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performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

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East 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

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www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

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available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development

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cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, Sketch ofthe East Building Exterior, 1971,

National Gallery ofArt Archives, Gift of I. M. Pei and Partners

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,959th Concert

National Gallery ofArt New Music Ensemble

Steve Antosca, artistic director

with

Pictures on Silence

Noah Getz, saxophonist, and Jacqueline Pollauf, harpist

September 29, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Preconcert presentation by Steve Antosca and William Brent

new meanings—gesture:process:spatialization:synthesis

Steve Antosca (b. 1955)

my end is my beginning* (2013)

World Premiere Performance

Andrew Earle Simpson (b. 1967)

Summer-Night Songs (1994, revised 1997)

Silent film by Nick Ferrario

John Belkot (b. 1981)

the woman with Renoir’s umbrella (2009)

Miklos Maros (b. 1943)

Rabescatura (1977)

Washington Premiere Performance

Fernando Benadon (b. 1972)

Cotxes (2013)

World Premiere Performance

Video by Patricio Benadon, with Lolo & Susaku and Ezequiel Bloise

*This commission has been made possible by the Chamber Music

America Classical Commissioning Program, with additional funding

provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber

Music America Endowment Fund

This concert is sponsored in part by the Randy Hostetler hiving Room

Music Fund.
The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE

Formed in 2010 to present new music in the vibrant architectural environments ofthe National Gallery ofArt, the Gallery’s resident New Music

Ensemble has presented critically acclaimed concerts that feature strategic

placement ofmusicians throughout the spaces and utilize computer controlled transformations and spatialization ofsound (placement ofsound

sources in the performance space). The group’s 2011 tribute to the Gallery’s

seventieth anniversary, staged in the West Building Rotunda, was hailed by

the Washington Post as “a spectacular, wonderfully provocative” concert, which

transformed the Rotunda into “an immense temple ofsound, presenting a

program oftheatrical new works that married humans with computers, and

ancient myths with contemporary aesthetics.”

Members ofthe National Gallery ofArt New Music Ensemble performing in tonight’s concert are computer musician William Brent, percussionist

Ross Karre, and pianists Jeffrey Chappell and Laurie Hudicek.

STEVE ANTOSCA

Named artistic director ofthe National Gallery ofArt New Music Ensemble

in 2010, composer Steve Antosca begins a six-week appointment as composer-in-residence at the Gallery with this evening’s concert. On November 10

the residency will culminate with the world premiere performance of his

new work, habitat, for percussion, video, and computers, composed

especially for performance in the East Building Atrium. Antosca has received awards and commissions from the American Composers Forum,

Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund, Bourges International

Competitions, Fromm Fund at Harvard University, Johansen International

Competition, Kennedy Center, Maryland State Arts Council, McKim Foundation at the Library ofCongress, and National Endowment for the Arts as well 

as Chamber Music America and Meet the Composer. Recipient in 2011 of

the National Academy of Music’s International Music Prize for Excellence in

Composition, Antosca has a master’s degree in computer music composition

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from the Peabody Conservatory ofJohns Hopkins University. Formerly the

artistic director ofverge ensemble, with which he performed twice at the

National Gallery and on numerous occasions at the Corcoran Gallery ofArt, he

was a codirector ofthe 2012 John Cage Centennial Festival Washington, DC.

PICTURES ON SILENCE

Taking its name from a quote from the legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski—“Musicians paint their pictures on silence”—the duo Pictures on

Silence consists of harpist Jacqueline Pollauf and saxophonist Noah Getz. 

Described by Megan Ihnen in The Sybaritic Singer as “an exemplary new music

group,” the duo presents staged theatrical shows, house concerts, and interactive events as well as traditional concert hall performances. With more

than twenty commissions to its credit, the ensemble has been recognized

with numerous grants and awards, including an American Composer’s Forum

Encore Grant, an American Harp Society Grant, a Chamber Music America

Commissioning Grant, a Sparkplug Foundation Grant, and a Yellow Barn

Artist Residency. Featured at Washington’s Atlas Theater; the Bridges Festival

in Towson, Maryland; the Livewire New Music Festival in Baltimore; the

Stella Adler School in New York; and the World Harp Congress in Vancouver,

Canada, Pictures on Silence released its debut album, Voyage, in 2012.

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Program Notes

Commissioned by Chamber Music America and composed for Pictures on 

Silence and members ofthe National Gallery ofArt New Music Ensemble, 

my end is my beginning is an electro-acoustic work that features the use of

real-time audio processing, spatialization, and synthesis in selected passages. 

Developed in collaboration between the composer and computer musician

William Brent, the live electronics make use ofsoftware developed by Brent 

for tracking the percussionist’s motions and mapping the information to

various aspects of audio manipulation. This technology enables an extension

ofthe percussionist’s technique, as formerly silent arm movements take on 

new meaning by triggering additional sounds and controlling live processing of other instruments in the ensemble.

my end is my beginning is a sequel to in every way I remember you, composed in 2011 for the seventieth anniversary ofthe National Gallery ofArt.

The earlier work explored the themes ofjourney and transformation, realized through saxophonist Noah Getz’ movement through the Rotunda while

the acoustic sound ofhis instrument underwent computer processing and

spatialization. The work exploits a robust structural framework oflayered

material that generates overlapping patterns ofrhythm and pitch, the 

function ofwhich is to connect instrument pairs ofsimilar and sometimes

contrasting characteristics. This structural and cellular mapping provides

continuity and movement throughout the piece. Through the implementation of Brent’s unique software, the flow and transformation ofthe percussionist is extended into the performance ofthe other instrumentalists.

