NEXTET VegaFest! Virko Baley, music director and conductor

College of Fine Arts presents
NEXTET
The New Music Ensemble for the 21st Century
Virko Baley, music director and conductor
VegaFest!
A celebration of the music of Diego Vega
“Nowadays he stands out as one of the most active and versatile Colombian musicians
of our time.” —Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia
PROGRAM
Diego Vega
(b. 1968)
Variations in Free Fall (2014-15)*
Audi Reliqua (1998)
Timothy Hoft, piano
Rhapsody for 2 pianos (2013)
Timothy Hoft
Jae Ahn-Benton
Piano Quartet (2010)
I and II attacca
III
Fritz Gearhart, violin
Andrew Smith, violoncello
Jason Bonham, viola
Timothy Hoft, piano
Divertimento (2009)***
Prelude
Tocatta
Danza - Lullaby
Bambuco fiestero - Perpetuum mobile
Erin Vander Wyst, clarinet
Andrew Smith, violoncello
Wei-Wei Le, violin
Timothy Hoft, piano
Sinfoniæ Profanæ (2010)**
Organum
Antiphonæ
Sequentiæ
Wasn't Me! Brass
Linnie Hostetler, horn
Micah Holt, trumpet
Kevin Tague, trumpet
James Nelson, trombone
Stephen Turner, tuba
Douglas Wilson, organ
Virko Baley, conductor
* premiere
Monday, March 2, 2015
** US premiere
7:30 p.m.
*** Nevada premiere
Dr. Arturo Rando-Grill Recital Hall
Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
BIOGRAPHY
Diego Vega (b. 1968) is a Colombian composer. His music has been performed in some of the most
important concert halls in the United States, Europe and Latin America by ensembles such as the Cuarteto
Latinoamericano, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble X, Alea III, the Colombian National Symphony, the Bogotá
Philharmonic, the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, the Quintet of
the Americas, the Soli Chamber Ensemble, and internationally acclaimed soloists like pianist Stephen
Prutsman, clarinetist José Franch-Ballester, cellist Andrés Díaz, and flutist Bradley Garner, among others.
Diego has written commissioned works for the Colombian National Symphony, Notre-Dame Cathedral in
Paris, France, the Cornell Symphony and the Cornell Chorus, the Banco de la República (Mint and
Reserve Bank of Colombia) and the Salvi Foundation and the Cartagena International Music Festival.
Vega has also been awarded the National Prize of Music in Composition in 2004, the Ithaca College
Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition in 2011, the Ensemble X composition competition in 2004,
Alea III 20th anniversary prize in 2002, one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the Year in 1996 in
Colombia, and prestigious scholarships such as Fulbright and the Sage Fellowship at Cornell University.
Diego holds degrees from Cornell University (DMA), University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of
Music (MM), and Universidad Javeriana (BM) in Bogota, Colombia, and has served as faculty at Syracuse
University and Universidad Javeriana. Currently he is professor of music composition and theory at UNLV.
Among his composition teachers are Guillermo Gaviria, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Joel Hoffman, Roberto
Sierra, and Steven Stucky.
Diego Vega has written music for soloists, a variety of chamber groups, symphony orchestras, wind
ensembles, choral ensembles, computer and electronic music. He has incorporated elements of
Colombian traditional music into some of these works.
PROGRAM NOTES
Variations in Free Fall (2014-15)
Dedicated to Virko Baley, this piece is a set of continuous variations based on a chromatic descending line.
This piece creates a sense of incessant descending motion, not even limited by the register of the piano,
because when it reaches it towards the climax of the piece, the descending line continues in the highest
register as if it were a Möbius strip. As in the case of my symphonic poem "Cascade and Bow”, Shepherd
tones are also an influential aural illusion in the composition of this work.
Other influences on this piece are the Nocturnal No. 7 by Baley and the Black Mass Sonata by Scriabin.
Audi Reliqua (1998)
The title of this short piano piece is a Latin expression that translates into English “listen to what remains.”
