RITUALS: East/West

April 29, 2012, 4pm

In fall 2008, composer Andrea Clearfield explored the Himalayan mountains of Nepal while studying the traditions of Tibetan chant and dance — all of which inspired this Clearfield commission Tse Lo Ga (At the Threshold of Life).  Come and experience the Far East with us in a program that respresents a unique collaboration with the Pennsylvania Girlchoir, Philadelphia Tibetan community and Mendelssohn Club.  Also featured on this program is the magnificent Fauré Requiem and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

April 29, 2012 | 4 pm
The Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse
1904 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA

Performed with The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir.

This commission project explores composer Andrea Clearfield’s research in Tibet during 2008, whereby she studied ritualistic dance, chant and melody and their uses in Buddhist tradition. Clearfield writes, “Composing music can transport one to the far reaches of one’s imagination. Commissions often inspire me to explore places, subjects, sounds, and spaces that I might never have imagined, musical and otherwise. However, I had no way of knowing that my life would change as a result of a collaborative commission that would lead me to the top of the world.” As a result of her visit, the Tibetan community became interested in Clearfield’s documentation of their music, which had never been previously recorded. Clearfield’s project will involve dancers in collaboration with Maureen Drdak and Group Motion Dance Company, in addition to religious refugees from Philadelphia’s Tibetan community. The 15-minute multi-movement work for Mendelssohn Club and the PA Girlchoir (almost 200 singers total), plus woodwind quintet and percussion, will employ Tibetan melodies from Lo Monthang.

Andrea Clearfield (b. 1960) is an award-winning American composer of music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, dance, and multimedia collaborations. She has been praised by the New York Times for her “graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing”, the Philadelphia Inquirer for her “compositional wizardry” and “mastery with large choral and instrumental forces” and by the L.A. Times for her “fluid and glistening orchestration”. Her works are performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. Commissions include works for The Philadelphia Orchestra, Carol Wincenc, The Debussy Trio, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Turtle Creek Chorale, Mendelssohn Club, Orchestra 2001, and Network for New Music. She has composed nine cantatas for voices and orchestra; her new cantata, Les Fenêtres, for Singing City and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, will be premiered at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts on April 30, 2011. Dr. Clearfield was the recipient of a Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome from the American Composers Forum, 2010 and has also been awarded fellowships at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts among others. She has served on the composition faculty at The University of the Arts since 1986. Clearfield is also the founder and host of the Philadelphia Salon concert series, now approaching its 25th year; the series features contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic, dance, and world music and was winner of Philadelphia Magazine’s 2008 “Best of Philadelphia” award. More at www.andreaclearfield.com.

Fauré Requiem

Performed with The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir.

Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48 between 1887 and 1890. This choral–orchestral setting of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead is the best known of his large works. The most famous movement is the soprano aria Pie Jesu. Camille Saint-Saëns said of it, “just as Mozart’s is the only Ave verum Corpus, this is the only Pie Jesu.”

source– Wikipedia

Gabriel Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers. Among his best-known works are his Nocturnes for piano, the songs “Après un rêve” and “Clair de lune” and his Requiem.

By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922 headed by the President of the Republic. Fauré had many admirers in England, but his music, though known in other countries, took decades more to become widely accepted. His music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with the modernism of the second quarter of the 20th century. When he was born, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of his death the atonal music of the Second Viennese School was being heard. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, notes that his harmonic and melodic innovations affected the teaching of harmony for later generations.