Berkshire Symphony: "The Americans"

Ronald Feldman, conductor 

Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring (original chamber version written in 1944)

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Ezra Laderman: Viola Concerto (Premiere)

Steven Ansell, viola 

EZRA LADERMAN was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 29, 1924.  He studied composition with Stefan Wolpe, and with Otto Luening and Douglas Moore at Columbia University (MA 1952).  His compositions range from solo instrumental and vocal works to dance, large-scale choral and orchestral music.  His eleven string quartets and his eleven concertos for a variety of instruments are notable contributions to the repertory.  His works for orchestra, including eight symphonies, have been conducted by Lawrence Leighton Smith, Eleazar DeCarvalho, Ricardo Muti, Andre Previn, Alfredo Antonini, Carlo Maria Giulini, Rostropovitch, Eduardo Mata, Cristof Eschenbach, Sergio Commisiona, Ferrucio Scaglia, Thomas K. Sherman, Herbert Bloomstedt, Michael Tilson Thomas, Hugh Wolff, Andre Kostelanetz, Gunter Herbig, Jesse Levine, Sidney Harth, Jose Serebrier, Dennis Russell Davies, Julius Hegyi, Michael Palmer, Margaret Hillis and David Hayes.  He has also written music to the Academy Award winning films “The Eleanor Roosevelt Story” and “Black Fox”.  He has written seven operas and six dramatic oratorios with librettos by Ernest Kinoy, Clair Roskam, Joe Darion, Norman Rosten, and Daniel Hofmann.  His music for dance has been choreographed by Jean Erdman, Anna Sokolov, Jose Limon, John Butler, and Sophie Maslow.

Laderman incorporates a lyrical style into a contemporary context, using tonal material in combination with atonal, polytonal or aleatoric elements, and seeking out unusual formal structures for his music.  Many of his works deal with the transformation of musical material.  Whether it be enigmatic or declarative at the outset, the initial musical structure is intrinsic to all that follows.

Commissions have come from the orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota, National, Louisville, American Composers, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, Denver, New Jersey, Saint Paul, Detroit, Columbus, and New Haven. He has written many works for CBS TV, the Library of Congress, the Koussevitsky and Barlow Foundations, Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, in addition to commissions from such distinguished artists as David Shifrin, Ransom Wilson, Yo-Yo Ma, Emmanuel Ax, Aldo Parisot, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Judith Raskin, Elmar Oliveira, Julius Baker, Robert Bloom, Nathaniel Rosen, Toby Appel, Leonard Arner, Eugene List, Erica Morini, Samuel Baron, Juilliard, Concord, Lenox, Composers, Tokyo, Audubon, Sequoia, Colorado and Alard Quartets.  He has written for the Connecticut Trio, Elm City Ensemble (now the Antares), DaCapo Chamber players, New York Woodwind Quintet, and the Yale Cellos.  Laderman's opera “Marilyn”, based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, had its premiere at the New York City Opera in 1993 and the Symphony No. 8 received its New York premiere by the New Haven Symphony in Carnegie Hall in 1994.  David Shifrin and Ransom Wilson of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center premiered "Duetti" at Alice Tully Hall in 2000, the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Project premiered the Sextet for English Horn, Bass Clarinet and String Quartet in 2001.  The Muir introduced his tenth string quartet in 2001.  In recent seasons, pieces have been written for, Jesse Levine, Meghan Stoops, Patrick Jee, Aldo Parisot, the Miro String Quartet, Ransom Wilson, the dramatic oratorio Brotherly Love for the Philadelphia Singers, and the Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Orchestra for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Richard Page.  In the past year, he has written four works for piano, including his fourth sonata, a sonata for cello and piano for Pansy Chang, and Portraits II for solo violin for Yeon-Su Kim.  He is currently working on a collaborative work with Robert Pinsky for tenor, soprano, baritone, and orchestra based on Pinsky's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Laderman was Dean of the Yale School of Music from 1989-1995 and is currently Professor of Music.  He has been chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts composer-librettist program (1973-79), president of the American Music Center (1972-75), director of the music program of the National Endowment for the Arts (1979-82), president of the National Music Council (from 1983-87), and chairman of the board of the American Composers Orchestra (1987-91).  In January 2006 he was elected President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He has taught at Sarah Lawrence College (1960-61, 1965-66) and at the State University of New York at Binghamton (1971-82), where he also held the position of composer-in-residence.  He has also held the position of visiting composer-in-residence at Yale University (1988-89).  He has received three separate Guggenheim fellowships (1955, 1958, and 1964) the Rome Prize (1963), and has had residencies at the Bennington Composers Conference (1952), and at the American Academy in Rome (1982-83), and at the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio (1986).  He was the director of the Bennington Composers Conference (1967 and '68), and was in residence with the Israel Philharmonic (1982).

Recordings of his music include Concerto for Double Orchestra with Hugh Wolff and the New Jersey Symphony (New World), Citadel, Sanctuary, and the Violin Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra and Lawrence Leighton Smith, (First Editions), "Pentimento" Albany Symphony with Hegyi (CRI), Concerto for Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony with Commisiona (Desto), Piano Etudes with Elana Vered (Connoisseur) Quartet No. 6 with the Audubon (RCA Victor), Quartet No.7 with the Colorado (Albany), and over the last three years six CD's have been released by Albany Records of his solo and chamber works.  A seventh CD is now in production.  His music is now published exclusively by G. Schirmer.

STEVEN ANSELL joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as its principal violist in September 1996, having already appeared with the orchestra in Symphony Hall as guest principal viola.  A native of Seattle, Mr. Ansell also remains a member of the acclaimed Muir String Quartet, which he co-founded twenty-two years ago, and with which he has toured extensively throughout the world.  In 1995, the Quartet won a Grammy Award.  A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle, Mr. Ansell was named professor of viola at the University of Houston at twenty-one and became assistant principal viola of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under André Previn at twenty-three.  As a recording artist he has received two Grand Prix du Disque awards and a Gramophone Magazine award for Best Chamber Music Recording of the Year.  He has appeared on PBS's "In Performance at the White House" and has participated in the Tanglewood, Schleswig-Holstein, Marlboro, Blossom, Newport, Spoleto, and Snowbird festivals.  Mr. Ansell is currently a professor of music at Boston University School for the Arts.  As principal viola of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he is also a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. He has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony most recently in Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in October 2002 under André Previn.

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Copland: Quiet City (1940)

Featuring English horn and trumpet solos by Carl Jenkins, Berkshire Symphony Principal Oboe, and Charles Schlueter, former Boston Symphony Principal Trumpet.

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Leonard Bernstein: "Symphonic Dances" from West Side Story

Pre-concert discussion by Ronald Feldman at 7:15 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall.