AMERICAN STORIES, AMERICAN MUSIC - A SYMPHONIC CONCERT ONLINE
- Fisher Center at Bard Upstreaming United States (map)
ASIAN
AMERICAN
VOICES
The fourth annual China Now Music Festival concludes online with a selection of pieces from the Festival’s live concerts, presented to the worldwide public for free. The Del Sol Quartet and China Now Festival Chorus perform a preview of excerpts from Huang Ruo’s Angel Island: oratorio for voices and string quartet. The Orchestra Now performs selected episodes from An American Soldier, with tenor Li Yi, mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen, soprano Helen Zhibing Huang, and live narration by librettist David Henry Hwang. The event concludes with two symphonic pieces by Peng-Peng Gong and Xinyan Li that further express the themes of Asian American experiences and reflections on this moment in history.
View the entire program here.
Program
DEL SOL QUARTET
CHINA NOW FESTIVAL CHORUS
Jindong Cai, conductor
Huang Ruo
Angel Island: oratorio for voices and string quartet (preview excerpts)
THE ORCHESTRA NOW
Jindong Cai, conductor
Huang Ruo, music
David Henry Hwang, libretto
Episodes from An American Soldier (opera, 2014)
David Henry Hwang, narrator
Li Yi, tenor
Nina Yoshida Nelsen, mezzo-soprano
Helen Zhibing Huang, soprano
Xinyan Li
Awakening Light, concerto for guzheng and orchestra (world premiere)
Yixin Wang, guzheng
Peng-Peng Gong
A Chinese in New York (2019)
featuring
Composer-in-residence, China Now Music Festival
Composer Huang Ruo has been lauded by The New York Times for having “a distinctive style.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “Dimensionalism.” Huang Ruo’s diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, architectural installation, multi-media, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. His music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Asko/Schoenberg, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta. He has written 8 operas including M. BUTTERFLY, PARADISE INTERRUPTED, and AN AMERICAN SOLDIER, which was named one of the best classical music events in 2018 by The New York Times. He served as the first composer-in-residence for Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976 - the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s when China was opening its gate to the Western world, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. He earned a BM degree from the Oberlin College, and MM and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School. Huang Ruo is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music. Huang Ruo’s music is published by Ricordi. (www.huangruo.com)
Ensemble-in-residence, China Now Music Festival
Del Sol began as a thought on the night shift at Fermilab. Charlton Lee loved the cutting edge of physics research – always looking for the next discovery, pushing boundaries. But he missed the way music connected people, building community by communicating in ways physics never would. What if he could bring that scientific passion for exploration to a string quartet?
Twenty-six years later, Del Sol is still sharing music that brings out the endorphins. Music that asks why not?
Fascinated by the feedback loop between social change, technology, and artistic innovation, the San Francisco-based ensemble is a leading force in 21st century chamber music - whether introducing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana at the Library of Congress, taking Aeryn Santillan’s gun-violence memorial to the streets of the Mission District, exploring Andean soundscapes with Gabriela Lena Frank and traditional musicians, or collaborating with Huang Ruo and the anonymous poets who carved their words into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station during the years of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The current Del Sol lineup, marked by the arrival of violinist Sam Weiser alongside mainstays Kathryn Bates and Ben Kreith, bring a fresh energy, freedom, and precision to the group.
Recognized as a “vigorous champion of living composers”, Del Sol has premiered hundreds of works by composers including Terry Riley, Gabriela Lena Frank, Frederic Rzewski, Ben Johnston, Chinary Ung, Mason Bates, Tania León, Erberk Eryilmaz, Theresa Wong, Reza Vali, Mohammed Fairouz and Peter Sculthorpe.
With its deep commitment to education, Del Sol has reached thousands of K-12 students through inventive school performances, workshops, coaching, and residencies. The Quartet members also have worked closely with student composers, musicians and faculty artists at universities across the country.
Director, US-China Music Institute
Bard College Conservatory of Music
Conductor Jindong Cai is the director of the US-China Music Institute, professor of music and arts at Bard College, and associate conductor of Bard’s The Orchestra Now. Before coming to Bard, Cai was a professor of performance at Stanford University. Over the 30 years of his career in the United States, Cai has established himself as an active and dynamic conductor, scholar of Western classical music in China, and leading advocate of music from across Asia.
At Bard, Cai founded the annual China Now Music Festival. In its first three seasons, China Now presented new works by some of the most important Chinese composers of our time, with major concerts performed by The Orchestra Now at Bard’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Stanford University. In 2019, the festival premiered a major new work by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Zhou Long, Men of Iron and the Golden Spike—a symphonic oratorio, in commemoration of the Chinese railroad workers of North America on the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Helen Zhibing Huang ‘15 is a Chinese-born soprano and a graduate of the Bard Vocal Arts Program. She was recently described as “impressive” (The New York Times) after her compelling portrayal of Pamina in The Magic Flute for The Glimmerglass Festival.
This season Miss Huang will sing the role of Amour in Orphée with Washington Concert Opera, as well as Setsuko in An American Dream with Kentucky Opera. Last summer, she was seen at The Glimmerglass Festival as Pamina in The Magic Flute, and as La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Her 2019-2020 season included the role of Singa Loh in the world premiere of Jorge Sosa’s I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams with White Snake Projects, as well as making concert and operatic debuts in Europe at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Australia. Previously she joined Glimmerglass Festival as Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo, and Nashville Opera’s Mary Ragland Emerging Artist Program, performing Countess
Ceprano and the Page, as well as covering Gilda in Rigoletto, and performing Flora in The Turn of the Screw.
