Dances and Meditations

Blended – Terry Carter

Excerpts from “Armenian Miniatures” – V. Komitas (1869-1935), arr. Aslamazyan
1. Dear Shogher
2. She is Slender Like a Plane Tree
3. Oh Nazan
4. Festive Song

Excerpts from “Teen Murti” – Reena Esmail (b. 1983)

Mother and Child – William Grant Still (1895-1978)
Helena Froehlich

Kitchen Table – Terry Carter & Jonathan Fagan

Intermission

Blended – Terry Carter & Jonathan Fagan

Suite Argentina No. 1: Hueya – Alberto Williams (1862-1952)

Flower Communion – Music: Adoration – Florence Price (1887-1953)
Helena Froehlich & CreationDance

Legacy (poetry by Terry Carter, music by Jonathan Fagan)
Hard By the Mystic (poetry by Terry Carter, music by Jonathan Fagan)
Beloved Country (poetry by Terry Carter, music by Jonathan Fagan)
Neighborhood – Terry Carter & Jonathan Fagan

Performers:

The Ally Project
Terry Carter, poetry & narration
Jonathan Fagan, piano & composition
Gordon Engelgau, drums
Max Ridley, bass

CreationDance
Helena Froehlich
Lynn Menegon
Ashley Reynolds
Edward Keazirian
Annie Farrell

Orchestra Without Borders
Luca Antonucci, conductor
violin 1: Peter Paetkau*, Matthew Lamb, Katianna Nardone, Jen Hsiao
violin 2: Jackie Bensen, Eya Setsu, Hope Yuan
viola: Stephen Moss, Rebecca Strauss
cello: Taylor Stobinski
bass: Chris Hernandez, Max Ridley

Borderlines east – west

Orchestra Without Borders

Luca Antonucci, conductor

PROGRAM

Medley of Afghan Songs – Arson Fahim
Nafahat Hijaz – Mahdi al-Mahdi
Hannah Shanefield, soprano

Caravan – Juan Tizol

Four Afro-Cuban Poems – Odaline de la Martinez

Pathos Mio – Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen, saxophone
Jonathan Fagan, piano

– Intermission –

Fantasia in the Chiesa
Jonathan Fagan, piano

Sonata da Chiesa – Adolphus Hailstork
Exultate
O Magnum Mysterium
Adoro
Jubilate
Agnus Dei
Dona Nobis Pacem
Exultate (reprise)

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Medley of Afghan Songs: Originally written for chamber ensemble and transcribed for strings, the Medley of Afghan Songs introduces Western audiences to several popular Afghan melodies, many of which were composed or popularized by Abdul Rahim Sarban (1930-1993), a key figure in Afghan musical history known simply as Sarban. Sarban’s music combined aspects of traditional Afghan music with musical elements from jazz and French popular music from the middle of the 20th century. Several of the melodies in this collection share a lilting waltz-like quality with the golden age songs of the French “belle chanson” tradition. 

They are, in order, Baz Ba Golshan (Come back to the beautiful garden), Ay Sarban (Oh, camel-driver), Ay Shakh Gul (Oh, flowering branch), En Gham Be Haya (Audacious sorrow), and Shad Kon Jan Man (“Give me a little bit of happiness”). (Luca Antonucci) 

Arson Fahim is a pianist, composer and conductor from Afghanistan. In 2021, only two weeks before the Taliban took control and once again banned music, Arson arrived in the US and started his studies at the Longy School of Music where he was awarded a scholarship. Arson believes in the power of music to bring social change and considers music a vital weapon against fundamentalists and radicals who try to silence it. His music is inspired by the tragedies in Afghanistan and beyond. His compositions are a way for him to protest and raise his voice for justice through music. Arson hopes to help young, underprivileged Afghans discover music and help them change their lives through learning music.

Nafahat Hijaz (‘Hijaz’ Wafts): As the title suggests, Hijaz Wafts illustrates the gentle breeze accompanying the Arabic maqqam (mode) Hijaz, named after the Hijaz region in the Arabian Peninsula. Inspired by the pleasant gentle breeze, cooling the bodies and soothing the souls in the flaming atmosphere, this tune flows like a soft wind and varies in speed through its different tempos, Adagio and Allegro. This mode is packed with emotions as it displays sorrow and longing. It has long been chosen by musicians to compose melodies for poems about lovers’ yearning for each other. When performed by a soloist, the Hijaz mode can produce these emotions of longing and yearning, embedded in the nature of the authentic scale that has shone brightly among Arabic and oriental scales. (Mahdi Al-Mahdi) 

Born in Damascus, Mahdi AlMahdi is a violinist, violist, composer, music arranger and orchestra conductor known for his work on Baroque and Classical music as well as Arabic traditional music. 

Caravan is a jazz composition by Juan Tizol, a prominent trombonist in Duke Ellington’s band during their residency at Harlem’s Cotton Club. The melody of Caravan lies in the same Hijaz mode as the theme in Nafahat Hijaz, but the harmonies underneath are rooted in the big-band style. Meant to evoke an exotic sound that would captivate the primarily white audience, Caravan is still a core composition in the standard Jazz canon. (Jonathan Fagan)

Four Afro Cuban Poems is based on four poems taken from Nicolas Guillen’s Motivos de Son (1930.) The work was strongly influenced by his meeting that year with the African American poet Langston Hughes. Motivos de son is written in Afro-Cuban dialect, and most of the poems deal with relationships between men and women.

