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 ofthe

East Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

COVER: Paul Stevenson Oles, Sketch ofthe East Building Interior View

Toward West, 1971, National Gallery ofArt Archives, Gift ofI. M. Pei and Partners

The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,914th Concert

Great Noise Ensemble

Armando Bayolo, artistic director and conductor

December 9, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Atrium

Admissionfree
Program

“Stillness”

Arvo Part (b. 1935)

Fratres (Brothers) for wind octet and percussion (1977)

Armando Bayolo (b. 1973)

Hesychasmos (2012)

World premiere performance

INTERMISSION

Henryk Gorecki (1933-2010)

Kleines Requiemfur eine Polka (Little Requiem for a Polka) (1993)

Tranquillo—

Allegro impetuoso—marcatissimo—

Allegro—deciso assai—

Adagio

This concert is made possible in part by support from the

Randy Hostetler Living Room Music Fund.

The Musicians

GREAT NOISE ENSEMBLE

Formed in 2005 by composer and conductor Armando Bayolo, Great Noise

Ensemble performs new works and promotes local talent in contemporary

music from the greater Washington, DC area. The ensemble last appeared

at the National Gallery ofArt in 2010, playing the Washington premiere of

De Materie, a major work by the contemporary Dutch composer Hendrik

Andriessen. In 2008 Great Noise became the ensemble-in-residence at

the Catholic University ofAmerica, and broadened its mission to include 

outreach to student audiences and composers. In addition to Andriessen,

Great Noise has collaborated with composers John Luther Adams, Joshua

Bornfield, Ryan Brown, Carlos Carillo, Blair Goins, Steve Gorbos, Stephen

Mackey, Kevin McKee, Andrew Earle Simpson, and Mark Sylvester. The 

ensemble gratefully acknowledges the assistance ofthe District ofColumbia 

Commission on the Arts and Humanities in support ofits participation in

this concert.

ARMANDO BAYOLO

Bom in 1973 in Santurce, Puerto Rico, to Cuban parents, composer Armando 

Bayolo began musical studies at age twelve. At sixteen he attended the 

Interlochen Arts Academy, where he first began the serious study of composition. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Yale University,

and the University of Michigan. The Washington Post hailed his work as

“radiant and ethereal, full oflush ideas and a kind offierce grandeur.” His

compositions encompass a wide variety of genres, including works for

solo instmments, voices, music for chamber orchestra, and music for full

orchestra. He has received commissions from the Aspen Music Festival, the 

Euclid and Degas Quartets, the National Gallery ofArt, the South Jutland 

Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse Society for New Music, and the Western 

Piedmont Symphony Orchestra, among others.

3
Program Notes

Although only one ofthe composers represented on tonight’s program hails

from Eastern Europe, the music resonates with echoes of Eastern European

mysticism. Bearing the title “Stillness,” the program deals with the quest for

quiet meditation that is prevalent in mysticism, particularly as it manifests

itselfin the Eastern Orthodox Church.

A classic work oflate twentieth-century minimalism, Arvo Part’s Fratres

(Brothers) can be performed by a varying number ofinstruments, from

violin and piano to wind octet and percussion. It typifies Part’s tendency

to combine austere modal counterpoint and chant-like melodies into

an idiosyncratic minimalist idiom—a practice he calls “tintinabulism.”

Consisting of about eight chord sequences punctuated by short passages

from the percussion, Fratres focuses on sublime stillness, reflecting its

composer’s spiritual mysticism.

Hesychasm (from the Greek hesychia: quietness, or stillness) is a hermetic

tradition in the Greek Orthodox Church that is intended to bring devotees 

into close communion with God through cultivating stillness and intense

meditation on the “Jesus Prayer” —Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,

a sinner—which is used as a mantra. Armando Bayolo’s Fiesychasmos is a

secular meditation on the desire for stillness as a refreshing, revitalizing

aspect ofhuman experience. Through slow-motion harmonic movement and

sensual enjoyment ofpure sound, it speaks to a desire to recover stillness— 

a desire felt keenly by the composer and many contemporary mystics. The

work has been conceived for performance in a reverberant space, such as the

Atrium ofthe East Building ofthe National Gallery ofArt. Looking forward to

the thirty-fifth anniversary ofthe East Building in 2013, National Gallery music

department head Stephen Ackert encouraged the composer to write a work

that takes advantage ofthe acoustical properties ofthe Atrium. The result

is Hesychasmos, which receives its world premiere performance this evening.

4

Those who know the work of Henryk Gorecki through his justly famous

Third Symphony might find Kleines Requiemfur eine Polka strange in a number

ofways, beginning with its ironic title. Written for Amsterdam’s Schonberg

Ensemble and its conductor Reinbert de Leeuw, the work is riddled with

inherent contradictions and ironies: For whom is this a “little requiem?” Is

it for the polka, as in the dance form? Or is it for an anonymous Polish 

woman (“Polka” in Polish)? And ifthis is a requiem, why the cheeky polka 

in the third movement?

Kleines Requiem begins with a still, slow movement for tubular bell and

piano, which develops through the addition ofstrings in various textures.

The quiet mood thus established is interrupted by a loud, jarring fast

movement—reminiscent ofsome of Shostakovich’s ironic allegros—led

by crashing chords on the piano. The third movement is a jaunty polka, 

which feels quite out of place in the proceedings. In the closing Adagio,

the mood ofthe opening movement returns. As implied by the unusual

punctuation in their listing, the movements flow from one to another

virtually without pause.

Program notes by Armando Bayolo

5
Concerts in December 2012 at the National Gallery ofArt

Joseph Smith, pianist

Music by Chopin, Field, Gershwin, Korngold, and Schumann

December 12, 2012

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Empire Brass

with Elisabeth von Trapp, soprano, and Douglas Major, organist

Holiday Concert

December 16, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Garden Court

Kenneth Slowik, fortepianist, with Catherine Manson, violist,

and Eric Hoeprich, clarinetist

“Music from the Age ofthe Fortepiano, 1700-1830”

Presented in honor of Masterpieces ofAmerican Furniture

from the Kaufman Collection, 1700-1830

December 19, 2012

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall