Northern California Public Media: Monday, April 19 at 7:30 pm on KPJK TV in the South Bay. Also airing on KRCB TV in the North Bay on Sunday, April 18 at 8pm. Santa Rosa Symphony on stage with charismatic conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong and Grammy award-winning cellist Zuill Bailey performing cello concerto by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the first woman to win the Pulitzer prize for music.
Ellen’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, the full orchestral version, was featured in the Santa Rosa Symphony’s ”SRS @Home” concert in March, a performance with soloist Zuill Bailey conducted by Francesco Lecce-Chong. The program also featured music by Samuel Barber, Charles Ives, and Jessie Montgomery. One of the concerts that the orchestra is streaming on YouTube, it is part of the Santa Rosa Symphony’s artistic partnership with Ellen this spring.
In a brief talk about the piece with Francesco Lecce-Chong before the concerto’s performance, Ellen talks about her love of the cello and its range: “the cello has an operatic voice … it is like an opera singer.”
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has announced that it will present the world premiere of a new work by Ellen honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on October 7, 2021, at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center as a part of its 2021-22 season. Zwilich’s music will include texts by Lauren K. Watel and will be performed by GRAMMY® Award-winning Mezzo-Soprano Denyce Graves and pianist Jeffrey Biegel. Tickets will go on sale this summer at dallassymphony.org.
Denyce Graves, one of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s favorite singers, sang at Justice Ginsburg’s memorial at the Capitol in September 2020.
The Pacifica Quartet’s recording Contemporary Voices, showcasing works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Shulamit Ran and Jennifer Higdon, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet, a Cedille Records release, has won the 2021 Grammy Award in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category, it was announced this afternoon during the Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony.
Read more about the recording on the Cedille Records website.
Conductor Harold Rosenbaum interviews Ellen for his interview series “The Choral Connection.” In the course of the half-hour interview, Ellen talks about the “mystery” of conducting, her first lessons with Roger Sessions, her friendship with Elliott Carter, and advice for composers: “it’s not a straight line.”
Dave Lake of WRUU, Savannah, GA, on February 9 aired a two-hour interview with Ellen that includes three full works: the Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet (performed by the Pacifica Quartet and Otis Murphy, from the Grammy-nominated Cedille recording); the Quintet for Violin, Viola, Cello, Contrabass, and Piano (performed by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Michael Tree, and Harold Robinson from the Azica recording); and the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (performed by Pamela Frank with Michael Stern leading the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra from the Naxos recording). They talk about each of the works as well.
“We don’t know what music is, but for me, it’s the entire human, the brains, the heart, the soul, the guts. It should make you want to sing and dance. It’s sorrow and joy and everything we have as humans.”
Read the interview with Ellen on San Francisco Classical Voice, posted February 9, 2021, pegged to her post as Artistic Partner with the Santa Rosa Symphony in Spring 2021.
The Buffalo Philharmonic’s virtual concert “Dreams, Dances & Variations” led by Music Director JoAnn Falletta features a performance of Ellen’s Prologue and Variations. “The program … celebrates the ground-breaking achievements of Zwilich, the first female to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.” It also includes music by Joseph Bologne de Saint-Georges, Debussy, and Mozart.
The program is available to purchase online until March 11, 2021. Buy tickets here.
The world premiere of the chamber version of Ellen’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra is featured on the Boulder Philharmonic’s “Zuill and Zwilich” online concert, available to view through February 6.
“Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s new concerto, written for Zuill Bailey, is full of playful jazz and pop influences. We’re pleased to present the premiere of a chamber-sized revision of the concerto, mirroring the instrumentation of one of the great chamber works in the repertoire, Schubert’s Trout Quintet.”
The performance took place in an airplane hangar!
The Santa Rosa Symphony has announced Ellen as Artistic Partner in the second half of the 2020-21 season:
“During the remainder of the 2020-2021 season, Francesco and SRS orchestra musicians, observing all health and safety protocols, will perform on the Weill Hall stage for five more enhanced concert experiences, recorded for streaming on YouTube.
“The Symphony welcomes legendary composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich as its Artistic Partner. The first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music (1983), Zwilich is a prolific composer whose works, which enjoy a wide appeal with their unique signature style, have been performed by most of the leading American orchestras and Internationally by major ensembles. Her list of awards is heady and long, and includes two Grammy nominations. Each of the upcoming five SRS @ Home concerts features a Zwilich work, including her beloved Peanuts Gallery in our season-ending finale. In addition, she brings her vision, expertise and experience, as she takes an active role with the orchestra, Francesco and the community over the course of the season.”
Ellen and SRS Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong talk about the partnership and the five works to be performed on the spring programs in two videos on the SRS site - watch here.
Here are the works to be performed; click on the dates for full program information:
January 24, 2021 - Concerto Grosso for Chamber Orchestra
February 28, 2021 - Prologue and Variations for String Orchestra
March 28, 2021 - Concerto for Cello and Orchestra with guest soloist Zuill Bailey
April 28, 2021 - Romance for Violin and Orchestra with guest soloist Joseph Edelberg
May 16, 2021 - Peanuts Gallery for Piano and Orchestra
In the December 2 installment of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s “BSO Sessions” series of online events, Marin Alsop, in her final season as Music Director, takes a retrospective look at her historic journey with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra over the past 14 years. The program features three composers’ approach to evoking an earlier musical era with Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Concerto Grosso 1985, and Adolphus Hailstork's Baroque Suite.
In addition to the performances, the program features an interview by Marin Alsop with Ellen.
The event is available here from December 2 through June 2021.
The Pacifica Quartet’s recording Contemporary Voices, featuring Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet as well as works by Jennifer Higdon and Shulamit Ran, has been nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance” category.
During a webinar titled “The Time is Now: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Music” presented by the University of Rochester on October 8, 2020, violinist and Eastman School of Music alumna Kelly Hall-Tompkins performed the world premiere of A Little Violin Music in Memory of Elijah McClain, which Ellen wrote for Kelly this past summer.
You can see the performance on YouTube here.
Forgotten Voices, a song cycle commissioned by Kelly’s organization Music Kitchen featuring contributions by 15 composers including Ellen, was to have its premiere presented by Carnegie Hall last May; the performance will take place at a future date to be announced. The mission of Music Kitchen is “to bring top emerging and established professional musicians together in order to share the inspirational, therapeutic, and uplifting power of music with New York City’s disenfranchised homeless shelter population.”
Cellist Zuill Bailey, who performed the world premiere of Ellen’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra to rave reviews with the South Florida Symphony Orchestra in March, will premiere the chamber version of the concerto with members of the Boulder Philharmonic and Michael Butterman, conductor, in an online event scheduled for January 23, 2021.
Read more and buy tickets on the Boulder Philharmonic’s event page here.
BBC Music Magazine’s review of the Pacifica Quartet release Contemporary Voices in its October 2020 issue includes this praise: “Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet (2007) is a superb addition to the slim repertoire, masterfully executed here by the Pacifica Quartet and Otis Murphy, professor of saxophone at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where the string players are artists in residence. The three-movement work begins by blending the string and sax timbres, before the parts develop independence; the saxophone’s gentle cantabile solos culminate in a thrilling virtuosic display.”
Reviews are appearing for the Pacifica Quartet’s new recording, “Contemporary Voices,” featuring Ellen’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet with works by Jennifer Higdon and Shulamit Ran. Among these:
Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet, the featured score on the Pacifica Quartet’s new album “Contemporary Voices,” continues her exploration of America’s most original art form in a classical setting. The 2007 work is typically concise with three movements spanning just 17 minutes. Still Zwilich’s penchant for unexpected thematic incident and inspired melodic paths pervades every bar in a voice both accessible and thoroughly contemporary.
-Lawrence Budmen, South Florida Classical Review, July 28, 2020
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s 2007 Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet…effortlessly blends the spiky rhythms of the massed strings with the slinky smoothness of [the] alto sax. …echoes of Stravinsky and Milhaud laced with a sassy, post-minimalist vibe….
-Clive Paget, Musical America, July 23, 2020
From the Cedille Records press release:
Pacifica Quartet Presents Works by Pulitzer-Winning Composers on Cedille Records July 10, 2020
‘Contemporary Voices’ album offers string quartets by Shulamit Ran and Jennifer Higdon, plus quintet for alto sax and strings by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
The Grammy-winning Pacifica Quartet showcases works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Shulamit Ran, Jennifer Higdon, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich on Contemporary Voices, the ensemble’s newest Cedille Records album, available July 10, 2020. Contemporary Voices includes the world-premiere recording of Ran’s Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory — String Quartet No. 3; plus Higdon’s Voices and Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet, with renowned classical saxophonist Otis Murphy making his Cedille label debut (Cedille Records 90000 196). The Pacifica has ties to all three composers.
…
Singing saxophone
In Zwilich’s three-movement Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet (2007), a lusciously singing saxophone shares the spotlight with virtuosic string playing. For the recording, the Pacifica, quartet in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, enlisted the services of Murphy, professor of saxophone at IU who has won praise for his “polish and sensitivity” (Chicago Tribune) and “the ability to phrase the music so that it takes on a life of its own” (Saxophone Journal). The Pacifica had recommended Zwilich to Arizona Friends of Chamber Music president Jean-Paul Bierny, who was looking to commission a work for the unusual combination of string quartet and saxophone, according to Brandon Vamos, the Pacifica’s founding cellist. “Everyone in the quartet knew of her work and greatly admired it.” Moreover, Vamos’s parents, violinist Almita and violist Roland Vamos, were members of the Lydian Trio, which commissioned, premiered, and recorded Zwilich’s 1982 String Trio. “I heard her trio many times as a child,” he said.
Ellen’s new Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, just given its world premiere performances by Zuill Bailey and the South Florida Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebrina Maria Alfonso, has received rave reviews:
“Composer Zwilich adds to her musical legacy with Cello Concerto premiere,” wrote Lawrence Budmen in South Florida Classical Review, who called the work “an important addition to the cello concerto literature.”
“Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is one of America’s preeminent composers, with a consistently excellent body of work in multiple genres spanning nearly five decades — including another standout that had its world premiere on Thursday night with the South Florida Symphony Orchestra and cellist Zuill Bailey.” Read the full review here.
“Zwilich’s Snazzy Cello Concerto Soars In Florida,” wrote John Fleming in Classical Voice North America. “Zwilich gives the solo cello plenty of nimble, virtuosic passagework, but her writing is always concise and to the point. Never did Bailey lapse into empty brilliance for the sake of mere display. There was nary a wasted note. The three movements, played without pause, had a narrative drive and coherence stemming from an inner pulse that propelled the music. If anything, this expressive, impeccably detailed, technically sophisticated work felt a bit too brief, leaving me wanting to hear more.
“Certainly, the concerto contains a strong jazz quality, with sparkling, toe-tapping orchestration that recalls Gershwin and Bernstein, and there’s a clarinet lick or two right out of the Benny Goodman playbook. Zwilich’s harmonies are elegant and unpredictable, even including what sounded like a suggestion of Minimalism popping up here and there. At times, Bailey seemed to be channeling his inner Sonny Rollins, the cello honking and shouting like a tenor sax. A highlight was the back and forth between cello soloist and individual players in the orchestra, such as Bailey’s deft exchanges with flute and bluesy, muted trumpet. An eight-measure dialogue between cello and English horn in the third movement was sublime.” Read the full review here.
“The blues haunts Zwilich’s fine new cello concerto,” wrote Dennis Rooney in Palm Beach Arts Paper. “Zwilich (b. 1939), a native Floridian, is a distinguished American composer whose career broke new ground for her gender (the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in composition from the Juilliard School, the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in music) and whose works are widely performed and have received numerous awards. Among them are more than a dozen concertos for strings, winds and brass.
“In both her Double Concerto and Triple Concerto, the cello was featured but her newest work places it front and center. It proved a congenial vehicle for the soloist, Zuill Bailey. The sound of his Gofriller “Rosette” cello of 1693 soared splendidly in the acoustics of the Amaturo Theatre at the Broward Center for the Arts in Fort Lauderdale.
“The concerto’s three linked movements suggested a meditation on melodic gestures from the American vernacular. The blues hovered over the work allusively, but the musical materials always generated multifaceted meanings that were compelling yet evanescent, ranging from gently introspective to aggressive. An agitated, bustling motto introduced the successive sections. Throughout, the mood was thoughtful but not elegiac.
“Technical challenges are plentiful in the solo part, although the work’s lineaments are not those of a display vehicle. Only in the final movement did a cadenza-like episode emerge. The 47-year-old Bailey (a pupil of Stephen Kates at Peabody and Joel Krosnick at Juilliard, and currently cello professor at the University of Texas at El Paso) played it sympathetically, with attractive color and expressiveness.” Read the full review here.
On the eve of the world premiere performances of her new Concerto for Cello and Orchestra by Zuill Bailey and the South Florida Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebrina Maria Alfonso, Ellen talked to Artburst Miami about writing for the cello, and about how composing is still a trip into the unknown: “One thing I love about what I do: It’s not like you learn how to do it, and then you repeat it,” she says. “I still feel like I’m at the starting gate. I’m still jumping into something, and I feel confident in a lot of ways and I have a lot of experience and all that, and then I’m still not quite there, and it’s wonderful. I call it a voyage, writing music. I also sometimes call it a disease [laughs].” Read the article here.
On February 8, Orchestra Miami, led by Elaine Rinaldi, performed Ellen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Symphony No. 1 on a program titled “Miami Mujeres” honoring four composers: Ellen, Tania Leon, Amy Beach, and Florence Price. Of the performance, Lawrence Budmen observed in South Florida Classical Review, “Nearly forty years since its 1982 New York premiere by the intrepid American Composers Orchestra, the superbly crafted work still holds up well. Conceived in cyclical form with thematic material reappearing in each movement, the seventeen-minute canvass packs a plethora of invention into its brief time frame. … Rinaldi conducted a muscular reading with plenty of swagger, particularly from the avuncular percussion and precise strings.”
