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 East Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,562nd Concert

Martin Marks and Charles Shadle, pianists

Cheryl Medeiros Nancarrow, soprano

and

The Aardett

Mark Harvey, trumpet, music director

Peter Bloom, flute and saxophones, Phil Scarff, saxophones

Tim Ray, piano, John Funkhouser, string bass

Harry Wellott, drums

Films from the Dada era with live musical accompaniment

Presented in honor of Dada

A joint presentation ofthe department offilm programs,

the department of academic programs, and the

music department ofthe National Gallery ofArt

March 5, 2006

2:00 and 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admission free
Program

2:00 pm: Lecture by Martin Marks

“Return to Unreason—Dada Film and Music”

Le Retour a la raison (Return to Reason) (1923)

Film by Man Ray (1890-1976)

Entr’acte (Intermission) (1924)

Film by Rene Clair (1898-1981)

Score (Cinema) by Erik Satie (1866-1925)

Arranged for piano four hands by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)

Martin Marks and Charles Shadle, piano

Emak Bakia (Don’t Bother Me) (1926)

Film by Man Ray

Improvised music alternately performed by Martin Marks and

Charles Shadle, and The Aardett

La coquille et le clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman) (1926)

Film by Germaine Dulac (1882-1942)

Score written and performed by Martin Marks

6:30 pm: Concert of Dada Music and Film

Entr’acte nouveau (New Intermission)

Improvisation by The Aardett

Paris qui dort (Paris Asleep) (1925)

Film by Rene Clair

Anonymous piano score created at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Revised and performed by Martin Marks

Le bestiaire, ou cortege d’Orphee

(The Bestiary, or the Funeral Procession of Orpheus) (1919)

Songs by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Poetry by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

Cheryl Medeiros Nancarrow, soprano

Charles Shadle, piano

There It Is (1928)

Film by Charley Bowers (1889-1946)

Improvisation by The Aardett

Ludions (Cartesian Devils) (1923)

Songs by Erik Satie

Poetry by Leon-Paul Fargue (1876-1947)

Le chapelier (The [Mad] Hatter) (1916)

Song by Erik Satie

Poem, based on a segment of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland,

by Rene Chalupt (1885-1957)

Cheryl Medeiros Nancarrow and Martin Marks

Entr’acte (Intermission) (1924)

Film by Rene Clair

Score (Cinema) by Erik Satie

Arranged for piano four hands by Darius Milhaud

Martin Marks and Charles Shadle, piano
The Musicians

MARTIN MARKS

Film music historian and pianist Martin Marks is a senior lecturer in music

and media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He frequently performs live accompaniments to silent films in the United States

and abroad. Marks served as music curator for two critically acclaimed dvd

sets created by the National Film Preservation Foundation: Treasuresfrom

American Film Archives, 50 Preserved Films (2000/re-released in 2005) and

More Treasuresfrom American Film Archives, 1894-igji (2004). A third set 

is in preparation. His scholarly writing includes Music and the Silent Film:

Contexts and Case Studies, 1895-1(424 (Oxford University Press, 1997).

CHARLES SHADLE

Composer and pianist Charles Shadle is a member of the Choctaw Nation

of Oklahoma. He is a fellow faculty member of Martin Marks’ at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, where he is a lecturer in music history 

and theory. Particularly well known for his solo vocal compositions, he 

has received commissions from such noted singers as Carlos Archuleta, 

Fernando del Valle, Margaret O’Keefe, Stephen Salters, and Frederick

Urrey. Shadle has also been the recipient of commissions from a number

of organizations, including the National Film Preservation Foundation 

(for which he composed the score to the 1896 film Rip Van Winkle), the

Newton Choral Society (for the cantata A New England Seasonal), and 

the Intermezzo Chamber Opera (for the one-act opera A Question ofLove).

In 2002 and 2003 he was composer-in-residence with the Ecclesia Consort 

of Providence, Rhode Island.

4

CHERYL MEDEIROS NANCARROW

Active on both the opera and concert stages, soprano Cheryl Medeiros

Nancarrow appears with the Boston Lyric Opera, Longwood Opera,

Cambridge Chamber Opera Company, Cape Cod Opera, and many other

choral groups in the Boston area. Her roles have included the title role in

Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Pamina in The Magic

Flute, the countess in The Marriage ofFigaro, and Nedda in I Pagliacci.

Her recent concert performances include Haydn’s Paukenmesse and Lord

Nelson Mass, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Mozart’s Requiem. She has a

strong commitment to performing new works and is the cofounder ofthe

Intermezzo Chamber Opera, where she created the role of Mrs. Vervain

in the premiere of Brian Hulse’s opera The Letter (later reprised at the 

Kennedy Center), and in 2005 created the role of Jane Winslow in the premiere of Charles Shadle’s A Question ofLove.

