good friend Stathis - who does so much for Greek music - over the Christmas period. We decided to replace another blues for saxophone and piano (“John Lee Hooker”), which is playable on the alto, but sounds much better on the baritone. Stathis could not bring along his baritone instrument, so I wrote a piece that would fit the alto better. I also tried to apply a different angle on the basic question about this type of “cross-over” music: How does one strike the right balance between the ‘popular’ and the ‘erudite’? “ Robert Lemay holds a doctorate from the Université de Montréal and a Master’s degree from Université Laval. He studied with Michel Longtin and François Morel as well as Brian Ferneyhough, Louis Andriessen, Donald Erb, Francois Rosse and George Apergis. Lemay teaches composition at Laurentian University and is president and co-artistic director of the 5-Penny New Music Concerts in Sudbury. Lemay’s music is characterized by the exploration of the concert hall and space and virtuoso performance techniques. He is the recipient of numerous prizes and grants: second prize from the Kazimierz Sorecki 10th International Composers’ Competition (2006), first prize from the Harelbeke Muzikstad Wind Ensemble Competition (2004), and grants from Quebec, Ontario and Canada Council for the Arts. “Tambour battant (beat the drum) is an Étude on pad sounds (sons-tambourins) and other extended techniques, such as bisbigliando, quarter-tones, key noise, spoken drum sounds, foot stomps, etc. but the piece is mainly a ‘farce’ on the militaries. The piece is published by Éditions Fuzeau Classique (France).” Aris Carastathis is an Associate Professor of Theory and Composition and Director of the New Music Ensemble at Lakehead University. He is an Associate Composer and Voting Member of the Canadian Music Centre. He holds a DMA degree from Louisiana State University where he studied with Dinos Constantinides. Carastathis has received several commissions including those from the Canadian Music Centre, Norman Burgess Memorial Fund, Music Canada 2000 Festival Inc., Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies, Louisiana Sinfonietta, and Acadia Trio. His works have been performed in Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Poland, Serbia and U.S.A, including performances at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York. “Cantilena is a mood piece composed in a lyrical, virtuosic style. It constantly weaves through various tonalities but without settling in any one in particular. In a way it emulated a free, almost improvisatory style and allows the performer to take certain liberties with a fluctuating tempo. It was especially composed for and dedicated to saxophonist Stathis Mavrommatis who also gave its premiere on March 15, 2008 at Parnassos Concert Hall in Athens, Greece.” “Improvisations on Structure - by Mark Nerenberg - is a collaboration between performer and composer written for solo instrument and computer. The ‘Structure’ of the work consists of form, performance instructions, electronic sound transformation, and computer patches; the ‘Improvisations’ consist of musical content created by the performer and manipulated by the computer operator.”

Alejandro Argüello (b. 1972) began his musical studies at the Castella Conservatory in Costa Rica. He later enrolled in the Bachelor's of Music program in composition at the University of Costa Rica, completing his studies in 1994 with the highest G.P.A. of the year. Argüello's job experience has been extensive, including teaching composition and piano in several institutions, including his own music school with 200 students. Argüello has been the recipient of several awards including three prizes from the National Composers Competition sponsored by the National Orchestra of Costa Rica, in 2000, 2001 and 2003, the membership of Pi Kappa Lambda Honor Music Society, the LSU Student Composition Competition in 2005, and a Louisiana Music Award for talent and achievement in 2008. He has received commissions from a variety of organizations and international soloists. His music has been performed internationally, including performances in Costa Rica, the United States, Japan, Greece, the Royal Academy of Music in London, Italy, Thailand, and the Sibelius Academy in Finland. Argüello received the Master's of Music degree in composition from Louisiana State University in 2005, and is currently pursing a Doctorate in composition with a minor in orchestral conducting. His duties at LSU consist of teaching composition and serving as graduate assistant to Boyd Professor Dinos Constantinides. Alejandro Argüello is a member of the College Music Society (CMS), and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and its chapters of the state of Louisiana and the city of Baton Rouge. “Rhapsodic No. 2 was written for and dedicated to my friend Greek virtuoso saxophonist Stathis Mavrommatis. The piece has two main sections: the first one is a strong Allegro in compound meter, followed by an Andante that pictures melodic Costa-Rican elements, such as sadness and romanticism. The piece closes with the recapitulation of the Allegro and a powerful final coda.”

Special thanks to the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church for hosting tonight’s concert

The recently released New Music North – first recording CD will be available for purchase at a special concert price during intermission.

Cover art by Mark Nisenholt New Music North was founded in 2001 with a mission to promote contemporary concert music by Canadian and international composers in Northwestern Ontario. It is the first organization of its kind in the region and, with individual, corporate and government support, brings new concert music closer to the general public. New Music North is a non-profit, incorporated organization with dedicated volunteers at the heart of its operation. This concert will also be performed in Toronto in a new-music exchange pilot project with other communities.