"Founded by Raymond
DesRoches in 1968 and conducted by Peter Jarvis, the New Jersey Percussion
Ensemble gained national prominence as a group of gifted musicians committed to
the promulgation of 20-century percussion repertory."
-
The Reporter (California) -
January 17, 1986
in a tribute concert for
Raymond DesRoches
Monday, March
24, 2003 7:30 PM
William Paterson University
Shea Center for the Performing Arts, Shea Auditorium
Program
Canaries (1966) - Elliott Carter
from Eight Pieces for Four Timpani
John Ferrari
Mundus Canis (1997) - George Crumb
five Humoresques for Guitar and Percussion
1. “Tammy”
2. “Fritzi”
3. “Heidel”
4. “Emma-Jean”
5. “Yoda”
William Anderson
– Guitar
Peter Jarvis - Percussion
Percussion Quartet (1993-1994) - Charles Wuorinen
Thomas Kolor, John Ferrari, Kenneth Piascik, Michael Aberback
Peter Jarvis – Conductor
intermission
Caprice (1987) - Arthur Kreiger
for Percussion Quartet and Electronic Tape
Al Cerulo, April McCloskey, Shawn Corcoran, James Bogart
Peter Jarvis – Conductor
Tympan Alley (2002) - Wayne Peterson - Text by Les Murray
duo for Soprano and Percussion
Barbara Kokolus – Soprano
Thomas Kolor - Percussion
Ionisation (1931) - Edgard Varèse
for Percussion Ensemble
Vincent Inciong, Elena Bocchino, Thomas
Kolor, John Tighe, Justin Wolf,
April McCloskey, Alex Bocchino, Kenneth Piascik, Michael Aberback,
Gary Van Dyke, Al Cerulo, John Ferrari, Barbara Leutz
Peter Jarvis – Conductor
Biographical Information
Raymond DesRoches graduated from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Paul Price, a pioneer in percussion ensembles. Upon graduation, Mr. DesRoches was invited to join the newly formed Group for Contemporary Music and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. These highly acclaimed groups dedicated themselves to the high quality production of contemporary music throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. Their performances included tours of North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Mr. DesRoches has recorded for Columbia, Angel, Nonesuch, Desoto, Composer's Recording Inc., New World and the Composers Guild of New Jersey. In 1986, he was presented with the Laurel Leaf Award by the American Composer's Alliance for his contributions to American Music. Mr. DesRoches is currently a member of the faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble was founded in 1968 by Raymond DesRoches, who co-directs the group with Peter Jarvis and Gary Van Dyke. The acclaimed group is made up of professionals and students from William Paterson University, where it has been in residence since 1972. Because of the ensemble's commitment to the performance and development of percussion repertoire, numerous pieces have been written for, premiered by and recorded by it. The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble has appeared in the United States and Europe as guests of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, the Composers Guild of New Jersey, the San Francisco Symphony, the Gaudeamus Foundation, Radio Denmark, and countless others. The group can be heard on Nonesuch, Composer's Recording Inc., Music and Arts, Koch International, Desoto, New World, NAXOS, the Composers Guild of New Jersey and Capstone recording labels.
Peter Jarvis studied percussion with Raymond DesRoches at William Paterson University, Wayne New Jersey. As co-director of the acclaimed New Jersey Percussion Ensemble Jarvis is active as a percussionist, conductor, administrator and educator. He has played with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble of Piccolo Spoleto, New Band, New York Art Ensemble, among others. As conductor, Jarvis has appeared with Saint Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Cygnus Festival Orchestra, Composers Guild of New Jersey Performance Ensemble, Ensemble 21, and others. Jarvis has appeared in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Asia, Russia and Europe. He can be heard on Nonesuch, CRI, Koch International, Composers Guild of New Jersey, October Music, Capstone, Naxos, Gram recording labels. Jarvis has taught percussion at Fairleigh Dickinson University and currently teaches at William Paterson University.
