Kirk O’Riordan, saxophone
Holly Roadfeldt, piano
Sunday, April 21, 2024
3:00 pm
Williams Center for the Arts
Program
Robert Muczynski (1929 – 2010)
Sonata op. 29 (1972)
I. Andante maestoso
II. Allegro energico
Duration: ca. 9 min.
Notes
Robert Muczynski’s Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano has been a staple of our repertoire since its composition in 1971. Its relatively short duration, two-movement structure, and charismatic melodies make the piece a terrific introduction to the serious literature of the saxophone while providing interpretive and technical challenges that inspire repeated performances. It is probably safe to say that every serious classical saxophonist has encountered this piece at some point.
Holly and I have performed this work many times ourselves. As it is in this program, we often use it as an opener because of its engaging aesthetic qualities: the longing lyricism of the first movement, and the energetic, dancing rhythms of the second. Written equally well for both instruments, this sonata is particularly adept at introducing audiences which may not be familiar with the “classical” saxophone to the instrument’s unlimited expressive potential.
Kirk O’Riordan (b. 1968)
Sonata (2019)
I. Dramatic, with motion
II. Solemn, prayerful (in memoriam Frederick L. Hemke)
III. Lyrically, with longing
Duration: ca. 18 min.
Notes
The Sonata was composed for a consortium of saxophonists—student and professional—from across the United States. It was begun in February, 2019 and completed the following June.
There are no intentional explicit programmatic references in the music. That said, about the time I was completing the second movement, I got word that one of my most influential teachers, Dr. Frederick L. Hemke, had passed away. I didn’t begin work on the movement thinking it would become an elegy to my teacher, but I felt the music represents much of what I learned from him and I reshaped the existing music accordingly.
The third movement begins with something of a melancholy waltz that becomes more agitated as the movement progresses, culminating in a brief cadenza for the saxophone. The opening movement is a bit more dramatic and cerebral, paying homage to Copland and Barber, two composers I wish had written major works for the saxophone.
I would very much like to thank the consortium for their support of this piece.
David Maslanka (1929 – 2017)
Sonata (1988)
I. Moderate
II. Very expressive
III. Very fast
Duration: ca. 32 min.
Notes
My Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano is in three movements (Moderate, Slow, Fast), a formal plan which I tend to favor. This
formal scheme represents one of my ongoing compositional characters. My way of composing, which is essentially tonal, thematic,
and developmental, has pushed me toward this personal adaptation of the old sonata form.
The opening movement of the Sonata has three themes – two very similar ones, both in A minor, and one in C major. The development
takes up elements of the first theme. The recapitulation is of the third theme only. and the coda recalls theme two. The attitude of the movement is reflective, with sudden eruptions of boiling energy. The second movement is a broad soliloquy with an opening that has the feel of an accompanied recitative. The second section is an intricate evolution of theme one from the first movement. and the third section is a shortened restatement of the opening. I feel a strong influence in the movement of the harmonies and expressive quality of certain madrigals by Gesualdo.
The third movement owes a tip of the hat to Allan Pettersson’s Symphony No. 12: The Dead in the Marketplace (after the poem by
Pablo Neruda). I was riveted by the fierce energy of Pettersson’s music and its insistence on C minor over great stretches of time.
My third movement is a huge rondo form – abaca and coda. The opening section is crunching, flying C minor music. The second
section is mournful and the third is a playful C major variation of the opening material. The C section is a dense, turbulent aria. The recapitulation is literal until it releases rather suddenly into an ethereal coda. This movement evokes a feeling of struggle and ultimate resignation.
–David Maslanka (1988)
Forward to the score by saxophonist Steven Jordheim
Commissioned by the North American Saxophone Alliance and composed in 1988, David Maslanka’s Sonata for Alto Saxophone
and Piano gives to the concert repertoire of the saxophone a monumental, riveting work that both rewards its performers and
deeply affects audiences. At the time, he was living in Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood of Manhattan. Inwood Hill
Park, which runs along the Hudson River, contains pronounced ridges, caves, and valleys. As Maslanka walked the park, contemplating
the creation of this piece, he encountered a beast in his meditation. His first reaction was to run away, but in subsequent encounters he confronted it. Ultimately the beast devoured him. The work’s unironic tonal language, traditional three-movement structure, and dramatic interplay between saxophone and piano make it intensely accessible to all. Hearing the work at its 1989 premiere, I knew that the Sonata would become an important piece in Maslanka’s oeuvre. Its music engages and moves audiences deeply, and indeed the Sonata has become a frequently performed and recorded work.