Búcate Plata is sassy and with an attitude. “Búcate plata,” (go find money,) a woman tells her lover – she has nothing to eat and is down to rice and crackers. She tells him that if things don’t get better, she’s leaving. Her man has new shoes and a beautiful watch. No way!

Tú No Sabe Inglé: A woman playfully teases Victor Manuel about his English; an American woman is looking for him, but despite his preening, he can’t even say “yes;” his English is down to “strike one” and “one, two, three.” She warns him not to fall in love with the American woman, because he doesn’t speak English.

Sigue is a short poem where a man warns another to keep walking, not to stop and talk to a certain woman. “She’s no good, no good”.

Mi Chiquita: Mi Chiquita means “my little woman.” It’s joyful and looks at the Afro Cuban Culture from a 1930s-man point of view. “My little woman is so wonderful I wouldn’t trade her for another one. She does the laundry, irons, sews and How she cooks!! When they invite her to dance or to dinner, she always comes to get me. She calls me Mi Santo (my saint). I’ll never leave you, she says. Come and get me so we can enjoy each other.” (Odaline de la Martinez)

Nicolás Guillén (10 July 1903 – 17 July 1989) was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer who is considered by many to be the “national poet” of Cuba. Born in Camagüey, he studied law at the University of Havana, but abandoned a legal career to work as a poet and journalist. Guillén is probably the best-known representative of the “poesía negra” (“black poetry”), which tried to create a synthesis between black and white cultural elements. It was not until the 1930s that Guillén’s poetry was acknowledged by many critics as the most influential of those Latin American poets who dealt with African themes and re-created African song and dance rhythms in literary form. Guillen made his mark internationally with the publication of his first collection, Motivos de son (1930). It was inspired by the living conditions of Afro-Cubans and popular son music. The work consists of eight short poems using the everyday language of the Afro Cubans. (Notes from the publisher)

Pathos Mio is a recent composition by saxophonist Michael Rosen, who frequently blends jazz, classical and folk influences in both his playing and writing. Inspired by the mood of the Greek phrase “my pathos,” this tune features lilting melodies over slowly descending bass lines. (Jonathan Fagan)

Fantasia in the Chiesa is Jonathan Fagan’s reharmonization of one of the themes from Hailstork’s Sonata da Chiesa. With a few alternative chords and a folk-like rhythmic accompaniment, the melody takes a contemporary jazz aesthetic while retaining the grounded quality of the original. (Jonathan Fagan)

Sonata da Chiesa

Adolphus Hailstork was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up in Albany, singing in his youth in the choir of the Episcopalian cathedral, which became a formative experience. He was one of the many American students of the legendary Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, in 1963, and would eventually get his doctorate from Michigan State University. He also studied composition with David Diamond and Vittorio Giannini. Hailstork’s first big break came while he was teaching at Youngstown State University in Ohio: his Celebration!, commissioned in anticipation of the American Bicentennial, was conducted by Paul Freeman in 1975 at the Black Music Symposium in Minneapolis. The piece was a success and led to further performances and commissions. Hailstork went on to teach at Norfolk State University, and, beginning in 2000, at Old Dominion University in the Tidewater, Virginia, area, where he was also choral director at the Unitarian Church of Norfolk.

As a composer Hailstork is postmodern, pluralistic, and above all pragmatic. He has written much for orchestra, also for amateur choruses, and a surprisingly large amount of organ music. Much of his music refers to spirituals and African American subject matter, but not exclusively. His style is fluid, ranging from a boisterous modernism to a delicate atonality, to devoutly reverent tonal counterpoint. Sonata da Chiesa illustrates mostly the last mode. The 17th-century term “sonata da chiesa” denoted instrumental chamber music suitable for religious meditation; Hailstork has expanded on the concept to give us an orchestral analogue to a choral Mass. The piece’s seven sections, played without pause, have titles taken from liturgical music: Exultate, O Magnum Mysterium, Adoro, Jubilate, Agnus Dei, Dona Nobis Pacem, Exultate (reprise). The Exultate is a vigorous chorale verging on ecstasy. O Magnum Mysterium is in quieter counterpoint, quite chromatic, yet without abandoning a sense of tonality. Adoro is like a slow dance, with an insistent melody introduced in the viola solo, and in fact the entire work gains color from frequent solos for the first-chair players. The Jubilate is more energetic and highly syncopated with changing meters. The Agnus Dei, the emotional center of the work, is a soft chorale in a minor key, limned by gestures of melodic filigree. Dona Nobis Pacem, a chantlike chorale often in 5/4 meter, gradually crescendos to a final statement of the opening Exultate. (Kyle Gann, The Orchestra Now)

To our friends in Zambia,

We at Communities Without Borders were greatly saddened to hear of the death of Kenneth Kaunda.

As you begin a period of mourning for him in Zambia, we also remember that this man was instrumental in Zambia’s independence and its identity as an important country. He was a force for equal rights and democracy in Africa.

In 2002, our founding president, Richard Bail, and I were honored to meet with Mr. Kaunda in his office at Boston University. He was the first Balfour President-in-Residence. During our visit, we described our love for the Zambian people and our dedication to supporting education for Zambia’s most at-risk children.

We have heard from some of you that Mr. Kaunda’s “one country, one Zambia” theme has been embedded in Zambia’s culture, and that it accounts for the continuing peaceful transfer of power after each national election.

Mr. Kaunda is being heralded internationally for his work to help other African countries become more democratic, and we think that his legacy is especially important for keeping Zambia peaceful and unified.

The Communities Without Borders board of directors respects his legacy during this time of mourning.

Peter Smith, President
Communities Without Borders