Gary Van Dyke is an accomplished percussionist who is active as a performer, conductor and educator. He studied percussion with Raymond DesRoches for six years and earned music degrees from William Paterson College and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Mr. Van Dyke performs and conducts with the New Jersey New Music Ensemble and the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble. He can be heard on Nonesuch, Composer's Recording Inc., New World and Capstone recording labels with the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble under Charles Wuorinen, Harvey Solberger and Raymond DesRoches. Mr. Van Dyke has held teaching positions since 1978 and currently teaches/conducts for the Teaneck Public School system in New Jersey, serving seven schools, grades 4 - 12, and is an Adjunct Faculty at William Paterson University, conducting and performing new music and percussion ensemble literature. Mr. Van Dyke makes his home in Waldwick, New Jersey with his wife, Linea, and their three children, Amanda, Kyle and Briana.
John Ferrari enjoys a
varied career as a versatile classical and hand percussionist, drummer,
conductor, and educator in the New York area. He is a founding member of the
Naumburg Award winning New Millennium Ensemble as well as drummer/percussionist
for Meridian Arts Ensemble-Brass & Percussion. Frequent recipients of the
ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming, both groups have collectively
released nine critically acclaimed recordings. Between these groups and others
he has toured extensively as both performer and clinician in the U.S., Europe,
Mexico, Central and South America, and Asia.
Mr. Ferrari is a frequent guest artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center and has performed and recorded with most notable chamber-music
organizations around New York, including: Bang On A Can All-Stars, Cygnus, Da
Capo Chamber Players, The Group for Contemporary Music, New Jersey Percussion
Ensemble, New Music Consort, Orion and Peterson String Quartets, Patrick Grant
Group, Riverside Symphony, Sequitur, and Talujon Percussion Quartet.
Musically active in chamber, orchestral, pop, jazz, Broadway, dance, film and
television, he can be heard on the CRI, Centaur, Koch International, Channel
Classics, CGNJ and sTRANGE mUSIC record labels. Mr. Ferrari holds DMA and MM
degrees from SUNY Stony Brook, a BM from William Paterson University, and is on
the performing arts faculties of Wagner College in Staten Island and William
Paterson University in New Jersey.
“William Anderson is one
of our finest players”, says the Music Connoisseur. The New York Times
described Anderson as “first rate” and a sensitive, thoughtful player”. Thomas
May, in the Washington Post speaks of the large impression the guitar can make
in Anderson’s hands: “…seemingly modest dimensions can trick the ear into an
impression of vaster scale. Guitarist William Anderson brought both technical
and expressive virtuosity . . . a quasi-orchestral palette of coloristic effects
. . . deftly realized as he shaped each entry with epigrammatic concentration.”
While his repertoire encompasses the entire guitar and lute literature, his
chief interest is in the music that is coming next, and he continually
astonishes his audiences with surprising new works by composers young and old
from all over the world. Magdelene Dziadek “Anderson astonished everybody with
his ability to deal with a great variety of musical idioms, his skill in
utilizing the entire range of tones and moods. He stretched himself from
abstract concentration…through serenity and humor…to meditative melancholy.”
Mr. Anderson has been a soloist for the Tanglewood Festival,
the Bang on the Can Festival, the Europe Asia Festival, the Theater Chamber
Players of Washington D.C., the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Festival
International de Guitarra in Morelia, Mexico, and Die Rotenburger Guitarwoche in
Germany, among many others. He has given solo recital tours in the United
States, Germany, Austria, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Holland, playing classical
and contemporary music including works of his own. Anderson’s first solo
recital in New York City was presented by the League of Composers/ASCM at Weill
Hall in 1990. In 1994 he was presented by Music from Japan in a recital at the
Asia Society in New York City.
