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.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

ivuw.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: El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Laocoon, c. 1610/1614,

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection

The Seventy-Third Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

3,038th Concert

National Gallery ofArt New Music Ensemble

Steve Antosca, Artistic Director

February 15, 2015

Sunday, 3:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court
Program

David Plylar (b. 1978)

Laocoon* (2014-2015)

Michael Jacko, conductor

Linda Dusman (b. 1956)

Lake, Thunder* (2015)

David Smooke (b. 1969)

Transgenic Fields, dusk**(2012)

Steve Antosca (b. 1955)

elements~f\,ve transfigurationsfor cello and computer (2009-2014)

flow-water

driftstime

float-cloud

Commissioned by the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University

This concert is made possible in part by supportfrom the Randy Hostetler

Living Room Music Fund.

’'World premiere

"Washington premiere performance

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 offered critically acclaimed concerts that feature strategic 

placement ofmusicians throughout the spaces and utilized computer

controlled transformations and spatialization ofsound. The group’s 2011

tribute to the Gallery’s seventieth anniversary, staged in the West Building’s

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 this afternoon’s concert are violinist Lina Bahn, computer musician

William Brent, flutist Lisa Celia, and clarinetist Bill Kalinkos. Guest artists 

include pianist Audrey Andrist, trombonist Patrick Crossland, oboist Alison

Lowell, and cellist Tobias Werner.

STEVE ANTOSCA

Named artistic director ofthe National Gallery ofArt New Music Ensemble 

in 2010, composer Steve Antosca was the Gallery’s composer-in-residence 

in the fall of 2013. His residency included his work habitat, composed 

for performance in the East Building Atrium, and my end is my beginning,

commissioned by Chamber Music America. Antosca has received awards

and commissions for new works from the American Composers Forum, 

Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund, Bourges International

Competitions, Chamber Music America, Fromm Foundation at Harvard 

University, Johansen International Competition, Kennedy Center, Maryland

State Arts Council, McKim Foundation at the Library ofCongress, Meet

the Composer, National Endowment for the Arts, and Randy Hostetler

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Living Room Music Fund. Recipient in 2011 ofthe National Academy of

Music’s International Music Prize for Excellence in Composition, Antosca

has a master’s degree in computer music composition from the Peabody 

Conservatory ofJohns Hopkins University. Formerly the artistic director of

verge ensemble, with which he performed numerous times at the National

Gallery and at the Corcoran Gallery ofArt, Antosca was a codirector ofthe

2012 John Cage Centennial Festival Washington, DC.

MICHAEL JACKO

Hailed by the Washington Post for his “fascinating and illuminating”

programming, Michael Jacko is a conductor in the Washington area. He

is music director for Maryland Sinfonietta and the University of Maryland

Repertoire Orchestra. He also serves as assistant conductor for the Capital 

City Symphony and the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra. At

the National Gallery, he works in the Music Department and is cover conductor for the Gallery’s orchestra.

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Program Notes

The idea for a chamber work based on the story of Laocoon came from a

fascination with the Hellenistic sculpture Laocoon and His Sons (c. 27 BC68 ad), in the Vatican Museums’ collection. Unearthed in 1506 and originally created about two millennia ago, most likely by a trio of Rhodian

sculptors (ifit is indeed the same Laocoon group—or perhaps a copy— 

admired by Pliny the Elder). An essential part ofthe Vatican’s collection,

the sculpture manages to capture the beautiful dynamism of a tragic

moment—the imminent death ofthe Trojan priest Laocoon and his sons

at the hands ofthe gods in the guise ofserpents, after Laocoon’s failed

attempt to warn his fellow citizens ofthe treacherous gift from the

Greeks—the Trojan Horse.

Several types ofmusic struggle against each other; the free-sounding

but prescient bass clarinet and its more rigid (at times) wind acolytes work

against or in consort with the infinitely variable yet perpetually renewing

streams ofthe violin and piano. As the piece progresses the content ofthe

work is simultaneously vigorously active and straining the bonds of a frozen

mythology. The fate of Laocoon represents more than might be immediately

evident: the fall ofTroy paved the way for the rise of Rome and the forces

that ultimately preserved Laocoon and His Sons. The National Gallery ofArt

has in its collection another famous Laocoon—El Greco’s eponymous oil

painting from about 1610.

