Homage to Ligeti | CCRMA 50th Anniversary

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

© H.J. Kropp

I almost always associate colours, form and consistencies with sounds and vice versa also associate all acoustic sensations with form, colour and material properties. Even abstract terms such as quantity, relationships, coherences and processes appear to me to be sensualised and have their place in an imaginary space. (György Ligeti)

György Ligeti was born on 28.5.1923 as the son of Hungarian-Jewish parents in Dicsőszentmárton (now known as Târnǎveni, in Transylvania/Romania). He studied at the Conservatory in Klausenburg with Ferenc Farkas from 1941 to 1943 and from 1945 to 1949 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest with Sándor Veress, Pál Járdányi and Lajos Bárdos. Following the abatement of the Hungarian Revolution, he left his native country in December 1956 for both political and artistic reasons. During his time as freelancer in the West German Radio studio for electronic music in Cologne (1957-58), he undertook an intense study of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel and Pierre Boulez. In the 1960s, Ligeti was associate professor at the Summer School for Contemporary Music in Darmstadt and guest professor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm. He received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Programme (DAAD) in Berlin for 1969-70 and was Composer in Residence at the Stanford University in California in 1972 before being appointed as Professor for Composition at the Hamburg Musikhochschule the following year. The composer made a substantial impact on international contemporary music both as a university professor (up to 1989) and as an active member of the music scene and became the musical aesthetic benchmark for a whole generation. György Ligeti died in Vienna on 12 June 2006.

In specialist musical circles, György Ligeti had already caused a sensation with his electronic composition Artikulation (1958) which had been produced in the Cologne recording studio. He subsequently gained immediate fame throughout the musical world with his orchestral works Apparitions (1958-59) and Atmosphères (1961). Leanings towards extreme micro-polyphony were already visible in the works he had previously composed in Hungary, for example the a capella choral works Éjszaka and Reggel from1955. In the works from the late 1950s and 1960s, the concept of an extremely densely interwoven voice structure was increasingly contrasted with static tonal-spatial compositions. This was achieved with stunning effect: the maximum degree of movement in the voices develops into an audibly perceived spatially “static” music. In the 1980s and 1990s, complex polyrhythmic compositional techniques come to the foreground in Ligeti’s works. This development can be followed clearly in the Etudes pour piano which were published in three volumes and span the compositional period between 1985 and 2001. During the same period, Ligeti was working on the solo concertos for Piano and Orchestra (1985-88) and Violin and Orchestra (1990/92). These compositions – together with the Hamburg Concerto for horn und chamber orchestra (1998/99) – have subsequently been adopted in the solo repertoire of numerous soloists. 

Ligeti’s full-length stage work Le Grand Macabre was composed between 1974 and 1977 (revised version 1996) and was based on a fable by Michel de Ghelderode. The persiflage on the Last Judgement in the imaginary country of “Breughelland” develops into an absurd display of the all too human needs of its citizens. Ligeti also utilises the medium of parody in his music which ranges from acrobatic bel canto and complex tone row structures to grotesque sprechgesang.

Alongside membership in the Free Academy of Arts in Hamburg and the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, György Ligeti was honoured as the recipient of numerous prizes: the following list includes only a selection of these awards: Commandeur dans l'Ordre National des Arts et Lettres, Prix de composition musicale de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (both in 1988), the Music Prize from the Balzan Foundation (1991), the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (1993), the UNESCO-IMC Music Prize (1996), honorary membership  in the Romanian Academy (1997) and nomination as Associé étranger der Académie des Beaux Arts (1998). Ligeti additionally received the Sibelius Prize from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (2000), the Kyoto Prize for Art and Science (2001), the Medal for Art and Science from the Senate of the City of Hamburg (2003), the Theodor W. Adorno Prize from the City of Frankfurt (2003) and the Polar Music Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (2004).