Anderson has made three CDs for Titanic, Soundspells
Productions, and New World Records, he appears on seven other CDs on various
labels. His performances have been broadcast on Performance today, WNYC’s
Around New York, and New Sounds, WGBH, Boston’s Chamber Works, Bremen Radio,
Polish National Radio, and Danish National Radio. Anderson teaches guitar at
Sarah Lawrence College.
Soprano Barbara Kokolus is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music as well as William Paterson College and has recently received her Doctorate of Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook. During the past year Ms. Kokolus has premiered two operatic roles ( Chase Morrison: Women of the Lighthouse, New York City, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon: Comala, Mexico City). She also premiered a new work this past summer by Ushio Torikai with the Mabou Mines Theatre. She is a recent prize winner in New York’s Center for Contemporary Opera’s International Singers Competition, as well as a finalist in the Puccini / Albanese Vocal Competition. As an active interpreter of new music, Ms. Kokolus is a regular performer with the Furious Band, New Jersey New Music Ensemble, and the Composers’ Guild of New Jersey Performance Ensemble. Also active in traditional opera, she has recorded works by Donizetti and Benjamin Britten on Vox Records.
Cited by the New York Times as a “virtuosic percussionist”, Thomas Kolor specializes in recent solo and chamber music. He has appeared internationally as a member of the Talujon Percussion Quartet, Ensemble Sospeso, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Newband, and Ensemble 21. He is a frequent guest of the Group for Contemporary Music, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Speculum Musicae, Da Capo Chamber Players, Continuum, and New Millennium Ensemble. As a soloist, he has given dozens of premieres, including the European premiere of Milton Babbitt’s Beaten Paths for solo marimba. Recent solo engagements include Weill Recital Hall, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Holland’s State Museum at Amsterdam, Princeton University, and the University of California at Berkeley. He has recorded for Koch, Mode, New World, CRI, Capstone, Naxos, and Albany labels, and is a graduate of the Juilliard School.
Born in New York City on 11 December
1908, Elliott Carter began to be seriously interested in music in
high school and was encouraged at that time by Charles Ives. He attended Harvard
University where he studied with Walter Piston, and later went to Paris where
for three years he studied with Nadia Boulanger. He then returned to New York to
devote his time to composing and teaching.
With the explorations of tempo relationships and texture that
characterize his music, Carter has been one of the prime innovators of
20th-century music. The challenges of works such as the Variations for
Orchestra, Symphony of Three Orchestras, and the concertos and
string quartets are richly rewarding.
Elliott Carter has been recipient of the highest honors that
a composer can receive: the Gold Medal for Music awarded by the National
Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Medal of Arts, membership in the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and honorary degrees from many universities. He has received two
Pulitzer Prizes and commissions from prestigious organizations.
George Crumb was born 24 October 1929 in Charleston, West Virginia. He received his D.M.A. at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he studied composition with Ross Lee Finney. Crumb has received numerous awards, honors and commissions (Pulitzer Prize 1968; International Rostrum of Composers (UNESCO) Award 1971; Fromm, Guggenheim, Koussevitzky and Rockefeller Foundations) and is a member of the National Institute of Arts & Letters. Presently he is composer in residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Audience enthusiasm, critical acclaim and colleagues' praise have been extensive for Crumb's mature works (dating from approximately 1962). Among those qualities that are most frequently cited are the following: an extraordinarily sensitive ear resulting in highly refined timbral nuances; a very powerful evocative sense and a sureness and concision in realizing his musical intentions. All of these interact structurally to form a body of music which is moving and convincing.
Charles Wuorinen (b. 9
June 1938, New York City) has been composing since he was five and he has been a
forceful presence on the American musical scene for more than four decades.
In 1970, Wuorinen became the youngest composer to win the
Pulitzer Prize in music, the specific work being Time's Encomium, an
electronic composition written on commission from Nonesuch Records. The Pulitzer
and the MacArthur Fellowship are just two among many awards, fellowships and
other honors to have come his way.