Following this idea, Audi Reliqua for piano explores the concept of acoustic resonance. Its harmony is
completely derived from (or is the acoustic resonance of) a four-part chorale, presented in the middle
slower section of the piece. Furthermore, the entire piece could be understood as the harmonic or acoustic
resonance of the pitch E that almost never ceases to sound.
The piece explores two basic rhythmic structures from Colombian folk music: the bambuco and the mapalé.
Presented as antagonists in the fast and more rhythmic first two sections of the piece, the two dances are
interrupted by the slow chorale and gradually awakened again, this time reconciling their differences as
one single rhythmic structure.
Rhapsody (2013)
For many years, creating a sense of permanent motion through harmony and voice leading has been one
of my main interests in composition. I have found inspiration in aural illusions such as the Shepard tones,
as well as in the optical illusions created by M.C. Escher. In the brief Rhapsody for 2 pianos, I created a
progression that moves permanently in contrary motion and expands its register from a unison to 3 octaves
over the course of the entire piece. This constant expansion of the register is only briefly interrupted in the
middle section of the piece, where an unstable development unfolds but finally succumbs to the strong
gravitational force of the opening movement.
Piano Quartet (2010)
Commissioned and premiered by the Finger Lakes Chamber Ensemble, in Ithaca, NY in March 2011, this
piece has three movements. The first two are played without interruption.
The opening movement is an introduction. A fast toccata figuration accompanies a long-note melody that
gradually becomes the theme of the second movement. The second movement is slow and lyrical. In the
central section of this movement, a theme presented by the violin becomes progressively more dramatic as
it expands its register. The third movement is fast and rhythmic and juxtaposes contrasting episodes with
the opening materials like a rondo. An even faster episode inspired by the rhythmic structure of the
Colombian pasillo leads to a string-trio section that reminds us of the lyrical character of the second
movement and concludes with a recapitulation of the fast main theme.
Divertimento
Divertimento for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano was commissioned by the Salvi Foundation and the III
Cartagena International Music Festival and was premiered in January 2009. Four movements constitute
the work. The first movement is a prelude that introduces the work’s main themes. This movement is
inspired in the bembé, an afro-Cuban rhythm. The second movement, a toccata, is a more rhythmic,
playful, and virtuosic music, developing materials from the first movement. The third movement, Danza –
Lullaby is inspired by the danza from Bogotá –cousin of the habañera and the tango. During this
movement you can hear the lullaby melody after a short introduction, and then, when the baby is finally
sleeping, you can hear its dream music, a little rhythmic adventure that concludes with a more serene and
contemplative version of the lullaby. Finally, the rhythmic and agitated Bambuco fiestero – Perpetuum
mobile, concludes the work bringing back short memories from the previous movements.
Sinfoniæ Profanæ (2009)
Colombian musicologist Ellie Anne Duque described Sinfoniæ Profanæ as “an exquisite sound interplay
between the brass quintet and the organ."
Commissioned by Banco de la República de Colombia (Mint and Reserve Bank of Colombia). Premiered
by Pascal Marsault, organ, and Collective Cuivre on July 21, 2010 in Bogotá, Colombia, in commemoration
of the 200th Anniversary of Colombian Independence.
Ellie Anne Duque said about the piece: "The work Sinfoniæ Profanæ consists of three movements. Both
the work's title and the names of the movements evoke ancient stages in the history of Western music.
The Organum was the term used to describe the first type of polyphony or part-writing, either in parallel or
contrary motion. With the Antiphonæ and the Sequentiæ, Vega reminds us that, although his work is
secular, it doesn't deny its origins in the Christian liturgy with the celebratory mood of the antiphon and the
hypnotic rhyme of the Gregorian sequence."
The next NEXTET concert will be on Tuesday, March 24 at 7:30 PM and will feature guest composerin-residence the Pulitzer Prize winner Bernard Rands. Guest mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley will be
soloist in his most recent work Folk Songs (2014) as well as Memo 7 for solo voice. In addition works
by George Crumb, Thea Musgrave and Maxwell Lafontant will also be performed.