School of Music

129th Concert SeasonSunday, May 4, 2014 - 3 p.m.

Judson and Joyce GreenCenter for the Performing Arts

Kresge Auditorium

DePauw Chamber SingersDePauw University Chorus

DePauw University Orchestra

Gregory Ristow, director of choirsOrcenith Smith, director of orchestra

Pamela Coburn, soprano

PROGRAM

From Nocturnes Claude Debussy I. Nuages (1862–1918) II. Fêtes

Orcenith Smith, conductor

Gloria for Soprano, Mixed Chorus Francis Poulencand Orchestra (1899–1963) I. Gloria II. Laudamus te III. Domine Deus IV. Domine Fili unigenite V. Domini Deus, Agnus Dei VI. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris

Pamela Coburn, sopranoGregory Ristow, conductor

Out of respect for the performers, audience and recording technician, allphotography and audio/video recording are prohibited during the performance.Please disengage all electronic equipment before the beginning of the concert.

Thank you.

PROGRAM NOTES by Orcenith Smith and Gregory Ristow

French composer Claude Debussy developed his artistic content by gradually discovering how his musical voice could align with symbolist poets and impressionist painters. These ideas, when combined, were artistic reactions against realism and included small “brush stroke” depictions of objects in varying light and shadows. Additionally influenced by the unusual musical scales of a Javanese Gamelan Orchestra that played at the Paris Exhibition in 1889, Debussy’s music became a unique aesthetic, suggesting musical fragments that, when pieced together, created muted descriptions of shadowy visual locations or events. Inspired in 1899 by paintings entitled “Nocturnes” by the American-born James McNeill Whistler, Debussy chose to describe in his musical language the ever moving, ever-changing “Nuages” (Clouds). “Fêtes” (Festivals) describes a view of an iridescent atmosphere charged with rolling energies and flashes of light. That scene is interrupted by a temporary parade of unknown elements that illuminate another world before the original energies overtake and return the music to the opening elements and gradually disappear.

The Gloria is Francis Poulenc’s most popular and frequently performed choral work. It was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1961. Written at the beginning of the Fifth Republic in France, at a time of relative international peace and prosperity, its extroverted ebullience captures the joyous optimism of the time: Nuclear power offered unlimited clean energy. Highways and skyscrapers rose throughout America and Europe. Intercontinental air travel became affordable thanks to the introduction of commercial jets. And the era of space exploration was just beginning.

The music alternates between playful quirkiness and profound solemnity, a juxtaposition of the cabaret and traditional Catholic church styles that so strongly influenced Poulenc. Unlike most of his Les Six colleagues (six post-impressionist composers working in Paris in the 1920s), Poulenc was not formally trained as a musician and had not attended the Paris Conservatory. Instead, he incorporated disparate elements from the music he loved to form his own unique sound: extended harmonies (seventh and ninth chords) from café music, perpetual motion figuration from the baroque era and Romantic chant harmonizations from French church organists.

He delighted in these odd marriages, saying, “From childhood onward I’ve associated café tunes with the Couperin suites in a common love, without distinguishing between them.” And, he bragged in interviews about his lack of a fixed compositional approach. He sometimes referred to himself as the “Poulenc-Janus,” and this two-sided personality comes through in his Gloria. But this should not be interpreted as flippancy on Poulenc’s part or any lack of seriousness in treatment of the Gloria text. Rather, this duality enhances the parallel themes of thanks and awe that we find in the prayer, as well as in the zeitgeist of the early 1960s.

Poulenc was pleased with his Gloria, one of the last major works he completed before his death in 1963. He wrote, “The Gloria is without doubt the best thing I have done. ... The ending, among other things, is astonishing.” Since its first performances, audiences around the world have agreed.

Pamela Coburn, lyric soprano, studied voice at DePauw University, the Eastman School of Music, and the American Opera Center of the Juilliard School, and studied German Lieder with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Her international career in opera, oratorio, and recital has taken her to the world’s most renowned opera houses and concert halls, and has led her back to her alma mater as the James B. Stewart Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music.