Wuorinen has written more than 200 compositions to date. His
newest works include Symphony Seven commissioned by four American
orchestras, a trilogy of orchestral scores for the New York City Ballet, a
Piano Quintet for Ursula Oppens, and a Percussion Quartet. He is
presently at work on an opera based on a novel of Salman Rushdie with the poet
James Fenton and the director Mark Lamos.
An indication of Wuorinen's historical importance can be seen
in the fact that in 1975 Stravinsky's widow gave Wuorinen the composer's last
sketches for use in A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky. Wuorinen was the
first composer commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von
Dohnanyi (Movers and Shakers); and likewise the first to compose for
Michael Tilson Thomas' New World Symphony (Bamboula Beach). Fractal
geometry and the pioneering work of Benoit Mandelbrot have played a crucial role
in several of his works including Bamboula Squared and the Natural
Fantasy, a work for organ.
His works have been recorded on nearly a dozen labels
including a brand new recording for Koch International Classics which includes
the Piano Quintet, The Mission of Virgil and Percussion Quartet. Other
recent recordings include A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky (Deutsche
Grammophon), Genesis for chorus and orchestra and Mass (Koch
International Classics) a solo disc with pianist Alan Feinberg performing the
Third Piano Sonata, Capriccio and Bagatelle (nominated for a Grammy
Award).
Wuorinen's works are published exclusively by C.F. Peters
Corporation. He is the author of Simple Composition, used by composition
students throughout the world (recently translated into Chinese).
An eloquent writer and speaker, Wuorinen has lectured at
universities throughout the United States and abroad, and has served on the
faculties of Columbia, Princeton, and Yale Universities, the University of Iowa,
University of California (San Diego), Manhattan School of Music, New England
Conservatory, State University of New York at Buffalo, and is presently
Professor of Composition at Rutgers University.
Wuorinen has also been active as performer, an excellent
pianist and a distinguished conductor of his own works as well as other
twentieth century repertoire. His orchestral appearances have included the
Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco
Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the American Composers Orchestra.
In 1962 he co-founded The Group for Contemporary Music, one
of America's most prestigious ensembles dedicated to performance of new chamber
music. In addition to cultivating a new generation of performers, commissioning
and premiering hundreds of new works, the Group has been a model for many
similar organizations which have appeared in the United States since its
founding.
Wuorinen is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and
Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His music is published
by C.F. Peters Corporation.
Composer, Arthur Kreiger, holds degrees from The University of Connecticut and from Columbia University. His catalog contains pieces for orchestra, chorus, mixed chamber ensembles, piano solo and the electronic medium. Kreiger’s honors include the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Brandeis University Creative Arts Award. His music appears on Odyssey, Spectrum, Finnadar, CRI and Neuma. A new composition, Joint Session for bass clarinet and electronic tape, was recently released on New World Records with Michael Lowenstern as the featured soloist. The composer and his wife presently live in Connecticut on Moosup Pond.
Wayne Peterson (born in
Albert Lea, MN, 1927 living in San Francisco, CA since 1960) was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1992 crowning a distinguished career which began in
1958 with the Free Variations premiered and recorded by the Minnesota
Orchestra under Antal Dorati. Peterson’s recent orchestral compositions include
And The Winds Shall Blow a fantasy for saxophone quartet, symphonic
winds, brass and percussion, and Theseus for chamber orchestra , and
The Face of the Night, The Heart of the Dark, commissioned by the San
Francisco Symphony (awarded the Pulitzer).
Recent chamber works include Vicissitudes premiered by
the New York New Music Ensemble in recognition of the ensemble's twentieth
season, Antiphonies (solo percussion), Colloquy (flute and harp),
Inscape (flute, clarinet and percussion), Four Piano Preludes,
Peregrinations (solo clarinet), Monarch of the Vine (percussion
quartet), Pop Sweet (String Quartet No. 3), Tympan Alley (soprano
and percussion) and Quest (flute and piano).
