Composer Paola Prestini has cultivated a uniquely expansive and humanistic musical voice, through pieces that transcend genre and discipline, and projects whose global impact reverberates beyond the walls of the concert hall. Far more than just notes on a page, Prestini's works give voice to those whom society has silenced, and offer a platform for the causes that are most vital to us all. Prestini has been named one of the Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music by the Washington Post, one of the top 100 Composers in the World by National Public Radio, and one of the Top 30 Professionals of the Year by Musical America. As Co-Founder of National Sawdust, she has collaborated with luminaries like poet Robin Coste Lewis, visual artists Julie Mehretu and Nick Cave, and musical legends David Byrne, Philip Glass and Renée Fleming, and her works have been performed throughout the world with leading institutions like the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Dallas Opera, London's Barbican Center, Mexico's Bellas Artes, and many more.

Program Note

This work is inspired by the sound of the wind, and stems from the original Greek word meaning to whisper. The complex aspect of motherhood for me stems from the desire to enjoy each moment with my child while balancing the goals I've set for myself as an artist and activist. My greatest achievement and the role I judge myself most harshly is in my role as a mother. I continue to strive to be more present in the moments I am gifted as a mother. Yet the complexity of balance is also shaded by the moment we are living in now. The female voice, which is the human voice, is finally being heard. And while I do believe that "Time's Up", I also want to continue to do all we can to help our rarified field. And to equalize it not just for women but for all who are struggling.  Years of struggle with little mentorship or guidance for some reason stings rawly now, and so as I reassemble the parts of my life that make me whole, this commission takes on a special resonance.

While Diametrically Composed revels in the exuberance of being a mother and an artist, the work also confronts the notion that motherhood and professional life can be limiting factors in their interaction, in ways that fatherhood and professional life are not necessarily. The work aims to artistically probe and unpack this double standard.

The artists of Diametrically Composed are mothers and renown in their field. Conceived and produced by flutist/composer Allison Loggins-Hull, the collaborative artists are composers Paola Prestini,  Sarah Kirkland Snider, Jessica Meyer, multi-dimensional mezzo-soprano and composer Alicia Hall Moran,  and pianist Gabriela Martinez. Their contributions reflect personal experiences, exploring diverse themes related to being a mother and an artist. Diametrically Composed reaches beyond the typical recital format, providing an immersive performance experience incorporating recited text, narratives and points-of-view of mothers from varied artistic professions.

Praised for its “intricate structure” with “hints of thrashing and angularity” (The Wall Street Journal), Michael Laurello’s compositional work reflects his fascination with temporal dissonance and emotional immediacy. It has been presented at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, MATA, PASIC, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, North American Saxophone Alliance, National Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc., and other venues and festivals. His music has been featured by ensembles such as icarus Quartet, Bluecoats, "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, The U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own," Nashville Symphony, Sō Percussion, HOCKET, Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, Yale Percussion Group, and Ensemble Repercussion featuring the Duisburger Philharmoniker and Deutschen Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz. 

His recording and mixing work is focused on contemporary classical music and can be heard on labels such as Furious Artisans, Albany, Equilibrium, New Focus, Red Piano Records, and MSR Classics featuring collaborative partners including Vic Firth/Zildjian, icarus Quartet, Quince Ensemble, Hypercube, Unheard-of//Ensemble, Bowling Green Philharmonia, Dan Piccolo, Yevgeny Yontov, Solungga Liu, Cole Burger, and many others. He believes deeply in the capacity of the production approach to accentuate the conceptual framework of a musical composition or interpretation.

Laurello studied composition at Yale School of Music and Tufts University, and music synthesis at Berklee College of Music. His mentors include David Lang, Christopher Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, and John McDonald. Honors include a residency at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, a commission from the American Composers Forum, a Nashville Symphony Composer Lab Fellowship, selection for the EarShot Berkeley Symphony Readings, and a Baumgardner Fellowship and Commission from the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He has attended the highSCORE and Etchings composition festivals, and was a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival.

Laurello works as a freelance composer and engineer, and as Manager of Recording Services and Technical Engineer for the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University.