After her striking success as Rosalinde in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich with Carlos Kleiber conducting, Professor Coburn appeared at the Vienna State Opera, Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Munich, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Paris, Toulouse, London and Tokyo’s New National Theatre as well as the Salzburg and Richard-Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Among the most prominent conductors Ms. Coburn has worked with are: Carlos Kleiber, Sir

Colin Davis, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Eschenbach, Riccardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Georg Solti, Guiseppe Sinopoli, Helmuth Rilling, Erich Leinsdorf, James Conlon, Bernhard Haitink Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Ken Nagano and Isaac Karabichevsky.

Her exceptionally wide opera repertory ranges from the works of Monteverdi to Penderecki. Especially worth mentioning are the roles of the Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Cleopatra in Händel’s Giulio Cesare and Nitocris in Belshazzar, Alice in Verdi’s Falstaff, the Countess in Strauss’ Capriccio and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella, Ellen Orford in Britten’s Peter Grimes, Freia in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, as well as Queen Rosamunde in Penderecki’s Ubu Rex and the widow in the Merry Widow.

Her concert repertory includes nearly all the works of the respective musical literature starting from Bach (Passions, Cantatas) to Beethoven (e.g. Missa Solemnis, Ninth Symphony), Schumann (e.g. Paradise and Peri), Mahler Symphonies, Britten (War Requiem) to Szymanowski (Stabat Mater) and contemporary works (e.g., Udo Zimmermann). Coburn has made numerous recordings, among them Gounod’s Faust with Sir Colin Davis, Beethoven’s Fidelio with Bernard Haitink and Leonore with Marc Soustrot, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Bruckner’s Te Deum with Helmuth Rilling, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Lorin Maazel, Strauss’s Gypsy Baron with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lehar’s The Merry Widow with Helmuth Froschauer, Verdi’s Requiem with Enoch zu Guttenberg, and a DVD of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus on Deutsche Grammophone with the late Carlos Kleiber.

She has held a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at DePauw University since 2005.

TEXT AND TRANSLATION

I. GloriaGlória in excélsis Deoet in terra pax homínibus bonae voluntátis.

II. Laudamus teLaudámus te,benedícimus te,adorámus te,glorificámus te,grátias ágimus tibipropter magnam glóriam tuam.

III. Domine DeusDómine Deus, Rex cæléstis,Deus Pater omnípotens.

I. GloriaGlory to God in the highestand on earth peaceto people of good will.

II. Laudamus teWe praise you,we bless you,we adore you,we glorify you,we give thanks to youfor your great glory.

III. Domine DeusLord God, heavely King,O God, almighty Father.

IV. Domine Fili unigeniteLord, Only Begotten Son, Jesus ChristLord, Only Begotten God, Jesus Christ.

V. Dominus Deus, Agnus DeiLord God, Lamb of God,Son of the Father,you take away the sins of the world,have mercy on us;you take away the sins of the world,receive our prayer.

VI. Qui sedes ad dexteram PatrisYou sit at the right hand of the Father,have mercy on us.For you alone the Holy One,you alone are Lord,you alone are the Most High,Jesus Christ,With the holy spirit:in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

SOPRANOEmily Barnash

Ann ChaseAnnelise Delcambre

Anna GatdulaJulie Massicotte

Julie Strauser

ALTOBrooke Addison

Miriam AlterMaureen BaileyPatrick Brems

Elleka OkerstromSarah Pistorius

TENORDallas Gray

Joseph LeppekLance Orta*

Alec ReznichLucas Wassmer

* Tenor soloist for Gloria

BASSDakota Dalton

Nick HinzBlake Lampton

Yazid Pierce-GrayTaylor Truster

DePauw Chamber SingersGregory Ristow, director

Amanda Hopson, piano

IV. Domine Fili unigeniteDómine Fili Unigénite, Jesu Christe,Dómine Deus unigenite, Jesu Christe.

V. Dominus Deus, Agnus DeiDómine Deus, Agnus Dei, Fílius Patris,qui tollis peccáta mundi, miserére nobis;qui tollis peccáta mundi,súscipe deprecatiónem nostram.