Peterson’s catalog of more than 60 compositions includes
works for orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensemble. In addition to the Pulitzer,
Peterson has been honored with fellowships and commissions from the Guggenheim,
Koussevitzky, Fromm, Meet The Composer, Djerassi Foundations, as well as an
award of distinction from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and
Letters. In 1990 he was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome.
Among the recent compact discs are an all-Peterson disc on
Koch International (Vicissitudes, Diptych, Labyrinth, Capriccio & Duodecaphony),
Windup (Rascher Quartet, BIS), Second String Quartet (Alexander String
Quartet, Innova); Labyrinth (Earplay, Centaur), First String Quartet
(The Group for Contemporary Music, Koch International Classics), Sextet
(San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, CRI). His Janus (for 10
instruments) will be released shortly on a North/South Consonance CD.
Peterson has been active as a guest composer at the
University of Indiana, University of Minnesota, Brandeis University, U.C.Santa
Barbara, the Composer's Conference in Wellesley, MA and at the Festival of New
Music, Sacramento State University. He has served on the Nomination Committee
for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, 1999, 2000, and was a jury member for the First
Seoul International Competition for Composers, 2001. In addition, Peterson in
joint sponsorship with San Francisco State University, established and currently
administers the Wayne Peterson Prize in Music Composition (since 1998).
Peterson has been professor of music at San Francisco State
University for more than three decades and from 1992-94 was a guest professor of
composition at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of
Minnesota and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Royal Academy of Music in London
from 1953-54.
Peterson's music is published by C.F. Peters Corporation,
Boosey and Hawkes, Seesaw Music, Trillenium Music (Turnbridge, VT) and
Lawson-Gould.
Edgard Varèse (b. Paris,
22 Dec 1883; d. New York, 6 Nov 1965), American composer of French origin. He
studied with d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum (1903-5) and Widor at the Paris
Conservatoire (1905-7), then moved to Berlin, where he met Strauss and Busoni.
In 1913 he returned to Paris, but in 1915 he emigrated to New York; nearly all
his compositions disappeared at this stage, with the exception of a single
published song and an orchestral score, Bourgogne (1908), which he took
with him but destroyed towards the end of his life. His creative output
therefore effectively begins with Amériques for large orchestra (1921),
which, for all its echoes of Debussy and of Stravinsky's early ballets, sets out
to discover new worlds of sound: fiercely dissonant chords, rhythmically complex
polyphonies for percussion and/or wind, forms in continuous evolution with no
large-scale recurrence.
In 1921 he and Carlos Salzedo founded the International
Composers Guild, who gave the first performances of several of his works for
small ensemble, these prominently featuring wind and percussion, and presenting
the innovations of Amériques in pure, compact form: Hyperprism
(1923), Octandre (1923) and Intégrales (1925). Arcana
(1927), which returns to the large orchestra and extended form with perfected
technique, brought this most productive period to an end.
There followed a long stay in Paris (1928-33), during which
he wrote Ionisation for percussion orchestra (1931), the first European work to
dispense almost entirely with pitched sounds, which enter only in the coda. He
also took an interest in the electronic instruments being developed (he had been
calling for electronic means since his arrival in the USA), and wrote for two
theremins or ondes martenot in Ecuatorial for bass, brass, keyboards and
percussion (1934). The flute solo Density 21. 5 (1936) was then his last
completed work for nearly two decades.
During this time he taught sporadically and also made plans
for Espace, which was to have involved simultaneous radio broadcasts from around
the globe; an Etude pour Espace for chorus, pianos and percussion was performed
in 1947. Then, with electronic music at last a real possibility owing to the
development of the tape recorder, he produced Déserts for wind,
percussion and tape (1954) and a Poème électronique (1957-8),
devised to be diffused in the Philips pavilion at the Brussels Exposition of
1958. His last years were devoted to projects on themes of night and death,
including the unfinished Nocturnal for voices and chamber orchestra (1961).
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