Miss Huang’s other operatic credits include Baby Doe in The Ballad of Baby Doe, Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Amor in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Serpetta in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, La fée in Massenet’s Cendrillon, Poppea in Handel’s Agrippina, Carolina in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, and Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. A strong advocate for new music, she has participated in workshops for operas including Paola Prestini’s Gilgamesh, Julian Wachner’s REV. 23, and Leanna Kirchoff’s Friday After Friday. Her concert credits include Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhornand Symphony No. 4, and Earl Kim’s Where Grief Slumbers.
David Henry Hwang’s stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, Chinglish, Kung Fu, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Elton John & Tim Rice’s Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, a Grammy Award winner who has been twice nominated, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
Called America’s most-produced living opera librettist by Opera News, he has written five works with composer Philip Glass and is a 2006 Grammy Award winner for Ainadamar, with music by Osvaldo Golijov. Hwang has also worked with composers Bright Sheng, Unsuk Chin, and Howard Shore. His upcoming opera with composer Huang Ruo, The Rift, will premiere in spring 2022 at Washington National Opera in D.C.
Hwang co-wrote the Gold Record “Solo” with the late pop icon Prince and was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair from 2015-2019. He is currently creating a TV series for Netflix and penning the live-action musical feature film The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Disney Studios as well as a movie to star actress Gemma Chan.
Hwang serves as Head of Playwriting at Columbia University School of the Arts and sits on the Board of the American Theatre Wing, where he recently completed a term as Chair. His latest work, Soft Power, written with composer Jeanine Tesori, premiered at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre, where it won six 2018 Ovation Awards. Its subsequent run at the Public Theatre in NYC received four 2020 Outer Critics Honors, a 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theatre Album and was a Finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
In the 2019-2020 season Nina Yoshida Nelsen made her Portland Opera debut as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She also performed the world premiere of Blood Moon at Prototype Festival in New York City. Nina returned to Chicago Lyric Opera to cover Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and appeared with the Santa Barbara Symphony to perform Beethoven's Mass in C. and sang the role of Fricka in Santa Barbara Opera’s Das Rheingold. She also reprised the role of Khanh in Huang Ruo's opera Bound at Juilliard. In October 2021 she makes a delayed debut with Boston Lyric Opera as Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria rusticana and sings the mother in Ruo’s An American Soldier at Bard and at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A return to Santa Barbara for Frugola in Puccini’s Il Tabarro and as the soloist in El Amor Brujo by de Falla, a debut with Chicago Opera Theater in December, in a new Mark Adamo work, Becoming Santa Claus, will be followed by a video recording of Boston Lyric Opera’s Madama Butterfly in February and a debut in March 2022 with Kentucky Opera in An American Dream.
In the 2018-2019 season, Nina made her Lyric Opera Chicago debut as Mama in Jack Perla's An American Dream. She also reprised the same role at Anchorage Opera. Nina returned to Opera Santa Barbara as Tituba in The Crucible and sang in their 25th Anniversary Gala concert.
In the 2017-2018 season, Ms. Nelsen returned to Seattle Opera singing the role of Mama in An American Dream. She also made a company debut with Manitoba Opera singing Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She performed Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer with the Grand Junction and Flagstaff Symphony Orchestras and returned to both the Santa Barbara and Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestras to perform the alto solos in Mozart's Requiem.
In the 2016-2017 season, Nina returned to the Santa Barbara Symphony as the Alto Soloist in Beethoven Symphony #9 and debuted with the Guelph Symphony Orchestra as the Mezzo Soloist in the Verdi Requiem. In the 2014-2015 season, Nina was thrilled to return to Utah Opera to perform Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She then made her debut singing the same role with The Atlanta Opera. She also sang Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Southwest Florida Symphony. Nina made her Seattle Opera mainstage debut summer 2015 singing the role of Mama in the world premiere of An American Dream.
Music Director: Leon Botstein
The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a group of vibrant young musicians from across the globe who are making orchestral music relevant to 21st-century audiences by sharing their unique personal insights in a welcoming environment. Hand-picked from the world’s leading conservatories—including The Juilliard School, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and the Curtis Institute of Music—the members of TŌN are enlightening curious minds by giving on-stage introductions and demonstrations, writing concert notes from the musicians’ perspective, and having one-on-one discussions with patrons during intermissions. Conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein founded TŌN in 2015 as a graduate program at Bard College, where he is also president. The orchestra’s home base is the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard, where they perform multiple concerts each season and take part in the annual Bard Music Festival. Learn more at theorchestranow.org
Proving himself a formidable talent and a rising star to watch in the opera world, tenor Yi Li is quickly gaining attention across the globe. Li introduced the role of Cheng Quing in Meredith Monk’s ATLAS with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and moved into the role of Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West in Maryland Lyric Opera’s inaugural season. He returned there as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor and Turiddu/Luigi in Il tabarro/Cavalleria rusticana, as well as performing at the Metropolitan Opera as the Young Lover in Il tabarro.
Other operatic engagements include the role of Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles with Toledo Opera; Nicias in Thaïs and Cassio in Otello with the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing; Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with the Intermountain Opera Bozeman, Nashville Opera, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; and Alfredo in La traviata with Finger Lakes Opera. He also per- formed in Huang Ruo’s contemporary opera, Paradise Interrupted. A graduate of Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, his assignments included Rodolfo in La bohème and pro- ductions of Die Zauberflöte and Dialogues des Carmélites.
Acknowledgements
Angel Island: Oratorio was commissioned by the Del Sol Performing Arts Organization, with support from the Hewlett Foundation “50 Arts Commissions,'" with additional funding by the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation.
Special thanks to the family of Danny Chen.