No other piece that I’ve played demanded as much of me as a performer technically, expressively, physically, or emotionally. To deliver the Sonata as Maslanka intended, “on the edge,” required all that I could bring to the occasion. I’ve never prepared harder to perform any piece of music and never felt more rewarded for my efforts. Nor has any other piece that I’ve played elicited a stronger or more enthusiastic response from audiences. At my first performance of it, one audience member said that no piece of music had moved her more. She felt that it conveyed the whole of human experience. In it, you will find contemplation, tranquility, playfulness, struggle, terror, and resignation.
Since performing the Sonata for Albany Records in 2000, I’ve coached numerous students for their own performances of the work. Young saxophonists today generally find its technical demands less intimidating than those who performed it shortly after its premiere, but the expressive and physical demands of the piece nevertheless challenge all who brave it. I have yet to encounter students who didn’t view their preparation for and performances of the Sonata as transformative experiences in their professional and artistic development.
Some 30 years have passed since I met David Maslanka and first performed the piece, but correspondence, conversations, and memories of coaching sessions with him will remain with me always. He had a spirituality and temperament committed to sharing, through music, an expression of intense experience and beauty. As he himself described it, there is “this thing in me that wants to be spoken. What I’ve discovered about myself over the years is that there is a tremendously passionate soul at work.” He demanded that players of his music bring their complete artistry to their performances, expressing the sentiment this way: “Your whole system has to open up and allow the music to move through you with full power.”
The Sonata explores the complete sonic capacities of the saxophone, drawing on the instrument’s lyrical qualities and its timbral possibilities, to evoke an extensive range of emotions. In his liner notes for the Albany recording, Maslanka describes the work as a “large, passionate, and sometimes ferocious piece.” Its 32-minute duration, his vivid markings in the score – “with all possible force,” “mournfully,” “a wild braying – brassy, frightening” – and the relentless drive of musical lines often delivered at blazing speed reinforce his description. A successful performance of the Sonata demands of its performers full commitment to the expressive qualities of the writing as well as mastery of the score’s technical demands.
In “Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano – Some Thoughts on Performance,” (available on davidmaslanka.com), Maslanka discusses
his writing for the saxophone and the relationship between the saxophone and piano.
A lot of work has been done over many years to evolve a controlled and “beautiful” saxophone tone. There is a need for
this kind of tone in my music, but there is also the push to the extreme. I am drawn to saxophones because of their wide-ranging
vocal quality, which feels like a real extension of the human voice. Saxophone sound can break the heart with its softness
and tenderness and completely overwhelm with its power. “Beauty” cannot be confined to a narrow box labeled “beautiful.”
Beauty is in the rightness of the musical moment, and that rightness can be a piercing cry at fff.
I think the strong appealing element of the Sonata is that it feels like an intimate journey and story for two people. There is a very close relationship between the saxophone and the piano. The piano does support the soloist in the traditional sense but also leads and pushes. Intimacy is the key word, but that doesn’t mean just soft and sweet. It encompasses the full range of dialogue and emotions between two people. When this is established between two players, the audience is immediately drawn in.
Biographies
Holly Roadfeldt, piano
Few musicians balance the new opposite the old quite like American pianist Holly Roadfeldt. Recently deemed a “perfect pairing of technical prowess and innate sensitivity” (American Record Guide), Roadfeldt has established herself as one of contemporary music’s most prolific ambassadors—to date, she has made over 150 world premieres by more than four dozen composers. Recognized by audiences and critics for both her technical facility and distinctive interpretation of music from all eras, Roadfeldt has appeared on stages and venues across Canada, Europe, Asia, and over 30 U.S. states.
Roadfeldt tirelessly searches for like-minded composers who share her obsession with creating opportunities for listeners to relate to the music they hear. Best demonstrating this ethos is her three-year artistic flagship, “The Preludes Project,” which saw Holly premiere 65 new preludes by 16 composers. In touring the concept across 17 states, her lecture-recitals connected the present and the past, pairing the newly composed preludes with curated works within the standard repertoire. The concept drew rave reviews and attention across the industry, leading to Holly’s debut album, a collaboration with multi-GRAMMY® award winning producer Andreas Meyer. The Preludes Project CD (2016) released on PARMA Recordings, pairing Chopin’s Op. 28 Preludes with composer Kirk O’Riordan’s Twenty-Six Preludes for Solo Piano (2014). The album complements her numerous PARMA album collaborations with composers, including Mara Gibson’s Sky-Born (2017), and two other albums with O’Riordan: Strange Flowers (2013) and the recent release of Autumn Winds (2020), her second collaboration with Andreas Meyer.
