The Sixtieth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

FIFTY-NINTH AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL

Under the Direction of George Manos

5 May through 19 May 2002

Sunday Evenings at Seven O’clock

Admission free
The Fifty-ninth American Music Festival

is made possible in part by a generous gift from

the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.
2420th Concert

5 May 2002

7:00 p.m.

East Building Auditorium

THE RAMSEY LEWIS TRIO

Ramsey Lewis, piano

Leon Joyce Jr., drums Larry Gray, bass

(Mr. Lewis will announce the trio’s selections 

from the stage)

One of America’s most influential and beloved musicians, pianist and

composer Ramsey Lewis is the recipient ofthree Grammy and five Gold

Record Awards. At the forefront of Chicago jazz, Lewis first captivated 

fans with his Gentlemen of Swing and Ramsey Lewis Trio. Since 1965

he has been one of the nation’s most successful popular jazz pianists,

topping the charts with The In Crowd, Hang On Sloopy, and Wade In the

Water. Lewis, who is often called legendary, concedes: “It’s a high

honor when someone says so, but I don’t put myself in the league. What

keeps me enthusiastic and energizes me is the realization I still have so

far to go. Living life inspires me to create. Life is a thing of miracles and

reserving time to communicate with the universe is food for my soul. My

medium, the piano, allows me to reach out. If an artist sincerely gives of

himself or herself to the listener, and the listener sends something back,

the composite result is a mutual love affair.”

Ramsey Lewis began taking piano lessons at the age of four, studying

the fundamentals of music. He credits his teacher Dorothy Mendelsohn 

for making him aware of such concepts as “listen with your inner ear”

and “make the piano sing.” These concepts were revelatory to him and

led to the study of works of Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms, and

Chopin, the basic piano repertoire for the concert pianist.

Lewis’ only exposure to jazz in childhood was through recordings of

Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Mead Lux Lewis, and others that his father 

played at home. He was fifteen when a fellow church musician, Wallace

Burton, asked him to join his jazz band, a seven-piece group called The

Cleffs. Lewis recalls: “Jazz soon became a major force in my musical

life, but European classical music and gospel were of almost equal

importance. During the course of my career, people often ask me what 

makes up my style. I would respond with the statement that it wasn’t

[formed] until Dizzy Gillespie and later Maurice White, both of whom

said that to their ears music is made up of the influence of classical,

gospel, and jazz. It was then that a light came on in my head! Certainly,

in my case, it is true that my style reflects my strongest influences.”

In addition to recordings and live performances, Lewis heads his own

recording studio/production company, Ivory Pyramid, formed to

shepherd talented young musicians. He hosts a weekday morning drivetime radio show on Chicago’s WNUA-FM (for which he received R&R’s

1999 Personality of the Year award) and the station’s syndicated weekly

program Legends of Jazz. Recently honored by an invitation to perform 

at the White House, Lewis has also received two ACE award

nominations as host of Black Entertainment Television’s (BET) weekly 

jazz program, Jazz Central. Active in community efforts, especially on

behalf of youth, Lewis serves as artistic director for jazz at the Ravinia 

Festival and helped to organize the Ravinia Jazz Mentor Program.

Recently appointed the Art Tatum professor in jazz studies by Chicago’s

Roosevelt University, Ramsey Lewis was honored in 1996 with the

school’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Bassist Larry Gray started his career as a jazz guitarist and did not take

up the double bass until age twenty. His teachers were Joseph

Guastafeste, longtime principal bassist of the Chicago Symphony 

Orchestra, and cellist Karl Fruh, a highly regarded soloist and teacher.

Under Fruh’s guidance, Gray studied the cello and received bachelor’s

and master’s degrees in cello performance. As a bassist, he has also

worked with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony

Orchestra. His career as a jazz bassist has focused on Chicago’s Jazz

Showcase, where he has worked for the past twenty-five years with jazz

legends such as Sonny Stitt, Eddie Harris, Bobby Hutcherson, James

Moody, Joe Pass, Kenny Burrell, Larry Coryell, Jack DeJohnette, Louis

Bellson, Harry “Sweets” Edison, and Clark Terry. He has toured 

throughout the United States and Europe with Marian McPartland, Clark

Terry, Dorothy Donegan, Monty Alexander, Frank Wess, Joe Williams,

and Kenny Drew Jr. He currently travels with the Ramsey Lewis Trio.