https://www.schott-music.com/en/person/gyoergy-ligeti


ABOUT THE SOLOISTS

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, into a family of scientists and musicians of Bohemian origin, Tanja Becker-Bender burst onto the violinists’ scene already as a young girl, winning 1st prize in Italy’s Lipizer competition at age 18, as well as top prize in the Geneva International competition shortly after. Tokyo’s renowned Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award and prizes in the international competitions of Genoa, Houston, and Chimay in Belgium evened out her path of regular solo performances with eminent orchestras such as the Tokyo Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, and Houston Symphony, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart of the SWR, Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, and the Vienna, Zurich and Prague Chamber orchestras, as well as the English Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Leopoldinun Wroclaw. Conductors she has collaborated with include Kurt Masur, Gerd Albrecht, Peter Ruzicka, Fabio Luisi, Uriel Segal, Hartmut Haenchen, Hubert Soudant, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Dan Ettinger, Zsolt Nagy and Carlos Miguel Prieto. Regular festival performances include those of Schleswig Holstein, Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Rheingau, Engadin, West Cork, Chautauqua (US), and Kronberg, with chamber music partners such as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Boris Pergamenschikow, Péter Nagy, Ralf Gothóni, Alexander Lonquich, Sofya Melikyan, Eduard Brunner, Andrzej Bauer, Miguel da Silva, Lawrence Power, Claudio Bohórquez, Dimitry Ashkenazy, and many others.

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, into a family of scientists and musicians of Bohemian origin, Tanja Becker-Bender burst onto the violinists’ scene already as a young girl, winning 1st prize in Italy’s Lipizer competition at age 18, as well as top prize in the Geneva International competition shortly after. Tokyo’s renowned Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award and prizes in the international competitions of Genoa, Houston, and Chimay in Belgium evened out her path of regular solo performances with eminent orchestras such as the Tokyo Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, and Houston Symphony, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart of the SWR, Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, and the Vienna, Zurich and Prague Chamber orchestras, as well as the English Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Leopoldinun Wroclaw. Conductors she has collaborated with include Kurt Masur, Gerd Albrecht, Peter Ruzicka, Fabio Luisi, Uriel Segal, Hartmut Haenchen, Hubert Soudant, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Dan Ettinger, Zsolt Nagy and Carlos Miguel Prieto. Regular festival performances include those of Schleswig Holstein, Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Rheingau, Engadin, West Cork, Chautauqua (US), and Kronberg, with chamber music partners such as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Boris Pergamenschikow, Péter Nagy, Ralf Gothóni, Alexander Lonquich, Sofya Melikyan, Eduard Brunner, Andrzej Bauer, Miguel da Silva, Lawrence Power, Claudio Bohórquez, Dimitry Ashkenazy, and many others.

Tanja Becker-Bender has studied in Stuttgart, London, Vienna, and New York, with some of the world’s leading quartet musicians: Wilhelm Melcher (Melos Quartett), David Takeno, Günter Pichler (Alban Berg Quartett), Robert Mann (Juilliard String Quartet) – also finding important inspiration through Bartók’s student György Sándor in New York and through Ferenc Rados in Budapest, as well as through work with Eberhard Feltz in Berlin.

In 2006 she was appointed professor at the University of Music in Saarbrücken, taking the chair which Maxim Vengerov held before. Since 2009, she is professor of violin at the University for Music and Theater in Hamburg. Students of her class have become laureates at important international solo and chamber music competitions, enjoy versatile chamber music careers and play in renowned orchestras worldwide.

Roger Xia recently graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Biology and Music (B.S.) and Biomedical Data Science (Coterminal M.S.). Before college, he was a scholarship student in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division. Roger started piano lessons at age 5 and continued with Natsuki Fukasawa, Richard Cionco, Thomas Schultz, and Elizabeth Schumann. His violin lessons started at 7 with Dong Ho and continued with William Barbini and Owen Dalby. Roger made his Carnegie Hall debuts at age 10 and was featured on the From the Top show 322. He was a National Young Arts Foundation winner and joined the National Youth Orchestra (NYO-USA) as an associate concertmaster and keyboardist.

Roger is an active chamber musician and attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Summer String Quartet Workshop. He was a founding member of the “Rising Stars of Chamber Music” program developed by Susan Lamb Cook to train young musicians in chamber music. At Stanford, he continued chamber music studies with Christopher Costanza.

