Bowerbird is pleased to present a concert of chamber works by composer George Walker performed by the Daedalus Quartet, Dynasty Battles, David Hughes, and members of the Arcana New Music Ensemble.

As an aspiring pianist in his early teens, George Walker (1922-2018) gave his first public recital at Howard University’s Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel before studying performance and composition at Oberlin College and the Eastman School of Music.   Walker graduated from Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute with Artist Diplomas in piano and composition in 1945, as one of the first Black graduates of the music school.  Walker was a trailblazer within the landscape of twentieth and twenty-first century American music. He was the first African-American performer to appear in performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the first African-American musician to receive a doctoral degree from Eastman. Walker’s many firsts are perhaps best captured by his singular achievement in 1996: the Pulitzer Prize for Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra. Despite Walker’s many achievements, much of his chamber music is not widely known.

PROGRAM

Perimeters for Clarinet and Piano
Jonathan Leeds, clarinet
David Hughes, piano

Piano Sonata 1
Dynasty Battles, piano

Selection of Songs
“In the Time of Silver Rain”
“What If I Say I Shall Not Wait”
“I Have No Life But This”
“Bequest”
Alize Rozsnyai, soprano
David Hughes, piano

Piano Sonata 4
David Hughes, piano

String Quartet No. 1
Daedalus Quartet

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Praised by The New Yorker as “a fresh and vital young participant in what is a golden age of American string quartets,” the Daedalus Quartet has established itself as a leader among the new generation of string ensembles. Since winning the top prize in the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2001, the Daedalus Quartet has impressed critics and listeners alike with the security, technical finish, interpretive unity, and sheer gusto of its performances. The New York Times has praised the Daedalus Quartet’s “insightful and vibrant” Haydn, the “impressive intensity” of their Beethoven, their “luminous” Berg, and the “riveting focus” of their Dutilleux. The Washington Post in turn has acclaimed their performance of Mendelssohn for its “rockets of blistering virtuosity,” while the Houston Chronicle has described the “silvery beauty” of their Schubert and the “magic that hushed the audience” when they played Ravel, the Boston Globe the “finesse and fury” of their Shostakovich, the Toronto Globe and Mail the “thrilling revelation” of their Hindemith, and the Cincinnati Enquirer the “tremendous emotional power” of their Brahms.

Dynasty Battles, the recipient of the 2021 Career Advancement Award by the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, has been featured with soprano Marietta Simpson in The Philadelphia Inquirer, and on music critic David Patrick Stearns’ radio program “Creatively Speaking” on Philadelphia’s WRTI (90.1FM).

One upcoming highlight: Battles will debut a piano concerto by composer Nina Shekhar, whose music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and many more. Battles recently debuted a composition by multiple Grammy nominee and Pulitzer Prize finalist Ted Hearne, composed for Dynasty himself, which was featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Other recent engagements include hall debuts at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in a concert curated by John Adams, the Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall as a featured artist in the International Music Foundation’s Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, and the Benjamin Franklin Hall with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Additionally, he made his international debut at the Barbican Centre in London while in residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

Career highlights include an invitation to perform George Walker’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in a private engagement at the distinguished composer’s home. In a project profiled by The New York Times, he also performed in Bowerbird Philly’s ongoing series highlighting the works of Julius Eastman.

Battles studies with concert pianist Leon Bates and Eve Wolf, pianist, and Executive Artistic Director of Ensemble for the Romantic Century. He also studied counterpoint and harmony and analysis with Jonathan Coopersmith, Chair of Musical Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music. A native of Philadelphia, Dynasty received a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, cum laude from Temple University, under the instruction of Harvey Wedeen as a recipient of the Esther Boyer College Scholarship.

dynastybattles.com

David Hughes is a Philadelphia-based pianist with a wide-ranging repertoire that places a special emphasis on modern and lesser-known works, as well as chamber music. Hughes has performed at the Kennedy Center, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw and the Spanish Embassy in Washington, DC. He has been featured on Philadelphia’s WRTI radio station in an hour-long segment of solo repertoire, and can also be heard playing four different keyboard instruments on John Zorn’s violin concerto, “Contes de Fées,” on the Tzadik label. Mr. Hughes has a strong interest in contemporary music and received third prize in the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition—one of the world’s premier competitions for modern music—as a member of Outer Banks Duo with saxophonist Stacy Wilson. This was followed by the release of their debut CD, L’Incandescence. He regularly works with instrumentalists at the Curtis Institute of Music and has appeared on Curtis’ student recital series. He is also a past recipient of a fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center, a prizewinner in the MTNA National Chamber Music Competition, and holds a doctoral degree in piano performance from Indiana University.

Alize Francheska Rozsnyai, soprano and graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music “displaying profound imagination and control” (Philadelphia Inquirer), is building a diverse and exciting performance career as a classical soprano with a “superb voice” (Harrogate News) which is “sparkling” (ArtBlog), all while serving up “deliciously diva performances” (I CARE IF YOU LISTEN). This season she appears with St. Petersburg Opera as an Emerging Artist and cover for Morgana in Handel’s Alcina, Minerva and Cookie in the World Premiere of Five Ways to Die with Experiments in Opera NYC, and makes her role debut as Frasquita in Carmen with Boheme Opera NJ. Recent performances include Serpina in La Serva Padrona with Hub City Opera, Katherine Hutchinson in Silk City with Garden State Opera, and Rivka in the world premiere of Part I of Misha Dutka’s Liebovar with Opera Boheme New Jersey. Recently, Alize portrayed Zina in Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters with Opera Fayetteville, Soloist in Beth Morrison Projects’ Next Gen Concert with Contemporaneous Ensemble at National Sawdust, Morgana in Alcina REVAMPED with Alter Ego Chamber Opera, and Phyllis in Iolanthe at the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Harrogate, England. Alize has performed with Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Den Nye Opera in Bergen, Norway, Opera Philadelphia, San Diego Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Seattle Symphony [Untitled 3] Series, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Opera Fayetteville, Center for Contemporary Opera, The Cape Cod Symphony, and favorite role credits include Adina (l’elisir d’amore), Susanna (le Nozze di Figaro), Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Eurydice (Orphée aux Enfers), Königin der Nacht (Die Zauberflöte), Thérèse (Les Mamelles des Tirésias), Hilda (Elegy for Young Lovers-Henze), and Ilia (Idomeneo). Alize is also an accomplished librettist and is has had several works performed with companies including Experiments in Opera, Hub City Opera, ENA Ensemble, and the University of Connecticut.

Founded in 2016, the Arcana New Music Ensemble is a group of Philadelphia-based musicians dedicated to presenting interesting, beautiful, and unconventional music in interesting, beautiful, and unconventional places. Built on a flexible roster of 25 musicians, Arcana is able to perform a broad range of repertoire in numerous configurations. Composers featured in recent programs include Julius Eastman, Morton Feldman, Galina Ustvolskaya, Pauline Oliveros, Tom Johnson, Moondog, and James Tenney. Arcana has performed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fleisher Art Memorial, The Rotunda, The Kitchen (NYC), and collaborated with Variant Six, Prometheus Chamber Orchestra, and Pig Iron Theater Company.

Support for this program provided by the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia