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TR578
Victoria Bond
YES
Molly Many Bloom
Commissioned by soprano Ida Faiella and L'Ensemble.
Molly Bloom's soliloquy has intrigued me since I was in high school. James Joyce has expressed so many universal topics through his feminine persona. The seamlessness with which he moves from today's breakfast to confession to the passionate effects of a kiss reflect the fluidity of thought, unconstricted by the logic of grammar, syntax and conventional structure. It was this effortless motion that I sought to reflect in music, a medium imminently suited to float between seemingly incongruous ideas, weaving them together as though they naturally belonged.
As a teenager, I was impressed with Molly Bloom's frank sexuality and unabashed pleasure in her body which represented the kind of freedom that few contemporary women dared express. Molly was not ashamed of her desires and luxuriated in recollecting their fulfillment as well as their frustrations. She was unimpressed with men's overinflated self-importance and posturing.
Joyce modeled Molly after his own wife, Nora Barnacle. Because she was uneducated and wrote without using any punctuation, he invested Molly with the same breathless and ambiguously undressed originality. As a composer, the multiple layers of meaning implied by eight run-on sentences of over a hundred pages translates into music whose cadences must clarify the transitions from one thought to another and the dramatic phrasing of the singing actress portraying Molly.
I have drawn my interpretation from reading these lines aloud and from listening to many great actresses perform this monologue at the Bloomsday on Broadway celebrations at Symphony Space.
Molly, who performs as a singer, refers to several popular songs of her day (1904): Love's Old Sweet Song; Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey and Shall I Wear A White Rose? I have used these songs as “found objects” and have woven my score around them.
A Modest Proposal
Commissioned by tenor Paul Sperry and The Cleveland Chamber Symphony
The piece is organized into 16 episodes and a prologue. The combinations and permutations of the string quartet include 4 solos, 6 duets, 4 trios and 3 quartets. The instrumentalists act as characters in the drama, echoes of Molly's thoughts and emotions, and as a chorus, commenting on the action. Each episode is organized according to a musical form, including a canon, march, fantasia, blues, waltz, variations, gallop, nocturne, tango and lullaby.
Although Jonathan Swift was satirizing the English prejudice towards the Irish in A Modest Proposal, his grisly theme applies to our contemporary world as well. We may pay lip service to nurturing children, but our culture demonstrates a less wholesome reality. Today children are exploited by an economy that prefers profiting from their buying power to providing for their well-being, a media that sells them violence, and in many regions of the world, a military that teaches them to become heroes by sacrificing their lives. Every day we read of new horrors perpetrated against children. I have come to the conclusion that ours is an age that is consuming its own young. Swift makes his point not through righteous indignation, but rather through humor. This is disarming and allows us to ingest his message without gagging on its bitter taste. In a musical analogy, I have chosen to use nursery songs as the basis of the musical fabric, illuminating the text with an ongoing commentary by the orchestra. Thus the most horrific words are couched in the seemingly benign melody of a child's innocent ditty. These are the songs used: Three Blind Mice; Old McDonald Had A Farm; Row, Row, Row Your Boat; Pop Goes The Weasel; Frère Jacques; Mary Had A Little Lamb; Yankee Doodle; I've Got Shoes; A Tiskit A Taskit; I've Been Working On The Railroad; Rockabye Baby; For He's a Jolly Good Fellow; God Save The Queen.
Composer and Conductor, Victoria Bond has written for every medium including opera, orchestra, ballet and chamber music. Her work has been widely performed and recorded in the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. Profiled in the Wall Street Journal and on the NBC Today Show, featured in People magazine and in The New York Times, she has attracted the kind of attention rarely focused on a classical musician. Her conducting engagements have taken her to China, Brazil and Europe, and in the United States she has led such prestigious orchestras as the Houston, Pittsburgh and Buffalo Symphonies. She has performed and recorded with the legendary Ray Charles, as well as with jazz greats Billy Taylor and Marian McPartland. Her second opera, Mrs. Satan, was performed by The New York City Opera as part of Showcasing American Composers. Her first opera Travels was produced by Opera Roanoke in Virginia and her children's opera, Everyone Is Good For Something, was commissioned and performed by Louisville Stage One. Her orchestral works have been performed by The Houston Symphony, The Shanghai, Wuhan and Hunan Symphonies (China), The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Cleveland Chamber Symphony, The Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, The Wichita Symphony, The Slovak Radio Orchestra (Slovakia), The Martinu Philharmonic (Czech Republic), Radio Telefis Eirean (Dublin, Ireland) and Orquestra de Santos (Brazil).Her chamber music has been performed by The Audubon, Flux and Pro Arte String Quartets, The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and The Renaissance City Winds.
Born in Los Angeles into a family of professional musicians, Victoria Bond began improvising well before her formal training. She studied composition with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, and with Roger Sessions at The Juilliard School, becoming the first woman to earn a doctorate degree in orchestral conducting in 1977. While still at Juilliard, she worked with composers Pierre Boulez and Aaron Copland as assistant conductor of the Contemporary Music Ensemble, and studied with the legendary Herbert von Karajan. Chosen by conductor Dennis Russell Davies to be his assistant at the Cabrillo Music Festival in California and The White Mountains Music Festival in New Hampshire, she premiered numerous works including her own compositions. While still a student, she served as Music Director of The New Amsterdam Symphony and The Bel Canto Opera Company in New York. Appointed by Andre Previn as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1978, Bond quickly rose to prominence. In 1985 she received a grant from The National Institute for Music Theater to work with Christopher Keene at The New York City Opera. As Music Director of the Empire State Youth Orchestra, she was commissioned to compose The Frog Prince and What's the Point of Counterpoint? for TV personality Bob McGrath of Sesame Street, who recorded the works and toured with them throughout the United States. In 1986, Bond was invited to conduct the Houston Symphony as part of the state's sesquicentennial celebration and to premiere her own composition, Ringing, commissioned for that occasion. Bond has served as Music Director and Conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra (1986-1995) and Artistic Director of Opera Roanoke (1989-1995) and The Harrisburg Opera (1997-2003).
