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Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

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The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,924th Concert

National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

Peter Wilson, guest conductor

with

Miranda Cuckson, violinist

Julia Bruskin, cellist

Second concert with composer-in-residence Jeffrey Mumford

February 10, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Music by Jeffrey Mumford (b. 1955)

linear cycles vii (cambiamenti ii) (1979, revised. 1993)

eight musings... revisiting memories (2005)

Washington, DC, Premiere Performance

eight aspects ofappreciation 11 (2012)

World Premiere Performance

INTERMISSION

two rhapsodiesfor cello e[ strings (2009-2010)

1. revisiting variazioni elegiaci... within the fabric of caressing air

11. echoing fields... spreading light

Washington, DC, Premiere Performance

an expanding distance ofmultiple voices (2005)

1. Estatico e molto appassionato

11. Sparso ed espansivo 

hi. Molto delicatissimo ed etereo possible 

iv. Molto appassionato

v. Maestoso

The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART CHAMBER PLAYERS

Consisting primarily ofsmall ensembles from within the membership of

the National Gallery ofArt Orchestra, the National Gallery ofArt Chamber

Players has provided appropriate chamber music in honor of a number

ofrecent Gallery exhibitions, including music by nineteenth-century

French and Belgian composers in honor of The Darker Side ofLight: Arts

ofPrivacy, 1850-1900 (2009); Renaissance Spanish music in honor of

The Art ofPower: Royal Armor and Portraitsfrom Imperial Spain (2009); 

Music by Gershwin, Joplin, and Milhaud in honor of From Impressionism

to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection (2011); and music for silent 

films from Catalonia in honor ofJoan Miro: The Ladder ofEscape (2012).

Chamber Players participating in tonight’s concert are:

Laura Knutson and Bruno Nasta, violinists

Jennifer Ries and George Ohlson, violists

Marcio Botelho, cellist

Edgardo Malaga, bassist

PETER WILSON

A native ofCleveland, Ohio, violinist and conductor Peter Wilson currently 

serves as music director ofthe Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra and has 

conducted the National Gallery ofArt and National Symphony orchestras.

A violinist with the United States Marine Band (“The President’s Own”) for

nearly two decades, he has been featured as a soloist with the ensemble in

many venues, including the American Embassy in Paris, Chicago’s Comiskey Park, the Presidential Retreat at Camp David, and the Vatican. Most

recently, Wilson performed with Stevie Wonder at the Library ofCongress 

in the world premiere ofWonder’s Sketches ofa Life. Having begun his 

professional career as concertmaster ofthe Walt Disney World Orchestra, 

Wilson is a graduate of Northwestern University and the Catholic University

ofAmerica, where he earned a doctor ofmusical arts degree and was

resident conductor ofthe university symphony orchestra.

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MIRANDA CUCKSON

A winner ofthe Juilliard School of Music’s Presser Award and Richard F.

French Prize for best doctoral dissertation, violinist Miranda Cuckson is

highly acclaimed for her performances of a wide range ofrepertoire, from 

classical through contemporary. Her active performing career has taken 

her to the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Guggenheim Museum, 

Library ofCongress, Miller Theatre, Museum of Modern Art, and 92nd

Street Y, and she has been featured in the Bard, Bodensee, Bridgehampton, 

Lincoln Center, Marlboro, and Portland music festivals. Her recent projects

include performing Walter Piston’s Violin Concerto no. 1 at Carnegie Hall

with the American Symphony Orchestra and the world premiere ofJeffrey

Mumford’s through a stillness brightening for violin and chamber ensemble.

A champion of contemporary music, Cuckson has worked with composers John Adams, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, and Helmut Lachenmann, 

and last year she performed a new work by Harold Meltzer, commissioned

for her by the Library of Congress. At Juilliard, she studied violin with Felix

Galimir, Dorothy DeLay, Robert Mann, and Shirley Givens, with additional 

study under Fred Sherry and the Juilliard String Quartet. She currently

teaches at Mannes College /The New School for Music in New York City.

