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 

West 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

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 oftheir support. Please contact the development

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

COVER: Joseph Rubens Powell, Winter, watercolor and gouache over

graphite on wove paper, National Gallery ofArt, Washington,

Gift ofJohn Nichols Estabrook and Dorothy Coogan Estabrook

rawi

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,972nd Concert

Ensemble Galilei

December 22, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

“Winter Solstice”

Picardy, French Medieval 

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

Anders Norudde (b. i960)

Konvulsionslaten

Sue Richards

The Celt

Thirteenth-century plainsong

Divinum Mysterium

Scottish Gaelic Carol

Taladh ar Slanaigheir (Christ Child Lullabye)

Traditional Scottish

Away in the Manger (Flow Gently, Sweet Afton)

Taught to Hanneke Cassel by Antti Jarvela

Polonessa Spoof

Collected by John Jacob Niles (1892-1980)

I Wonder as I Wander

Traditional Irish from O’Neill’s Music ofIreland (1903)

At Midnight Hour

Joy Be With You

Sixteenth-century English

Greensleeves

Seventeenth-century French

Quelle est cette odeur agreahle (Whence is that Goodly Fragrance)

Melchior Vulpius (1570-1615)

Jesu Kreuz, Leiden, und Pein

Ryan McKasson

Culloden

INTERMISSION

Traditional Irish, from O’Neill’s Music ofIreland

The Surround

Mark Kelly

Snowy Path

Jackie Moran

HalfC

Traditional Catalan

Carol ofthe Birds

Eighteenth-century English

The First Noel

Carolyn Surrick

Winter’s Falling Light

James Proctor Harding (1850-1911)

Brightest and Best ofthe Sons ofthe Morning

Willie Coleman

Farewell to Goirtm

Franz Gruber (1787-1863)

Silent Night

Sixteenth-century English

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

From Piae cantiones (1582)

Good King Wenceslas
The Musicians

ENSEMBLE GALILEI

One ofAmerica’s unique Celtic and folk music ensembles, Ensemble Galilei 

was founded in 1990 by viola da gambist Carolyn Anderson Surrick, who

writes: “We are musicians who bring a hundred different perspectives to our

music making. We each have our own musical inner life; together we share

the sum of our study and work. We are every teacher who encouraged us,

every fiddler who thrilled us, every mentor who showed us the way. Some of

us spent years in university and conservatory practice rooms, others spent

countless days listening to the legends play, and nights in pubs learning

tunes. From these very different elements this evening’s concert was created.

We find music that speaks deeply to us, and we honor the traditions and

dialects of each musical language.”

HANNEKE CASSEL

Named United States National Scottish Fiddle Champion in 1997, Hanneke

Cassel holds a bachelor ofmusic degree in violin performance from Berklee

College of Music in Boston. She has been heard on the stages ofthe Boston 

Hatch Shell, Boston’s Symphony Hall (opening for Judy Collins), the Kennedy 

Center, Lincoln Center, Mountain Stage, and the Plaza Hotel. A native of Port 

Orford, Oregon, Cassel started playing classical violin when she was eight

years old. At age ten she began studying the fiddle with Carol Ann Wheeler, 

and was competing in contests throughout the Pacific Northwest. In 1991

Cassel captured the United States National Scottish Junior Championship. An 

active member ofthe Boston music scene, she is featured on Darol Anger’s

CD Diary ofa Fiddler on the Compass Records label.

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RYAN MCKASSON

Fiddler Ryan McKasson claimed the National Scottish Junior Fiddle Championship in 1995 and went on to become the youngest National Scottish

Fiddle Open Champion in 1996. He has shared the stage with Beck, Bjork,

Elvis Costello, Gavin Friday, and composer Phillip Glass, among others.

His Seattle-based band, McKassons, plays to packed houses, bringing an

American sensibility to traditional Scottish folksongs that blend Celtic music

with the spirit offolk-rock and bluegrass.

