For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry of

the West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,656th Concert

Central Bucks High School-West Chamber Choir and Men’s Choir

Joseph Ohrt, artistic director and conductor

Karen P. Burgman, pianist

Presented in honor of Let the World In:

Prints by Robert Rauschenbergfrom the National Gallery

ofArt and Related Collections

January 27, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
This concert is made possible in part by support from

the Royal Norwegian Embassy

Program

Stephen Caldwell

Cardboard (2007)

For mixed choir and cardboard

World Premiere Performance

John Cage (1912-1992)

Four2 (1990)

For mixed choir

Matthew Samson

Note on Rauschenberg (2007)

For mixed choir, solo ensemble, prepared piano, and optional continuo

World Premiere Performance

John Cage

4'33" il952)

For mixed choir, chamber orchestra, and ballerina

John Cage

o'oo" (1962)

For solo performer

John Cage

Water Music (1952)

For piano, radio, whistles, water containers, deck of cards,

wooden stick, and prepared piano

INTERMISSION
John Cage

The Year Begins to Be Ripe

From Song Books, volume 1 (1970)

For men’s choir and dosed piano

Thirteen Ways ofLooking at a Blackbird (2007)

For men’s choir, piano, and dice

1. Matthew Harris, Among twenty snowy mountains

2. Jonathan Miller, I was ofthree minds

3. Libby Larsen, The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds

4. Stephen Hatfield, A man and a woman

5. Stephen Paulus, I do not know which to prefer

6. Eleanor Daley, Iciclesfilled the long window

7. Jaakko Mantyjarvi, O thin men ofHaddam

8. Daniel Gawthrop, I know noble accents

9. Rollo Dilworth, When the blackbirdflew out ofsight

10. Meuryn Hughes, At the sight ofblackbirds

11. Ola Gjeilo, He rode over Connecticut

12. David Conte, The river is moving

13. Tarik O’Regan, It was evening all afiemoon

World Premiere Peformance

Ola Gjeilo

Pulchra es (2007)

For a cappella mixed choir

World Premiere Peformance

Joseph Ohrt

Collage (2007)

For mixed choir, film, recorded parakeets, alto saxophone,

dramatic reader, and dancer

World Premiere Peformance

4

The Musicians

CENTRAL BUCKS HIGH SCHOOL-WEST CHAMBER CHOIR AND MEN’S CHOIR

The eight performing choirs ofCentral Bucks High School-West comprise one

ofthe most respected choral programs in the United States. Having presented

almost 300 world premieres ofworks by North American composers in the

last fourteen years, West choirs have served as pioneers of and advocates for

contemporary composition. The choirs have performed frequently in Washington at the Basilica ofthe National Shrine ofthe Immaculate Conception, the

Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle, the John F. Kennedy Center for the

Performing Arts, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Cathedral, the Pentagon,

the Washington Temple, and the White House. They have sung in prestigious

venues in Boston, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and Toronto as well

as at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. West Choirs have worked under

the batons ofworld-famous conductors Frank Albinder, Charles Bruffy, Joseph 

Flummerfelt, Dennis Keene, Bobby McFerrin, Weston Noble, John Rutter, and

Dale Warland. The choir has performed in collaboration with actors F. Murray 

Abraham, Leonard Nimoy, and Alan Thicke, and the world-renowned men’s

choir, Chanticleer.

The singers are assisted in tonight’s concert by Courtney Bradley, dancer,

Jarrett Gilgore, alto saxophonist, Matthew Samson, pianist, and Samuel

Malriat, videographer.

