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May Rain (1941)
| composer |
Lou Harrison (1917-2003) |
| performers |
John Duykers, tenor
Stephen Drury, prepared piano
Matthew Kocmieroski, tam-tam |
| publisher |
Frog Peak Music (BMI)http://www.frogpeak.org
|
| recording |
Live concert performance at Drums Along the Pacific festival, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, Washington, March 27, 2009 |
| duration |
03:11 |
Lou Harrison:
"May Rain was written for my friend William Weaver to sing. The beautiful poem is one from a sequence titled From Alba Hill by the wonderful Elsa Gidlow. It first appeared in the very early 1930's and currently is printed in her Sapphic Songs: Seventeen to Seventy (Diana Press, 1976)."
Lou Harrison (1917-2003) is known for an eclectic body of work which features diverse systems of intonation, traditional Asian instruments, and a combination of Eastern and Western musical styles.
Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Harrison initially studied in San Francisco in 1935 with Henry Cowell, who introduced him to the music of Charles Ives as well as Native American and early Californian culture. As a dance accompanist for Mills College in Oakland, Harrison met John Cage, with whom he arranged percussion concerts in 1941; a year later he studied with Arnold Schoenberg at the University of California, Los Angeles. Harrison lived in New York City from 1943 to 1951, where he wrote for a number of periodicals and conducted the premiere of Ives' Third Symphony (1904-1911), for which Ives received the Pulitzer Prize (but gave the prize money to Harrison and composer John Becker).
Towards the end of his stay in New York, Harrison began to work with just intonation, inspired by the publication of Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music in 1949. He held residencies at Reed College in Portland, Oregon and taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina (1951-1952) before permanently settling in Aptos, California. In the 1960's Harrison received grants allowing him to travel to Korea and Taiwan, where he studied Korean court music with Lee Hye-Ku and Chinese classical music with Liang Tsai-Ping.
At various points in his career, Harrison made a living as a florist, record clerk, poet, dancer, critic, music copyist, calligraphist, painter, playwright, teacher, and instrument builder. He held academic positions at the University of Hawaii, San Jose State University, Stanford University, and other schools until finally joining the faculty of Mills College in 1980. With partner William Colvig he built many non-Western and folk instruments, including two gamelans in just intonation which remain in use at San Jose State University and Mills College. Harrison's music has been recorded on many labels including Albany, Bridge, CRI, Crystal, Koch International Classics, Mode, Music & Arts, New Albion, New World, and Phoenix.
related websites
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/harrisonbio.html
Tenor John Duykers made his professional operatic debut with the Seattle Opera in 1966; since then he has appeared with leading opera companies throughout the US and Europe. He is known for his performances of contemporary music, having sung in 96 contemporary operas including 61 world premieres. In 1987 Duykers created the role of Mao Tse-tung in John Adams' Nixon in China (1985-1987), premiered with Houston Grand Opera, and has performed it throughout the world. Philip Glass has written three roles for him, including the operas In the Penal Colony (2000) and Galileo Galilei (2001); Duykers recently performed The Narrator in the premiere of Lou Harrison's Young Caesar (1969-1971) with the Ensemble Paralèlle at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California. His recordings include the BellaVoce, Golden Melodram, New Albion, and Nonesuch labels. Also active as an educator, Duykers started an opera training program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, taught voice and opera at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami in Florida, and between 1979-1981 chaired of the classical music program at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington.
Pianist, conductor, and teacher Stephen Drury has performed throughout the world with a repertoire that stretches from J. S. Bach to the music of today. In 1985 Drury was chosen by Affiliate Artists for its Xerox Pianists Program, performing in residencies with symphony orchestras across the US. He was also selected by the United States Information Agency for its Artistic Ambassador Program through which he toured Europe, Pakistan, Hong Kong, and Japan. A champion of contemporary music, Drury has worked closely with Luciano Berio, John Cage, Lee Hyla, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski, and John Zorn, and commissioned many new works with funding from Meet the Composer. He has appeared at new music festivals across the US and Europe; between 1988-1989 he organized a yearlong festival of the music of John Cage which led to a request from the composer to perform the solo piano part in Cage's 101 (1988), premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra that year. In 1999 he was invited by choreographer Merce Cunningham to perform onstage with Cunningham and dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City. Drury is on faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he directs the Callithumpian Consort and Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP). He was educated at Harvard University and New England Conservatory, with principal teachers including Claudio Arrau, Patricia Zander, William Masselos, Margaret Ott, and Theodore Lettvin. Drury's work can be found on the Avant, BMG/Catalyst, Cold Blue, mode, MusicMasters, Neuma, New Albion, New World, and Tzadik labels.
Matthew Kocmieroski is principal percussionist with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra in Seattle, Washington. He also performs regularly with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera, and serves as the president of the International Guild of Symphony, Opera and Ballet Musicians. In the field of chamber music, Kocmieroski was co-founder of the New Performance Group, which he directed for ten years, and a founding member of Taneko and the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet. He often performs with the Seattle Chamber Players and has appeared at music festivals throughout the Pacific Northwest as well as in Norway, Poland, and Russia. Kocmieroski has recorded for the Albany, Crystal, innova, mode, and New Albion labels and can be heard on numerous movie, television, and video game soundtracks. He is an instructor at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.
related websites
http://calartists.mymcn.org/jduykers.html
http://www.stephendrury.com
http://www.cornish.edu/music/faculty/matt_kocmieroski
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