JACKIE MORAN

Bom in Tipperary, Ireland, dmmmer Jackie Moran immigrated with his

family to Chicago at age ten, where he quickly began dmmming with the

best players in the Irish music scene. Now preeminent in Chicago Irish

music, Moran has been a founder and driving force ofsuch influential

bands as Bua, Comas, the Drovers, Wilding, and the Otters as well as the

Trinity Irish Dance Company. In the recording studio and on the concert

stage, he has accompanied the great artists ofthe Irish music scene and has

appeared with Riverdance and in Hollywood films that feature Irish music,

including Backdrafi (1991), Blink (1993), Traveler (1997), and The Road to

Perdition (2002).

SUE RICHARDS

A champion oftraditional music and collector offolk melodies and dances,

harpist Sue Richards studied classical harp in Ohio with Lucy Lewis and Jean

Harriman, later turning to the Irish and Scottish music ofher heritage. A

four-time winner ofthe American National Scottish Harp Championship,

she is now a Scottish Harp Society ofAmerica Distinguished Judge. She has

toured in Ireland, Norway, Scotland, and Sweden, and has played for Presidents Bush and Clinton and Queen Elizabeth. A past president ofthe Scottish

Harp Society ofAmerica and the Washington, DC, Folk Harp Society, Richards

is a composer oforiginal tunes and several books of arrangements.

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CAROLYN ANDERSON SURRICK

A graduate ofthe University ofCalifornia at Santa Cruz and George Washington University, viola da gambist Carolyn Anderson Surrick is known

affectionately to the members of Ensemble Galilei as “Navigatrix,” attesting

to her uncanny ability to keep the group on the road and bring new projects

to fruition. The ensemble has partnered with the Hubble Space Telescope 

Institute to create A Universe ofDreams, a program of poetry, images, and

music; with the National Geographic Society on First Person: Storiesfrom the

Edge ofthe World; and most recently with the Metropolitan Museum ofArt

on their collaboration, First Person: Seeing America.

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Program Notes

Occurring on either December 21 or 22, when the earth’s axis reaches the

extreme ofits tilt away from the sun, winter solstice is considered the first day

ofwinter. This evening’s concert marks its occurrence yesterday at 12:11 pm,

Eastern standard time. The world’s oldest religions, which have roots in

the interdependence between prehistoric peoples and the changes in their

natural surroundings, celebrate the equinoxes and solstices ofthe sun. Of

those celebrations, the winter solstice is the one with the most storytelling

and music-making, as it involves getting through the longest night ofthe year.

Poems and carols ofthe winter solstice typically focus on signs ofrebirth

in nature, creatures and plants that remain alive and active in winter, and the

joy of gathering in groups and feasting. In northern regions, ceremonies of

light are also typical ofwinter solstice celebrations, as that night can be close

to twenty-four hours long.

The importance to the ancient Irish ofthe winter solstice is exemplified by

Newgrange, a prehistoric monument located about an hour north of Dublin.

Predating the pyramids at Giza and Stonehenge, this 5,000-year-old tomb is

designed in such a way that once a year, at the winter solstice, it fills with light, 

illuminating specially placed stones decorated with spiral-shaped artwork.

Early Christian leaders, needing to replace the feasts that were already

a fixed part ofthe life of converts, placed Jesus’ birth date near the winter

solstice. As years passed, Christian themes and practices became predominant, but there are some “Christmas” traditions that are actually older winter

solstice traditions: the feasting (intended to nourish people for surviving the

long winter ahead); the lighted Christmas tree (evergreens were collected

and decorated with candles and shiny objects, symbolizing ongoing life and

hope ofthe return oflight); the twelve-day period of celebration (the time

it took for days to become noticeably longer and nights correspondingly

shorter); and the yule log (a large log for the fire, which would continue to

burn until the deepest darkness ofthe solstice had passed).

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, head, music department, National Gallery ofArt