Percussionist Leon Joyce Jr., a native of Meridien, Connecticut, 

received his musical training under John Obion and Jimmy Rozelle.

While still in high school, he toured Connecticut and Massachusetts with

the Greater Hartford Community College Theater Group, performing the

Broadway musical Hair. He joined the United States Marines in 1976

and attended the Armed Forces School of Music in Little Creek,

Virginia, where his teachers were Thomas Winters, Mark Adams, and

Ray Dunaway. Joyce retired from the Marine Corps in 1997 with the

rank of Gunnery Sergeant. He has performed with James Carter, Patti

LaBelle, Pete Fountain, Ellis Marsalis, Stanley Cowell, and the Ramsey

Lewis Trio, among many others.

2421st Concert

12 May 2002

7:00 p.m.

West Building, West Garden Court

THE MALLARME CHAMBER PLAYERS

Catherine LeGrand,y7nte Bo Newsome, oboe

Timothy Holley, cello John Hanks, percussion

Peter Schickele

(b. 1935)

PROGRAM

Dream Dances for Flute, Oboe, and Cello

(1988)

Minuet

Jitterbug

Waltz

Sarbande

Gallop

Scott Joplin 

(1868-1917)

Raggedy Suite

Bethena, a Concert Waltz (1905)

Maple LeafRag (1899)
Ingolf Dahl

(1912-1970)

Duettino Concertante for Flute

and Percussion (1966)

Alla marcia 

Arioso accompagnato 

Fughetta 

Presto Finale

INTERMISSION

Mike Curtis

(b. 1952)

Duo Suites on Mexican Themes

for Oboe and Cello (1966)

Sancho danza

La rana loca (The Crazy Frog)

Washington Premiere Performance

Christopher Deane The Auricular Object

World Premiere Performance

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.

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The Mallarme Chamber Players named their ensemble after the French

symbolist poet Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898), who believed that true

art is a unity of music, poetry, theater, and dance. The ensemble follows

in his footsteps, presenting chamber music concerts that provide an

intimate setting for the audience, the aura of live theater, and a

stimulating atmosphere for professional artists. The ensemble tours

extensively throughout North Carolina and the eastern United States, and

has been recorded on the Bay City and Capstone labels.

Flutist Catherine LeGrand substitutes in this performance for Anna 

Ludwig Wilson, the artistic director and co-founder of the Mallarme

Chamber Players. Currently residing in North Carolina, LeGrand is an

active soloist, chamber musician, noted pedagogue, and clinician. She

maintains a private flute studio, where her pedagogical focus is on the

pursuit of more efficient and expressive modes of flute playing. Her 

numerous solo performances include concerto performances with the

Superior Festival Orchestra of Marquette, Michigan, and the Baytown

Symphony in Texas. She has presented recitals and workshops at annual

flute events for the Houston Flute Club, the Raleigh Area Flute

Association, and the National Flute Association.

Oboist Bo Newsome graduated from the Cincinnati Conservatory of

Music with a bachelor of arts degree and an artist diploma. He was a

resident artist at the Banff Center for the Arts in 1992 and 1993 and a

visiting artist in the North Carolina Arts Council’s Visiting Artists

Program. Currently teaching at East Carolina University, Newsome 

continues to perform with the Tar River Orchestra in Rocky Mount and

the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, in addition to maintaining a

private studio in Durham. He has received commissions for works to be

performed by the Mallarme Players, including a work honoring Anna 

Ludwig Wilson on the occasion of her sabbatical.

Cellist Timothy Holley graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College in

Berea, Ohio, where he studied with Regina Mushabac. He received his

doctorate from the University of Michigan under the tutelage ofJerome 

Jelinek, Jeffrey Solow, and Erling Blondal Bengtsson. Holley performed 

with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 1996 and has also
performed frequently in solo and chamber music recitals in Detroit,

Toledo, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Chicago. A former member of the

Legacy String Quartet, which presented chamber music by Black

American composers from 1987 to 1993, Holley continues to be active

in scholarly efforts related to performing Black American concert music.

He is currently assistant professor of music at North Carolina Central

University in Durham.

Percussionist John Hanks is a 1980 graduate of the North Carolina 

School of the Arts. He teaches percussion in the Duke University music

department and is a full-time staff musician for the Duke dance program.

Bom and raised in Durham, he has appeared over the years as

percussionist and timpanist for many groups, including the Duke Chapel

Choir, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra 

ofthe Triangle, and the Mallarme Chamber Players. Hanks has served as

drummer for the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra and the Gregg

Gelb Swing Band and is a founding member of the Philidor Percussion 

Group. His percussion compositions for dance classes were released on a

CD entitled Here Come the Drums in 1999.

Peter Schickele records that Dream Dances owes its inspiration to the

librarian for the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Symphony, who also happens

to play the oboe in a trio that consists offlute, oboe, and cello. Regarding 

his approach to this work, Schickele states: “I started getting ideas for a

little piece employing those three instruments. That piece [was given the

title] Not-So-Grand, Not-So-Rapid Waltz. After I finished it, I knew I

wanted to make it a part of a larger work that [later] became known as

Dream Dances. It was completed on 26 August 1988 and premiered on

17 May 1989 at Barge Music in Brooklyn, New York. The performers 

were Gwyndalyn L. Mansfield-Holttom, Robert Botti, and Peter 

Rosenfeld.”

Bom and raised in a musical family, the celebrated ragtime pianist and

composer Scott Joplin wrote the ground-breaking Mississippi Rag in

1897. The publication ofthis piece provided a kernel that was to blossom 

into ragtime, a new piano style and an art form unique to the western 

world. Bethena, A Concert Waltz (actually a ragtime waltz), and Maple

LeafRag are prime examples of music that has come to be an American 

art form revered throughout the world. In Scott Joplin: Black-American

Classicist, Rudi Blesh writes: “At the turn ofthe century ragtime was all

the rage. America cakewalked to it. So did the French, though they

called it le temps du chiffon. In Vienna, the Prater carousel riders whirled 

to it and the coffee house zithers played it; the London barrel organs

bleated it out; Scotch lassies did their Highland fling while the pipers

skirled out the Maple Leaf Rag.” Ragtime reached even Russia, its

obstreperous sound galvanizing Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) to compose

his Rag-time for eleven instruments (1918) and Piano-Rag-Music

(1920). The rapid rise to prominence of ragtime in the twentieth century

is remarkable, considering that, according to Blesh, “Its very name was

an epithet, a scornful, belittling term with strong racial overtones.”

Syncopation (accents placed on the weak beats rather than the strong)

is the mainstay ofragtime. A syncopated waltz in ragtime is an anomaly,

but the innovative and open-minded Joplin was able to produce one in

Bethena, A Concert Waltz. Maple Leaf Rag, titled after the Maple Leaf

Club in Sedalia, Missouri, where Joplin played the piano, is his bestknown work.

Ingolf Dahl wrote primarily instrumental chamber music, including

many important works for winds. Among them are a wind quintet, a flute

quartet, a sonata for clarinet and piano, and a saxophone concerto.

Duettino Concertante for Flute and Percussion is a virtuosic work

requiring careful attention to detail by both performers and listeners. The

Duettino is a masterpiece of economy and timbre imagination, a fact that

is especially evident in the percussion writing. Although the number of

instruments required is not particularly large, Dahl’s instructions call for

a variety ofstriking implements, as well as the use oftonal areas such as

the middle edge of the drum head. In addition, there is the unusual

technique of producing a glissando effect by striking the drum while 

pressing in on the head with the elbow. The four movements offer 

contrasts in style and texture. The Alla marcia and Fughetta movements 

require rhythmic and melodic give and take, the Arioso accompagnato is

a subtle yet sensual conversation, and the Presto Finale is a highly

charged and occasionally humorous rondo.
Christopher Deane’s Auricular Object, a one-movement set of

variations, is a passacaglia in four sections. Each section features one of

the instruments as soloist. The solo instruments present differing 

concepts of what can be done with the single motif from which the piece 

is generated. Each part is written with a specific player in mind.

Program notes on Schickele, Dahl, and Deane

by Anna Ludwig Wilson, adapted and edited by Elmer Booze

Notes on Scott Joplin by Elmer Booze

2422d Concert

19 May 2002

7:00 p.m.

