August 29, 2001 Contact: Paula Mlyn

Daniel Druckman Conducts a Program That Includes
C. Bryan Rulon's The Stelliferous Era (from the Love Songs of Molecules cycle, world premiere);
Edward Bilous' The Place Light Was Born (from Black Madonna,
A Cantata in 13 Parts, world premiere);
Joseph Pereira's Facing the Mirror; Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 5;
and John Bergamo's Blanchard Canyon

This year Juilliard's Chamber Music season begins with a unique collaboration between the Percussion Department and the Music Technology Center that will include world premiere works by Edward Bilous and C. Bryan Rulon. On Tuesday, October 9 at 8 PM in the Juilliard Theater, Daniel Druckman leads the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble in a program featuring world premieres of C. Bryan Rulon's The Stelliferous Era (from the Love Songs of Molecules cycle, 2001); and Edward Bilous' The Place Light Was Born, Part I from Black Madonna, (2001), a cantata in thirteen parts. The program will also include Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 5 (1969), Joseph Pereira's Facing the Mirror (2000), and John Bergamo's Blanchard Canyon (1985). FREE Tickets are required for this concert and are available at the Juilliard Box Office starting September 25.

This concert, the first-ever jointly produced by the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble and the Music Technology Center, will feature players of traditional acoustic instruments performing on their electronic counterparts (percussion, flute-wind controller, and guitar) as well as interacting with computers. The program traces the development of electronic music from its earliest examples, to newly composed works.

Edward Bilous' The Place Light Was Born, Part I from Black Madonna (2001) is scored for two sopranos, alto, amplified cello and violin, bass, flute and bansuri flute, oboe, English horn, three saxophones, piano, electronic keyboards, acoustic and electric guitar, and six percussionists. The work requires several hand drum players utilizing an art that goes back thousands of years and largely has been excluded from all but a few works in the Western repertoire. The text of Black Madonna is sung in Arabic, Catalan, Egyptian, Ethiopian, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Persian, and Polish. The idea for this work grew out of the cult of the Black Madonna, which began sometime in the late Middle Ages in parts of France, Spain, and Italy. The image of the Black Madonna became a powerful symbol to many; by the 15th century the most revered spiritual centers of several countries housed images of the Black Madonna, including Mont St. Michelle in France, the Cathedral at Chartres, the Monastery at Montserat, the road to Compostella in Spain, and the Cathedral at Czestochowa, Poland where she is the Patron Saint of an entire nation.

This work is not a sacred one; instead, as the composer notes, "it is a musical exploration of a hidden spiritual tradition which has often been at odds with traditional western views of God and religion."

Composer C. Bryan Rulon's The Stelliferous Era is a work for multiple percussionists, strings with live electronic processing, and recorded computer-processed and generated sounds. In this work computer-processed percussion sounds, computer-altered live percussion sounds, and live strings are layered to create a wave of sound. The computer extends these sounds until they acquire a harmonic resonance; the strings then take up this harmonic material. The layering of these elements creates a wave of sound which gives the normally quickly decaying sound of the percussion instrument a sustained aspect and frees the percussion to ornament this altered sound. This "wave" introduces pitch and harmonic material and the structure of the work is eventually realized in a melody. The component parts of the melody will comprise the materials from which the percussion derives its rhythm and the strings their pitch materials. As the work unfolds, the materials are treated, developed, and deconstructed with this result in mind: when the fully realized melody does present itself, it will do so with a surprise sense of familiarity.

Composer John Bergamo named his work Blanchard Canyon after a place located close to his home in Piru, California. Created for the new music group the California Ear Unit, Blanchard Canyon is written for five amplified suspended cymbals. The amplification picks up special sounds not normally part of the cymbal family's vocabulary. The instruments are played with the usual mallets and sticks, but bamboo barbeque skewers and knitting needles also are used. In addition, finger techniques similar to those of East Indian drumming are used. There are five muffling techniques, including the use of the belly, to further vary sounds. Harmonics are produced by the various muffling methods and some improvisation also is used.

