DCYO SPRING CONCERTS

For information on the concerts of the Delaware Valley Young Musicians' Orchestra, please click here.

Program Notes
Program Notes by Catherine Selin and Carmel Yuen

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962)
blue cathedral (1999)

For DCYO's spring 2009 season, Dr. Brad Smith has continued to program works by living composers, starting with Dana Wilson's Shortcut Home in the spring of 2008 and featuring Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral this year. On March 17th our students had the rare opportunity to rehearse the piece with the composer, whose insights proved to be invaluable in terms of interpretation and perspective. A highly engaging and energetic talent, Ms. Higdon has left a lasting impression on these young musicians.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1962, Jennifer Higdon spent her early years in rural Tennessee, where she taught herself how to play the flute and was an active member of her high school marching band. Her earliest music influences stem from the 1960's rock and psychedelia embraced by her counterculture parents. Even today, after years of formal musical training, she says she still listens to music of such diverse genres as folk, rock , jazz and hip-hop, in addition to that of the more vaulted classical realm.

Higdon received her MA in flute performance from Bowling Green State University, where she met a professor who would change the course of her life – renowned composer and conductor Robert Spano. From this point on, her life took on an entirely new direction as her rare talent was recognized and nurtured by Spano.

Her nascent compositional capabilities were further explored and honed at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received an MA and PhD in composition, studying with Philadelphia legends George Crumb and Ned Rorem. She went on to receive her artist diploma from the Curtis Institute, where she currently serves as a member of the composition faculty. Jennifer Higdon has now made Philadelphia her permanent home.

The recipient of numerous awards, she is also highly sought after for commissions by major orchestras, ensembles and performing artists, most notably in recent years for The Singing Rooms, featuring Jennifer Koh, and a violin concerto for Hilary Hahn, which premiered with the Indianapolis Symphony in February of 2009.

Higdon's works are widely performed internationally, with in excess of 200 concerts annually. However, blue cathedral stands out as one of the most programmed orchestral works in the United States, enjoying more than 150 performances since its premiere in 2000.

In short, Jennifer Higdon is a woman who has attracted international notice in a predominantly male-dominated field from an early age, and has arrived at her station in life through a series of uncommon and serendipitous events. We Americans are fortunate to claim one of the major composers of the age as our own.

Higdon's blue cathedral can best be described as a tone poem. She conceived the piece as a chiaroscuro of light and shadow, both mortal and divine, presenting reflections of the soul as it journeys through life and beyond. The music envisions a "glass cathedral in the sky," depicting scenes a celestial traveler might glimpse as he or she floats down the aisle past towering pillars, though shafts of heavenly sunlight that are colored by stained glass windows. These windows are alive with figures that shift through a dialogue of song and spoken word against a backdrop of "otherworldly music." The composer wanted the music to sound "like it was progressing into this constantly open space, feeling more and more celebratory, moving from introverted to extroverted awareness".

The true inspiration for blue cathedral arose from the tragic and early death of Higdon's brother Andrew Blue of melanoma at age 33. The composer created "blue" cathedral as an elegiac shrine wherein she encapsulates the mystery and wonder of our brief terrestrial journey.

Despite all of these lofty dream analogies, the composer has cleverly concealed many symbolic gestures within the structure of the piece. For instance, she advises the audience to listen for a clock that chimes 33 times to correlate with her brother's age. The chiming sounds throughout denote the passage of time, a concept that death tends to bring into sharp focus. The score calls for these chiming sounds to be produced by the use of a "prepared piano," inspired by the late John Cage, which requires small screws to be inserted between strings pairs of certain pitches.

The structural pattern that holds this cathedral together is the evocative interplay between solo flute and clarinet. The flute represents Jennifer, while the clarinet becomes the voice of Andrew Blue, who played the clarinet in his youth.

Some other novel touches include the "sound of stars" by a "very special instrument which makes an appearance at the end of the piece." These soft jingling tones are produced by small Chinese medicine balls that some of the orchestra players gently shake near the end of the piece to produce an ethereal "sound of the stars." The celestial sound is also produced by a set of wineglasses allocated to the brass section, which the players set to vibrating by rubbing a finger around the rim of the glass (think "crystal" blue cathedral). Finally, Higdon has incorporated her birth date (12-31) and that of her brother (7-13) into a very exposed location of the piece. In her 2005 blog she offered to send an autographed CD to the first person to correctly identify these passages.