THE AARDETT

The Aardett is an improvisational ensemble drawn from the Aardvark Jazz

Orchestra. These virtuosic improvisers bring a wealth of experience in 

performing jazz, classical, popular, and world music to their spontaneously

created compositions. The ensemble has improvised soundtracks for

two silent films that were included in the National Film Preservation 

Foundation’s historic dvd collection More Treasuresfrom American Film

Archives. The Aardett also performs as part of FiLmprov, improvisational

programs combined with the contemporary animated films of Kate

Matson, which have been presented at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and 

other venues in the Northeast. The ensemble maintains the Web site

www.aardvarkjazz.everplay.net.

5
MARK HARVEY

Trumpeter Mark Harvey is the music director ofThe Aardett, FiLmprov,

and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, which is now in its thirty-third season and

has released eight CD recordings to international acclaim. A faculty member

at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an award-winning composer, he has recorded with Baird Hersey and George Russell and appeared

with Gil Evans, Vinny Golia, Sheila Jordan, Howard McGhee, Sam Rivers,

Claudio Roditi, and the Four Tops. In addition to having performed

throughout the Northeast United States, he has concertized in California

and Mexico, and at the Berlin Jazz Festival.

PETER BLOOM

Proficient on not only the modern flute and saxophone but also on period 

instruments, Peter Bloom performs diverse repertoires, from seventeenthand eighteenth-century chamber music to contemporary music premiers

and exploratory jazz. A twenty-eight-year veteran with the Aardvark Jazz

Orchestra, Bloom tours nationally with pianist Mary Jane Rupert and

Ensemble Chaconne, among others. He can be heard on more than twenty

CDs from labels including Dorian, Sony Classical, Newport Classics, 9Winds,

and Leo. He frequently serves as an advisor to museums, collections,

auction houses, and production firms on the area of historical instruments.

PHIL SCARFF

Saxophonist Phil Scarff melds jazz improvisation with musical traditions

from West Africa and India. As the leader ofthe acclaimed world-music 

ensemble Natraj, he has performed internationally at JazzYatra and the 

Prayojana International Music Festival in India, at panafest in Ghana, 

West Africa, and at the Guelph Jazz Festival in Canada. Scarff has appeared

with leading jazz performers, including Godwin Agbeli, Kardri Gopalnath, 

Abubalcari Lunna, and Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman. He has been lauded by

Jazz Now magazine as “a cerebral improviser who develops a solo logically,

deliberately, and passionately.”

6

TIM RAY

Pianist Tim Ray’s credits include performances with Gary Burton, Eddie

Daniels, Lyle Lovett, Lewis Nash, Willie Nelson, Bucky Pizzarelli, Bonnie 

Raitt, Rufus Reid, and Gunther Schuller. He has performed at Carnegie 

Hall, the Kennedy Center, the White House, on “The Tonight Show with Jay

Leno” and the “Late Show with David Letterman,” and in the pit orchestra

for Charlie Chaplin’s film The Circus. Ray tours internationally and has

participated in more than sixty recordings.

JOHN FUNKHOUSER

Much in demand as a string bass player for both jazz and classical orchestral music, John Funkhouser has performed with Ran Blake, Stephen

Drury, Steve Gadd, Laszlo Gardony, John Harbison, Yoron Israel, Luciana

Souza, Tierney Sutton, and Patrice Williamson. He appeared with teenage

piano prodigy Matt Savage on abc’s “20/20” and nbc’s the “Today Show.”

Funkhouser leads his own group, FunkHouse, which has appeared in

jazz festivals in New Orleans, Oklahoma City, and Pittsburgh, and has

toured internationally in both Europe and Asia.

HARRY WELLOTT

Drummer Harry Wellott studied with celebrated percussion master Elvin

Jones. Known for incorporating polyrhythms and Latin- and Africaninfluenced elements into his performance, he has performed with Jaki

Byard, Jay Clayton, Jimmy Giuffre, and Matt Savage, among others. Wellott

has toured throughout New England with the quartet Ribs, performing

improvisational scores for silent film classics such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis

and Spies, as well as Buster Keaton’s masterpiece, The General.

7
Program Notes

THE DADA MOVEMENT AND MUSIC

From 1916 to 1926 Dada influenced not only artists and writers but also

musicians and composers. Erik Satie (1866-1925), the most famous Dada

composer, spent the last decade of his life captivated by the movement. He

was an iconoclast from the outset, and some of his pre-1916 works could be

characterized as proto-Dada, for example, the cabaret-based Trois morceaux

en forme de poire (Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear) (1890-1903) and

Uspud (1892), a ballet based on Christian stories that was deemed sacrilegious by contemporaries. He found a close relationship between Dada and 

ragtime and celebrated it in such works as Rag-Time Dada (1917) and some 

movements of his La belle excentrique ballet (1920).

In 1924 another composer closely associated with Dada, George Antheil

(1900-1959), composed Le Ballet mecanique, a highly rhythmic, often savage

score that combines the sounds ofthe industrial age with atonal music 

and jazz. Except for two parts written for human pianists, the work (which

includes sixteen player pianos, four bass drums, three xylophones, a tamtam, seven electric bells, a siren, and three different-sized airplane propellers)

is best performed by machines, as the tempo exceeds human capabilities.

