The Power of Percussion Program Notes

Lisa Pegher, Percussion Soloist
Solo Percussionist Lisa Pegher has been called “the future of percussion” and according to Symphony Magazine, “is blazing a particularly rough, un-trodden trail” in the world of percussion.  Having grown up on a small rural farm in western Pennsylvania, Ms. Pegher began playing the drums at the age of seven and made her debut as a solo percussionist with the Pittsburgh Symphony in her early twenties.  Since then, she has been described by critics as “a brilliant polished performer” and as “the rising star in the percussion world,” and continues to premiere and commission numerous works for solo percussion.

Pegher has appeared as soloist in cities such as Chicago, Tokyo, Eindhoven, Houston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and New York. She was one of only two Americans chosen to perform at the TROMP International Percussion Competition and Festival in the Netherlands and has been a featured artist at the Percussive Arts Society Convention on numerous occasions.

Prior to the launch of her solo career, Ms. Pegher was winner of the Aspen Prize awarded by the Minnesota Orchestra’s WAMSO competition and was a recipient of the William J. Spencer Award fund at Northwestern University.  She was awarded the Vladimir R. Bakaleninkoff Memorial Fund Scholarship and was winner of the Woman’s Advisory Board Music competition and winner of the Duquesne Symphony Concerto Competition at the Mary Pappert School of Music.  Ms. Pegher received the Director’s Prize at the Kingsville International Music Competition in Texas and first place at the Northwestern University Concerto/Aria Competition in Evanston, Illinois.  She is also a recipient of the international YAMAHA Young Performing Artist Award.

Concerto for Percussion
Joseph Schwantner (1943 - )
The Concerto, cast in a three-movement arch-like design, opens with the soloist stationed near the other percussionists.  A collaborative relationship develops between the soloist and her colleagues in an expanded ensemble that also includes the piano and the harp.  The marimba and drums are most prominently featured in this movement.

Throughout the second movement, In Memoriam, a slow, dark-hued elegy, the soloist is placed center stage while the other percussionists remain silent.  The principal ideas appear: a pair of recurrent ringing sonorities played on the vibraphone and an insistent “Heartbeat” motif articulated on the bass drum.  The second movement leads directly into the fast and rhythmic third movement, which begins with an improvisatory section for the soloist. While continuing to improvise, the soloist walks back to the initial performance position of the first movement.  As in that movement, the amplified marimba is again prominently featured.  The final section, drawn from the drum motives of the first movement, proceeds to a high-energy cadenza and conclusion.

Program Note by Joseph Schwantner

Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)
Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theater director and essayist, primarily known for his operas or “music dramas.”  Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his works.  He was the most important composer in Germany during the Romantic period and wrote ten operas, all of which are all performed regularly in opera houses today.  Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and refering to a prophesied war of the gods that brings about the end of the world.  The four dramas are often referred to as The Ring Cycle, Wagner’s Ring, or simply The Ring, and took Wagner more than 25 years to complete. The four operas that constitute the Ring Cycle are Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walkure (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gods).  Ride of the Valkyries is the popular name for the beginning of Die Walkure and is one of Wagner’s best-known pieces.  Siegfried’s Death and Funeral Music is from Gotterdammerung, the last of Wagner’s cycle of the four operas.  Entrance of the Gods from Das Rheingold is the first chapter in the Ring Cycle, introducing the ring and the gods that seek to control it.

March of the Toreadors
Georges Bizet (1838 – 1875)
Georges Bizet was a French composer and pianist of the Romantic era, best known for the opera Carmen, which features March of the Toreadors.  Among the most performed operas in history, Carmen is set in Seville, Spain around 1830, and concerns the eponymous Carmen, a beautiful gypsy with a fiery temper.  Free with her love, she woos the corporal Don Jose, an inexperienced soldier.  Their relationship leads to his rejection of his former love, mutiny against his superior, and his joining a gang of smugglers.  His jealousy when she turns from him to the bullfighter Escamillo leads him to murder Carmen.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)
Giuseppe Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera, and one of the most influential composers of the 19th century.  Transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture, such as La donna è mobile and Zitti, Zitti from Rigoletto, Va, Pensiero (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, Libiamo ne' lieti calici (The Drinking Song) from La traviata, the Anvil Chorus sung by the gypsies from Il trovatore,and Gloria all’Egitto (Glory to Egypt) and the Grand March from Aida. Although his work was sometimes criticized for using a generally diatonic rather than a chromatic musical idiom and having a tendency toward melodrama, Verdi’s masterworks dominate the standard repertoire a century and a half after their composition.

Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly
Giaccomo Puccini (1858 – 1924)
No composer of Italian opera has managed to match Verdi's popularity, perhaps with the exception of Giaccomo Puccini.  His operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madame Butterfly and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire.  Some of his arias, such as Che gelida manina from La bohème, and Nessun dorma from Turandot, have become part of popular culture.  The evocative beauty of the Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly underscores this melody that is both memorable and enduringly popular.