Soprano Carol Meyer has sung in major opera houses across the United States including a nine-year career at the Metropolitan Opera, where the range of her roles extended from Mozart to Poulenc. She has also performed extensively with orchestra and in recital, and currently specializes in a full variety of the contemporary chamber and solo literature. Her operatic and concert tours have taken her throughout the world, including the Middle East and Asia. Ms. Meyer is a founding member of Musica-Parole, a chamber and vocal music collaborative music series performing in the New York area. In addition, she has been an active recording artist for the Milken Archive for Jewish Music and makes regular appearances with the contemporary music group “Continuum.” She is also a faculty member of the Chamber Music Conference of the East and Composers' Forum in Bennington, Vermont, where she has performed works such as Schoenberg's cabaret songs and Pierrot Lunaire as well as Victoria Bond's Molly ManyBloom. She has also performed with the Opera Orchestra of New York under Eve Queler, with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Glimmerglass and The Dallas Opera. She made her New York City Opera debut in A Little Night Music in 1990 and in 1991 sang Olympia at the Spoleto Festival USA.
Tenor Paul Sperry has degrees from Harvard University and the Sorbonne. He considers his major musical influences to be Pierre Bernac, Jennie Tourel, and Paul Ulanowsky. He has performed with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Boston and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras as well as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Moscow Philharmonic; his repertoire includes hundreds of songs, cycles, oratorios and chamber works in more than a dozen languages and a host of musical idioms. Many leading composers including Robert Beaser, William Bolcom, Victoria Bond, Tom Cipullo, Daron Hagen, Richard Hundley, Libby Larsen, Harold Meltzer, Paul Moravec, John Musto, Stephen Paulus, Russell Platt, Robert Rodriguez, Louise Talma have written especially for him. He sang the starring role of Michael in the world premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's opera Donnerstag aus Licht at Milan's La Scala and premiered Jacob Druckman's Animus IV for the opening of the Pompidou Center in Paris. With the New York Philharmonic he gave the premiere performance of Bernard Rands' Pulitzer Prize winning Canti del Sole which he has recorded for CRI. Mr. Sperry has edited numerous collections of American songs for G. Schirmer, Peer-Southern, Carl Fischer and Dover Publications and his book “American Encores” has just been released by the Oxford University Press. Mr. Sperry is on the faculty of the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn College and from 1991-97 he was Director of the Vocal Program at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. Since 1987 he has served as Director of Joy In Singing, an organization dedicated to helping young singers.
Violinist Shem Guibbory has appeared as soloist with the N.Y. Philharmonic, the Beethoven Halle Orchestra (Bonn), the Kansas City Symphony and the Symphony of the New World and has served as concertmaster with the San Francisco Ballet. He is a founding member of the Cordier Ensemble, and the original violinist with Steve Reich & Musicians, and with Anthony Davis' Episteme. Recordings on ECM, Gramavision, Opus 1, DG and CRI labels. A member of the first violin section of the MET Orchestra, he is also the Music Director of the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East. In 2001, and 2002 he was recipient of an ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming. Mr. Guibbory is a D'addario artist.
Violinist Renee Jolles is an accomplished solo violinist and chamber musician. Her concerto engagements include performances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Cape May Festival Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey and the Salisbury Symphony. She is a member of the Jolles Duo, Continuum, the New York Chamber Ensemble and is a founding member of the Andreas Trio and the Roerich String Quartet. She has been a frequent performer at the Marlboro, Bennington, Rockport, Norfolk, Taos and Bowdoin Music Festivals. Ms. Jolles plays with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and has served as that group's concertmaster. Since 1988, Ms Jolles has been on the faculty of the Juilliard School, Pre-College Division.
Violist Ronald Carbone is a member of Spectrum Concerts, Berlin and was for ten years violist of the Composers' String Quartet. He is an associate member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Assistant Principal violist of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra and member of the Orchestra of St. Lukes. Mr. Carbone was a recipient of the Martha Baird Rockeller Fund for Music,Inc. Award, two Artist International Awards and the Tanglewood Viola Prize. Mr. Carbone holds degrees from Florida State and Yale Universities. He is presently also on the faculties of Vassar College and the Chamber Music Conference at Bennington College.
Cellist Maxine Neuman is a two-time Grammy Award winner and a founding member of the Claremont Duo, the Crescent String Quartet, the Vermont Cello Quartet, and the Walden Trio.
She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc, Columbia, Angel, EMI, Nonesuch, SONY/Virgin and CBS World Records. Distinguished as a teacher as well as performer, Ms. Neuman has served as a judge for numerous international competitions. She is on the faculty at the New York's School for Strings, and has taught at Bennington College, Williams College and C.W. Post University. Her cello is a J.B.Guadagnini, dating from 1772.
The Cleveland Chamber Symphony is the professional ensemble-in-residence at Cleveland State University whose mission is to commission, rehearse, perform, record and disseminate new music. Founded in 1980 by Edwin London, composer and professor of music at Cleveland State University, the orchestra has premiered hundreds of works, many of them commissioned by the orchestra. It has received national recognition including nine ASCAP/ASOL awards for its strong commitment to new American music, The American Music Center's Letter of Distinction, and the Laurel Leaf Award by the American Composers Alliance.
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