On a personal note, I feel compelled to share with you the reader my own initiation into the blue cathedral. I was driving through northeast Philadelphia in the spring of 2006 with my radio dial set to WRTI when the most ethereal piece came on the air. I was so mesmerized that I pulled over on North Broad Street and proceeded to listen raptly to the entire piece with pen and paper in hand. I needed to know who had written such a thing! Little did I know that in a few short years my daughter would be performing this very work with DCYO.

–Catherine Selin

(Sources include the following : www.jenniferhigdon.com, www.oberlin.edu, http://pittsburghsymphony.blogs.com, www.andante.com, www.virginiaartsfest.com)

Directions to Upper Darby High School Performing Arts Center
Lansdowne Avenue and School Lane
Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19082

From the West:
Take West Chester Pike east (Route 3). Travel 15 miles and watch for the Kohl’s store in Havertown. Bear right at the next light onto Lansdowne Ave. Follow Lansdowne Ave. past 4 traffic lights. The school will be on the left about 1000 feet past the fourth light. Park in the large lot. The Performing Arts Center is the building with the flagpole and marquee in front of it. Enter at the second light and turn left into the parking lot.

From Center City:
Take Walnut St. west to 63rd St. Turn left. Take the first right onto Marshall Rd. Follow Marshall approx. 2 miles to Lansdowne Ave. Turn right onto Lansdowne. Follow Lansdowne past Prendergast High School, past Delaware County Memorial Hospital. The Performing Arts Center is the building with the flagpole and marquee in front of it. Enter at the second light and turn left into the parking lot.

From Northeast Philadelphia:
Take Route 1 south until it crosses Route 3 (at the U-Haul Rental Center, approx. 5 miles from the Schuylkill). Turn left at the next light (Lansdowne Ave.). Follow Lansdowne Ave. past traffic lights. The school will be on the left about 1000 feet past the third light. Park in the large lot. The Performing Arts Center is the building with the flagpole and marquee in front of it. Enter at the second light and turn left into the parking lot.

From the South:
Take I-95 north to I-476. Follow to Exit #5 Lima/Springfield - US 1(Old exit #3). Go right onto Route 1 North. Follow about 4 miles to Lansdowne Ave. (Kohl’s on the left). Turn right onto Lansdowne Avenue. Follow Lansdowne past 3 traffic lights. The school will be on the left about 1000 feet past the third light. Park in the large lot. The Performing Arts Center is the building with the flagpole and marquee in front of it. Enter at the second light and turn left in the parking lot.

Directions to West Chester University Swope Performing Arts Center
Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre
817 S. High Street
West Chester, Pennsylvania

From the West:
From Route 30 west of Exton follow signs to Route 202 south (exiting at Route 100 South which connects with Route 202). Remain on Route 202 as it bypasses West Chester, exit to the right after the first traffic signal you pass and following sign to West 322 Business, High Street. Follow High Street north approximately ½ mile turning right at sign to Swope Performing Arts Center, parking in the surface lot on the left. Enter the Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre just off the parking lot.

From Center City:
I 76 (Schuylkill Expressway) west to Route 202 south following signs to West Chester.
Remain on Route 202 as it bypasses West Chester, exit to the right after the first traffic signal you pass and following sign to West 322 Business, High Street. Follow High Street north approximately ½ mile turning right at sign to Swope Performing Arts Center, parking in the surface lot on the left. Enter the Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre just off the parking lot.

From Northeast Philadelphia:
Follow Route 1 south to I 76 (Schuylkill Expressway). West on I 76 and exit at Route 202 south following signs to West Chester. Remain on Route 202 as it bypasses West Chester, exit to the right after the first traffic signal you pass and following sign to West 322 Business, High Street. Follow High Street north approximately ½ mile turning right at sign to Swope Performing Arts Center, parking in the surface lot on the left. Enter the Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre just off the parking lot.

From Route 422, King of Prussia and East:
Follow Route 202 south following signs to West Chester. Remain on Route 202 as it bypasses West Chester, exit to the right after the first traffic signal you pass and following sign to West 322 Business, High Street. Follow High Street north approximately ½ mile turning right at sign to Swope Performing Arts Center, parking in the surface lot on the left. Enter the Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre just off the parking lot.

From the South:
Route 202 north from Route 1 toward West Chester continuing to follow sign to 322 Business, High Street (do not follow ramp to right at beginning of West Chester bypass).  
Follow High Street north approximately ½ mile turning right at sign to Swope Performing Arts Center, parking in the surface lot on the left. Enter the Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre just off the parking lot.

From Center of West Chester (Gay and High Streets):
South on High Street 8 blocks past Rosedale Avenue (where there is a traffic light), left at sign to Swope Performing Arts Center, parking in the surface lot on the left. Enter the Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre just off the parking lot.