Competitions & Awards
LA Master Chorale Premieres Chinary Ung Work 11/9/08 at Disney Hall
The Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted by Music Director Grant Gershon, takes a musical journey to the Far East when it pairs seminal composer Lou Harrison’s Eastern-influenced anthem La Koro Sutro, written for choir, American Gamelan and organ, with the world premiere of a work by noted Cambodian-born, San Diego-based composer Chinary Ung on Sunday, November 9, 2008, 7:00 p.m., at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Ung’s piece, entitled SPIRAL XII: Space Between Heaven and Earth, is written for two sopranos, chorus, a 10-piece chamber ensemble and dancers. It features legendary Cambodian dancer and creative partner Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, artistic director of the Khmer Arts Academy, with a complement of dancers from her troop, and is the third installment of “LA Is the World,” a multi-year commissioning project that unites immigrant master musician immigrants, composers and the Chorale. Ung’s piece also features sopranos Elissa Johnston and Kathleen Roland, and Cambodian percussionist ROS Sokun.
“Listen Up!,” the Chorale’s lively pre-concert conversation with KUSC’s Alan Chapman, Gershon and Ung, is open to ticket holders at no charge at 6 p.m., inside Disney Concert Hall.
Colorful, exotic and evocative, both pieces are marbled with ritual overtones, dance elements and shades of another era. Gershon notes, “This concert is the kind of experience that can only happen in this city. It’s essentially a collaboration between our audience and the performers – a literal and metaphorical intersection of LA.”
Reflecting the city’s strong Cambodian ties, Ung’s piece, commissioned by the Chorale, was created in collaboration with the Chorale and Cheam Shapiro, founder of the Khmer Arts Academy, with bases in Long Beach and Phnom Penh, whose mission is to preserve the Khmer classical dance and singing traditions. Cheam Shapiro and her dancers provide not only movement but, according to Gershon, “untrained voices that contrast with the polish of the Chorale.” Embodying the spirit of the ancient Cambodian classical tradition, she is one of only a few artists of her generation to survive the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. She is also a member of the first generation to graduate from Phnom Penh’s Royal University of Fine Arts after the fall of the regime. She currently resides in Cambodia and divides her time between that country and Long Beach, California.
Ung, born in Takeo, Cambodia, in 1942, escaped the Khmer Rouge when he immigrated to America with his family in 1964 after graduating from Cambodia’s national music conservatory. His new work, a deeply personal piece, utilizes Western instruments but incorporates Asian pentatonic scales for an Eastern sound and is loosely based on the ancient Cambodia anthem Sathukar, which was nearly erased from the collective culture of Cambodia during the genocidal upheaval. He is acclaimed for his melodic music, deft balance between Western and Eastern sounds, and extremely challenging writing for the voice – in spite of not hearing a symphony orchestra nor seeing notated music until he was 17 years old.
The instrumentalists for Ung’s work include Lawrence Kaplan, flute/piccolo/alto flute; Paul Sherman, oboe/English horn; Jim Foschia, B-flat clarinet/E-flat clarinet/bass clarinet; Shalani Vijayan, violin I; Lisa Dondlinger, violin II; Susan Ung, viola; Peter Jacobson, cello; Tom Peter, double bass; ROS Sokun, percussion I; and Nick Terry and Lynn Vartan, percussion II.
Lou Harrison (1917 -2003), a native of Portland, Oregon, who resided in Northern California for the majority of his life, has been in the vanguard of American composers for fifty years. An innovator of musical composition and performance that transcends cultural boundaries, Harrison's highly acclaimed work juxtaposes and synthesizes musical dialects from virtually every corner of the world. Among the nearly 50 pieces of gamelan music Harrison wrote is the standout La Koro Sutro, which in Esperanto means “the Heart Sutra.” Among the most popular and profound of Buddhist sutras, it refers to the heart of divine wisdom. The San Francisco Chronicle proclaims Harrison’s piece, “Nonpareil, to say the least.” The American gamelan featured in this performance is a collection of non-traditional percussion “instruments,” such as sawed-off gas cylinders and steel tube electrical conduit built by Harrison.
