Dealer’s Choice
This concert is generously supported by Ronni Lacroute, Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, & New Music USA
Monday, May 8, 2023 at 7:30pm
| The Old Church Concert Hall
Finishing out the 2022-23 concert season, Fear No Music Artistic Director Kenji Bunch hands over programming duties to FNM’s intrepid core members.
As with every concert this season, the evening begins with a composition from FNM’s Young Composers Project. This concert, 12-year-old Alejandro Belgique presents his new work, Dance to Another Dimension. Following this exciting opening, the ensemble presents a variety of instrumentations and styles of works by Andrea Casarrubios, Raven Chacon, Keyla Orozco, FNM’s own Kenji Bunch, and Zachary Semke. Each work has been hand-picked by the musicians who will introduce and perform it — this passionate season finale is one not to miss!
Fear No Music in concert (left to right): Keiko Araki, Inés Voglar Belgique, Monica Ohuchi, Nancy Ives, Kenji Bunch
PROGRAM
Alejandro Belgique - Dance to Another Dimension
Kenji Bunch, viola; Nancy Ives, cello;
James Shields, clarinet; Monica Ohuchi, piano;
Michael Roberts, percussion
Andrea Casarrubios - Seven
Nancy Ives, cello
Raven Chacon - Bury Me Where the Lightening Will Never Find Me
Emily Cole, violin; Nancy Ives, cello; James Shields, clarinet; Michael Roberts, percussion
- Intermission -
Keyla Orozco - Tres danzas caprichosas
Inés Voglar Belgique, violin
Kenji Bunch - Etude no. 3
Monica Ohuchi, piano
Zachary Semke - Salmon Ghost Song
Inés Voglar Belgique & Emily Cole, violins;
Keiko Araki & Karen Tingey, taiko
Guest Artists:
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Violinist Emily Cole has been a member of the Oregon Symphony since 2011. An avid chamber musician, Emily has performed with several Portland-area ensembles including 45th Parallel Universe, Third Angle, fEARnoMUSIC, and Northwest New Music, as well as with Chatter ABQ in New Mexico. She has been fortunate to premiere chamber works of Caroline Shaw, Kenji Bunch, Pierre Jalbert and James Shields. During the summer months, Emily has performed with the Oregon Bach Festival, Music in the Mountains, Seattle Opera, the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, and the Apollo Music Festival. Emily previously served on the faculty of Lewis & Clark College and has coached young chamber musicians with Portland Summer Ensembles and Seattle’s Music Northwest. She received her B.M. from the University of Texas at Austin as a student of Brian Lewis and her M.M. from the University of North Texas as a student of Emanuel Borok.
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Karen began playing taiko in 1993 with Grand Master Seiichi Tanaka of San Francisco Taiko Dojo. During her time with SFTD, she joined tours to Japan, Israel, and throughout the United States. In 2001 she moved to Portland and started performing with Portland Taiko. Due to a lifelong love of dance, Karen's taiko style leans heavily on movement and choreography. She has composed a handful of pieces for Portland Taiko, including HA! and Unfurled. Memorable performances include the OMSI Solar Eclipse Viewing Party in 2017, Portland Taiko's 25th anniversary gala, recurring community events, and collaborations with Shivy Vanka's Kalabharathi School of Dance.
In daily life, Karen is a Director of Engineering with LegalZoom.
Program Notes
Dance To Another Dimension (duration: 5’)
ALEJANDRO BELGIQUE
PROGRAM NOTES FROM THE COMPOSER
“Dance to Another Dimension” starts out with a somewhat cheerful dance-like section, which then builds up to a sfffz Bb/A chord. This dissolves into the mystical “other dimension,” in which the main theme from the previous section is echoed a bit. The piece yearns to return to the real world, and expressively builds up to a D7 rumbling cluster/trill/chord thing. This takes the piece back to a much more upbeat version of the main theme, which develops its way to the finale.
BIOGRAPHY
Alejandro Belgique is twelve years old, and in the sixth grace at ACCESS Academy. His parents are Inés Voglar Belgique and Joël Belgique. Besides composing, he plays oboe and piano. He won 1st place in the 2020 OM/NI competition and the Oregon Federation of Music Clubs’ Junior Composers Contest, Class 2, of 2021 and 2023. He was also a winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs’ Junior Composers Contest, Western Region. His composition teacher is Michael Johanson, and his piano teacher is Malou Johanson, although he started piano with Monica Ohuchi. His oboe teacher is Karen Wagner. He likes roller coasters, urban planning, Cities: Skylines, Minecraft, Mariokart, LEGO, and K’nex.
