Hyphenated-Americans

Written by nyfos

In category: Program Notes

Published February 19, 2019

In late 2017, Michael and I were busy trying to finalize the 2018–2019 NYFOS season. We had settled on the W. C. Handy project, and we were thinking about celebrating a famous poet on a later evening. (That poet turned out to be García Lorca, featured in our April 24 program.) But the third show remained a mystery. Then I heard the December NYFOS Next concert down at Elebash Hall. That program was devoted to Leonard Bernstein and other composers who had been influenced by him, and it included Daniel Sabzghabaei’s At the Door. I was transfixed by Daniel’s music, filled with the fascinating sonorities in the piano—including the visual frisson of seeing the piano lid raised all the way to 90 degrees, functioning as the barrier between the lovers—and an imaginative, daring use of the human voice. I told Michael, “We have got to bring that music to our mainstage series. Everyone needs to hear Daniel’s—what is it, a cantata?” At first we thought of pairing At the Door with other stories of thwarted lovers, picking up on the work’s story. But we saw a more interesting possibility, something to address our current national quandary about welcoming people of other nationalities into our country. Daniel is Persian-American, and At the Door is set to a poem in Farsi. NYFOS has ventured far afield in its 31-year history—a couple of years ago we did a song in Zulu. But it was time to open our borders even further, and Daniel Sabzghabaei proved to be our passport.

The debate on immigration to America was in the headlines when we first discussed tonight’s program and, as we predicted, the debate has continued with full-blown xenophobia on the extreme right, and conciliatory entry quotas on the other side. America was once proud to be a melting pot. Suddenly we are being told that the national food is to be Wonder Bread. To shed some light on the issue, we decided to celebrate a group of new American citizens and first-generation composers who work and reside in the U.S. Our roster includes professors at distinguished universities and award-winning performers: Brazilian-American, Chinese-American, Persian-American, and Puerto Rican (culturally hyphenated, if not technically). All of them are active in the ongoing development of our nation’s music, character, and ethos. Their musical voices span two generations, and draw deeply from their varied geographic and cultural origins. Tonight we are proud to celebrate their work as we revel in the new sonorities and rhythms they bring to American music. We look forward, with some hope, to a day when artists from everywhere might have the freedom to work wherever they like, and be welcomed with open arms in America.
—Steven Blier, with Michael Barrett


Elementos (Elements) (2010)
Music by Clarice Assad / Text by Daniel Basilio

All the songs in ELEMENTOS were born out of some kind of personal pain: pain that turns into introspection or fuel for change, heartbreak giving way to happiness, or heartache forcing us to make life-decisions. Written between 1998 and 2010 and conceived with an operatic female voice in mind (though I had never met an opera singer when I sketched the first tune), they were just a way of coping with life. I left them in a drawer along with many other pieces, but I was thankful I’d saved them when I met lyricist Daniel Basilio. Basilio, inspired by the stories, wrote words to draw the connections between human emotions and the four elements: earth, fire, water and air.

They do not appear in chronological order. I began humming “Esconderijo,” the finale one day, when I was about 20 years old, when things felt just right after a long dark period. At 26, I wrote “Maré de Água Viva,” the water movement, a painful realization that life was made up of permanent change. “Flor de Lã” and “Fogaréu” I wrote at 32, during a confusing time of loss and fear. Writing the music eventually set things into motion, forcing an imaginary bridge-burning after a wounding experience.

In 2016, the San Antonio-based SOLI ensemble commissioned a chamber version of this piece and invited me to perform with them. It was a great experience and began a beautiful collaboration between us. But tonight— so many years later—will be the first time these songs come to life the way I had first imagined them—for mezzo-soprano and piano.
—Clarice Assad


Three Chinese Love Songs (1988)
Traditional Chinese Folk Poetry / Translation to English by Bright Sheng

Three Chinese Love Songs was requested by Seiji Ozawa as one of the commissioned works for the celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s 77th birthday at Tanglewood in August 1988. Prior to this, I had just finished a large orchestral work for the New York Chamber Symphony entitled H’un (Lacerations):  In Memorium 1966–1976, a work about the “Cultural Revolution” in China. I composed H’un around the interval of the minor second instead of using any kind of melody or tune. Since it is about a tragic period in China, the work sounded harsh and dissonant, creating the drama and expressiveness I wished to evoke.

At the same time, the inevitable call for the search of tonality in my writing, though not necessarily in the sense of triads, was increasing daily. I needed to write something quite different. The Tanglewood commission was an opportunity that enabled me to fulfill this need and to explore other compositional ideas. Setting Chinese folk songs seemed natural and appropriate.

Three Chinese Love Songs was premiered on August 26th, 1988, on a program entitled “Tributes in Song to Leonard Bernstein” at Tanglewood. The performers were Lisa Saffer, soprano, Barton Fine, viola, and Yehudi Wyner, piano.
—Bright Sheng


At The Door (2017)

This setting of Rumi’s Ghazal 436 is an intimate scene for high voice, medium voice, and piano which focuses on the bond between the the Lover and the Belovéd; a tenant which pervades not only much of Rumi’s output, but many of his Sufi contemporaries and is a focal point of Sufism as a whole. In this mystical sect of Islam, the relationship between the Lover and the Belovéd is a deep and extremely personal one for each of us. We, as the Lover, all desire oneness with the Belovéd yet are consistently unable to achieve this true unison of body, spirit, consciousness, psyche, and self. The Belovéd takes on different meanings for each of us; however, what remains consistent is the desire for oneness with that which is unattainable; the Belovéd is the amalgamation of intimacy. In this scene, these two figures converse separated by a door, the Lover requesting entry to the Belovéd’s abode, and the Belovéd questioning the Lovers intentions. While the two consistently come very close to each other, a true unification is never achieved, only brief spurts of fleeting sensuality and passionate intimacy abound, the ever present Door separating the two incessantly, the oneness constantly fleeting into the ether.
—Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei


33 Suenos (33 Dreams) (2018) American Premiere
Music by Roberto Sierra (b. 1953)
Poetry by Juan Carlos Garvayo / Translation to English by D. P. Snyder

During one of my visits to Spain, Juan Carlos Garvayo, my friend and collaborator of many years, handed me a book titled 33 Sueños with his name inscribed as the poet. For over two decades, he has premiered and performed many of my works but I had no idea he wrote poetry. I took the volume back with me to the USA, and once I had the chance to glance through it, I immediately decided to set all the poems for baritone and piano. Juan Carlos’ poetry immediately spoke to me; the oneiric aspect of the poems connected with my music—a term the often appears in my works is “like a dream”. The writing process was vertiginous, as one poem led to the next, in fact as in a dream.
—Roberto Sierra

author: nyfos

select author’s name to read all of their posts

Notes by composers Clarice Assad, Daniel Sabzghabaei, Bright Sheng, and Roberto Sierra to accompany their works on the Hyphenated-Americans’ program, along with an introduction by NYFOS’s Artistic Directors Steven Blier and Michael Barrett.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *