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 cirde@nga.gov for more information.

cover: Jacques Callot, The Guitar Player, c. 1622, etching and engraving,

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Rosenwald Collection

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,968th Concert

Mak Grgic and Nejc Kuhar, guitarists

with Jay Campbell, cellist

November 24, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Chaconne from Partita no. 2 in D Minor (c. 1720)

Mak Grgic, guitar

Nina Senk (b. 1982)

.. .entourer 11... (2013)

Mak Grgic, guitar, and Jay Campbell, cello

World premiere performance

Bach

Air from Suite no. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068 (c. 1720)

Mak Grgic

Nejc Kuhar (b. 1987)

Niagara Falls with Water (2009)

Mak Grgic and Nejc Kuhar, guitars

INTERMISSION

Kuhar

Carpe GuiCell (2013)

Mak Grgic and Jay Campbell

Bach

Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1001 (1720)

Adagio 

Fuga 

Siciliano 

Presto

Mak Grgic

Bach

Concertofor Organ in C Major, BWV 595 (c. 1713)

Arranged for two guitars and cello by Ante Cagalj
The Musicians

MAK GRGIC

A busy concert performer with successful appearances in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Texas as well as in his native Slovenia, Mak Grgic makes

his second appearance at the National Gallery ofArt in this evening’s concert. 

Reviewing his first Gallery concert, Stephen Brookes ofthe Washington Post

praised Grgic as “a lyrical insightful player,” offering “a superb, finely detailed

reading that showed [him] a guitarist to keep an eye on.”

First-prize winner at the 2011 Guitar Competition Luigi Mozzani in Italy

and the 2012 Pacific Guitar Festival and Competition in California, Grgic

previously earned top honors at the Andres Segovia International Competition for young guitarists; Forum Gitarre Wien International Competition;

International Guitar Competition in Arrenzano, Italy; and European Classical Guitar Competition “Enrico Mercatali” in Italy.

Born in 1987 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Grgic follows a distinguished line of

guitarists from the Croatian school ofguitar playing. In Zagreb he studied with

Ante Cagalj at the Elly Basic Conservatory of Music. Grgic went on to study

at the Universitat fur Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, under the

tutelage ofAlvaro Pierri. As a student ofWilliam Kanengiser, he earned a

master ofmusic degree from the University of Southern California’s Thornton

School of Music, where he is continuing his studies toward a doctorate of

music. Appearing at the National Gallery ofArt by arrangement with Serious

Music Media, www.seriousmusicmedia.com, Mak Grgic extends special thanks

to the Embassy ofthe Republic of Slovenia in Washington, DC and the

Ministries ofCulture and Foreign Affairs ofthe Republic of Slovenia for

assistance in support oftonight’s concert.

NEJC KUHAR

Slovenian guitarist and composer Nejc Kuhar began his guitar studies in his

native country under the guidance ofAnton Crnugelj and continued them

in Vienna, where he studied guitar and composition under the tutelage of

Alvar Pierri and Reiner Bischof, respectively. Kuhar’s compositions have

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received critical acclaim from the North Rhine-Westphalian newspaper

Iserlohner Kreisanzeiger, noting that his music “can be easily compared with

the works of great masters.” Published by Italy’s Berben Edizioni Musicali 

and Canada’s Les Productions d’OZ, Kuhar writes primarily for the guitar, 

but also has works for other solo instruments and chamber ensembles.

Recently awarded Klagenfurt, Germany’s Gustav Mahler Competition Prize,

he performs regularly with Mak Grgic as the Prokofiev Guitar Duo. Possessed of a wide repertoire, from Baroque music to brand new compositions,

Kuhar dedicates his career to bringing intimacy, emotion, and beauty to

classical music for the guitar.

JAY CAMPBELL

With a diverse spectrum ofrepertoire and eclectic musical interests, cellist

Jay Campbell has been heard on television and radio broadcasts and in

concert halls around the world, including New York’s Alice Tully, Avery

Fisher, and Carnegie halls; Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival; and Lucerne, 

Switzerland’s Kultur und Kongresszentrum. In addition to this National

Gallery concert, his current season includes appearances at Carnegie Hall,

the University ofIllinois’ Krannert Center, the University ofCalifornia Davis’

Mondavi Center, and the Heidelberg Festival.

A graduate ofthe Crowden School in Berkeley, California, where he

studied with Fred Sherry, and a first-prize winner in the 2012 Concert Artist

Guild auditions, Campbell has received awards from the bmi and ascap

foundations. Having worked with conductors Pierre Boulez, Jeffrey Milarsky,

and Michael Morgan, he played his New York Philharmonic debut in the

2012-2013 season, performing music by Tan Dun. In addition to Boulez,

Campbell has collaborated with John Adams, Elliott Carter, and Magnus

Lindberg. Among the nearly one hundred works Campbell has premiered to

date are guitar concertos by Chris Rogerson and David Lang. As guest

chamber musician, he has added the sound ofthe guitar to chamber ensembles that include members ofthe Arditti and Afiara string quartets, Da Capo

Chamber Players, International Contemporary Ensemble, Einstiirzende

Neubauten, Ensemble InterContemporain, and Radiohead.

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Program Notes

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote effectively for the lute in several ofhis choral

works, giving that instrument a moment ofspecial importance in his Saint

John Passion, during the bass aria that tells ofJesus’ ascent to heaven. In an

early version ofthe Saint Matthew Passion, the aria Komm susses Kreuz has

an expertly written lute part, but the lute was supplanted by the viola da

gamba in the later version. Whenever he needed an evocation ofthe angelic,

Bach employed a historic archetype, established by neo-Platonic writings

and Renaissance paintings—angels are shown in many Renaissance

paintings and drawings playing on plucked string instruments, identified

earlier by Plato as the highest order ofinstrumental music. But the works

that were identified by Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel and later compilers

of his works as written for solo lute (three suites— BWV 995, 997, and

999 —and the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-Jlat Major, BWV 998) were

probably not actually intended for that instrument. They resemble in style

Bach’s earlier keyboard suites, and were most likely conceived at and for the

clavichord or the harpsichord.

During the period when the guitar came to supplant the lute (in the late

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), guitarists not only adapted the

four supposed solo lute works for their instrument, but also transcribed

Bach’s partitas and sonatas for solo violin as they enlarged their repertoire.

The great guitarist Andres Segovia (1893-1987) brought these works to the

concert stage with spectacular skill, confirming their place as concert

repertoire for the guitar. Even as Bach had already proven in his own lifetime, many ofhis works lend themselves to effective rendition on instruments other than the one for which they were originally intended.

About...entourer 11..., Nina Senk writes: “In 20111 received a commission

from Mak Grgic and the Jack String Quartet to write a piece for them. The

result was ... entourer ... for guitar and string quartet. Both the first version

ofthe piece and the newly completed second version, ... entourer 11..., are 

based on the idea of an ongoing game among the musicians for attention and

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domination. In the first version, I focus on the balance and tension between

an individual (represented by the guitar) and his or her environment (represented by the string quartet). In the second version, which I wrote for just two

players—Mak Grgic and Jay Campbell—the fight is between two individuals.”

A graduate ofthe Music Academy in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she studied

composition under Pavel Mihelcic, Nina Senk continued her post-diploma

studies in Dresden, Germany, under the mentorship of Lothar Voigtlander.

In 2008 she obtained her master’s degree in the class ofthe noted German

composer Matthias Pintscher at the University of Music and Performing Arts

in Munich. Among the many awards Senk has garnered are the 2004 European

award for the best composition at the Young Euro Classic festival (for her Concerto for Violin and Orchestra), the Academy of Music Preseren award, and

first prize at the 2008 Weimar Spring Festival for Contemporary Music for 

her composition MovimentoJluido.

The final work on tonight’s program may be regarded as a transcription

of a transcription, since J. S. Bach’s Concertofor Organ, BWV 595, is itself an

adaptation of a violin concerto (op. 4, no. 1 in G Major) by Prince Johann Ernst

of Saxe-Weimar (1696-1715). While he was in the employ ofthe ducal court

ofWeimar (1708-1717), Bach came into contact with Prince Johann Ernst, eleven

years his junior. A halfbrother ofDuke Ernst August (who was Bach’s employer),

the young man was so passionate about music that he undertook intensive

study under Bach’s cousin, Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748), who was 

also working in Weimar at that time. During his short life (he died as a result

of an unknown illness when he was eighteen years old) Johann Ernst wrote

four concertos, all ofwhich were eventually reworked or transcribed by Bach

and Walther—kind gestures on the part ofmaster composers toward a seriously ill member oftheir employer’s family. The original violin concerto by

the prince has three movements, but Bach chose to transcribe only the first

movement for the organ—hence the one-movement format ofthe work that

closes this evening’s concert.

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

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