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 ofArt 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: Jean-Jacques Feuchere, Dante- Meditating on the “Divine Comedy,” 1843,

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift ofthe Christian Humann Foundation

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,989th Concert

Great Noise Ensemble

Armando Bayolo, artistic director and conductor

with

Cristina Zavalloni, voice; Lindsay Kesselman, voice

Andrew Sauvageau, voice; Jacob Perry Jr., voice

Third Practice, Brian Bartoldus, artistic director

Children’s Chorus ofWashington, Joan Gregoryk, artistic director

April 6, 2014

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Presented in connection with Andriessen 75, a city-wide celebration 

ofthe seventy-fifth birthday of composer Louis Andriessen. More

information about the celebration is available at www.andridssdn75.com.

Louis Andriessen (b. 1939)

La Commddia (2004-2008)

I. The City of Dis, or The Ship of Fools

II. Racconto dall’ inferno (Story from Hell)

hi. Lucifer

iv. The Garden of Earthly Delights

v. Luce eterna (Eternal Light)

The National Gallery of Art and Great Noise Ensemble extend their

thanks to the Atlas Theater and the University of Maryland School of

Music for providing rehearsal space for this concert.

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 in 2010, performing the Washington premiere of

Louis Andriessen’s Dd Matdrid. In addition to Andriessen, Great Noise has 

collaborated with composers John Luther Adams, Joshua Bornfield, Ryan

Brown, Carlos Carillo, Andrew Earle Simpson, and Mark Sylvester, among

others. The ensemble gratefully acknowledges the assistance ofthe District

ofColumbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities in support ofits

participation in this concert.

ARMANDO BAYOLO

Born in 1973 to Cuban parents in Santurce, Puerto Rico, 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. Encompassing a wide variety of genres, including music for solo instruments, voices, chamber orchestra, and full orchestra, his work has been hailed by the Washington Post as “radiant and ethereal, 

full oflush ideas and a kind offierce grandeur.” He has received commissions from the Aspen Music Festival, the Euclid and Degas Quartets, the 

South Jutland Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse Society for New Music,

and the Western Piedmont Symphony Orchestra.

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CRISTINA ZAVALLONI

A native of Bologna, Italy, where she studied at the Conservatorio di Musica

Giovan Battista Martini, soprano Cristina Zavalloni has performed as

soloist with the bbc Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, l’Orchestra

Sinfonica Nazionale della rai (Torino), Los Angeles Philharmonic, and

Schoenberg Ensemble. With a repertoire that ranges from Monteverdi to

Berio and includes contemporary Italian composers Carlo Boccadoro, 

Emanuele Casale, Fabrizio Cassol, Paolo Castaldi, and Luca Mosca, she has

performed at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, Beijing Concert

Hall, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Lincoln Center, Palau de la Musica

Catalana, Teatro alia Scala, and Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as the

jazz festivals ofAntwerp, London, Montreux, and Umbria. Since their

collaboration began in 1993, Louis Andriessen has written five works for 

Zavalloni: Passeggiata in tram in America e ritorno; La Passione; Inanna;

Letterfrom Cathy; and Racconto dall’ inferno.

With an artistic background that includes modern dance, jazz, and

composition as well as bel canto vocal training, Zavalloni is active as a jazz 

bandleader and creator of programs that involve all ofthe arts she has

studied. Currently under contract with the Italian recording label egea, she

has a number of groundbreaking cds to her credit, including idea (2006),

Solidago (2009), and La donna di cristallo with Radar Band. She maintains a

website at www.cristinazavalloni.it.

LINDSAY KESSELMAN

Hailed by Fanfare magazine as having a voice that is “simply gorgeous...

with a fully loaded palette oftone color,” soprano Lindsay Kesselman is

known for her soulful singing and exemplary musicianship. A passionate

advocate of contemporary music, she actively collaborates with a diverse

array of composers to create and perform unique and dramatic works for the

voice. In addition to this project with Louis Andriessen, Kesselman has

worked with John Corigliano, Abbie Betinis, Philip Glass, Amy Beth Kirsten,

David Lang, Hannah Lash, and Steve Reich. Kesselman’s debut album of

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American contemporary music, Ifthis world could stop, is due for imminent

release on the Bad Wolf Music label. She recently completed an international tour with the Philip Glass Ensemble of Glass’ groundbreaking opera

Einstein on the Beach, and serves as the resident soprano with the Pittsburgh

New Music Ensemble, with which she sang the premiere of Falling by

Mathew Rosenblum. Other contemporary ensembles with which she has

worked include eighth blackbird, haven, Prometheus Modern, and Third

Coast Percussion. A resident ofAnn Arbor, Michigan, Kesselman holds

degrees in voice performance from Rice and Michigan State universities.

She maintains a website at www.lindsaykesselman.com.

ANDREW SAUVAGEAU

Hailed by the Baltimore Sun for the shining color in his singing and spoken

lines and the spark and nuance ofhis acting, baritone and actor Andrew

Sauvageau enjoys a diverse musical career, embracing song, oratorio, opera

and other genres. In addition to his work with Great Noise Ensemble, he has

appeared with the Baltimore Vocal Arts Foundation, Bel Cantanti, Chandos

Orchestra, New York City Opera, and Saint Petersberg Opera in venues that

include the Basilica ofthe National Shrine ofthe Immaculate Conception,

Kennedy Center, Library ofCongress, Lincoln Center, National Gallery ofArt,

and Washington National Cathedral. His affinity for baroque and twentiethcentury vocal music has led to unique collaborations, including Bach oratorios

and passions with Helmuth Rilling, baroque opera with Ryan Brown and

Opera Lafayette, and twentieth-century American song with several emerging

American composers. He served as stage director for the world premiere of

Jake Runestad’s one-act opera The Toll and is cofounder of hexaCollective, an

ensemble that embraces diversity and adaptability in its programming and

performers. He maintains a website at www.andrewsauvageau.com.

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JACOB PERRY JR.

Singing with Third Practice for the first time in this concert, Jacob Perry Jr.

has performed as both a soloist and an ensemble singer with the Countertop

Ensemble, Handel Choir of Baltimore, and hexaCollective. A member of

the early music vocal ensemble Chantry, he is a tenor soloist at the National

Shrine ofthe Immaculate Conception.

THIRD PRACTICE

Named after the musicological term for the late style of composer Claudio

Monteverdi (1567-1643), Third Practice is a Washington, DC-based chamber

vocal ensemble that explores the close connections between today’s music

and the music ofthe past. This is the fourth and final concert ofthe season 

for the ensemble, having earlier presented programs oftwentieth- and

twenty-first-century sacred music and love songs by Brahms, Monteverdi,

and other composers. In addition to being the assistant conductor ofthe

City Choir ofWashington, artistic director Brian Bartoldus is music director 

at Frederick, Maryland, Presbyterian Church, where in his first year, he 

founded a new festival choir and instrumental ensemble, began a new 

performance series benefitting the local homeless shelter, and introduced

masterworks for chorus and orchestra as a part ofworship.

CHILDREN’S CHORUS OF WASHINGTON

Founded in 1996 by Joan Gregoryk, the Children’s Chorus ofWashington

performs frequently with leading musical organizations in Washington, DC,

including the Choral Arts Society, National Symphony Orchestra, and

Washington Chorus. In addition to providing exceptional training through

its five performing ensembles, the Children’s Chorus also has open access

programs— prep class and sing dc—designed to support first-time 

singers and underserved students in the community. Involving more than

160 young singers between ages nine and eighteen, and representing over

ninety public and private schools in the greater dc area, the ensemble has

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toured internationally in Italy, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, and China. 

Acclaimed by professional colleagues throughout the country for her teaching at Chevy Chase Elementary School, Joan Gregoryk has created many

exciting performance opportunities for young singers. In addition to preparing the Chevy Chase Elementary School Chorus for performances under

conductors Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Erich Kunzel, Erich Leinsdorf,

and James Paul, she coached the Chevy Chase Chorus as it prepared for a

recording of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov with Mstislav Rostropovich and

the National Symphony Orchestra. The disc was subsequently nominated

for a Grammy Award.

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Program Notes

A central figure in the international new music scene and widely regarded as

the leading composer working in The Netherlands today, Louis Andriessen

studied in his native Utrecht with his father, composer Hendrik Andriessen

(1892-1981), before continuing his studies with Kees van Baaren (1906-

1970) at the Conservatory ofThe Hague and Luciano Berio (1925-2003) in

Milan and Berlin. With a background in jazz and avant-garde music, he 

takes inspiration from such varied sources as the music ofCharles Ives

(1874-1954), the art of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), medieval poetic visions,

writings on shipbuilding, and atomic theory. He has tackled complex

creative issues, exploring the relationship between music and politics in

De Staat (The State); the nature oftime and velocity in De Tijd (Time) and

De Snelheid (Velocity); and questions ofmortality in Trilogy ofthe Last Day.

His major work ofthe mid-1980s, De Materie (Matter), received its Washington premiere in 2010 at the National Gallery, when Great Noise performed

it under the direction ofArmando Bayolo. Other prominent ensembles

and musicians who have been drawn to Andriessen’s work include Bang on

a Can All Stars, Ensemble Modern, and Ensemble InterContemporain, as

well as the bbc Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, London Sinfonietta, 

Netherlands Chamber Choir, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Louis

Andriessen’s compositions are published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Various threads ofAndriessen’s lifelong musical interests are woven

together in his La Commedia, inspired by Dante’s ironic, religio-political epic

poem Commedia, better known by the name given to it by Boccacio, La

divina commedia. Originally conceived as a film opera in collaboration with

the American director Hal Hartley, La Commedia is less linear than the film

operas that the composer created with Peter Greenaway—Rosa (1994) and

Writing to Vermeer (1998). Its stylistic cousin is rather De Materie (1984-88),

particularly in the non-narrative melding of operatic conventions with

symphonic form. Although there is a clear narrative line that runs through

La Commedia, it is not so much a straightforward retelling of Dante’s

masterpiece as a distilled rumination ofits central themes through the lens 

ofthe early twenty-first century and Andriessen’s own sensibilities.