West Building, West Garden Court

THE NATIONAL GALLERY VOCAL ARTS

ENSEMBLE

George Manos, artistic director

Rosa Lamoreaux, soprano, Beverly Benso, contralto,

Samuel Gordon, tenor, Robert Kennedy, baritone,

Francis Conlon, pianist

Presented in honor of the exhibition An American Vision:

Henry Francis du Pont’s Winterthur Museum

PROGRAM

I

Attributed to Asahel Benham Redemption Anthem

(1757-1805)

Shaker Tune, South Union Kentucky Love Is Little

adapted by Kevin Siegfried

William Billings Lamentation over Boston

(1746-1800)

Alice Parker

(b. 1925)

Happy in the Lord

Based on Jesus, My All, to Heaven Is Gone

by John Cennick (1718-1755)
II

Arr. Samuel Gordon Three American Folk Songs

(b. 1940)

Bow Your Bend to Me (Southern Appalachian Tune)

Blanche comme la neige (Southwestern Louisiana Cajun

Folk Song)

The Wonderful Crocodile (New England Sailors’ Song)

III

Francis Flopkinson Selections from The Temple ofMinerva

(1737-1791)

Trio: Arise, Your Voices Raise

The Genius of France (soprano), the Genius of

America (tenor), and the High Priest of

Minerva (baritone)

Aria: O Wise Minerva, Hear My Prayer

The Genius of America 

Aria: Wise Minerva, Grant Her Prayer

The Genius of France

Aria: Daughter ofJove

The High Priest of Minerva 

Aria: In a Golden Balance Weighed

Minerva (contralto)

Quartet: Great Minerva, Power Divine

INTERMISSION

IV

Samuel Gordon Heart, Lie Still

Settings offour poems by nineteenthcentury women poets

Vainly My Heart with Thy Sorceries Striven

(Sarah Helen Whitman [1803-1878])

Better a Sin Which Purposed Wrong to None 

(Ellen Sturgis Hooper [1812-1848])

I Slept and Dreamed That Life Was Beauty (Hooper)

Heart, Heart, Lie Still (Hooper)

V

Francis Hopkinson Three Songs

O’er the Hills (baritone)

Beneath a Weeping Willow’s Shade (contralto)

Come, Fair Rosina (tenor)

VI

Anonymous Songs from the Tavern

The Anacreontic Song

The Fly (tenor) (1740)

My Dearest Love, Why Wilt Thou Ask

(soprano and contralto)

I Married a Wife (baritone)

Johnny Sands (soprano)

Beneath the Willow Tree

(alto, tenor, and baritone)

From Good Liquor Ne’er Shrink
The National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble was founded in 1986 as the

resident vocal arts ensemble of the National Gallery of Art by the

Gallery’s music director, George Manos. Since then the ensemble has

appeared at the National Gallery twenty times and has presented 

numerous concerts in other venues, including the Louvre Museum in

Paris, Germany’s Rheingau Festival, and the 1989 Salzburg Festival.

From each of its six concert tours of Europe, the ensemble has brought 

home rave reviews, as well as the first prize from the 1988 Music at St.

Donat’s Festival in the former Yugoslavia.

Soprano Rosa Lamoreaux is well known to Washington audiences 

through her many appearances at the Smithsonian Concert Series, the

Kennedy Center, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the National 

Gallery. She also performs frequently in other parts of the United States

and was selected by Robert Shaw to perform as soloist in the Cincinnati 

May Festival.

Contralto Beverly Benso is a uniquely gifted singer in her range. Prior

to her 1990 debut at Carnegie Flail, she had already established an

international reputation through her performances in the Bach

Tricentennial in Leipzig, the 1989 Salzburg and Rheingau Festivals, and

the 1986 Mahler Festival in Canada.

Tenor Samuel Gordon is professor of music at the University of

Akron, Ohio. He is an award-winning conductor and composer, as well

as a singer. A number of his original compositions and arrangements of

Black American spirituals are in the quartet’s standing repertoire.

Baritone Robert Kennedy is also much in demand as a soloist, both as

a recitalist and for his interpretations of opera and oratorio roles. He has

been heard as Colas in the National Gallery’s concert production of

Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne and in the role of Herr Schlendrian in

Bach’s Coffee Cantata.

Pianist Francis Conlon is one of the most sought-after ensemble

musicians in the greater Washington area, and he is on stage virtually 

every week of the year. His numerous concert tours have included

Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Japan. Conlon has been a winner of the

National Society of Arts and Letters Competition and the Jordan Awards

Contest. A member of the music faculty at George Washington

University, he is the director of music at the Church ofthe Annunciation 

in Washington and Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia.

