North American Saxophone Alliance
Biennial Conference

Works by Yannay (Rhapsody) and Robert-Diessel (Dialogue)

Clapp Recital Hall
Thursday, February 16, 2006, 4:00 p.m.

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Program

Notes & Bios

LUCIE ROBERT-DIESSEL

Dialogue Symphonique

Lucie Robert-Diessel has composed over twenty works for the saxophone, including works for solo saxophone, saxophone and piano, various saxophone ensembles, and saxophone with other instruments. Dialogue Symphonique is her most recent major work for saxophone and the only concerto she has composed for the instrument (other than a double concerto for saxophone and piano with orchestra). As such, this work constitutes an important addition to the concerto repertoire of the saxophone.

Composed for solo saxophone and twelve instruments (string quintet, woodwind quintet, piano, and timpani), Dialogue Symphonique is a single movement chamber concerto with a duration of 18'30". Ms. Robert-Diessel composed this work for Steven Jordheim in 2002, and the first performance was given at Lawrence University in 2003.

Lucie Robert-Diessel was born in Rennes, France in 1936. She studied at the Conservatoire de Rennes until age 12 and then enrolled at the Paris Conservatory. At the Conservatory, she pursued studies in piano, piano accompaniment, organ, chamber music, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and composition, earning seven premiers prix. In 1965, she won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome and spent three years at the Villa Medicis. Afterward, she returned to Paris where she continued performing and composing.

Lucie Robert-Diessel has performed as a piano soloist for Radio France and on tours throughout France, the United States, Canada, and Japan. She has recorded for the BBC (England), RAI (Rome), DRS (Basel), and WDR (Germany). Her compositional work includes more than eighty pieces for keyboard, voice, chamber ensemble, and orchestra. She has written over twenty pieces for saxophone.

From 1972 to 2001, Lucie Robert-Diessel was a professor at the Paris Conservatory. She resides in Paris.

Steven Jordheim is a professor of saxophone and instrumental pedagogy at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin. The winner of the Geneva Competition (1983) and the Concert Artists Guild International Competition (1984), he has performed and taught at the International Saxophone Chamber Music Festival in Faenza, Italy, the International Clarinet and Saxophone Festival in Xi'an, China, the Hsing Tien Kong Festival in Taiwan, the Paris Conservatory, and the National Music Camp at Interlochen. He has performed as soloist with various orchestras in China, Italy, Switzerland, France, and the United States, and his recordings of music of David Maslanka and Rodney Rogers are available through Albany Records. Steven Jordheim is a founding member of the Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance initiative for private teachers.

YEHUDA YANNAY

Rhapsody for saxophone and wind ensemble

Rhapsody is a work in single movement.

Threaded through by an exuberant, virtuosic saxophone part, the formal procedure reveals itself in the few first few minutes of the music: aggressive sound blocks alternate with lyrical sections are interspersed by short solo cadenzas. Continuous motivic transformations coupled with reiterated patterns make the building blocks of the melodies that ,in turn, form the instrumental lines and weave into thin or thick homophonic textures of sound and color. The tonal material comes from sets constructed from quasi all-interval series: D-flat, the lowest note of the alto, gets a lot of play.

Rhapsody elaborated some of the compositional ideas I developed in my recent four-movement, twenty-four minute Piano Concerto (2003) I wrote for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.

Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble was commissioned by Jonathan Helton with funding provided by the University of Florida Office of Research and Graduate Programs through the Fine Arts Scholarship Enhancement Award Fund, the University of Florida Student Government, and the University of Florida New Music Ensemble. My collaboration with Jonathan Helton began with performances and recordings of my Five Pieces for Soprano Saxophone, Bb Clarinet and Marimba, commissioned by clarinetist Frankie Kelly and issued on the Innova CD label.

Recently I have premiered a number of solo-centered works here in the US and in Sweden, including Insomnia in Havana a theater-piece for actor/percussionist and electronics (Steve Butters-percussion), Three Organic Pieces for organ (Gary Verkade-organ), Next week in Milwaukee, the first performance of Hornology for solo French horn--one of the most acrobatic charts written for the instrument--is scheduled with my colleague Greg Flint.

My next major project is a work for 24 flutes commissioned by the French flute maestro Pierre- Yves Artaud for his maverick French Flute Orchestra(OFF) in Paris..

Yehuda Yannay was born in Romania and immigrated to Israel in 1951. In 1968 he settled permanently in the USA. He is a graduate of the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv, Brandeis University and holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. A winner of international and national composition awards, Yannay served as guest-professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart and Hamburg. Yannay is a prolific and versatile composer, conductor, film maker and performance artist whose list of more than a 120 works include: music for orchestra, electronic, live electronic and synthesized pieces, environmental compositions, film, music-theater, and a large body of vocal and chamber music pieces. In recent years prominent soloist, ensembles and orchestras from Taipei to Bucharest have performed Yannay's works. Considered an international figure in contemporary music, his contributions to new ideas in 20th century music are listed in numerous articles, textbooks and encyclopedias of music. A wide array of Yannay's works for instruments, voices and electronics are found on four CDs on the Innova and Electronic Music Foundation labels. Yannay is Emeritus Professor of Music at the UWM and the founder of the Music From Almost Yesterday concert series now celebrating 36 years of new music performances. His Piano Concerto had its European premiere last May in the Bucharest at the 2005 Week of Contemporary Music.

Jonathan Helton is an active solo recitalist and chamber musician appearing in concert venues such as Chicago, Montreal, London, Paris, Taipei, Singapore, Washington, D.C., and New York City's Lincoln Center. His performances have been heard on North Carolina Public Radio, on WFMT in Chicago, and in national syndication. He is featured in solo and chamber music performances on compact discs from Elf/Ludwig, Innova, and Mark Records.

Dr. Helton holds degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts and Northwestern University. His teachers include James Houlik, Frederick Hemke, Daniel Deffayet, and Jean-Marie Londeix. From 1992 to 1999 he served on the faculty at Northwestern University teaching saxophone and chamber music, and held an administrative appointment as Coordinator of the Wind and Percussion Program. Dr. Helton is currently on the faculty of the School of Music of the University of Florida where he teaches saxophone, chamber music and conducts the New Music Ensemble. Jonathan Helton is a Selmer Artist/Clinician, and President of the North American Saxophone Alliance.