CONCERTS

78TH SEASON OF

national gallery of art | march 1, 2020
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PROGRAM

Guillaume Connesson (b. 1970)

Techno-Parade (2002)

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)

Estampes (1903)

La soirée dans Grenade (Evening in Granada)

Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain)

Francis Poulenc

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1962)

Allegro tristamente 

Romanza (Très calme)

Allegro con fuoco (Très animé)

Paul Schoenfield (b. 1947)

Sonatina for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano (1994)

Charleston

Hunter’s Rag

Jig

McGill/McHale Trio

Demarre McGill, flute

Anthony McGill, clarinet

Michael McHale, piano

March 1, 2020 | 3:30 p.m.

West Building, West Garden Court

Chris Rogerson (b. 1988)

A Fish Will Rise (2014/2016)

Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)

Sonata for Flute and Piano (1957)

Allegretto malincolico

Cantilena: Assez lent

Presto giocoso

Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)

Portraits of Langston (2007)

Prelude: Helen Keller

Danse Africaine

Le Grand Duc Mambo

Silver Rain

Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret

Harlem’s Summer Night

Intermission
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Anthony McGill, clarinet

Clarinetist Anthony McGill is one of classical music’s most recognizable and brilliantly 

multifaceted figures. As the principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic — that 

orchestra’s first African-American principal player, he maintains a dynamic international solo and chamber music career. Hailed for his “trademark brilliance, penetrating 

sound and rich character” (New York Times), as well as for his “exquisite combination 

of technical refinement and expressive radiance” (Baltimore Sun), McGill is an ardent 

advocate for helping music education reach underserved communities and for 

addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in classical music. He performed 

during the inauguration of President Barack Obama, along with violinist Itzhak Perlman, 

cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and pianist Gabriela Montero in a premiere of a piece written for the 

occasion by John Williams.

This season, McGill premieres a new work by Tyshawn Sorey at the 92nd Street Y; 

collaborates with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato at Carnegie Hall; appears as a 

featured soloist at the Kennedy Center, playing the Copland Clarinet Concerto at the 

SHIFT Festival of American Orchestras with the Jacksonville Symphony; and performs 

concertos by Copland, Mozart, and Danielpour with the Richmond, Delaware, Alabama, 

Reno, and San Antonio Symphonies. Additional collaborations include programs with 

Gloria Chien, his brother Demarre McGill, Michael McHale, Anna Polonsky, Arnaud 

Sussmann, and the Pacifica Quartet.

McGill recorded the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto in 2015 with Alan Gilbert and the 

New York Philharmonic (DaCapo), an album in 2017 with Demarre McGill, principal 

flute of the Seattle Symphony, and pianist Michael McHale, and also another recording 

with the Pacifica Quartet, performing the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets (both 

on Cedille Records).

A dedicated champion of new music, in 2014, McGill premiered a piece written 

for him by Richard Danielpour titled From the Mountaintop, commissioned by the 

New Jersey Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, and Orchestra 2001. McGill served 

as the 2015 – 2016 artist-in-residence for WQXR, and appeared on Performance Today, 

MPR’s St. Paul Sunday Morning, and Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. In 2013, he was 

featured on NBC’s Nightly News and MSNBC, in stories highlighting the McGill brothers’ 

inspirational story.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, McGill previously served as the principal 

clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera and associate principal clarinet of the Cincinnati 

Symphony Orchestra. In demand as a teacher, he serves on the faculty of the Juilliard 

School, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Bard College’s Conservatory of Music. 

THE MUSICIANS

Demarre McGill, flute

Demarre McGill has gained international recognition as a solo, recital, chamber, and 

orchestral musician. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Medal 

of Excellence, he has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seattle, 

Pittsburgh, Dallas, Grant Park, San Diego, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, and at 

age fifteen, with the Chicago Symphony. Now principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, 

he previously served as principal flute of the Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, 

Florida Orchestra, and Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and as acting principal flute of the 

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

As an educator, McGill has performed, coached, and presented master classes 

in South Africa, Korea, Japan, Canada, and throughout the United States. With his 

brother clarinetist Anthony McGill, he was a speaker and performer at the 2018 

League of American Orchestras Conference. He has also served on the faculties of 

the National Youth Orchestra of the United States, the National Orchestral Institute 

at the University of Maryland, and Canada’s Orford Music Festival. In 2019, he was 

named associate professor of flute at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music 

and is a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School.