Roger was concertmaster of various orchestras including the Sacramento Youth Symphony (SYS) Premier Orchestra, Davis Senior High School (DSHS) Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO), and Stanford Symphony Orchestra (SSO). Roger has won concerto competitions and appeared as a soloist since age 8 with orchestras including the Merced Symphony Orchestra, SYS Premier Orchestra, UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, DSHS Symphony Orchestra, and SFSYO. Roger performed as a violin soloist with the Stanford Philharmonia at Stanford (2021) and at the Bermuda Music Festival (2022). He was selected as a winner of the 2023 Stanford Orchestras Concerto Competition and performed Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 with SSO.

Aside from music, Roger enjoys martial arts, ping pong, and skiing and loves to share his music-making experience with friends!

ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR

Paul Phillips, Professor of Music and Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies, is a conductor, composer, pianist, and author who has conducted over 80 orchestras, opera companies, and ballet troupes worldwide, including the San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Opera Boston, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra and Choir, and Paul Taylor Dance Company. Phillips is music director and conductor of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Philharmonia, and Stanford Summer Symphony, and teaches conducting at Stanford. He has also taught Harmonic Convergence: Music's Intersections with Science, Mathematics, History, and Literature, Black Music Revealed, Russian Modernists: Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and Orchestra Online, and has led the Stanford New Ensemble and Stanford University Ragtime Ensemble, which he founded. Phillips brought Stanford Philharmonia to Bermuda in 2022 to perform at the Bermuda Festival of the Performing Arts, and in 2024 led the Stanford Symphony Orchestra on a two-week tour of France and Monaco. Previously, he has led choral and orchestral tours to China, Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

Phillips has conducted over 1000 works in performance, including much of the standard repertoire and over 100 regional, US, and world premieres. He has performed with Itzhak Perlman, Joseph Kalichstein, and Carol Wincenc; collaborated with Steve Reich, William Bolcom, George Walker, and many other renowned composers; and led concerts featuring Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, Tony Bennett, Glen Campbell, and other pop, jazz, and rock stars. Phillips’s honors include 11 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming  of Contemporary Music, First Prize in the NOS International Conductors Course  (Holland) and Wiener Meisterkurse Conductors Course (Vienna), and selection for the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program. He has conducted two recordings with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and five for Naxos: two each with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland) and Brown University Orchestra, and one with the Slovak Philharmonic.  

Studies at Eastman, Columbia, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, and Leonard Slatkin, among others, led to conducting posts at the Frankfurt Opera and Stadttheater Lüneburg in Germany, and with the Greensboro  Symphony, Greensboro Opera, Maryland Symphony, Savannah Symphony, and Rhode Island Philharmonic in the United States. Prior to his appointment at Stanford in 2017, Phillips was Director of Orchestras and  Chamber Music at Brown University from 1989-2017, and Music Director/Conductor of the Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Massachusetts from 1994-2017. 

Phillips has received numerous commissions and awards for his compositions, which include opera, ballet, chamber music, choral music, song cycles, and orchestral works published by Barnard Street Music. His chamber arrangement of Stravinsky’s opera Mavra, published by Boosey & Hawkes, has been performed  by the Royal Opera House and at Glyndebourne and is featured in Bayerische Staatsoper’s Mavra/Iolanta, a 2022 DVD/Blu-ray Disc cited as a “Critic’s Choice” recording by Opera News (July 2023). As a pianist, Phillips has performed at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Mohawk Trail Concerts, Orvieto Musica, Carnegie Recital Hall, and Lincoln Center, plus many other series and venues. He has also led numerous clinics and workshops, including the American Composers Orchestra EarShot Program with the Pioneer  Valley Symphony and a Conductors Guild Conductor Training Workshop at Stanford featuring guest composer Gabriela Lena Frank. 

Phillips has chaired the Music Department’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and served on many other departmental committees. He was President of the Western Region of the College Orchestra Directors Association from 2022-24 and has served as Music Advisor to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester, England, since 2015. For further information, visit www.paulsphillips.com.