Antheil intended for the score to be played concurrently with the eponymous 

film by Fernand Leger and cinematographer Dudley Murphy. The work was

performed only twice in the composer’s lifetime and was not realized as a

soundtrack until the 1990s. Visitors to the Dada exhibition in the Gallery’s

East Building will be able to hear a ten-minute segment of Le Ballet

mecanique, performed entirely by digitally controlled machines, from March

12 to 29, at 1:00 and 4:00 pm on weekdays, and at 1:00 pm on weekends.

Sharing a fascination with jazz (a new form ofmusic, at the time) with 

many fellow composers and artists, Antheil composed A Jazz Symphony

in 1925. One ofthe members ofthe audience at the premiere was Aaron 

Copland (1900-1990). He had already incorporated jazz into some of his 

piano works and not long thereafter completed Music for the Theatre (1925)

8

and Sentimental Melody (1926), both heavily influenced by jazz. A concert

staged in Paris on the second night of the Dada exhibition Salon ofthe

Bearded Heart included jazz-influenced works by Georges Auric (1899-

1983), Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), and

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971).

DADA FILM AND MUSIC

In the 192os Parisian artists in numerous disciplines were afire with a

“New Spirit,” a phrase used by poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Jean

Cocteau. One characteristic ofthis new spirit was a fascination with cinema

as a medium for artistic expression, as well as a means of communicating

with an engaged public. “The cinema,” wrote Francis Picabia in 1924,

“must not be an imitation [of nature, or of other arts], but an evocative

invention, as rapid as the thoughts in our brains.” All four ofthe films presented during this afternoon’s lecture show images in abstract—dazzling, 

dreamlike configurations—and challenge the conventions oftraditional

film narrative, here either nonexistent or turned topsy-turvy for purposes

of disorientation and discovery. In short, these films are wonderfully Dada

(no matter how difficult it may be to precisely define that term). They are

at once bewildering and bewitching—and frequently beautiful.

The Dada films shown today are “silent,” having been made during

silent film’s final decade; however, such films were almost never exhibited

without live musical accompaniment. Then as now, this joining ofmusic

and image creates opportunities for new forms of artistry. Our program

includes one ofthe landmarks ofthis novel genre: Erik Satie’s Cinema, his 

final work, composed for Rene Clair’s witty film Entr’acte. (The film was originally presented between the two acts ofthe Dada ballet Relache, for which 

Satie was also the composer.) The three other short films are presented using

varied approaches to accompaniment, including the absence thereof, randomized improvisation, and minimalism. It is the hope ofthe performers

that this variegated music sustains and enhances these four evocative cinematic inventions in the unreasoning ways so essential to the spirit of Dada.

9
DADA MUSIC AND FILM

The focus of this evening’s concert is split more evenly than the afternoon’s

between music for its own sake and music for film. The Aardett begins

with an “Entr’acte” ofits own, and the soprano and pianist present spariding

sets of miniature songs by Poulenc and Satie, as interludes between films.

Poulenc’s Le bestiaire, on cortege d’Oiyhee features his selection ofsix

poems from a playful collection by Apollinaire, published in 1911. Each poem

is a tongue-in-cheek quatrain devoted to a different animal, and each was originally published in conjunction with a woodcut by Raoul Dufy (1877-1953).

Poulenc’s music captures the essence ofthe text (and the woodcuts) with

perfect prosody and discretion. Le bestiaire came at the very beginning of

Poulenc’s career, defining him as one ofthe great twentieth-century masters

ofthe chanson; it is fair to say that his later songs, though often more profound, never exceeded these in technical skill.

Satie’s Ludions is a set of five equally delightful miniatures, accompanied by distinctly “Dada” poems, written especially for Satie by Leon-Paul 

Fargue in 1923. (The two men were friends at the time, although a rift arose

between them after the premiere, apparently because Satie forgot to mention the poet’s name!) Ludion is the French term for a scientific toy known

in English as a “Cartesian devil” or “Cartesian diver”—a floating device

within a container of water that responds to changes in air pressure by submerging and popping back up. The poems are appropriately impish and

fickle: Fargue has filled them with humorous nonsense, personal allusions,

and made-up words—just the sort oftexts to bring out the best from Satie.

Musically, the five songs allude to various styles, including ragtime and

cabaret. Inspired by the jocularity ofthe composer and the poet, the performers add one more song to extend the range of allusions: Satie’s interpretation of a French poem by Rene Chalupt, based on an episode from the

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland. Satie’s melody for this song

is actually a reworking of one by Charles Gounod (1818-1893), from his

opera Mireille—a melody that itself was based on a French folksong.

10

The three accompanied films on this evening’s program are as varied

as those on the afternoon’s program, but in Paris qui dort and There It Is

the emphasis on fantasy narratives and visual jokes is more defined. Here

one sees examples of Dada’s influence on more mainstream film narrative

Just to keep things in balance—or rather, off balance—the program ends

with a reprise of Satie’s Entr’acte. Both the film and the score certainly

bear repeating!

Notes entitled “Dada Film and Music” and

“Dada Music and Film” by Martin Marks