SET SAIL FOR THE SUN
The ARTSaha! 2008 Commencement Concert
September 3, 2008
7:00 PM, FREE
Strauss Performing Arts Center, UNO
7:00 PROGRAM
GEORGE CRUMB, Voice of the Whale
KAIJA SAARIAHO, Mirrors
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN, “Your angel is watching over you” from Amour
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN, “A little bird sings by your window” from Amour
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG, Chamber Symphony, Op. 9 (arr. Webern)
8:00 PROGRAM
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN, Friday Greeting (U.S. Premiere)
PERFORMERS
Marcia Kamper, flute
Igor Yuzefovich, violin
Dariusz Skoraczewski, cello
Michael Sheppard, piano
Joe Drew, sound projectionist
ARTSaha! 2008 kicks off with a flute recital by ANALOG Co-Artistic Director Marcia Kamper. Since 2006, Marcia has been performing second flute in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop. On this concert of eclectic contemporary music for flute, she is joined by several of her colleagues from the BSO.
At approximately 8:00 PM, ANALOG will present the United States premiere of Friday Greeting by Karlheinz Stockhausen. This meditative electronic work is the prelude to Friday, the fifth opera in the composer’s massive LIGHT cycle.
Marcia Kämper joined the Baltimore Symphony for the 2005-2006 season which included a European tour under music director Yuri Temirkanov. She made her concerto debut with the BSO in 2008 and performs in the educational program, BSO on the Go for elementary students in Maryland’s Montgomery County. Before becoming a member of the Baltimore Symphony, Ms. Kämper was a flutist and soloist with the Omaha Symphony. While with the Omaha Symphony, her concerto appearances included a live radio broadcast of Leonard Bernstein’s Halil and J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 4 and 5.
An active recitalist with a broad repertoire, Ms. Kämper is a champion of new music. She has several world premieres to her credit as well as many performances of major chamber works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Toru Takemitsu and Morton Feldman.
Marcia is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of ANALOG, a non-profit collective of artists and musicians from around the world. The ANALOG Arts Ensemble is comprised of avant-garde conceptual artists and musicians that reach out to new audiences and new horizons. Currently, the largest ANALOG project is ARTSaha!, Omaha’s only new-music festival.
Ms. Kämper earned two degrees from Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. In college, she won the Washington DC Flute Club Competition and was twice-awarded the Britton Johnson Memorial Flute Prize. Her childhood acclaim includes performances with the Henderson Civic Symphony, Las Vegas Youth Orchestra, Las Vegas Music Festival, and first prize at the Las Vegas Flute Club Competition. She attended the prestigious Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts and Interlochen Arts Camp.
Coming soon
FRIDAY was the fifth opera that Stockhausen completed in his LIGHT cycle, which consists of an opera for each day of the week. The world premiere of FRIDAY took place on September 12th 1996 at 7:30 p.m. at the Leipzig Opera. The opera is in two acts and employed 5 soloists (soprano, baritone, bass, flute, basset-horn), 24 dancer-mimes, children’s orchestra, children’s choir, 12 choir singers and synthesizer.
Most of the operas in LICHT include both a ‘greeting’ and a ‘farewell’, music which is heard before and after the staged action. Unlike typical opera preludes, Stockhausen’s greetings and farewells are spatial music, usually played in the lobby or even outside the hall. FRIDAY GREETING was designed to be played in the theater lobby by candlelight, with the speakers arranged in a circle.
The candles are not simply a meditative accoutrement, although they certainly compliment the GREETING’s calm mood. Fire is a central theme of FRIDAY, which revolves around the union of Eve (soprano) and Ludon (bass). Ludon has convinced Eve to bear children by his son Caino (baritone). Eve’s children are white (children’s orchestra), and Ludon’s children are black (children’s choir). The two groups fight a terrible war, and 12 couples of dancer-mimes engage in a bizarre, abstract swinger’s party. The couples are odd enough to begin with (cat & dog, pencil & pencil sharpener, violin & bow), and their swapping of partners is meant to symbolize the unholy partnership of Eve and Caino.
Eventually, Eve repents, and the couples are consumed by fire and transported up into the air. The opera is a dense meditation on the gulfs between human cultures and the strife they create.
ANALOG is presenting the first U.S. performance of FRIDAY GREETING on this concert.
