The Program

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC" TEXT="#080000" background="13cfd5a3.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aaron Alon"><U><B><IMG SRC="3a27d140.png" border=0 width="125" height="20" ALT="Homepage" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>     |    </B><A HREF="id152.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="April 14, 2008"><U><B>DMA Recital</B></U></A><B>     |     </B><A HREF="id76.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Recent News"><U><B>Recent News</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>The Program</B>   |   <A HREF="id165.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Pictures"><U>Pictures</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id153.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Performers"><U>Performers</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id155.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Acknowledgments"><U>Acknowledgments</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#888888" TEXT="#080000" background="13dd2b03.jpg"> <div> <IMG SRC="791153b0.png" border=0 width="21" height="59" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~musi/" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~musi/"><U><IMG SRC="55c9b460.png" border=0 width="155" height="70" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>MAP</U></B></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/shepherdmap.png" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/shepherdmap.png"><U><IMG SRC="7b0b15f0.png" border=0 width="177" height="95" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#C0C0C0" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>The Program</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <I>The program will last approximately one hour, in addition to one intermission.</I></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id144.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dulce et Decorum Est"><U><B>Dulce et Decorum Est</B></U></A><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>     </B></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id144.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dulce et Decorum Est"><U><IMG SRC="7ff591d0.png" border=0 width="89" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <div> As one of the most powerful anti-war poems in the English language, Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" reminds us of what is truly at stake in war, of the true horrors that are hidden in the daily statistics.  The text challenges the call to arms from Horace's <I>Odes</I>, which is quoted in Latin as the last two lines of the text: "It is sweet and right to die for your country."  A slow opening, depicting the soldiers' weary return to their campsite, gives way to a sudden, rhythmically charged section as the speaker is launched into a flashback of a WWI gas explosion.  Quotations of the rally tune, "Battle Cry of Freedom," appear with increasing clarity in the piece.  <I>Dulce et Decorum Est</I> was commissioned by baritone Colm Estridge and supported by a grant from the Mu Phi Epsilon foundation.   </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id104.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fairy Tales"><U><B>Fairy Tales</B></U></A></div> <div> <I>Fairy Tales</I> was commissioned by the Renée B. Fisher Foundation for performance at the thirtieth annual Renée B. Fisher Piano Competition.  The music seeks to capture the mysterious magic of fairy tales without referencing any particular stories.  The piece is essentially a rondo, whose refrain continually evolves, often borrowing material from the preceding episodes.  The piece offers some contemporary challenges to talented young players, including tonal ambiguity, complex rhythms, shifting meters, use of the sostenuto pedal, and one instance where the pianist may elect to play an optional additional three measures.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id101.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hibakusha"><U><B>Hibakusha</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id101.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hibakusha"><U><IMG SRC="7ff591d0.png" border=0 width="89" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <div> Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many survivors were plagued with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  These survivors are known as <I>Hibakusha</I>.  This piece seeks to capture their state of shock, sometimes described as a 'frozen dream,' as they were ever-haunted by their devastating past.  While this was first envisioned as a larger ensemble piece, there is something profoundly isolating about the survivors' condition, which suggested the solo instrumental treatment adopted here.  This work is due to be released on CD by Capstone Records in Fall 2008, with Catherine Branch performing.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id158.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="All Rights Reserved"><U><B>All Rights Reserved</B></U></A></div> <div> Composers who choose to work with texts routinely run into questions of rights and royalties.  Poets are now granted protection over their works for their lifespan and an additional seventy years, often leaving composers the option between setting poets in the public domain (those who died before 1923) or battling for rights, often with the poets' estates.  Some poets, like Robert Frost and T.S. Elliot, allegedly stopped allowing composers to set their works as music became increasingly modernist.  In response to this frustrating problem, this art song raises another possibility, the dreaded one when composers choose to write their own texts to avoid the problem entirely.  The piece does take advantage of one little loophole in the copyright law: parody is excluded from it.  As such, the piece includes quotes—some glaring, others hidden—from Reich and Bizet to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Rodgers.  And for those wishing to steal, as Stravinsky claims all great artists do, I remind you that this work is protected by United States copyright, <I>All Rights Reserved!</I></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <I><B>INTERMISSION</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <B>WARNING: The piece which follows the intermission contains graphic descriptions of child abuse which some may find disturbing and may be inappropriate for children.  Those not wishing to hear the piece may leave during intermission and return to the hall for the final two pieces.</B></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id163.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Breaking the Silence"><U><B>Breaking the Silence</B></U></A></div> <div> I began work on <I>Breaking the Silence</I> knowing only that I wanted to write a piece about child abuse, a horrific social illness which is alarmingly pervasive in our society.  Aside from writing a brief text - which is sung by the soprano, who represents a small child singing a children's song of her own invention - I sought to have the direction and social statements of the piece guided by the interviews of survivors: the freely-spoken words and/or the writings they chose to share.  These interviews compose the tape portion of the piece and tell, in words, stories more powerful than a writer could manufacture or a composer could mimic.  My work as composer of this piece allowed me to bring their stories together, to interweave them, always seeking to have their words understood, but allowing the audience to experience, through spoken vocal polyphony, the struggle of breaking the silence, of having one's words heard.  I am aware that the piece is controversial.  My only hope is that the volunteers who shared their stories will gain from being heard and that this may help others to break their silence too. </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id30.htm" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id3"><U><I>Two Songs from</I></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id30.htm" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id3"><U><B>The Nightingale & the Rose</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id28.htm" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id2"><U><IMG SRC="7ff591d0.png" border=0 width="89" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>     <A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id30.htm" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id3"><U><IMG SRC="7ff591d0.png" border=0 width="89" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <div> These two songs are taken from the tragic short musical written in 2007 with writer and lyricist Joe Barnes.  The musical, based on the short story by Oscar Wilde, tells the story of a student who is in love with a girl.  He invites her to a ball and she agrees, but only on the condition that he find her a red rose to match her pink dress.  The Student goes into the garden, but try as he might, he can't find a red rose.  He curses years of study as useless; they cannot help him find the one thing he most desires.  A Nightingale, who often sings of love, hears the Student's despair and takes up his cause, searching far and wide for the red rose.  She finally learns that the rose tree that can bear red roses is in the garden next to the student's house, the garden where she lives, but it is aged, covered in vines, and has neither spoken nor flowered in many years.  After convincing the Red Rose Tree to speak, the Nightingale declares that it is no longer enough for her to sing of love; she now wants to be the song.  (<A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id28.htm" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id2"><U><B>I Long to Be the Song</B></U></A>)  The Red Rose Tree tells the Nightingale that the only way for him to flower again is for her to die on his thorns while she sings her last song. The Nightingale agrees and sacrifices herself so that the boy may have his red rose.  The Red Rose Tree sings a tender, mournful song as she dies in his arms.  (<A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id30.htm" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/Nightingale/id3"><U><B>What Of The Rose?</B></U></A>)  The next morning, the Student returns to the garden and sees the dead Nightingale.  He forgets her the moment he sees the red rose blooming on the red rose tree.  The Student rushes off to take the rose to his beloved.  The Girl says that she has instead decided to go to the ball with the Chamberlain's son, who has sent a diamond necklace, a gift of much greater value than a rose.  </div> </td> </tr></table></body>