Program Note

Bluest Best Moon is a sort of musical anagram constructed from raw materials found in Bob Dylan's "Tombstone Blues" (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965)

Elliot Carter (December 11, 1908 - November 5, 2012) is internationally recognized as one of the most influential American voices in classical music, and a leading figure of modernism in the 20th and 21st centuries. He was hailed as “America’s great musical poet” by Andrew Porter and noted as “one of America’s most distinguished creative artists in any field” by his friend Aaron Copland. Carter’s prolific career spanned over 75 years, with more than 150 pieces, ranging from chamber music to orchestral works to opera, often marked with a sense of wit and humor. He received numerous honors and accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize on two occasions: in 1960 for his String Quartet No. 2 and in 1973 for his String Quartet No. 3. Other awards include Germany’s Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize and the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award. Carter was the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, and is one of a handful of composers inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. He was recognized twice by the Government of France: being named Commander of the “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,” and receiving the insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honor in September 2012.

Born in New York City, Elliott Carter was encouraged towards a career in classical music by his friend and mentor Charles Ives. He studied under composers Walter Piston and Gustav Holst while attending Harvard University, and later traveled to Paris, studying with Nadia Boulanger. Following his studies in France, he returned to New York and devoted his time to composing and teaching, holding posts over the years at St. John’s College, the Peabody Conservatory, Yale University, Cornell University, and The Juilliard School, among others.

Carter’s early works, such as his Symphony No. 1 (1942) and Holiday Overture (1944), are written in a neoclassical style — influenced by his contemporaries Copland, Hindemith, and Stravinsky. After the Second World War, in works such as his Cello Sonata (1948) and String Quartet No. 1 (1950-51) he began to develop a signature rhythmic and harmonic language, which he continued to refine to the very end of his life. Igor Stravinsky hailed his Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano, and two chamber orchestras (1961) and Piano Concerto (1965) as “masterpieces.”

Carter wrote many pieces based on literature throughout his career, setting texts by acclaimed American poets such as John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, E.E. Cummings, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, John Hollander, Robert Lowell, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky. A creative burst of imagination began in earnest during the 1980s with works such as Night Fantasies (1980), Triple Duo (1982-83), Penthode (1985), and major orchestral essays such as his Oboe Concerto (1986–87), Three Occasions for Orchestra (1989), Violin Concerto (1990), and Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei (1993–96). Carter’s only opera, What Next? (1997–98), with a libretto by Paul Griffiths, was introduced by Daniel Barenboim, a champion of the composer’s music, in Berlin in 1999, and has since been produced at Tanglewood, in Munich, New York, Vienna, Melbourne, Montpellier, and Duisburg. Carter’s remarkable late-career creative burst continued at an astonishing rate, encouraged by commissions from Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Oliver Knussen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, James Levine and the Boston Symphony, the Aldeburgh, Lucerne, and Tanglewood Festivals, and ensembles from Boston to Seattle, and London to Ljubljana. Carter composed more than sixty works after the age of ninety including his Cello Concerto (2000), Of Rewaking (2002), Dialogues (2003), Three Illusions for Orchestra (2004), Mosaic (2004), and In the Distances of Sleep (2006).

In his final years, Carter continued to complete works with astounding frequency, including Interventions for piano and orchestra (2007), Flute Concerto (2008), What are Years (2009), Concertino for Bass Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra (2009), and The American Sublime (2011). Carter’s last completed orchestral work, Instances (2012), was premiered by the Seattle Symphony in February 2013. His final work, Epigrams (2012) for piano trio, was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 2013.

Program note

When Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who performs so eloquently, asked me to write a piece for him, I became obsessed with the idea of a fast one line piece with no chords. It became a continuous chain of notes using different spacings, accents, and colorings, to produce a wide variety of expression.

– Elliott Carter

DU YUN, born and raised in Shanghai, China, and currently based in New York City, works at the intersection of opera, orchestral, theatre, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise.  Her body of work is championed by some of today’s finest performing groups and organizations around the world.

