The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) will celebrate renowned composer Bernard Rands's 70th birthday with a free performance of his Canti Trilogy at 8pm on November 5, 2004 as part of the 27th annual Festival of New American Music (FENAM) at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS). The concert also marks the Arsis Audio release of BMOP's world premiere recording of Canti Trilogy. BMOP is one of the few professional orchestras in the country dedicated exclusively to performing and recording music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Gil Rose, the orchestra has since secured a national reputation through its critically acclaimed performances and world premiere recordings.
BMOP performed Canti Trilogy in 2000 in Boston and New York. The performance was met with critical acclaim from The New York Times. "Performing Bernard Rands's three astronomical Canti of the late 1980s and early 90s...Mr. Rose and his team filled the music with rich, decisive ensemble colors and magnificent solos," wrote Paul Griffiths. "In scores whose dominant expressive position is one of rapture, these musicians were rapturous."
The 2004 performance of Canti Trilogy, which includes three song cycles, features three celebrated soloists: Janna Baty, soprano; William Hite, tenor; and Daniel Cole, bass. Canti Trilogy was composed between 1980 and 1993, and reflects Rands's wide literary interests. The three song cycles contain 42 texts in five languages—English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
BMOP has been honored with seven ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, and has performed at the Tanglewood Music Festival and in well-known venues including New York's Miller Theater, Winter Garden, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. In just two years, the orchestra has released eight world premiere recordings: George Rochberg: Black Sounds (Naxos); Eric Chasalow: Left to his own devices (New World); Tod Machover: Hyperstring Trilogy (Oxingale); Lukas Foss: Griffelkin (Chandos); Lee Hyla: Trans (New World); Reza Vali: Flute Concerto (Naxos); and Arthur Berger: The Complete Orchestral Works (New World), a New York Times pick for 2003; and Bernard Rands: Canti Trilogy (Arsis).
BMOP performs Canti Trilogy by invitation at FENAM at 8 pm on November 5, 2004 in the Music Recital Hall at Capistrano Hall on the California State University, Sacramento campus. FENAM, one of the oldest new music festivals in the country, runs from November 3-14, 2004. All festival events are free and open to the public. Included are concerts, lectures, classes and presentations at area venues. Call 916.278.5155 for tickets and information or visit www.csus.edu. For more information about BMOP, visit www.bmop.org or call 617.363.0396.
FENAM Press Contact: Public Affairs at CSUS, 916.278.6156 or infodesk@csus.edu.
BMOP Press Contact: Christina Jensen, Director of Community Outreach, 617.363.0396 or cjensen@bmop.org.
Press Release Supplement: Bernard Rands and Canti Trilogy
Canti Trilogy was composed between 1980 and 1993, and reflects Rands's wide literary interests. The three song cycles contain 42 texts in five languages—English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Roger Marsh, scholar and composer, further describes the song cycles in his program notes for the piece: "Taken as a whole, Canti Trilogy adds up to a powerful and moving musical experience. This is music that speaks directly, in a language of brilliant modernity, but a language which remains rooted in what the composer refers to as 'the vernacular.' The guiding force is always the poetry. From it emerges a warmth of color, rhythmic energy and musical cross reference in a dazzling display of technical virtuosity, but all in service of the 'labyrinth of relationships' contained in the sequence of poems which Rands has lovingly assembled."
Composer Bernard Rands has published hundreds of works, including his large orchestral suites Le Tambourin, which won the 1986 Kennedy Center Freidheim Award. Conductors including Barenboim, Boulez, Berio, Maderna, Marriner, Mehta, Muti, Ozawa, Rilling, Salonen, Sawallisch, Schiff, Schuller, Schwarz, Silverstein, Sinopoli, Slatkin, von Dohnanyi, and Zinman, among others, have programmed his music. Rands's works are also frequently commercially recorded. His work Canti D'Amor, recorded by Chanticleer, won a Grammy Award in 2000. Born in England in 1934, Rands immigrated to the United States in 1975, becoming an American citizen in 1983. He has been honored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; BMI; the Guggenheim Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; Meet the Composer; and the Barlow, Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations, among many others. BMOP is proud to give this performance in celebration of his 70th birthday and his countless contributions to modern music.