The National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble has devoted considerable 

effort to the presentation ofworks by American composers, resulting in a

sizable repertoire of songs and part-songs from the eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries. This repertoire represents the musical equivalent of

a collection of art objects made or used in America between 1640 and

1860. Some ofthe insights in Henry Francis du Pont’s writings about his

collection at Winterthur and the reasons for its focus are equally 

pertinent to this concert and the research that brought it about: “The

general goal is to promote the broadest possible understanding of the

American people through an integrated study of the culture of early

America....Art belongs to the center, not the periphery of life. It is...a

necessary language ofthe human spirit.” The composer William Billings

comes to mind in this excerpt from one of Du Pont’s letters: “[Contact

with early American art objects] is an occasion to stimulate interest in

America’s arts and skills as they were developed over the years by a

people divinely inspired, a body of pioneers, who learned to combine

beauty and utility in fashioning a way of life that has become a symbol

to all mankind.”

Music manuscripts from American composers before 1860 are not as

plentiful as the items of furniture, textiles, paintings, prints, drawings,

ceramics, glass, and metalwork that Du Pont collected at Winterthur.

Because many early American composers were self-taught, their output

does not present the variety of genre, style, and texture of the European 

music of the same period. To give this program increased range and

variety, some of the offerings are the work of contemporary composers

who have taken inspiration from early American tunes or poetry.

The anthem, a through-composed setting of a sacred text, is the most 

elaborate ofthe musical genres favored by New England singing masters 

during the latter part ofthe eighteenth century. Like the Anglican anthem

from which it was derived, the New England anthem was intended for

choral rather than congregational singing. Characteristically, anthems

make use of contrasting chordal and imitative sections and passages for
the full choir alternating with passages for one or two parts. The

Redemption Anthem differs from most other late eighteenth-century 

anthems in that its text is rhymed and metrical. In place of the strophic

treatment that such texts usually received in the eighteenth century, the

music is through-composed and the text is treated as prose would be.

Although attribution of the Redemption Anthem cannot be made with

certainty, surviving evidence would seem to indicate that the composer 

was Asahel Benham (1757-1805). A native of New Hartford,

Connecticut, Benham taught in singing schools throughout New England 

and the Middle Atlantic States. Two important collections of sacred

vocal music bear his name as a co-compiler: Federal Harmony and

Social Harmony (New Haven, 1790 and 1798, respectively). The

Redemption Anthem first appeared in Social Harmony, where it bears no

attribution. Benham did not claim for himself any of the pieces in Social

Harmony, but several are attributed to him by fellow compilers. Of the

forty-five pieces in this collection, thirty-six are given attributions to

composers other than Benham and two more carry the ascription

“Unknown.” On these grounds, it may be inferred that the seven

remaining compositions are actually Benham’s.

William Billings was a citizen of colonial and Revolutionary Boston

who, although self-taught, exerted a strong influence on the development 

of church music in New England in the 1770s and 1780s. In spite of

physical handicaps (he had an undersize arm and leg and only one eye),

he built a successful career as a singing master, teaching at the

fashionable Boston churches. His fortunes declined, however, in the last

decade of his life. Having lost his church positions, he tried practicing 

several other trades without success and died in poverty.

Francis Hopkinson, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence,

was one of the Renaissance men of colonial Philadelphia. At various

times in his life, he was active as an artist, a customs collector, a lawyer,

a legislator (in the Continental Congress), a judge, and a composer. His

medley of songs and narratives entitled The Temple ofMinerva has been

recognized in retrospect as the first American opera. Written in 1781, its

text reflects not only Enlightenment anti-clericalism (the

prayers on behalf of the newly independent American states are

addressed to a pagan goddess), but also some uncertainty as to the

viability ofthose states ifleft on their own without divine intervention.

In the major population centers of the southern colonies (Charleston, 

Williamsburg, Baltimore, and Annapolis), the taverns were not only the

community centers for news and political discussions, but also the

primary musical theaters. Much of the entertainment was improvised by

the patrons, many of whom knew all the verses of a large number of

songs. Often ribald, these songs focused on courtship, marital woes, and

camaraderie, with an occasional poke at a political figure. There were

also bacchanalian songs in the form of catches-part-songs in which the

singer who made a mistake bought the next round of drinks. The tavern 

songs in this program were taken from a collection of several thousand 

songs assembled in Williamsburg, Virginia, by musicologist Tayler 

Vrooman, composer John Edmunds, and Bruton Parish Church organist 

James S. Darling.

Program notes by Elmer Booze

Program notes on the Redemption Anthem

by Lawrence Bennett and Steven Urkowitz, 

adapted and edited by Elmer Booze

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off

For the convenience ofconcert goers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.