My Senior Recital

SATURDAY, MARCH 5th, 2011


Yes . . . . I finally am posting it.  The videos of my Senior Recital.  Before my Senior Recital happened I took some time to make what I thought were really cool posters.  Here is what they looked like:

I feel like this flier drew a decent crowd to my recital.  I would guess I had about 100 people there.  Of course some of you couldn't be there. and since my Senior Recital is one of the biggest highlights of my years as a violinist,  I want you to feel like you were there.  Therefore . . . .I'm including the program notes of my recital with the videos.  I hope you enjoy the program.

I like to label this recital as a Journey through the Eras of Music, because the composers included composed in the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20^th Century Eras.  As you experience this music, I hope that you can grow to appreciate these key eras of music that are the staples in our music history.

Bach’s 1^st Sonata in G Minor for Solo Violin: Adagio and Fugue

Johann Sebastian Bach was a key composer in the Baroque era (app. 1600-1750).  In my opinion one of his greatest achievements was composing three sonatas for solo violin.  At the time they were composed, these sonatas were for church services.  In an LDS sacrament meeting, this type of music could be labeled as innapropriate, which is why a violinist would play them today in a concert setting.  In terms of sound, two words I would use to describe the movements I am playing tonight are “Dissonant Moods.”  Throughout both of these movements, Bach just keeps emphasizing the dark quality of the music.  It just gets darker and darker.  Another thing to be noted is that in that time period it was common for instrumentalists and singers to at least have a basso continuo accompaniment (an instrument that played the bass line).  In this case, Bach was able to incorporate the bass line into the violin part, which sounds cool, but makes the music very challenging.  Of course, Bach never made it easy for the instrumentalists he wrote for.  He was known to write music that sounded cool, but was not idiomatic for the instrument he composed.  

I. Adagio

Bach starts this movement with a big G minor chord that immediately sets the mood for the piece.  Following that chord the violin wanders between dissonant chords until it ends on the same chord it started out on.  But . . . I don’t think the beauty of this piece is found in just the chords, but in the melismas between the chords.  In Baroque music, melismas referred to the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession.  The melismas of this movement connect the chords together into an artistic masterpiece.

II. Fugue

In music, a fugue is a contrapuntal composition in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition.  In the three sonatas that Bach wrote for solo violin, there is a fugue in each one.  It could be argued that this is the hardest of the three fugues.  The reason it is so difficult is that the violin plays a total of four voices throughout the fugue meaning that it has to constantly play multiple notes at once.  It could described as a memorization nightmare, but the ending product could be described as “breathtaking.”  During this work, listen for the multiple voices and how Bach effectively moves between them.

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in C Minor for Violin and Piano

Ludwig van Beethoven was a monumental composer in music history.  He was a crucial figure in the transition from the Classical Era of Mozart and Haydn to the Romantic Era.  In his early period, his music had a more similar sound to Mozart’s style referred to as a the gallant style where the music is well-structured with a variety of motives, distinct musical phrases, varied dynamics and so forth.  Towards the end of his early period, though, Beethoven started to be more adventurous.  He still had a form to his pieces, but the characters and distinctions started to become blurred.  Basically, he loved to go against the expectations of his audience.  On top of that, in 1802, Beethoven was fully aware that he had lost his hearing.  In reaction to this problem he said, “I almost reached the point of putting an end to my life--only art it was that held me back, ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt called upon to produce, and so I endured this wretched existence.”  Around that time, he composed this violin sonata, which is just full of  Stormy Surprises ,which could well represent the frustrations he was experiencing.

I. Allegro con brio

This movement is just filled with stormy surprises.  It starts out with the sinister primary theme of the piece played by the piano which is then repeated by the violin with the piano doing a dark stormy accompaniment.  This primary theme goes for a while with dramatic changes in dynamics, but when the secondary theme arrives it is light and happy adding a huge contrast to the primary theme.  The whole movement is filled with these mood swings, but ends in a stormy rant that leaves you almost out of breath.

II. Adagio cantabile

To give the performer and audience a little bit of a breather, this movement starts with a beautiful, longing melody that fills unhurried. . . but Beethoven once again throws in surprises.  Throughout the movement, look for those surprises and you’ll notice the vast array of dynamic changes that he throws in.

