Dancing and Storytelling: Near and Far!
The Colgate Chamber Players
Laura Klugherz, Director
Chamber music is an extraordinarily powerful way to foster musical knowledge and skills, as
well as lessons of communication, public presentation, focus and discipline, leadership and
compromise – all of which serve students well in whatever path they may choose. In the study
and performance of a wide variety of chamber music masterworks, as well as their contexts
and creators, the Colgate Chamber Players broaden their sense of the world and its cultural
diversity through a repertoire that is at once historical and contemporary, localized and
global…and infinitely appealing. Some CP alums have gone on to pursue advanced degrees in
music, and others have become Hollywood composers, research scientist doctors, lawyers,
traders, graphic artists and designers, and educators. But all take with them the rich bond that
chamber music participation at Colgate has given them. The 2015 spring tour features a group
of highly distinguished and dedicated senior Chamber Players in a program of “Dancing and
Storytelling” from Austria to Cuba. Thank you for coming, and enjoy the journey!
Program
Divertimento #1, K. 439b
Allegro
W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Adam Berk, Oboe
Matt Brauner, Clarinet
Elise Van Gelder, Cello
Dream Dances
Jitterbug
Waltz
Peter Schickele (b.1935)
Adam Berk, Oboe
Matt Brauner, Clarinet
Elise Van Gelder, Cello
Two Rhapsodies for Oboe, Viola, and Piano
L’Étang
Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935)
Adam Berk, Oboe
Laura Klugherz, Viola
Sarah Wider, Piano
Contrasts
Verbunkos
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Matt Brauner, Clarinet
Laura Klugherz, Violin
Sarah Wider, Piano
Little Horses
The Boatman’s Dance
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
(arr. L. Klugherz)
Laura Klugherz, viola
Sarah Wider, piano
Afro
Merengue
Paquito D’Rivera (b.1948)
Adam Berk, Oboe
Elise Van Gelder, Cello
Sarah Wider, Piano
Six Cuban Dances
Moderato con espressione
Con passione
Poco vivo con spirito
Con energia
Con tenerezza
Moderato melancolico
Ignácio Cervantes (1847-1905)
Adam Berk, Oboe
Matt Brauner, Clarinet
Laura Klugherz, Violin
Sarah Wider & Elise Van Gelder, Cello
Performers
Lauded by the New York times as “dramatic, emotional and evocative”, at her Carnegie Hall debut, Spanish
and Latin American music specialist ​
Laura Klugherz has performed worldwide as a solo recitalist and
chamber artist, and concertmaster/soloist with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and Munich Bach Orchestra
during her many years in Europe. Her numerous awards include a student Fulbright Scholar Award
(Germany), a Fulbright Post-Doctoral Award Recipient (Spain), and numerous Spanish Ministry of Culture
grants. Publications include ​
A Biographical Guide to Spanish Music for Violin and Viola 1900-97
(Greenwood Press) and she records for the Centaur and Capstone labels. Laura holds an Artists’ Diploma
from the ​
Bayerische Hochschule für Musik in Munich, Germany and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the
University of Texas. She is a registered Hatha Yoga teacher and Feldenkrais instructor. At Colgate, Laura is
professor of Music and Latin American Studies.
Sarah Wider, ​
professor of English and Women’s Studies at Colgate, grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico
and remains grateful for those years when music was vital in the public schools. After her extensive training
as a cellist and pianist, including contests, solo orchestral and chamber music study, she indulged her
passion for literature obtaining a doctorate in English. At Colgate University (when not performing with the
Chamber Players), Sarah teaches courses in women’s biography and autobiography, contemporary Native
American literature, and American Transcendentalism. Her current research focuses on women in
American Transcendentalism, especially the visual artists and musicians.
Adam Berk is a senior oboist who has been enjoying his time with the Colgate Chamber Players since the
autumn of 2012. Adam is pursuing a double major in Environmental Studies and Music, and although he
had no prior chamber experience before joining such a wonderful group, he is extremely thankful for the
support and lessons he has received along the way! He has taken part in performances with the Baroque
Orchestra of New Jersey and at Carnegie Hall as part of the Honors Performance Series, and is currently
most involved with the Colgate Chamber Players and University Orchestra.
Matt Brauner is a senior from Mahwah, NJ. An active member of Colgate’s musical community, Matt has
been featured on clarinet and saxophone with many on and off-campus groups. He proudly serves as the
President and Assistant Principal Clarinetist of the Colgate University Orchestra and was previously the
Musical Director of the Colgate Wind Ensemble. Matt also performs in New Jersey as part of the pit
orchestra for the OnStage, Inc. Theater Company’s annual summer production. Outside of music, Matt is a
double major in economics and computer science and volunteers in the Colgate Office of Admission.
Elise Van Gelder​
, originally from Monroe, NY, ​
is a senior at Colgate University. She began playing piano
at age four, and took up the cello as her main instrument at eight years old. At Colgate, she is majoring in
Physics and minoring in Music. She studies cello with Zachary Sweet, of Ithaca, New York. This is her fourth
and final year with the Colgate Chamber Players, and she is very grateful for the experience she has had and
the guidance she has received along the way working with Laura Klugherz.
Notes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the most well-known composers of the Classical era and of all-time.
Divertimento no.1 is a light-hearted and playful work written during the last ten years of his life. Originally
written for the basset-horn, a close relative of the clarinet, it was posthumously published for two clarinets
and bassoon. Our rendition of the first movement, for oboe, clarinet, and cello gives the piece a pleasantly
soft, yet full sound. A Divertimento is a genre of music written usually for a small ensemble in a light and
entertaining manner. In Italian, “divertimento” means fun, which gives us a sense of the atmosphere in
which this work is meant to be enjoyed.