"An attempt to fuse the sounds of human speech with instruments" Joseph Pereira's Facing the Mirror was composed for percussion quartet and tape. Originally written for the New York Percussion Quartet, Facing the Mirror uses the native languages of the quartet's members (Russian, Hebrew, Spanish, and English) then fragments and recombines the "texts" into a new syntax which resembles the sound of the instruments thus processing them into a new "language." According to the composer, the work is organized by analogous movement, color, and development of sound between the performers and the tape. The tape uses different delay speeds and panning to distribute the movement of sound which is echoed by the performer's augmentation and diminution of the rhythms used. In addition, each performer is equipped with his own speaker and a microphone for uttering phonetics, echoing each other and the tape. The homogenous sound is created by the physical placement of the performers, which helps to create a continuous circle of sound.

Among the first collaborations using electro-acoustic and instrumental resources, Synchronisms No. 5 (1969) is from a series of groundbreaking works by composer Mario Davidovsky. The ability to record sound was, according to Davidovsky, one of the most important breakthroughs in the 20th century as it enabled "sound" to be used as an independent element in a composition. Composed in 1969, Synchronisms No. 5 is scored for five percussionists (playing different instruments) and electronically generated sounds recorded on tape. As in other pieces of the Synchronisms series, the taped sounds extend the range, colors, speed, and duration of those generated by the acoustic instruments. There is interplay between the electronic and percussion sonorities, both closely coordinated in the score and in performance. In Synchronisms No. 5, Davidovsky expands the potential of percussion instruments - beyond simply rhythm and pulse - to include melodic expression.

Composer and educator Edward Bilous has conducted seminars and workshops in the field of arts education in both the United States and Europe at institutions including Lincoln Center and Tanglewood Institute, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Teachers College-Columbia University, Leonard Bernstein Center for Arts and Education, Chamber Music America, Nashville Symphony, Texas Institute for Arts and Education, Bowling Green University, State University of New York at Albany, and The Center for Creativity, in Zermatt, Switzerland. At Juilliard, Mr. Bilous developed the Arts and Education program that provides training for young musicians interested in pursuing careers in education. He also helped to develop Juilliard's outreach program called the Music Advancement Program (MAP). As a composer and producer of music for film, television, and new media, his recent compositions are Frame of Reference written for frame drum master Glen Velez and Chaccone for String Orchestra which was recently recorded by the Prague Film Orchestra for the Academy Award-nominated documentary Scottsboro. His recent work includes the scores to Naked Man, by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Ethan Coen; Mixing Nia, Grand Prize, Houston International Film Festival; Academy Award-nominee Scottsboro, as well as several scores for NBC Saturday Night Live. Other works of his have been premiered at the Paris, Sundance, and Hampton film festivals. He was both composer and educational consultant on two award winning new media projects; The Juilliard Music Adventure and the Inter-Active Tour of the Beauborg Museum at the Pompidou Center, Paris. Mr. Bilous received a bachelor of music. from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Elias Tannenbaum and Charles Wuorinen and a master of music. and doctor of musical arts from Juilliard, where his primary teachers were Elliott Carter and Vincent Persichetti. He also studied composition with Krzystof Penderecki. Mr. Bilous is the Chairperson of the Literature and Materials of Music Department at The Juilliard School where he also teaches classes in Arts and Education, Film Scoring, and Music Production.

C. Bryan Rulon attended the Indiana University School of Music where he received his bachelor of music in composition and a double master of music degree with distinction in composition and electronic and computer music. He has studied with Earle Brown, Luciano Berio, Bernard Rands, and the late Jacob Druckman. Moving to New York in 1982, he co-founded the electroacoustic, improvisational ensemble First Avenue with oboist Matt Sullivan, allowing him to work with actors, dancers, performance artists, and lighting designers, as well as prominent and emerging composer-performers. First Avenue has performed at a wide variety of venues including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theater at Columbia University, and the Knitting Factory, among others. Currently in residence at Princeton University, the ensemble has received numerous grants and produced several CDs. Mr. Rulon is the recipient of awards and commissions including music for Bill T. Jones' Corporate Whims, a 1992 commission grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, a 1994 National Endowment for the Arts Composer Fellowship Grant, a 1995 Fromm Foundation Commission, a 1996 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 1996 Chamber Music America Commission for the New Millennium Ensemble. In 1995, Mr. Rulon completed a PhD in composition from Princeton University. His music is available on CBS, CRI, Centaur, Princeton, and OO Discs labels.