A founding member of The Myriad Trio and a former member of Chamber Music 

Society Two, McGill has participated in the Santa Fe, Marlboro, Seattle, and Stellenbosch 

chamber music festivals, to name a few. He is cofounder of The Art of Élan and, along 

with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Michael McHale, founded the McGill/McHale 

Trio in 2014. Their first CD, Portraits, released in 2017, has received rave reviews, as 

has Winged Creatures, his recording with Anthony McGill and the Chicago Youth 

Symphony Orchestra. Last December, the McGill/McHale Trio performed at New York 

City’s 92nd Street Y, and this month performs in Danville, Kentucky, Ames, Iowa, and 

Tulsa, Oklahoma, in addition to the National Gallery of Art.
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PROGRAM NOTES

A Fish Will Rise

Chris Rogerson originally scored A Fish Will Rise for piano trio as the first movement 

of his River Songs (2014). Anthony McGill, who premiered Rogerson’s 2016 clarinet 

concerto Four Autumn Landscapes, asked the composer to reorchestrate the movement for flute, clarinet, and piano to feature the McGill/McHale Trio. 

The work’s title comes from Norman Maclean’s memoir A River Runs Through It. 

From the beginning of the movement, Rogerson’s fluid piano ostinato draws us into a 

sonic virtual reality of rippling water and light. The spontaneity and dynamism of nature 

are conjured up as the clarinet glides into the piano’s pitch stream and the energy of 

the flute’s exclamations increases rhythmic momentum. The three instruments are 

seamlessly intertwined, frequently changing roles of ostinato, main melody, and 

rhythmic interpolation. The opening section is the “source” (recalling the original 

French word’s meaning, “well-spring”) for the elements and structure of the piece. 

Recurring cycles of tranquility and surging energy alternate before ending in the 

contemplative mood of the beginning. In the most energetic sections, there are echoes 

of the open sonorities and motor rhythms often applied by America’s master depicter 

of nature through music, Aaron Copland.

Rogerson effectively conveys the invocation of A River Runs Through It that there 

is “no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” This music strengthens the connections between nature, music, and spirituality, invoking the optimistic perspective that 

(paraphrasing the final thoughts of the memoir) like a fish, hope will rise. Program note 

by Dr. Elinor Olin, provided by Cedille Records

Sonata for Flute and Piano

Now one of Poulenc’s best-known works, the Sonata for Flute and Piano was completed in 1957 and dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, a great 

American patron of chamber music, including funding the construction of the Library 

of Congress’s 500-seat Coolidge Auditorium, where the American premiere of this 

work happened on February 14, 1958. Jean-Pierre Rampal and the composer gave the 

world premiere at the Strasbourg Festival in France on June 18, 1957. Written in three 

movements, the sonata is among the most frequently programmed works for flute and 

piano. The first movement, Allegretto malincolico, is preoccupied with a descending 

chromatic motif, preceded by an arpeggiated flourish. The flute part has frequent trills 

and tonguing, a prime place for the flute player to show off. In the quiet Cantilena, 

Poulenc explores the flute’s vocal qualities. In the final movement, the Presto giocoso, 

Poulenc comes around to a more lighthearted, semi rondo-like form, with a strong 

rhythmic foundation. Program note provided by performers 

Michael McHale, piano

Belfast-born Michael McHale has established himself as one of Ireland’s leading pianists 

and has developed a busy international career as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist, and 

chamber musician. He has performed as a soloist with the Minnesota, Hallé, Moscow, 

and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras, the City of London Sinfonia, the London 

Mozart Players, and all five of the major Irish orchestras. He has performed at the 

Tanglewood Music Center and the Tokyo spring festival, as well as at leading world 

venues, such as London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, New York City’s Lincoln 

Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Budapest’s Pesti Vigadó.

McHale’s debut solo album The Irish Piano was released in 2012 by RTÉ lyric fm 

(Irish classical radio) and selected as “CD of the Week” by critic Norman Lebrecht. 

More recent solo releases include Schubert: Four Impromptus (on Ergodos), and 

recordings as soloist with the London, BBC, and RTÉ Symphony Orchestras. His 

discography of more than twenty albums includes releases on Delos, Nimbus Alliance, 

and Champs Hill, and eight duo recital albums on Chandos with Michael Collins. The 

debut album of the McGill/McHale Trio, Portraits on Cedille in 2017, features special 

narrations by Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali. Upcoming releases include a recording of 

Richard Rodney Bennett’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra 

and conductor John Wilson for Chandos.

Winner of the Terence Judd/Hallé Award in 2009, McHale was also presented 

with the Brennan and Field Prizes at the 2006 AXA Dublin International Piano Competition, the 2005 Camerata Ireland/Accenture Award, and in 2016, a Major Individual 

Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Cambridge University, and the Royal Academy of Music; his teachers 

and mentors include John O’Conor, Réamonn Keary, Christopher Elton, Ronan O’Hora, 

and Barry Douglas.

In 2017, McHale was invited to become a Patron of the Ulster Youth Orchestra, 

and in 2018, he was appointed as a part-time professor of piano for undergraduate 

and postgraduate students at the Cork School of Music in Ireland.
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Techno-Parade

Techno-Parade opens with driving repetitions and virtuosic riffs conveying the relentless 

excitement of techno music. Yet this is an ironic take on the electronic music genre. 