Seven (8’)
Nancy’s Selection: ANDREA CASARRUBIOS
PROGRAM NOTES
Spanish-born cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios has received great acclaim as a performer, winning numerous prizes and awards and appearing in festivals and recitals worldwide. More recently, her compositions have received equal praise, including a cello concerto and SEVEN, which the New York Times describes as “a searching, intense, and elegiac tribute.”
About this work, Ms. Casarrubios writes: “Commissioned by Astral Artist Tommy Mesa for his project Songs of Isolation, SEVEN is a tribute to the essential workers during the global COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to those who lost lives and are still suffering from the crisis. Written in Manhattan, the piece ends with seven bell-like sounds, alluding to New York's daily 7 PM tribute during the lockdown, the moment when New Yorkers clapped from their windows, connecting with each other and expressing appreciation for those on the front lines.”
(Bury Me) Where the Lightning [Will} Never Find Me (13’)
James’s Selection: RAVEN CHACON
PROGRAM NOTES
Experimental composer and artist Raven Chacon (b.1977) traveled an unusual path to his 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Born in the Navajo Nation within the state of Arizona and raised in Albuquerque, Chacon studied fine arts at the University of New Mexico before shifting his focus to musical composition at the California Institute of the Arts. Chacon is now one of the most prominent Native American artistic voices working today.
Like many of his works, (Bury Me) Where The Lightning [Will] Never Find Me (2019) for violin, bass clarinet, cello, and percussion exists in a space where musical composition, art installation, and performance art intersect. Chacon explores the rich possibilities of extended techniques for each instrument as metaphor for images in the natural world of his family and Diné community. Approaching his work with curiosity and openness to the immersive sonic landscape it offers rather than a search for conventional narrative form rewards the listener with a unique, evocative experience not soon to be forgotten.
Tres danzas caprichosas (6’)
Inés’s Selection: KEYLA OROZCO
PROGRAM NOTES
Born in Cuba, composer Keyla Orozco has developed an international career, which started since her study years in Havana, and continued while establishing in The Netherlands and later in the United States, where she currently lives and works.
Tres danzas caprichosas was commissioned by Fear No Music violinist Inés Voglar-Belgique, who premiered the work. Like many of Orozco’s works, her curiosity for exploring Latin American rhythms and the idea of integrating them into a classical music context is at the heart of this piece. Orozco’s 2006 field research study of the traditional music of Venezuela and Colombia recall the ethnomusicological undertakings of Béla Bartók a century ago.
Etude no. 3 (8’)
Monica’s Selection: KENJI BUNCH
PROGRAM NOTES
In 2009, pianist Monica Ohuchi commissioned Kenji Bunch to write a collection of performance etudes for solo piano, in the tradition of the many classic contributions to the genre by composers from Chopin to Ligeti, but with a focus on contemporary techniques and sensibilities.
With Etude no. 3, Bunch focuses on creating a multitude of lyrical voices between the two hands, to create the illusion of more than one pianist playing. Over a hypnotically static harmonic palette, this layering of voices develops from the most simple extreme to the most complex, dense textures possible.
Salmon Ghost Song (7’)
Keiko’s Selection: ZACHARY SEMKE
PROGRAM NOTES
Founded in 1994, Portland Taiko is a nationally-recognized Asian American drum performance ensemble. Through artistic excellence and innovation in taiko, Portland Taiko inspires audiences, affirms Asian American pride, builds community and educates about Japanese heritage and culture. Many of Portland Taiko’s works are created through artistic collaboration between members of the group, as was the case with founding member Zachary Semke’s Salmon Ghost Song, written in 2003.
Salmon Ghost Song pays homage to Semke’s late father Dick Semke and his partner, Ola Marsef, through an interplay between the big taiko drum (“O-daiko”) and two violins. Semke writes “The house, garden, and life that Dick and Ola created in the forest at their Salmon Ghost Ranch embodied peace, community, and love for the earth.”
Program Notes by Kenji Bunch,
Fear No Music Artistic Director
A special THANK YOU to Ronni Lacroute for sponsoring this concert season.
Fear No Music is also supported by grants from: New Music USA, Oregon Arts Commission, Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, and Regional Arts and Culture Council.