III. Scherzo; Allegro

A scherzo means joke, which helps characterize the mood of this movement.  It’s light and frivolous and to stick to classical form, much of the music is repeated to help the audience digest it . . . but once again, Beethoven throws surprises at you.  In the end though, you should feel like dancing.

IV. Finale; Allegro; Presto

After the two middle movements, it might seem right to continue the more happy flare, but Beethoven does the opposite.  He brings back the stormy quality of the first movement full of surprises, quick mood swings, and ends the movement with a driving stormy rant.

Wieniawski’s Romance from his 2^nd Violin Concerto in D Minor

Henryk Wieniawksi was one of the most famous violinists of the nineteenth century.  He was born in Poland and is best known for his two violin concertos.  This movement I’m playing tonight is the second movement of his second violin concerto and is often played independent of the other movements because of how beautiful it is.  It’s beautiful, expressive, dramatic quality displays well the style of the Romanic era.  It is important to note that this composition was originally written for violin solo with orchestral accompaniment, but since I couldn’t fit the whole BYU Philharmonic in the Madsen J, I decided to have a pianist imitate the orchestra part.  I hope you enjoy the Passionate Romantic Lyricism of this music.

Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in D minor, 1^st movement

Now, we end the recital with a switch from the Romanic Era to the 20^th century.  Aram Khachaturian was an Armenian Soviet composer that composed around the time of Prokofiev (the composer who wrote Peter and the Wolf) and Shostakovich.  If you aren’t sure you’ve heard of him, he wrote the famous Sabre Dance that is often used in Looney Tunes cartoons.  When it came to concertos, it is interesting to note that Khachaturian wrote a concerto for each member of renowned Soviet piano trio.  The violinist of this trio was David Oistrakh.  This violin concerto I am playing tonight was dedicated to Oistrakh, who advised Khachaturian in writing the concerto.  Oistrakh even wrote his own cadenza, which is the cadenza I will be playing tonight, which is lengthier and more challenging than Khachaturian’s.  This piece was also written originally written for violin solo with orchestral accompaniment, which will be substituted by piano accompaniment in this performance.  

The words I would use to describe this movement are Rhythmic Exuberance mixed with Mellow Lyricism.  Khachaturian starts out with a very dramatic rhythmic opening, that is contrasted by a beautiful, mellow, lyrical theme.  This juxtaposition continues throughout the movement.  Like many other composers of his time, Khachaturian includes quite a bit of dissonance throughout his music, but balances it out with very tonal lyrical moments.  This makes the music more attractive to an audience.  I have grown to love this concerto and I hope you can enjoy it too!

I really felt overall very happy about the recital, and the violin faculty seemed very happy too.  I'm feeling like I am starting to grasp the violin better now and can see how to make it a career option.

Here are a few pictures from the amazing reception afterwards that my sister Alena along with my Mom and the rest of my family that could be there put together.  Also, Amy Norton and Jason Harrison were huge helps.  It was so amazing.  Thank you to all of you that were such a huge help.

Here is me and my teacher, Alex Woods.  He's been an amazing teacher this past year and I have learned so much from him.

Here is me and my accompanist, Jayne Galloway.  It is really such a blessing to have a pianist as accomplished as her around so that I can play about anything I want.

This is a snapshot of the reception food.  It was to die for.

This is my brother Jonathan with his son, Luke.  He came down with his wife Erica too to support me.  They live here in Utah along with my sister, Alena and her husband, Mike.  I am grateful to have them so close.

Now that the Senior Recital is over, it looks like I'm moving on to grad school audition music.  I'm learning the Sibelius violin concerto, a Paganini caprice, some type of 20th century piece, and I might have to brush up on a Mozart concerto.  So . . . lots of music, but I'm loving it.  I've come to realize that violin will become a huge part of my life. 

BYU Chamber Orchestra China Tour Day 3

Friday, April 29th

I woke up on Friday morning feeling not completely rested and a little bit confused about the time change, but considering the drastic time change I had just experienced this was to be expected.

I headed down to the second floor of the hotel to eat breakfast a little bit apprehensive about the food I was going to eat.  The eating area was a nice atmosphere overlooking the lobby.

 . . . and my breakfast wasn't so bad.  Here is what the plate looked like:

Since this was an international hotel, I'm pretty sure it was a bit Americanized with some Chinese mixed in.  I admit that it was weird eating rice and noodles for breakfast though.