Sopranos Altos

Emily Cossolini Elizabeth Marie Damuth

Annabelle Blair Garcia Katrina Duva

Meagan Elisabeth Gunning Jillian Klueber

Kate Guthrie Carolyn Laquer

Emma N. Jenkins Alyssa Luong

Emily A. Schofield Sara Pearson

Tayler Trottier Anna M. Saurman

Julia Strauss

Kimberlee A.Yates

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Tenors

Ryan L. Brinkmann

Matthew Carlson

Antonio C. DeAngelo

Steve Farley

Maxwell Lapides

Samuel Malriat

William Metzler

Kenneth Moore

Juddson Poeske

Collin Schamp 

James Scott

John H. Senyard

Tyler Washington

Basses

Corey Allen

Patrick Perry Bagnick

Andrew C. Besu

Sean Bernard Cook

Lucas M. Dangler 

Benjamin Gioia Lembo

Benjamin Matus

Luke A. Mellevoi

Gentry A. Nielson

Regan Elliott

Steven Rocco Schollenberger 

Brian Serpico

Taylor Vozniak

Alex Phoenix Wright

JOSEPH OHRT

Artistic director, conductor, and composer Joseph Ohrt serves as director 

of choral activities and chairman ofthe music department at Central Bucks

High School-West in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. His unique teaching 

style has not only challenged thousands ofstudents over the years but has

also inspired an unprecedented number of collaborations with composers

around the globe. The Joseph Ohrt Choral Series, published by Santa

Barbara Music Publishing in California, is available throughout the world.

Ohrt is a contributing author to a new seminal text on secondary choral

music education that will be released by gia Publications in the spring. He

is the choral arranger for a new musical by Christopher Smith, Amazing

Grace: the True Story. He holds bachelor and master ofmusic degrees from

Westminster Choir College of Rider University, and a doctor ofmusical arts

degree from the University of South Carolina. He has also earned a teaching

certificate from the Kodaly Musical Training Institute at the University of

Hartford and an Artist/Teacher Diploma from the Choral Music Experience

Institute at Northern Illinois University. He studied under master teachers

6

Joseph Flummerfelt, Frauke Haasemann, Margaret Hillis, Dennis Keene,

Doreen Rao, and Gregg Smith. Ohrt has served as an adjunct faculty member at University of South Carolina and Westminster Choir College and as a

choral conductor at the Westminster Vocal Institute and the Csehy Summer

School of Music in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.

KAREN P. BURGMAN

Pianist Karen P. Burgman graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory

of Music in 2005 with a bachelor ofmusic degree in performance. She has 

performed as a soloist in venues such as Jordan Hall in Boston, Reith Recital

Hall in Goshen, Indiana, and the Toronto Center for the Performing Arts.

She has performed works commissioned in her honor and premiered other 

solo piano works, including the United States premiere of Five Short Preludes by Anthony Hopkins. Burgman has also performed on period pianos at

both the Finchcocks Estate Piano Collection in England and the Frederick

Early Piano Collection in Massachusetts. Her principal teachers and mentors include Sandra Carlock, James Howsmon, Sanford Margolis, Stephen 

Moore, Joseph Ohrt, and Peter Slowik.

7
Featured Composers

Stephen Caldwell appears nationally as a singer, conductor, choral composer, 

and arranger. His original compositions and arrangements have been performed throughout Canada, Taiwan, and the United States by middle school,

high school, university, community, and professional choral ensembles. His 

works have received premieres at the conventions ofthe American Choral 

Directors Association, the Music Educators National Conference, the National 

Collegiate Choral Organization, and the University ofNorth Carolina at Greeley

Jazz Festival. He is the music director ofthe Temple University Children’s

Choir and at Philadelphia Central High School. He is currently working on a

commission ofhis first symphonic work for the Philomusica Ensemble, for 

which he is composer-in-residence.

The music of composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo has been performed and

recorded in more than twenty countries worldwide in venues such as Alice

Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Scandinavia House in New York City, the concert

House in Olso, and the GustafVasa Church in Stockholm. His publishers

include Walton Music, Oxford University Press, and Musikk-Huset. Bom in

Norway in 1978, Gjeilo began studying jazz, classical piano, and composition

at the age ofseven. After attending the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo

and the Royal College of Music in London, he completed his master ofmusic

degree in composition at The Juilliard School of Music in 2006.

Matthew Samson is currently a sophomore composition student at 

Westminster Choir College. He began composing in 2004, but his music

has already been performed across the United States and in Canada, in such

notable venues as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Chicago’s Fourth

Presbyterian Church, the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts, and the

White House. In addition to composing, Samson enjoys singing, playing the

piano, taking long walks on the beach, and sleeping for long periods oftime.

Composers Contributing to Thirteen Ways ofLooking at a Blackbird

Two-time National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipient Matthew

Harris is a graduate ofthe New England Conservatory of Music and Harvard

University. His works include a full-length opera, Tess (2000), and Starry

Night: Seven Paintingsfor Violin, Cello, and Piano (1984).

Jonathan Miller, the founder and artistic director ofChicago a cappella,

holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has

written and arranged more than forty choral works for professional, community, church, synagogue, and school ensembles. A recipient ofthe Joseph

Randall Shapiro Award, Miller serves on the Musical Advisory Board ofthe

Chicago Children’s Choir.

Libby Larsen, born in 1950 in Wilmington, Delaware, is one ofAmerica’s most prolific and widely performed composers, usa Today hailed her as 

“the only English-speaking composer since Benjamin Britten who matches

great verse with fine music so intelligently and expressively.”

Canadian composer Stephen Hatfield has taught band, chorus, stage

band, vocal jazz, guitar, keyboard, steel drum, and music appreciation. He is

known for his arrangements ofworld music and for original works that

weave influences from diverse cultures into a fresh and distinctive idiom.

Stephen Paulus’ music has been described by critics and program

annotators as rugged, angular, lyrical, lean, rhythmically aggressive, original,

often gorgeous, moving, and uniquely American. He has received commissions from the symphony orchestras ofAtlanta, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas, 

The Houston, and Minnesota as well as from the New York Philharmonic

and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Eleanor Daley studied the organ at Queen’s University, the Royal Conservatory ofToronto, and Trinity College, England. The winner ofthree first

place awards in the Amadeus Choir Carol Competition, she has been the

director ofmusic at Fairlawn Heights United Church, Toronto, since 1982.

Finnish composer Jaakko Mantyjarvi describes himself as an eclectic

traditionalist. He is currently employed as a translator and computer systems manager at The English Centre Helsinki. He has also studied music

9
theory and choir conducting at the Sibelius Academy. He conducted the

Savolaisen Osakunnan Laulajat student choir from 1988 to 1993 and was

deputy conductor ofthe Tapiola Chamber Choir from 1998 to 2004.

Daniel Gawthrop was born in 1949 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He has

received four grants from The Barlow Endowment for Musical Composition,

and more than 200 commissions from dozens ofinstitutions, including the

American Choral Directors Association. He served for three years as composer-in-residence to the Fairfax (Virginia) Symphony Orchestra.

Rollo Dilworth is assistant professor ofmusic and director ofthe choral

program at North Park University in Chicago, where he has taught since

1996. A recipient ofthe doctor ofmusical arts degree from Northwestern

University, he serves as conductor ofthe North Park University Gospel Choir

and the University Choir. His published choral music emphasizes spirituals

and gospel-inspired works.

Composer and conductor Meuryn Hughes is the grandson ofWelsh 

composer Arwel Hughes. Recently named conductor ofWales’ worldfamous Treorchy Male Choir, he also conducts his own Regency Symphony

Orchestra and has guest-conducted the Royal Holloway College Chamber

Orchestra and the Neruda Orchestra. He has composed the scores for four

films, and has received commissions from choirs around the world representing distinct choral traditions.

David Conte has been a professor of composition at the San Francisco

Conservatory of Music since 1985 and composer-in-residence with the San

Francisco avant-garde theater company Thick Description since 1990. Conte

studied with Nadia Boulanger, Karel Husa, and Steven Stucky, and has

served on the faculties of Colgate University, Cornell University, and the

Interlochen Center for the Arts.

British composer Tarilc O’Regan was born in London and educated

at both Oxford and Cambridge, where he was appointed composer-inresidence at Corpus Christi College. Described as “beautifully imagined”

by the Financial Times, his compositions have been performed by the bbc

Singers, the bbc Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, and the

Los Angeles Master Chorale, among others.

10

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

The Hugo Wolf Quartet

String Quartets by Schubert and Wolf

February 3, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court