Note by Elise Van Gelder
Peter Schickele is a Grammy award-winning American composer, music educator, and parodist best
known for his comedy albums published under the pseudonym of P.D.Q. Bach. His music has been
performed by some of the most prominent orchestras and chamber ensembles in the United States including
the National Symphony, the Cleveland Symphony, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. ​
Dream
Dances is not one of Schickele’s best-known works, but it was recently brought to greater prominence when
it was included as part of the Vanderbilt University Blair Woodwind Quintet’s album, ​
A Year in the Catskills
(2011). As the title of the work implies, each movement consists of a different dance form. Today we perform
two of the dance movements: “Jitterbug” and “Waltz”.
Note by Matt Brauner
Charles Martin Loeffler​
, born Martin Karl Löffler in the Berlin, rejected his German heritage and drifted
towards the French tradition after the imprisonment of his father. From a young age, Loeffler knew he
wanted to be a professional violinist, and by his early twenties he became the assistant concertmaster of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra, serving for twenty years until resigning in 1903. Loeffler’s compositional style
has been considered post-Impressionist by some musicologists, but—perhaps due to his frequent
migration—music ranging from medieval to jazz seem to have had significant influence on his work.
Completed in 1901, ​
Two Rhapsodies are rewrites of Loeffler’s earlier works for clarinet, bass voice, and
piano. The tone poem heard today, “L’Etang” (The Pond), was derived from a work of the same name by
French symbolist poet Maurice Rollinat. “L’Etang” holds themes of lost love and death which are
well-illustrated in the late romantic style exemplified by Loeffler as well as more famous composers such as
Brahms and Debussy.
“L’Etang” opens with a dramatic and thick piano line, which is soon followed by a stormy melody played by
the viola. Before long, all three instruments are conversing and frequently trading haunting and florid lines
with one another. Plaintive outbursts are tenaciously accompanied by a powerful ebb and flow, and as the
musical current slows, the piece closes with ambiguous and hollow harmonies, leaving listeners with a
familiar glassy and placid pond.
Note by Adam Berk
Béla Bartók was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. In 1939, Bartók was
commissioned by clarinetist Benny Goodman and violinist József Szigeti to compose a brief work for clarinet
and violin with piano accompaniment. Inspired by his commissioners’ request, Bartók produced a chamber
work that was far longer and more complex than expected. The three-movement Contrasts lives up to its
name, drawing from jazz and classical styles as well as Hungarian and Romanian folk music. ​
Verbunkos​
, the
first movement, is Bartók’s take on an 18th-century Hungarian dance of the same name. Translating to
“recruiting dance”, the dance is characterized by alternating slow (​
lassú​
) and fast (​
friss​
) passages. The slow
section always includes a distinctive, bouncing rhythm that can be heard in the violin and clarinet at the
beginning of the movement. Bartók concludes the movement with an energetic clarinet cadenza, likely
influenced by Goodman’s unique style.
Note by Matt Brauner
​
After rejecting more modernist techniques, prominent North American composer, ​
Aaron Copland, ​
was
widely inspired to musically tell the story of American folk music with his own special brand of harmonies.
He published two sets of “Old American Songs” for voice and piano in 1950 and 1952 respectively, and later
arranged them for voice and orchestra. ​
Little Horses is a beloved American lullaby, and ​
The Boatman’s
Dance​
is an 1842 Minstrel Song celebrating boisterous life on the boats of the great Ohio River.
Note by Laura Klugherz
​
Paquito D’Rivera​
, winner of fourteen Grammy Awards, has been an accomplished musician since
childhood. Born in Havana, Cuba, D’Rivera performed with the National Theater Orchestra at age 10 and by
age 17 he was a featured soloist with the Cuban National Symphony. His experiences and successes in
performance extend to the realms of Jazz, Latin, Classical, and even Rock music. However, D’Rivera’s
contributions to music are not limited to performance but include composition as well. In 2005 and 2006,
his works were commissioned and premiered by well-known groups such as Opus 21 and Imani Winds,
respectively. In 2007, D’Rivera was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition
and shortly was appointed as Composer-In-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts with
the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
Originally a woodwind quintet premiered by the Aspen Wind Quintet in 1994, "Afro" begins with a solemn
introduction featuring the cello. This introduction depicts a ritual of the Yoruba religion, where worshipers
offer gifts to the sea goddess Yemanja as they walk into the ocean in a trance. We are soon met with a bright
and lively Afro-Cuban dance rhythm, in which the three instruments converse and caper by trading lines and
elaborating on the rhythm. By the end of the piece, listeners are left with a return of the Yoruba ritual theme
and a brief surprise before closing.
Part of the larger “Preludio y Merengue” piano trio composed in 2003, “Merengue” blends Afro-Cuban and
Jazz rhythms into an energetic 3-2 clave rhythm. The piece frequently alternates between the sounds of a
precise salsa and a lighthearted ​
guaguancó​
, giving each instrument a turn at leading and following. The
three dip and dive until concluding with a unified and vigorous final step.
Note by Adam Berk
Ignacio Cervantes​
, widely considered the leading Cuban composer of the 19th century, was born in
Havana, Cuba in 1847. His immense talent as a pianist was in large part fostered by his teacher Louis
Moreau Gottschalk, from whom his folk sound was inspired. He started writing his nostalgic ​
Danzas
Cubanas for piano in the United States during his exile from Cuba in the 1870s. These charming miniatures
provide a glimpse into Cuban song and rhythm styles.
Note by Elise Van Gelder
On the cover: ​
Santiago de Cuba​
by Winslow Homer, 1885