After breakfast got on two buses and headed to Peking University where we were to have our first rehearsal.  On the way there I was able to experience the streets of Beijing.  Here are a few pictures I took:

By the way . . . that is not a cannon, it is a pipe being carried on a little cart.  Don't ask me why.

As you can see, Beijing is a city full of skyscrapers.  There are so many people living there that I don't think I saw a single house anywhere.  All I saw was gigantic apartment buildings.

Another feature of Beijing is the smoggy skies.  Because the vast amount of pollution in the city, smog covers the city making it not very common for one to see blue skies.

After our journey through the streets of Beijing, we arrived at Peking University.

 

Right after we got off the bus we went to go enter the campus.  

 

Well . . . there were security guards at the entrance that wouldn't allow us in for a while, even though we were being expected.

That was something I saw as very common in China . .. security guards at the entrance to everything.

While we were waiting we noticed a Chinese athletic team from the university and they seemed very fascinated with us and boy did the cameras start flashing.

We also entertained ourselves by taking a few pictures to kill time.

From Left to Right: Allie Bartley(violist), Mayu (violinist), and Rachel Ostler(an amazing violinist who is only 18)

Yes . . . . Can you believe it?  I'm in Beijing.

Still bored,

I saw a magazine stand and grabbed a magazine.  I admit, the funny little characters on the page left be a little bit . . .

um . . . how do I say it? .. . 

CONFUSED.

During my trip . . I learned to say thank you and how are you doing in Chinese, but that is about it.

After waiting for quite awhile, we were able to get in Peking University's campus and start walking to the music building.

We ran into some Chinese movie posters and I hope you are as excited as I am to see "The Lost Bladesman."

When we arrived at the music building we saw that it had a large concert hall!  But . .. 

We got the small recital hall.

One of the parts of being at Peking University was collaborating with the orchestra there.  We ended up playing Dvorak's "New World Symphony" with them along with "The Butterfly Lover's Concerto."  On the violin concerto, they had our soloist, Aubrey Woods play the first half while their soloist played the second half.

If you look hard, you will see me at the very back of the first violin section.

After our first rehearsal at Peking University, we ate lunch and headed over to

THE SUMMER PALACE!

Here we are at the entrance.

Here is a bridge that looks over the lake of the summer palace.  In China, a palace usually consists of a variety of buildings.  This palace has a big man-made lake with the dirt from the lake piled up to make a big hill for the buildings of the palace to rest on.

Going up to the palace were a variety of castle-like tunnels like this one above.

Also, along the lake were many of these drooping trees.

Throughout the palace there were many little courtyards with intricate paintings down tunnels such as these.

Before we headed up the little mountain or hill, here is what the scenery was like:

As we headed up to the main part of the palace a nice pathway was paved for tourists to enjoy.

Off the side of the path we found many beautiful sites and adventures.

First of all, we had our first exposure to Chinglish: English translations that are quite entertaining.  Did you know that steps are "hilly roads?"

I always thought it would be cool to fly over rooftops like in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon."  As you can see I almost got my wish.

From Left to Right: Kristina Willey(viola), Ben Gooch(french horn), Caitlin Soffe(violin), Cari Sue Green(violin), Allie Bartley(viola), and Caitlin Johnson(violin)

The view from the top looking down on the lake was beautiful.  Truly, it was a mystical sight.

Many of the walkways reminded me of being on the grounds of a European castle, which I        have definitely experienced.  I saw many in Germany and Austria on my mission, but I    liked the look of this palace with a Chinese style mixed with a European flair.

Here is Kristina Willey presenting the dragons on the eves of the roof.

Oh the Life of a Chinese Model
While we were walking around we saw this chinese girl that kept posing like a model and we couldn't help but join in on the fun.
I know what you're thinking . . . I should forsake the life as a musician and be a model.


Now, here's a quick, random video of part of our experience:

Also, on our little adventure, we discovered
A Stone Ship

So, after this discovery we decided we'd had enough and the girls with me went CRAZY!

As we were heading out of the Summer Palace we came across this lovely building:

Chinglish.  I love it.


After the Summer Palace . .. we hung around the hotel and then got some wonderful sleep. . . . on hard beds.