Plylar is an accomplished composer, scholar, pianist, and educator. He 

was appointed as a music specialist/concert producer at the Library ofCongress in 2012, after serving as the Artistic and New Music Coordinator ofthe

KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in South Africa. Plylar has received 

recognition from Meet the Composer, ascap, the American Music Center, the

Minnesota Orchestra Reading Sessions and the Hanson Institute for American Music. He holds degrees from Duke University, the University of Louisville, and the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his PhD in composition. He is also active as a writer, focusing on new and nineteenth-century

music. A disc of Plylar’s transcriptions will be released this summer by the

Inscape Chamber Orchestra.

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An I Ching hexagram entitled “Lake, Thunder” describes energy in a state 

ofrest: thunder drops below the lake in winter to restore itself. This composition ofthe same title explores the concept of evoking energy without movement. Compositional analogues include the color changes in clarinet “same

note” trills; the trombone as a “natural” instrument, without equal tempered

adjustments; and the rhythm ofbeating patterns that result from coupling

equal and nonequal tempered unisons. The piece was composed during

a residence at the Gardarev Center in Point Reyes, California, with valuable 

suggestions from Patrick Crossland and E. Michael Richards.

Linda Dusman’s compositions and sonic art explore the richness of

contemporary life, from the personal to the political. Her solo CD, I Need

No Words, contains sonic reflections on a variety oftexts, from Joan Retallack 

to Emily Dickinson. Thundersnow, a piano trio, was premiered by Trio des 

Alpes in Italy in 2014. Her music has received awards from the International

Alliance for Women in Music, the State of Maryland, and the Mid Atlantic 

Arts Foundation. Her compositions are published by Neuma Records and

Publications and are recorded on the neuma, Capstone, and New Albany 

labels. Dusman is a Professor of Music at the University of Maryland,

Baltimore County.

Transgenic Fields, dusk (2012) presents a quiet portrayal of a sound world

that is simultaneously bucolic and unnatural. Artificial birds hover over a

musical landscape that twists familiar sounds into aberrant shapes. Contemplative melodies weave within synthetic underpinnings that threaten their

relatively placid surfaces. As light turns to dusk, the harmonies fade into

silence, seeming to strive towards the pure beauty that they find impossible

to attain.

While developing the harmonies that would function as the basis for 

this new piece, the ear kept being drawn towards those sounds that involved 

an element ofimpurity—that appeared to be based on a single interval

but involved one or more tones that came from seemingly unrelated sonic

spaces. These hybrid sonorities then became the basis for controlled mutations, a sort oftransgenic manipulation ofthe harmonic fields. Transgenic

Fields, dusk is dedicated to the memory of Peter Marvit.

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Composer David Smooke currently teaches rock music history and chairs

the music theory department at the Peabody Conservatory ofJohns Hopkins

University. The Washington Post writes that “Smooke has some ofthe most

uninhibited brain cells around” and describes his music as “superb... a

kaleidoscopic sonic universe where anything could happen.” Smooke has

been recognized by the Maryland State Arts Council, the Greater Baltimore

Cultural Alliance, bmi, the MacDowell Colony, and Yellow Barn. He has

composed commissions for groups including the International Contemporary

Ensemble (ice) and Rhymes with Opera, and has worked with ensembles

including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Pacifica Quartet, eighth

blackbird, Ensemble Dal Niente, and the California E. A.R. Unit. He earned

an mm from the Peabody Conservatory, a ba from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD from the University ofChicago, having studied with

Shulamit Ran, David Rakowski, Robert Hall Lewis, and Richard Wemick.

Steve Antosca’s elements-five transfigurationsfior cello and computer

was composed for and is dedicated to cellist Tobias Werner. William Brent

developed the technology for the piece, in close collaboration with the

composer. Each movement explores aspects of extended techniques and

sonic characteristics ofthe cello, as evolving textures and spatialization

emerge from this delicate interaction among performer, technology, and

performance space.

The symbol = represents asymptotic equivalence, meaning that acoustic

and transformed sonic elements approach equivalency, eventually becoming

essentially equal, but never quite the same. It can be read as “like.”

fiow like water introduces multiple extended techniques in elements. These

include harmonic glissandi, indeterminate pitch boxes, and extended glissando gestures, both smooth and irregular. Exploitation ofvarious bowing

styles, placement, and pressure are played with throughout the movement.

drift like time andfloat like cloud continue the application of extended cello

performance techniques and multiple bowing styles for the cellist. Although

these two movements are nearly identical, the degree and style of computer

processing differs in each movement.

Program Notes are based on materials provided by the composers.