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the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

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National Gallery ofArt

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COVER: Hiroshige, Bird on a Tree, color woodcut,

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,987th Concert

Naoko Takada, marimbist

Presented in connection with

the 2014 National Cherry Blossom Festival

March 30, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Augusto Marcellino (1911-1973)

Choro no. 1

Arranged for marimba by Gordon Stout

Naoko Takada

Improvisations on Sakura (Cherry Blossoms)

Joseph Pereira (b. 1974)

Five Piecesfor Solo Marimba (2011)

... to the touch

Risolute-In Memoriam Gyorgy Ligeti

Con vibrato

Slancio 

Sotto voce

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Chaconne from Partita no. 2 in D Minorfor Solo Violin, BWV 1004 

(1717-1723)

INTERMISSION

Bach

Gigue from Suite no. 2 in D Minorfor Solo Cello, BWV 1008 (1717-1723)

Chin Cheng Lin (b. 1985)

Tangofor Naoko (2013)

Paul Fowler

Michiyuki (“The Road to Death” from Chikamatsu’s Love Suicides at

Sonezaki) (2002)
The Musician

With an extensive repertoire that ranges from Bach to Piazzolla, marimbist

Naoko Takada received first prize in the 2002 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. That year, she played her New York debut at the 92nd

Street Y, followed by debuts at the Kennedy Center and the Isabella Stewart

Gardner Museum in Boston. In 2004 Takada performed the New York premiere ofKevin Puts’ Marimba Concerto at Lincoln Center, with Leonard Slatkin

conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has performed at Weill Recital Hall 

and Symphony Space in New York City, the Percussive Arts Society International, and the Konzerthaus in Berlin. An arranger as well as a performer,

Takada has produced numerous transcriptions, published by Studio 4 Music

as part ofthe Naoko Takada Series. That same publication includes works

written for her by composers Paul Fowler, Hayato Hirose, Yasutaki Inamori,

and John Anthony Lennon. In 2007 Japan Victor Entertainment, Inc. 

released Takada’s CD, Marimba Meets the Classics.

Bom in Tokyo, Takada began marimba lessons at age eight, and three

years later was performing solos with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and

Chamber Philharmonic. In Japan she studied with Akiko Suzuki and Keiko

Abe and attended Waseda University, majoring in psychology. Having decided

to focus on her marimba studies, she earned a bachelor ofmusic degree at 

California State University at Northridge as a student of Karen Ervin-Pershing.

She continued her studies with Gordon Stout at Ithaca College and Nancy 

Zeltsman at the Boston Conservatory.

A Yamaha artist, Takada received the S & R Foundation’s 2006 Washington

Award, a prize that supports artists who contribute to cultural understanding

between the United States and Japan. She also received first prize at the 2002

Ima Hogg National Young Artist Competition and the 2001 Sorantin Young

Artists International Competition, both in Texas; the marimba special prize

at the 2001 ibla Grand Prize International Competition in Italy; and first

prize at the 2000 Japan International League ofArtists Competition in Tokyo.

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Program Notes

A black Brazilian native trained in Argentina, Augusto Marcellino composed

in a style that combined classical and folk elements and drew from both

Brazilian and Argentine influences. The period in which he flourished (1940s1950s) is remembered as a golden age ofmusic in Argentina. Borrowing the

form ofthe waltz and counterpoint from the high baroque period, choro is a

Brazilian genre that takes its name from the Portuguese word for crying, and

refers to the lilting or weeping qualities ofthe solo instrument. It features

samba or bossa nova rhythms played on a percussion instrument, harmonies on a guitar or other fretted stringed instrument, and solo lines played

on flute or clarinet. In addition to its well-defined structure, choro is known

for large leaps in the melody, dizzying speeds, surprising changes ofharmony, and improvised sound combinations, all rendered so as to sound

natural and spontaneous.

A popular urban melody during Japan’s Edo period (1603-1867), Sakura

made its way into formalized music training during the Meiji period (1868-

1912) in Tokyo as an instructional piece for students learning to play the koto, a

plucked-string instrument. The tune of Sakura is pentatonic—based on a scale

offive tones rather than the seven-tone scales characteristic ofWestern music.

Currently the head ofthe percussion department at the University of

Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, Joseph Pereira was appointed principal timpanist ofthe Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in

2007. That orchestra premiered his Concertofor Percussion and Chamber

Orchestra in 2012, with Pereira as soloist, and toured the work throughout

Europe the following year. About Five Piecesfor Solo Marimba, which he

composed for Naoko Takada, the composer writes:

Similarly to the way we taste through smell, this kind ofintuitive

awareness is explored in Five Piecesfor Solo Marimba. The player is

asked to react to the resonances and natural colors that lie within

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the instrument. Movements two and four are meant to be objective

statements with a sense of unresolved tensions. Movements one,

three, and five are subjective afterthoughts, creating an atmosphere

of a place or situation. Combined, the overall effect is a constant

balance between the inner sounds ofthe instrument and the 

existence ofsome physical sensation.

Composed in the early 1700s, Johann Sebastian Bach’s partitas for solo 

violin and suites for solo cello have remained technical and structural masterpieces in the solo repertoire. The fifth and final movement ofhis Partita in

D Minor for Solo Violin, the Chaconne, lasts longer than the previous four movements combined and is regarded as one of Bach’s greatest structural achievements. Violinist Joshua Bell asserts: “It is not just one ofthe greatest pieces of

music ever written, but one ofthe greatest achievements of any man in history.

It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect.”

Returning to Bach after the intermission, Naoko Takada plays the lively

Gigue that concludes his six-movement Suite in D Minorfor Solo Cello. Hearing these movements performed with great effect on the marimba reinforces

the reputation of Bach’s music as a timeless, universal creation that lends

itselfto transcription for an unprecedented range ofinstruments.

A Taiwanese marimbist currently residing in Belgium, Chin Cheng Lin

studied the marimba under Ludwig Albert and composition under Alain Craens 

at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp. Winner in 2007 ofthe Fourth European Soloist Competition in Birmingham, England, he was at age nineteen

a laureate ofthe 2004 International Marimba Competition in Belgium. His

Tangofor Naoko was composed with Takada’s unique talent in mind.

Taking inspiration from the beauty ofnature and both Eastern and Western

spiritual traditions, Boulder, Colorado-based composer Paul Fowler writes

music that the New York Times has described as “radiant, ghostly, and shimmering.” Commissioned and premiered at the Kennedy Center by Naoko

Takada, Fowler’s Michiyuki derives its title from a literary device in Japanese

puppet plays (Bunraku) in which two lovers commit suicide together. The

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michiyuki is a poetic catalogue ofthe lovers’ thoughts and observations as

they approach death. Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s (1653-1725) play, The Love

Suicides at Sonezaki (1703), was so popular that it inspired a trend oflove

suicides, both in subsequently written plays and in real life. As a result, in

1722 the Japanese government banned plays with “love suicide” in the title.

Program notes by Michael Jacko, music program assistant, National Gallery ofArt

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