VI. Qui sedes ad dexteram PatrisQui sedes ad déxteram Patris, miserére nobis.Quóniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dóminus, tu solus Altíssimus,Jesu Christe, Cum Sancto Spíritu: in glória Dei Patris. Amen.

SOPRANOValeria Aguilar

Christine BettermanIsabella Capasso

Melanie CaseSydney Cason

Stephany CookKristin Daines

Kimberly DeBusschereHannah Gauthier

Brittny GoonZoe Grabow

Katherine LesswingJessica Pagan

Madeline PiscettaMaggie Roth

Stephanie SharlowEmma Walker

DePauw University ChorusGregory Ristow, director

Owen Hartnett, piano

ALTORachel Amalfitano

Shannon BarrySara BlantonLauren ChenDana HartCrystal Lau

Rachel LoweryYihan Mei

Daniela MoellerLaura NeelEmily Shy

Amanda StrawTherese Tazioli

Xinyi WangLaura WitteHan Zhang

TENORBlake BeckemeyerBenjamin Davis

Stephen ShannonDerrick Truby

BASSDrew CaseyEric Heaton

Adam LuhmanDanny MarshDylan Prentice

Shiyu Su

VIOLINRachel Clark

Zoe CunninghamAkil Davis

+Paige Drake (D) *Allison Emata (D)

*Valentina Guillen (P)Kerri Hemmelgarn

Sarah JylkkaJenny Miller

+Susan Miller (P)Marie SchlonegerLindsey Sullivan

VIOLAXeno Carpenter-New

Elizabeth GeringKalen Granger*Tyler Huff (P)

Lisa SalazarReisuke Takeo*Anna Urso (D)

VIOLONCELLOKazuki HanadoMax Jacobsen

*Samuel Kelly (P)Peter Kim

*Peter Lockman (D)Heidi Meuth (ST)Federico Papi (OC)

Catt Anderson-QuiñonesGraeme Richmond

Robert Wieland

DePauw University OrchestraOrcenith Smith, music director

BASS*Connor Allen (P)

Jacob PetermanAaron Rabishaw

*Burke Stanton (D)

FLUTE/PICCOLONina DuganJosh Levine

Eleanor Price

OBOE/ENGLISH HORN

Matt ActonTyler Benware

Kate King

CLARINET/BASS CLARINET

Daniel HickeyMarian Hillebrand

Sijia Luo

BASSOONGwen Eberts

Andrew Wilkey

HORNDavid Acton (OC)

Maureen BaileyDrew Casey

Kristen FairchildMariah HersomAlison Sherrick

TRUMPETNick Atsalis

Brendan DonnellyMaggie Eppelheimer

TROMBONELeif AndersonWill Johnson

Michael PotterChristian Thomas

TUBAWill Nicholas

TIMPANI/PERCUSSIONBen Blackketter

Andrew BosomworthCarly Tebelman

HARPAlex Miller

Alicia Petrone

PIANO/KEYBOARDLizzie Wen

STAGE MANAGERSamuel Kelly

+Concertmaster * String PrincipalD = Debussy P = Poulenc

(OC) Off-campus second semester(ST) Student Teaching

“Harvest: A Celebration of the People,Places & Stories of Putnam County”

MOTHER’S DAY — SUNDAY, MAY 11@3 PM

Green Center | Kresge Auditorium | 765-658-4827General Admission $10–15 | Students, Seniors & Children Free

www.depauw.edu/music/tickets

FIFTH HOUSE ENSEMBLEwith Bobbie Lancaster, Tad Robinson, Many Other Community Artists & Musicians,The DePauw University Orchestra & Choirs

plant a seed, watch it grow . . .