JULIA BRUSKIN

Since her concerto debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at age seventeen, cellist Julia Bruskin has established herself as one ofthe premiere 

cellists ofher generation. A frequent guest at summer music festivals, she has

performed at La Jolla Summerfest, Mostly Mozart, Caramoor, Saratoga, Bard,

and Norfolk, and toured with the Musicians from Ravinia. First-prize winner

in the 2004 Schadt String Competition and a prizewinner in the International 

Johannes Brahms Competition in Austria, she performed Samuel Barber’s

Cello Concerto in 2007 at Avery Fisher Hall. Among the symphony orchestras

that have featured Bruskin as a soloist are those of Nashville, Utah, and

4

Virginia. Her recent CD ofmusic by Beethoven, Brahms, and Dohnanyi was

praised by Fanfare magazine for its “exquisite beauty ofsound and expression.”

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Bruskin began cello lessons at age four. She

completed the five-year double degree program at Juilliard and Columbia 

University, working with Timothy Eddy and Joel Krosnick. She is currently

on the cello faculty ofthe Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College

in Queens, New York.

JEFFREY MUMFORD

Born in Washington, DC, composer Jeffrey Mumford brings to his threeweek residency at the National Gallery ofArt a deep love for the Gallery,

which he frequented with his family in his formative years. He also brings

the fruits of a flourishing career as composer and teacher at the Washington 

Conservatory of Music, Bowling Green State University, the Oberlin College

Conservatory of Music, and Lorain County Community College in Lorain,

Ohio, where he is a distinguished professor.

Among the numerous fellowships, grants, awards, and commissions

Mumford has received are those awarded by the Aaron Copland School of

Music at Queens College, Alice M. Ditson Fund ofColumbia University,

American Academy ofArts and Letters, American Society of Composers, 

Authors, and Publishers (ascap), Guggenheim Foundation, National Black

Arts Festival, National Endowment for the Arts, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Ohio Arts Council, and the University of California. His

works have been performed in prestigious venues worldwide by the Atlanta,

Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit and National symphony orchestras as well

as the American Composers’ Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and Saint

Paul Chamber Orchestra. His chamber works have been performed by

the Borromeo, Corigliano, and Pacifica string quartets as well as the core

and Empyrean ensembles, Imani Winds, and Los Angeles Philharmonic

New Music Ensemble, among others.

5
Following this residency at the National Gallery, Mumford will travel to

Cincinnati, where some ofthe works heard this evening will be performed

by the Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony Orchestra. Recently selected for a

residency with the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, Mumford has 

also completed residencies at the Alba, Italy, Music Festival and the Chamber Music Conference and Composers Forum ofthe East in Bennington,

Vermont, to which he has been invited to return later this year.

Five of Mumford’s recent chamber works were issued on the Albany

Records label, and Capstone Records has released Telling Tales, a recording 

project sponsored by the Cleveland Composers Guild. Jeffrey Mumford’s

music is published by Theodore Presser Company and Quicklight Music,

and he is represented by Carlson & Carlson Arts Contractors.

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Program Notes

Tonight’s program is the second ofthree concerts to be presented during

composer Jeffrey Mumford’s three-week residency at the National Gallery

ofArt. Sponsored jointly by the Gallery’s music department and its equal

employment opportunity department, the residency is both part ofthe 

Gallery’s observation ofAfrican American Fhstory Month and a new phase

ofthe institution’s long-standing relationship with composers. The Gallery’s

first head of music programs, Richard Bales, was appointed in 1943, shortly

after he had composed and successfully submitted a musical score for the 

first informational film the Gallery produced, titled Your National Gallery.

Bales’ successor, George Manos, also a composer, continued the practice of

organizing and presenting on an annual basis an American Music Festival

devoted exclusively to music by American composers. By the time he retired 

in 2004, Manos had brought the number ofsuch festivals up to sixty-one,

making it the longest-running festival ofits kind in the world.

The current head ofmusic at the Gallery, Stephen Ackert, has encouraged a number of composers to write new music for world premiere performance in Gallery concerts. Highlights include Allen Fletcher’s Woman

with a Balance for violin and piano (inspired by the eponymous painting

by Johannes Vermeer); Jessica Krash’s Be Seeing You (inspired by paintings

by women in the National Gallery and the National Museum for Women 

in the Arts); and John Musto’s Later the Same Evening (an opera inspired by

five paintings by Edward Hopper).