Known for her “relentless originality and unflinching social conscience” (The New Yorker), Du Yun’s second opera, Angel’s Bone (libretto by Royce Vavrek), won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Classical Composition category for her work Air Glow. Her collaborative opera Sweet Land with Raven Chacon (for opera company The Industry) was the 2021 Best New Opera by the North America Critics Association. Four of her feature studio albums were named The New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of the Year, in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. Her latest monodrama opera In Our Daughter’s Eyes was a notable performance of the year in 2022 by the New Yorker. 

A community champion, Du Yun was a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble; served as the Artistic Director of MATA Festival (2014-2018); conceived the Pan Asia Sounding Festival (National Sawdust); and founded FutureTradition, a global initiative that illuminates the provenance lineages of folk art and uses these structures to build cross-regional collaborations from the ground up. Du Yun was named one of 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Foundation (2018), “Artist of the Year” by the Beijing Music Festival (2019). In 2022, she was granted a Creative Capital Award for an AR inter-generational Kun-opera project. Asia Society Hong Kong has honored her for her continued contribution in the performing arts field. Other notable awards include Guggenheim, American Academy Berlin Prize, Fromm Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The Carnegie Foundation and the Vilcek Prize in Music have honored her as an immigrant who have made lasting contributions to the American society. In 2023 Harvard University honored her as centennial medalist, the highest recognition for its alumni. In 2024 Du Yun is inducted to American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

As an avid performer and bandleader (Ok Miss), her onstage persona has been described by the New York Times as “an indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge.” 

Du Yun is Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her concert music is published worldwide by G.Schirmer.

Program note

This duet is from the scene "Ignition" in the opera Angel's Bone. 

The scene description is to give context, but the performers are encouraged to bring in their own world. 

Scene description
After a female customer has finished (choking the BOY ANGEL), MRS. X.E. enters the room of the BOY ANGEL, holding him. At first this seems like a comforting gesture, but then she begins to force herself on him, encouraging HIS hands to explore HER breasts. SHE kisses him gently at first, then becomes aggressive. Meanwhile a man forces the GIRL ANGEL to smoke methamphetamines. 

MRS. X.E. takes an axe to the "FOR SALE" sign. The GIRL ANGEL jerks the john off to completion.

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. 

Esmail’s life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale,  Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Kronos Quartet, and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider. Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press.

Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She has been in residence with Tanglewood Music Center (co-Curator – 2023) and Spoleto Festival (Chamber Music Composer-in-Residence – 2024) inShe also holds awards/fellowships from United States Artists, the S&R Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Kennedy Center.

Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers.

Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.

She currently resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, California.

In its original version, RE|Member is a wildly colorful overture for orchestra, sandwiched between two plaintive solos for oboe. In the opening solo, a recorded oboist on a screen plays alone in her living room, and at the end of the overture, the onscreen oboist returns to play a duet — with the real oboist, live in person, in the hall. This piece opened the 2021-22 Seattle Symphony season with oboist Mary Lynch – it was the first piece performed at Benaroya Hall after eighteen months of shutdown.

When I saw the piece live, I knew that I had to make a version of the work that focused on the two oboes — there are times when the oboes are almost playing as one instrument, and other times where they feel like a huge ensemble, as they cascade over one another in huge waves of sound.

Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. In 2023, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Most recently, León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s next Composer-in-Residence—a post she will hold for two seasons, beginning in September 2023. She will also hold Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-2024 season.

Alma was commissioned through the generosity of the Bay Paul Foundation as part of the Flute Book for the Twenty-first Century developed through Meet the Composer's New Music, New Donors Initiative, and premiered by Marya Martin

"Una flauta toca un crescendo que se va convirtiendo en alegria."
A flute plays a crescendo that starts transforming into joy.
— From "Bailando con mi angel" by Carmen A. Vega Schimmenti, Puerto Rico.

This poem was the spark that ignited the creation of Alma. Ripples of pitches, a web of sonic impulses shimmering in the imagination. In Spanish, "alma" means soul or spirit; invisible forces, like the wind that caresses the chimes outside my window. The opening and closing of the piece evokes the sound of these chimes. The mood of the middle sections is propelled by the cascading of pitches that at times converge and diverge, a myriad of colors in playful conversation of bouncing gestures.