Composer, percussionist, and conductor John Bergamo began his training at the Lenox School of Jazz, where, as a scholarship student, he studied drumset with Max Roach. He went on to the Manhattan School of Music where he completed both bachelor and master of music degrees, followed by three summers at Tanglewood. In 1964, he joined the Creative Associates at the State University at Buffalo. This group was formed by composer, conductor, pianist Lukas Foss and explored the avant-garde in a wide variety of 20th century styles. After relocating to the West Coast, Mr. Bergamo became involved in learning Tabla and other hand drums traditional to non-European cultures, and since 1970, has been coordinator of the percussion program at California Institute of the Arts. This has led him to such diverse musical involvements as concerts with John McLaughlin's Shakti, performing in Frank Zappa's Abnuceals Emukka Orchestra, recording with Ali Akbar Khan, and a tour to the Soviet Union with Robert Shaw. Mr. Bergamo has co-founded two all-percussion groups, the Repercussion Unit in 1976 and The Hands On'Semble in 1997.

Timpanist and composer, Joseph Pereira has been Assistant Principal Timpanist of the New York Philharmonic since January 1998. A native New Yorker, Mr. Pereira is also an active composer as well as a member of the New York Percussion Quartet. His piece Conversation for solo flute was selected by soloist Linda Witherall to be performed in New York in February 1999. Before enrolling at Juilliard, he graduated from Boston University's School for the Arts, where he received a double bachelor of music degree in Performance and Composition/Theory.

While in the Boston area, Mr. Pereira also performed with the new music group Alea III and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is an alumnus of both the Tanglewood and Pacific (Sapporo, Japan) music festivals. In 1994 he toured and recorded in southern France with the Robert Shaw Choral Institute. In 1996, he performed with Sir Neville Marriner and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as its acting principal timpanist. In the summer of 1998, he was featured at Juilliard's summer percussion seminar in a solo recital of all original compositions and in a master class as a composer/performer. He received his master of music degree from The Juilliard School in 2000.

Mario Davidovsky was born in Buenos Aires and received his early training in his native city. At the recommendation of Aaron Copland he came to the United States in 1958 for advanced study at Tanglewood. In 1960, Davidovsky began what would be a longstanding association with the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York. That institution pioneered America's use of sound synthesis and tape recording techniques for composition, and for Davidovsky it opened what was then a new world of musical possibilities. The composer soon made electronic music the main, though not the sole focus of his work. In 1962, he composed the first of a series of Synchronisms, pieces that used electronically-generated sounds in conjunction with conventional acoustic instruments or voice. This series brought the composer widespread recognition and, in 1971, the Pulitzer Prize in music. For several decades, Davidovsky taught at Columbia University, where he held the MacDowell Professorship of Music and served as chairman of the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center. Since 1994, he has taught at Harvard University.

Daniel Druckman is active as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician and recording artist. He has concertized throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic's Horizons concerts, the San Francisco Symphony's New and Unusual Music series, and in recital in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Tokyo. A member of the New York Philharmonic, Speculum Musicae, and the New York New Music Ensemble, Mr. Druckman also has made numerous appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Capo Chamber Players, American Brass Quintet, Group for Contemporary Music, Orpheus, Steve Reich and Musicians, and the Philip Glass Ensemble. He also was an original cast member of Peter Brooks' Carmen at Lincoln Center. Mr. Druckman has performed at chamber music festivals in Santa Fe, Ravinia, Saratoga, Caramoor, Tanglewood, and Aspen. An integral part of the new music community in New York, Mr. Druckman has premiered works by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Oliver Knussen, Poul Ruders, Joseph Schwantner, Ralph Shapey, and Charles Wuorinen, among many others. Recent appearances include collaborations with Alan Feinberg at Dartmouth College, with Fred Sherry at BargeMusic, with Dawn Upshaw at Carnegie Hall, and solo concerts at Columbia University's Miller Theater and Merkin Concert Hall. Mr. Druckman is coordinator of the percussion department and director of the percussion ensemble at The Juilliard School. He has recorded for the Columbia, Angel, Teldec, DGG, CRI, Nonesuch, Bridge, and New World labels, as well as for radio, television, and films.

The current members of the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble are: Daniel Bauch, Richard Baughman, Simon Boyar, Javier Diaz, Jeffrey Irving, Michael Israelievitch, Dinesh Joseph, Eric Poland, Luke Rinderknecht, Jared Soldiviero, Samuel Solomon, Nicholas Stoup, Christopher Thompson and Yuri Yamashita.