Part 1, The City ofDis, or The Ship ofFools, opens with texts taken from

the fifteenth-century satirical collection Das Narrenschiff(The Ship of

Fools) by the German theologian Sebastian Brant (1457-1521), and from 

the sixteenth-century recruitment text for the Guild ofthe Blue Barge.

During carnival season, that guild, known for its preference for ironic 

self-expression, would invite citizens from all walks oflife to join, provided

they lived appropriately sinful lifestyles. The voyage ofthe Ship of Fools is

interrupted by the appearance of Beatrice, Dante’s idealized beloved and

guide, who, in Canto 2 of Dante’s Inferno, entreats the poet, Virgil, to guide 

Dante on his way through the underworld and up to heaven. In Andriessen's

narrative, Beatrice’s appeals give way to descriptions of Dante’s journey with 

Virgil across the river Styx, and the Ship of Fools is implied to be Charon’s

barge. As the voyagers approach the shores of hell, the iron walls ofthe City

of Dis come into view, surrounded by eternal flames. Dante comes to the 

conclusion that Beatrice must have been sent from heaven.

In Part 11, Racconto dall' inferno (Storyfrom Hell), Dante—whose identity

throughout Andriessen’s La Commedia is flexible and is now played by a

woman— continues his/her journey through the underworld. Beginning 

with an incredibly powerful depiction ofthe descent into the Malebolge of

the eighth circle of hell, this part ofthe story concerns itselfwith several

infamous comic passages in Cantos 21 and 22 of Inferno, in which Dante 

and Virgil are guided by ten demons, led by the untrustworthy Malacoda.

Dante indulges in some scatology in these passages, and Andriessen sets

them to music of particularly humorous implications.

In Part ill, Lucifer, Dante, and Virgil arrive in the ninth circle of hell and 

confront the horrifying figure of Lucifer himself, who is given voice through

a text from the writings ofthe seventeenth-century Dutch playwright Joost

van den Vondel (1587-1679). Van den Vondel’s Lucifer is a Miltonian figure,

jealous of God’s love for humanity and desirous ofrevenge for being consigned to the depths of hell.

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In Part iv, The Garden ofEarthly Delights, Dante and Virgil emerge, at last,

from hell to see once more the stars on the shores of purgatory. Here, the

music takes a much lighter tone, full ofjazz inflections and quotations from 

Debussy and others. At the shore, Dante meets his friend, the poet Cassella,

who, in the second canto of Purgatorio, is described as the composer of a

musical setting ofverses from Dante's Convivio. Andriessen sets this strikingly musical passage of La divina commedia with exquisite tenderness and 

simple beauty, as Dante (once again a man) briefly joins Casella in a duet as

he recognizes his long-deceased friend. His reverie is abruptly interrupted by

two angels chasing a snake—perhaps the snake that tempted Eve—through

the garden of purgatory.

For the staged version of La Commedia, Andriessen and Hartley developed a story that would take place on film, in tandem with the epic tale

depicted on stage. In the film, after the incident with the two angels and the 

snake, Dante is hit by a car and dies, thus gaining entry to Paradise. It is

here, at Dante’s death, that all irony falls from La Commedia. The chorus

enters, singing verses from the Song of Songs—alluded to in Canto 30 of

Purgatorio—in some ofthe most heartfelt, beautiful music Andriessen has 

ever written. These passages are especially touching in light of his dedication of La Commedia to his first wife, Jeannette Yanikian, who died in 2008,

the year ofthe completion and premiere ofthe work.

In Part v, Luce etema, a light that takes the form ofmusic from an 

imperceptible source welcomes Dante into Paradise. A children’s chorus

sings a brief Requiem and reintroduces the angelic Beatrice, who sings of

the eternal light oflove. Dante, in her feminine voice, enters with her own

ecstatic meditation ofthe music ofthe spheres, only to be rudely interrupted

by the cranky crusader knight Cacciaguida (one ofthe ancestors whom

Dante meets in cantos 15-17 of Paradiso). Cacciaguida complains ofthe

decadence ofthe contemporary Florentines, accompanied by a grungy jazz

ensemble. His cantankerous contemplation does not last long, however, and

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the scene is once more engulfed in the beautiful music ofthe spheres. The 

sweet everlasting light—Luce eterna—that conquers every sorrow surrounds Dante and Beatrice, and bathes them in the ecstasy of eternal love...

... until the impudent children return with an admonition: ifyou do

not get these notes on life and death, then you won’t get the last judgment—

never, ever. Andriessen leaves it to children to deliver the final admonition

to take ourselves and our meditations seriously, particularly those on life

and death.

Program notes by Armando Bayolo

Biography ofLouis Andriessen provided by Boosey e[ Hawkes. Used by permission