Music critics across the United States, Canada, Italy, U.K., and Spain have taken notice, including American Record Guide, whose Autumn Winds review simply remarked that “Holly Roadfeldt is on fire.” Gramophone’s Donald Rosenberg praised her as “a vivid pianist” with “beautiful playing”, while for The Preludes Project CD, she received accolades from World Music Report for an “utterly convincing, breathtaking sense of elation” with “a varied touch that perfectly matches the mood of each piece.” Sonograma deemed the album worthy of “all of our highest praise,” joining other colorful superlatives like “jaw-dropping” (Mainly Piano) and “exquisite” (Cinemusical).
Known for premiering an eclectic array of exciting music, much of Roadfeldt’s recent pedagogical and artistic philosophy can be credited to Lisa, a 13-year old student who wondered why she “was only studying music written by men.” Driven to make that lesson the last time she heard that question, Holly has since prioritized including composers across the gender spectrum in her pedagogy. As a performer, composers she has commissioned span a number of the field’s most innovative voices, including Rasa Daukus, Mara Gibson, Michelle McQuade Dewhirst, Kala Pierson, Jessica Rudman, Julia Seeholzer, Stephanie Ann Boyd, and many others. With Lisa in mind, Roadfeldt hopes to encourage young female students to walk fearlessly down the road of self-expression and creativity.
Now a veteran of collaborating during the composition process, Holly pays her experience forward in masterclasses across the United States, teaching effective piano writing to university level composers. Her recurring lecture series “Classical Café” and “Classical Conversations” intersects Roadfeldt’s equal comfort with both performing and relating music to audiences. Taking place since 2017, each event explores themes like darkness, virtuosity, and even Bob Dylan, showing their direct influence on iconic repertoire throughout history using live musical examples.
Holly has taken the stage in myriad contexts and remains in high demand as a performer. Among her fondest memories are her performances of Chopin’s complete catalog of Preludes with revered Montréal-based dance troupe Compagnie Marie Chouinard. As a chamber musician, Holly has performed with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Frankfurt Opera, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Brussels Philharmonic as well as with concert artists Alexa Still, Bonita Boyd, and Marcia Baldwin.
Holly’s first professional performance came at 13 years old, performing with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Her fire in pursuing contemporary music ignited at the Eastman School of Music, where she was first able to collaborate with composers—Roadfeldt would go on to win First Prize in the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition in its Contemporary Music category.
Holly is currently the Director of Keyboard Studies at Lafayette College. Previously, she taught at the University of Delaware, Susquehanna University, Muhlenberg College, Gettysburg College, the University of Colorado-Boulder, Indiana University, and was Artist Faculty with Distinction at The Music School of Delaware.
Kirk O’Riordan, saxophone
Kirk O’Riordan’s music has been referred to as “unapologetically beautiful” and is often praised for its uniquely “visual” qualities that depict a wide range of striking moods. His debut compact disk, Strange Flowers, was released by Ravello Records in November, 2013 and was praised by Audiophile Audition as “one of the most impressive and beautiful collections of chamber music I have heard in awhile….This is all just so lovely and invokes exactly the emotions that good music should be able to induce in all of us.” Gramophone Magazine praised O’Riordan as “a composer for whom imagery is a defining inspiration….[he] is a deeply sensitive composer who savours going gently into the night.” (April 2014).
His recording of his Twenty-Six Preludes for Solo Piano—by pianist Holly Roadfeldt—has attracted similar praise: “are similarly atmospheric and proceed to unfold like a magical tapestry. Each of the 26 Preludes seemingly comprising of warp and weft forming a myriad of pixels of little pictures that ultimately combines to form a moveable feast for both eye and inner ear. O’Riordan’s miniatures are informed by languorous beauty and profundity, the lyrical variations of each often feature elaborate embellishments, as well as sudden dissonant figurations that seem to mimic the gravity-defying leaps of the gazelle…” (World Music Report, April 2017).