Unpredictably shifting meters, occasionally settling into an uneven if temporarily 

constant feeling of 7/4, are in alternation with passages lacking the comfort of any 

obvious downbeat. In the middle of the piece there is a percussion break, where the 

pianist uses a wire brush and places sheets of paper directly on top of the piano strings. 

The composer Guillaume Connesson explains that Techno-Parade “was written 

with a continuous pulsation, from start to finish. There are two decisive motives, 

swirling and colliding together, giving the piece its character, festive and disquieting at 

the same time. The wailing of the clarinet and the obsessive patterns of the piano seek 

to recapture the fierce energy of techno music. . . . The three instruments seem drawn 

into a rhythmic trance that carries the piece to its conclusion in a frenetic tempo.” 

Extended techniques and extreme ranges for the winds create a changing 

constellation of colors and textures, compelling the listener toward increasing levels 

of participation. Maybe you can’t dance to it, but one thing is sure: this music moves. 

Program note by Dr. Elinor Olin, provided by Cedille Records

Estampes

Claude Debussy’s music is often associated with the contemporary impressionist 

movement in painting, and his approach shares some characteristics of this style. 

“The primary aim of French music,” Debussy wrote in 1904, “is to give pleasure.” 

Debussy was most interested in the sensuous quality of music. Even as a student, 

he let his concept of sound override many of the rules he was so assiduously taught 

by his teachers (much to their consternation). He developed a style that was wholly 

his own, but that also owed much to a wide variety of disparate influences. He was 

a passionate champion of a purely French style, and he proudly referred to himself 

as “Claude Debussy, musicien français.”

Debussy’s middle years, during which Estampes was written, saw him become 

more popular throughout Europe. He wrote primarily for the piano during this period, 

and many of his most evocative pieces were composed during this time. He traveled 

widely, teaching piano and conducting, and enjoyed a reputation as a worldly, influential music critic. 

Portraits of Langston

Portraits of Langston is a six-movement suite by Valerie Coleman that calls for virtuosic dexterity, ensemble subtleties, and an extraordinary range of expression. Each 

movement contemplates a selected poem by Langston Hughes. As explained in her 

notes to the score, Coleman drew inspiration from Hughes’s eyewitness experience 

of the legendary artists and places of the Harlem Renaissance and Parisian cabarets 

of the 1920s. 

The opening Prelude: Helen Keller begins with a solo clarinet melody that finds light 

within darkness, as expressed in the poem’s opening lines, and ends with the flute and 

clarinet in unison rhythms, moving from the lowest registers to highest tessituras to 

forte declaration. The mysterious opening of Danse Africaine unfolds and intensifies 

as layers of complex rhythms are stacked into an intricate textural web — the essence 

of African polyrhythms. The movement evolves with abrupt interchanges between 

agitation and exhaustion. The third movement, Le Grand Duc Mambo, is depicted as 

“a jazz cabaret club in the red-light district of Montmartre where Langston Hughes 

worked as a busboy for 25 cents a night.” A high-spirited duet paints “a terrific fight 

in the Grand Duc” and showcases brilliant flute and clarinet technique.

The fourth movement begins as a chorale, with stately blocks of harmony in the 

piano. Hughes’s poem “In Time of Silver Rain” was dedicated to Lorraine Hansberry 

during her struggle with cancer. Beginning quietly, the music features a continuously 

flowing line between flute and clarinet over dignified piano chords. Improvisatory 

solos follow, building an insistent sense of optimism. For Jazz Band in a Parisian 

Cabaret, performers are told to play “with a brisk stride piano feel.” The syncopated 

piano introduction is followed first by a playful clarinet melody, then by the impish 

sound of a piccolo, leading to a combined woodwind romp in parallel lines. After a 

short cantabile pause, the trio tears it up, in response to Hughes’s command, “Play 

that thing, jazz band!”

The final movement, Harlem’s Summer Night, begins with a wistful flute melody 

accompanied by atmospheric piano chords, gratifying the images of loneliness and 

“aching emptiness” in Hughes’s poetry. The music grows to full, rich textures as flute, 

clarinet, and piano each pursues its own separate, but coordinated melodic and 

harmonic identity. Program note by Dr. Elinor Olin, provided by Cedille Records
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Schoenfield has remarked that his “is not the kind of music to relax to, but the kind 

that makes people sweat; not only performer, but audience.” Sonatina for Flute, Clarinet, 

and Piano is a fine example of this perspective. Titles for the three movements refer 

somewhat deceptively to types of dances. The slow opening to the Charleston movement is evocative and moody, with uneven metrical changes that discourage foottapping or other dance moves. The music builds toward the lilting rhythms of the 

Charleston dance, but not without a good measure of irony (the score is occasionally 

marked “Puckish”), setting character and attitude for the balance of the work. Fluctuating between swinging, syncopated rhythms and an intentional destabilization of 

metrical regularity, in combination with lyrical and sustained melodic lines, the second 

and third movements, Hunter Rag and Jig, respectively, continue to undermine the 

listener’s anticipation of dance moves implied by the movements’ titles. Each of the 

instrumentalists is “made to sweat” with a virtuosic array of notes, unexpected harmonic patterns, and overlapping layers of considerable rhythmic intricacy. Changing 

tempos, deconstruction of dance patterns, and abrupt registral shifts in quick succession all contribute to the subversion of expectations in a work that is both high-spirited 

and thought provoking. Program note by Dr. Elinor Olin, provided by Cedille Records

Estampes, written in 1903 and composed of three movements, was inspired by 

Debussy’s visit to the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. The work’s second movement, La soirée 

dans Grenade, uses the Arabic scale and mimics guitar strumming to evoke images of 

Granada, Spain. At the time of its writing, Debussy’s only personal experience with the 

country was a few hours spent in San Sebastián. Despite this, the Spanish composer 

Manuel de Falla said of Soirée, “There is not even one measure of this music borrowed 

from the Spanish folklore, and yet the entire composition in its most minute details 

conveys admirably Spain.” The third movement, Jardins sous la pluie, describes a garden 

in Debussy’s native France during an increasingly violent rainstorm. It makes use of the 

French folk melodies “Nous n’irons plus aux bois” (We’ll Not Return to the Woods) and 

“Dodo, l’enfant do” (Sleep, Child, Sleep). Program note provided by MKI Artists

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano

One of the last pieces Francis Poulenc composed, the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, is 

dedicated to the memory of Poulenc’s friend, Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, who 

had died in 1955. Poulenc and Honegger were members of a composers’ group called 

“Les Six,” along with Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, and Germaine Tailleferre.

The Sonata for Clarinet and Piano was commissioned by Benny Goodman who, 

with pianist Leonard Bernstein, gave the world premiere on April 10, 1963, in Carnegie 

Hall. Poulenc was supposed to accompany Goodman in the premiere but died suddenly of a heart attack on January 30, 1963, before the sonata was published. An 

editor was employed to ascertain the identity of some notes and to provide missing 

dynamics and articulations. Like the Flute Sonata, the Clarinet Sonata is written in 

three movements and has become standard repertoire for the clarinet. Program 

note provided by performers

Sonatina for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano

Paul Schoenfield began his musical career as both pianist and composer, writing his first 

work at the age of seven. Following studies with Rudolf Serkin and Robert Muczynski 

(piano and composition, respectively), Schoenfield has held several teaching posts and 

worked as a freelance performer and composer in the United States and Israel. Schoenfield’s experience as a piano soloist and chamber musician has unmistakably informed 

the immediacy of his compositional styles. He writes the kind of music that combines 

intriguing complexity with a deceptive ease of accessibility. His works draw the listener 

in, stimulating our attention in a friendly rather than a demanding manner. Drawing on 

popular and folk traditions, in combination with the “serious” techniques of Western art 

music, the energy of Schoenfield’s music conveys both the excitement and the meditative focus of the performer’s experience — all in a single work. 
Upcoming Events of the SeventyEighth Season of The William Nelson 

Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, concerts 

are held in the West Building, West 

Garden Court.

Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano

A New Country

Program features American works, 

including Paul Moravec’s A New Country.

March 8, 3:30 p.m.

Sound Impact

Agora Dance

New York Opera Society

Degas’s Musical World

A contemporary approach to Degas and 

his relationship to the Paris Opéra.

Celebrating Degas at the Opéra

March 15, 3:30 p.m.

Curtis on Tour

Vera Quartet and Meng-Chieh Liu, piano

Works by Beethoven, César Franck, and 

David Hertzberg. 

March 22, 3:30 p.m.

Sound Sketch

Elliot Wuu, piano

Travel Log: Visual and Aural Imaginings 

of Distant Places

Works by Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert.

March 27, 12:10 p.m.

West Building, East Garden Court

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art 

and all of its programs is free of charge, 

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording 

equipment during the performance 

is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic 

devices are turned off.

—

Concerts are made possible in part 

through the generosity of donors to the 

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition 

of their support. Please contact the 

development office at (202) 842-6450 or 

circle@nga.gov for more information.

—

The department of music produced 

these program notes. Copyright © 2020 

Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington

cover Edgar Degas, The Orchestra of 

the Opéra (detail), 1870, Musée d’Orsay, 

Paris, © RMN-Grand Palais/photo: Hervé 

Lewandowski/Art Resource, New York

NGA.GOV/MUSIC