The third and final concert ofJeffrey Mumford’s residency at the Gallery

takes place on Sunday, February 17, at 6:30 pm in the West Building, West

Garden Court. The Avalon String Quartet will be joined by pianist Winston 

Choi to play a program that includes the Washington, DC, premiere performances of Mumford’s a celebration ofElliott (2006) and toward the deepening

stillness beyond visible light (2004).

7
Mumford’s linear cycles vii (cambiamenti ii) was originally written in

1979 f°r William Fitzpatrick, who at the time was the first violinist ofthe

New York String Quartet. The opening motive initiates various sections

ofthe piece, which can be seen as an ongoing set ofvariations.

eight musings... revisiting memories was written for Ole Bohn in 2005,

who premiered it at the Monadnock Festival in New Hampshire. As the title 

implies, it is a recasting offragments of earlier chamber works, seen in a

new light in the context of a work for solo violin.

eight aspects ofappreciation was originally commissioned by Robert

Mann, the legendary long-time first violinist ofthe Juilliard String Quartet,

as a duo for violin and viola to play with his son, Nicholas. In 1996 the

composer expanded the work and transformed it into a duo for violin and

cello (eight aspects ofappreciation 11) at the behest ofviolinist Miranda

Cuckson and cellist Julia Bruskin. Receiving its world premiere as a violin

and cello duo in tonight’s concert, the work is a set ofminiature variations.

Although each variation is distinct in its developmental scenario and mood,

there are also within each ofthem a fair number ofreferences to other

variations. This is particularly the case in the eighth one, which acts as a

kind ofsummation as it brings the work to a close.

two rhapsodiesfor cello e[ strings consists ofthe first two of an ongoing set

ofworks for cello and string orchestra or ensemble. They are reworkings

and enlargements oftwo earlier works by Mumford, taking as their respective points of departure the solo viola work revisiting variazioni elegiaci (later 

reworked for solo cello) and a movement from his string trio in soft

echoes... a world awaits.

an expanding distance ofmultiple voices is a set ofvariations for solo violin 

that was commissioned by a Washington, DC-based consortium consisting

of Philip Berlin, Otho Eskin, Pamela Johnson, and Kathryn Judd. The

composer writes: “The work is a musical salute to Lina Bahn for her commitment to the music of our time, both in a solo capacity and as a member

ofthe Corigliano String Quartet. Cast in five movements, it displays many

changes ofmood, tempo and timbre. As is the case in my work for solo viola

wending, much ofthe harmonic material is based on the letters ofits dedicatee’s name (in this case linA BAHn). [B is the equivalent in German musical

spelling ofthe note B-flat, while H is the equivalent of B-natural. The first four

movements] are played together without pause. The title suggests a layered 

space, suspended and vast, in which many sources and gradations oflight

radiate from the continually shifting pockets ofits interior.”

Program notes based on materials provided by Jeffrey Mumford

9
io

Concerts in February at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

With Miranda Cuckson, violinist, and Julia Bruskin, cellist

Music by Jeffrey Mumford, composer-in-residence 

Presented in honor ofAfrican American History Month

February 17, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Poulenc Trio

Music by Duke Ellington and other composers 

Presented in honor ofAfrican American History Month

February 24, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court
Corrections to the program:

In addition to the players listed in the program, the National Gallery of

Art New Music Ensemble includes cellist Robert Battey.

At next week's concert, on Sunday, February 17, 2013, at 6:30 pm in

the West Garden Court, the performers will be the Avalon String 

Quartet and pianist Winston Choi. As the third and last concert with

composer-in-residence Jeffrey Mumford, it will feature the following

program of works by him:

inforests ofevaporating dawns (1996)

a celebration ofElliott (2006)

Washington, DC, Premiere Performance

for Elliott (1983-1984)

a landscape ofinteriorresonances (2001)

I. Molto sonoro e luminoso

II. Lontano quasi una eco

III. Esplosivo e quasi eccessivo

toward the deepening stillness beyond visible light (2004)

Washington, DC, Premiere Performance