Inspired by the long tradition of depicting nature in music, Andrew 

Earle Simpson’s Summer-Night Songs evokes the atmosphere of a tranquil

summer evening interrupted by a brief but violent rainstorm. Coloristic

effects on the harp, including harmonics, pedal buzzes, and strings struck

with the palm ofthe hand create a sonorous backdrop for the lyrical “nightsongs,” played by the saxophone in the opening and closing sections ofthe

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piece. The central section depicts a coming rainstorm and its sudden arrival.

Though fierce, it is a briefstorm, and as the music clears, a harp cadenza—

subtitled “the moon re-appearing through clouds”—leads gently to the 

closing section, in which the calmer night-song is heard again. The music

dissipates on a long-held tone in the solo instrument and a glissando into the 

extreme high register ofthe harp. Tonight’s performance also features the

premiere of a new silent film by Chicago-based filmmaker Nicholas Ferrario,

created specifically to accompany Summer-Night Songs.

Composer, pianist, and organist Andrew Earle Simpson is ordinary professor and head ofthe Division ofTheory and Composition at the Benjamin 

T. Rome School of Music ofthe Catholic University ofAmerica. His multifaceted career spans Europe, South America, and the United States, and 

includes opera; orchestral, chamber, choral, dance, and vocal music; and 

music for silent film, which he has performed on numerous occasions at

the National Gallery. His activities reflect his interest in linking music with 

literature, visual art, and film—an approach that he labels “humanistic music.”

Written especially by John Belkot for Pictures on Silence, the woman with

Renoir’s umbrella has been championed by the duo with repeat performances

throughout the region since its premiere in 2009. Originally conceived to

enable listeners to create their own narrative, the work features extremely

simple motifs spaced between long silences. Silence used in this way moves

beyond the normal functions ofrests with the intent of energizing the space,

allowing the listener to perceive space as kinetic preparation for, or decay

from, sound. As phrases and motifs develop and return, the listeners can

recognize them as familiar characters or emotions, thus developing their

own program.

A graduate of Susquehanna University and the Peabody Conservatory of

Music, John Belkot is a composer of concert and stage music whose works

have been performed throughout the United States. Recent venues include 

the College Music Society’s 54th National Conference in Richmond, Virginia;

livewire Festival in Baltimore; the Havertown (Pennsylvania) New Music

7
and Art Series; and the David Oppenheim Concert Series at the Stella Adler

Studio in New York City. Belkot’s orchestral piece And night by the streams of

the city was selected by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop 

for the 2012 bso Peabody Composer Reading. A candidate for the doctor of

musical arts degree at Peabody and recipient ofthe school’s Randolph S.

Rothschild and Eugene Scheffres & Richard E. Hartt scholarships, Belkot 

has been a composer-in-residence for the Johns Hopkins University and

treasurer ofthe Baltimore Composers Forum.

Through the use ofrepeated musical sections that are both complex and

virtuosic, Miklos Maros’ Rabescatura (arabesque) for solo saxophone mirrors

the use of arabesque in Islamic art where elaborate geometric shapes repeat

and often imitate forms found in nature. The first musical section—a fanfare

that revolves around a single tone—becomes a recurring motif and serves

as one ofthe primary unifying themes in the work. The second section leaps

between wide intervals in quick succession in a display oftechnical virtuosity

that is typical ofwriting for the violin. The third section uses several pentatonic scales (a five-note scale used in world folk music) that begin on different

pitches. This use of diverse pentatonic scales provides a contemporary treatment offolk materials. Ethereal and slow, the fourth and final section utilizes

a central note as a point of departure.

Miklos Maros creates music that reinforces each instrument’s own

technical characteristics. Musical elements that are consistently found in his

scores include the natural flow ofrhythm and sweeping lines that fluctuate

between continuous rhythmic motion and inventive melodies. He received

a stipendium from the Berliner Kunstler-Programm that included a year’s

residence in West Berlin, and was composer-in-residence at the Institute for

National Concerts. With his wife, soprano Ilona Maros, he formed the Maros

Ensemble, which specializes in contemporary music.

The first collaboration between composer Fernando Benadon and videographer Patricio Benadon, Cotxes (“Cars” in Catalan) depicts a casual drive

around Barcelona during an uneventful spring afternoon. Cars come and go

with unknown purpose. Seen as shifting images in a car's windshield, concrete formations, anonymous city dwellers, assorted flora, and various urban

peculiarities form a moving landscape. Through these images, the passage

oftime is shaped and reshaped.

Brothers Fernando and Patricio Benadon grew up in Buenos Aires. Now

based in Barcelona, Patricio has worked on film sets and advertising productions throughout Europe, and plays the Chapman stick and other string

instruments as a regular member ofthe Blue Man Group Band. Fernando

teaches music theory and composition at American University in Washington, dc, where he chairs the Department of Performing Arts.

Program notes based on materials provided by the composers

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Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Caceres/Ramos-Santana Duo

“Puerto Rico in 176 Keys”

Music for two pianos four hands

Presented in honor of

Hispanic Heritage Month

October 6, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Building Court

National Gallery ofArt

Vocal Ensemble and Chamber Players

Monteverdi: Tancredi and Clorinda

With lecturers

Laura Benedetti and Peter Lulcehart

Presented in conjunction with the 

Italian Cultural Institute in celebration ofthe

Year of Italian Culture

October 13, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

National Gallery Orchestra

Claudia ChudacofF, leader

Music by Grieg, Schubert, 

and Schoenberg

October 20, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Building Court

Cappella Romana

Music based on Byzantine chant

In honor of

Heaven and Earth:

Art ofByzantiumfrom Greek Collections

October 27, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Building Court