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GUEST RECITAL

JONATHAN SOKASITS, PIANO


Friday March 18, 2011
5:00 p. m.
Northeast Wisconsin Piano Teachers
Green Bay, WI


PROGRAM


Suite in F major, HWV 427 George Frederick Handel
(1685-1759)
I. Adagio
II. Allegro
III. Adagio
IV. Allegro


Andante con Variazioni in F Minor, Hob. XVII/6 Franz Josef Haydn
(1732-1809)


Persona for piano solo (2008; revised 2009) Dana Wilson
(b. 1946)
I. Hammering
II. Freely, reflective but quasi-rhapsodic
III. Relentless
IV. Intimate, timeless
V. Warm and colorful but insistent


INTERMISSION


Two Nocturnes, Op. 27 Fryderyk Chopin
(1810-1849)
Larghetto in C-sharp minor
Lento sostenuto in D-flat major


Le tombeau de Couperin: Suite pour le piano (1914-17) Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937)
Prlude
Fugue
Forlane
Rigaudon
Menuet
Toccata

The works of Dana Wilson have been commissioned and performed by such diverse ensembles as the
Chicago Chamber Musicians, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, Xaimen Symphony, Buffalo
Philharmonic, Memphis Symphony, Dallas Wind Symphony, Voices of Change, Netherlands Wind
Ensemble, Syracuse Symphony, and Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. Solo works have been written for
such renowned artists as Gail Williams, Larry Combs, James Thompson, Rex Richardson and David
Weiss. Dana Wilson has received grants from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, New
York Foundation for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the
Arts, Arts Midwest, and Meet the Composer. His compositions have been performed throughout the
United States, Europe, Asia and Australia, and are published by Boosey and Hawkes and Ludwig Music
Publishers. They have received several awards, including the International Trumpet Guild First Prize, the
Sudler International Composition Prize, and the Ostwald Composition Prize, and can be heard on Klavier,
Albany, Summit, Centaur, Innova, Meister Music, Elf, Open Loop, Mark, Redwood, Musical Heritage
Society, and Kosei Recordings.

Dana Wilson holds a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, and is currently Charles A. Dana
Professor of Music in the School of Music at Ithaca College. He has been a Yaddo Fellow (at the artists
retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York), a Wye Fellow (Aspen Institute), a Charles A. Dana Fellow, and a
Fellow at the Society for Humanities, (Cornell University).

Persona for piano solo was written on commission from the Nebraska Music Teachers Association; I had
the distinct privilege of giving its premiere at the October 2008 NMTA State Conference. One can hear
Wilsons highly personal blend of many disparate elements, including his background as a jazz pianist. In
March of 2009, the composer sent me a different final movement (to conclude the set with a "colorful
burner" that provides more weight to the whole.) Following are the composers notes on the work:

Persona is a Latin term referring to an actors face mask (literally from per sonare which means
to sound through). In plays and literature even today, persona can refer to a narrator, which
allows the author to provide a world view without necessarily claiming it as his or her own. The
words person and personality are also derived from this term.

In the early 20
th
Century, the psychologist Carl Jung used the term to suggest that people put on
various psychological masks to express who they are in different settings and to fulfill the social
roles of child, parent, friend, adversary, and the likesometimes appearing to have very different
personalities as a result.

This piece is an exploration of this phenomenon. By placing very simple melodic material
(primarily the pitch interval of a third, and to some degree the major seventh) in dramatically
varied contexts, it becomes transformed and appears to take on very different personalities or
roles. Causing the material to sound through a variety of dynamics, registers, harmonies and
textures allows us to glean a full sense of its meaning.

The first piece features constantly shifting meters, and juxtaposes hammering chords at the extremes of
the piano with gentler chords in the central register. The composer likened the sudden shifts of dynamics
to closing the window on the noisy bustle of life going on outside one's room. The second movement
features a meandering theme that explores the conflict between major and minor thirds. The third
movement is a breathless exploration of running half-steps and their inversion, major sevenths; after the
torrent of energy it generates, the piece quietly slithers away at the close. The fourth movement is a
poetic meditation again exploring major and minor thirds in extended harmonies drawn directly from the
jazz idiom. The final movement opens with shimmering seconds alternating between hands; a breakneck
ragtime full of spiky dissonances emerges from this lovely haze.

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