Funding for the third installment of LA is the Word is supported, in part, by generous grants from the James Irvine Foundation, the Durfee Foundation, the Multi-Arts Production Fund (a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation). Tickets to the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s concert range from $19 to $124. Student Rush seats are $10 and are available at the box office two hours before the performance. For tickets and information, please call (800) 787-5262 (outside California call 213-972-7282), or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets can no longer be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.) The Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue at First Street in downtown Los Angeles.
“Listen Up!,” the Chorale’s lively pre-concert conversation with KUSC’s Alan Chapman, Gershon and Ung, is open to ticket holders at no charge at 6 p.m., inside Disney Concert Hall.
Colorful, exotic and evocative, both pieces are marbled with ritual overtones, dance elements and shades of another era. Gershon notes, “This concert is the kind of experience that can only happen in this city. It’s essentially a collaboration between our audience and the performers – a literal and metaphorical intersection of LA.”
Reflecting the city’s strong Cambodian ties, Ung’s piece, commissioned by the Chorale, was created in collaboration with the Chorale and Cheam Shapiro, founder of the Khmer Arts Academy, with bases in Long Beach and Phnom Penh, whose mission is to preserve the Khmer classical dance and singing traditions. Cheam Shapiro and her dancers provide not only movement but, according to Gershon, “untrained voices that contrast with the polish of the Chorale.” Embodying the spirit of the ancient Cambodian classical tradition, she is one of only a few artists of her generation to survive the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. She is also a member of the first generation to graduate from Phnom Penh’s Royal University of Fine Arts after the fall of the regime. She currently resides in Cambodia and divides her time between that country and Long Beach, California.
Ung, born in Takeo, Cambodia, in 1942, escaped the Khmer Rouge when he immigrated to America with his family in 1964 after graduating from Cambodia’s national music conservatory. His new work, a deeply personal piece, utilizes Western instruments but incorporates Asian pentatonic scales for an Eastern sound and is loosely based on the ancient Cambodia anthem Sathukar, which was nearly erased from the collective culture of Cambodia during the genocidal upheaval. He is acclaimed for his melodic music, deft balance between Western and Eastern sounds, and extremely challenging writing for the voice – in spite of not hearing a symphony orchestra nor seeing notated music until he was 17 years old.
The instrumentalists for Ung’s work include Lawrence Kaplan, flute/piccolo/alto flute; Paul Sherman, oboe/English horn; Jim Foschia, B-flat clarinet/E-flat clarinet/bass clarinet; Shalani Vijayan, violin I; Lisa Dondlinger, violin II; Susan Ung, viola; Peter Jacobson, cello; Tom Peter, double bass; ROS Sokun, percussion I; and Nick Terry and Lynn Vartan, percussion II.
Lou Harrison (1917 -2003), a native of Portland, Oregon, who resided in Northern California for the majority of his life, has been in the vanguard of American composers for fifty years. An innovator of musical composition and performance that transcends cultural boundaries, Harrison's highly acclaimed work juxtaposes and synthesizes musical dialects from virtually every corner of the world. Among the nearly 50 pieces of gamelan music Harrison wrote is the standout La Koro Sutro, which in Esperanto means “the Heart Sutra.” Among the most popular and profound of Buddhist sutras, it refers to the heart of divine wisdom. The San Francisco Chronicle proclaims Harrison’s piece, “Nonpareil, to say the least.” The American gamelan featured in this performance is a collection of non-traditional percussion “instruments,” such as sawed-off gas cylinders and steel tube electrical conduit built by Harrison.
Funding for the third installment of LA is the Word is supported, in part, by generous grants from the James Irvine Foundation, the Durfee Foundation, the Multi-Arts Production Fund (a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation). Tickets to the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s concert range from $19 to $124. Student Rush seats are $10 and are available at the box office two hours before the performance. For tickets and information, please call (800) 787-5262 (outside California call 213-972-7282), or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets can no longer be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.) The Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue at First Street in downtown Los Angeles.
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