O’Riordan (b. 1968) is an active composer, conductor, saxophonist, and teacher. His music has been performed in Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Finland, Italy, and Russia; and in thirty of the fifty United States. Performances of his works have been featured at the Ravenna Festival (Italy), the Indiana State University, University of North Carolina, Greensboro and Western Illinois New Music Festivals, the 2008 Eugene Rousseau Birthday Celebration, national and regional conferences of the Society of Composers, Inc. and the College Music Society; and in concert by such performers as the Eaken Piano Trio, Tresillo, The Moran Woodwind Quintet, Orchestra Bruno Maderna (Italy), the Arizona State University Chamber Winds and Symphony Orchestra, the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Cleveland State University Orchestra, the University of Colorado Chamber Wind Ensemble, the University of Delaware University Singers, the Williamsport Chamber Chorus and Orchestra, the Susquehanna University Orchestra and Chamber Singers, The Lafayette College Concert Band, Contemporary Music Ensemble, and Percussion Ensemble, the SKIN Ensemble, Frederick Hemke, Timothy McAllister, Lawrence Stomberg, Marianne Gythfeldt, Kenneth Tse, Jeffrey Lyman, Emily Bullock, Steven Stusek, Andrew Rammon, Reuben Councill, John Perrine, and Holly Roadfeldt.
Kirk is the recipient of numerous awards as both a composer and a performer, including annual ASCAPlus awards, a Composer’s Assistance Program grant from the American Music Center, the 2001 Arizona State University Composition Competition, the 2000 Contemporary Music Society competition, and an ERM-Media Masterworks Prize. In addition, his Cadenza for Piano Trio was one of two works selected by audience members at the CMS Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Super-regional Conference for performance at the 2008 CMS National Conference.
Kirk’s music has been broadcast on WSMR, KBAQ, WQSU, and WVIA radio. Recordings of his works appear on the Crystal Records, Ravello, Centaur, ERM-Media and EnF labels, and feature performances by Kenneth Tse, Lawrence Stomberg, Marianne Gythfeldt, Holly Roadfeldt, Frederick L. Hemke, The Kiev Philharmonic, and Farrell Vernon. He has recently received commissions from AVIDduo, Saxton Rose, and Holly Roadfeldt. He recently completed his first opera: The Masque of Edgar Allan Poe, a one-act chamber opera based on Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” on a libretto by Lafayette College colleague Lee Upton. The work was premiered by the University of Delaware Opera Theater in November, 2016 and subsequently at Lafayette College. Other projects have focused on music for dance: his River Lights for Orchestra (as recorded by the Kiev Philharmonic) was used by dancer/choreographer Ben Munisteri in his piece, Robot vs. Mermaid. O’Riordan has also collaborated with dancer/choreographers Carrie Rohman and Nandini Sikand. Recent projects include a concerto for Taiko Ensemble and Concert Band (for the Lafayette College Percussion Ensemble and Concert Band), incidental music for a Lafayette College Department of Theater production of Mary Zimmerman’s play Metamorphosis, and a new work for viola and piano for violist Michael Hall and pianist Holly Roadfeldt.
Dr. O’Riordan joined the faculty of Lafayette College in 2009, and now serves as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands, teaching courses in music theory, and composition. In addition, he teaches in the First-year Seminar program and conducts the Lafayette College Concert Band and Contemporary Music Ensemble. During his time at Lafayette, the Concert Band has been hailed for its ambitious and adventurous programming, having performed works such as Husa’s Music for Prague 1968, his own orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition, and world premieres by O’Riordan, Ashley Kushner, Justin Kogasaka, Zach Jones, Pete Deshler, and William Pfaff. Previously, he served on the faculties of Bucknell University and Susquehanna University where he taught music theory, composition, music appreciation, and (English) writing. He has also served on the faculties of Lock Haven University, Colorado Christian University, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, and Paradise Valley Community College. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Arizona State University (the first recipient of that degree from ASU); the Certificate of Performance in Saxophone from Northwestern University; and three Master of Music degrees (composition, saxophone performance, and conducting).
Kirk has studied composition with Rodney Rogers, Randall Shinn, James De Mars, Glenn Hackbarth, Jay Alan Yim, Burton Beerman, Marilyn Shrude, and Donald M. Wilson. He has studied saxophone with Frederick L. Hemke, John Sampen, Eugene Rousseau, and Iwan Roth. In his free time, Kirk is an avid fan of Obstacle Course Racing.