Coming this June: Ensemble for These Time To Release Their Fourth Recording: 'The Guernica Project' Along with a New Podcast': 'For Good Measure.'

Coming this June – the Award-Winning: ‘Ensemble for These Times’
To Release their Fourth Recording: ‘The Guernica Project’
Along with a New Podcast: ‘For Good Measure’

‘Ensemble for These Times’ will commemorate the 85th anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s
iconic “Guernica” with new music by four modern Spanish and American composers

 

Award-winning San Francisco contemporary classical chamber group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) will release its fourth album, The Guernica Project on June 17 via Centaur Records,
commemorating the 85th anniversary of the 1937 bombing of Gernika (Spain) by Nazi forces and Picasso’s masterpiece in response to the tragedy. E4TT will also make new podcast, ‘For Good Measure,’ available on multiple platforms, starting June 6.

 

About “The Guernica Project” recording

On Monday, April 26, 1937, Nazi and Italian forces carpet-bombed the Basque town of Guernica in support of Francisco Franco’s right-wing overthrow of the Spanish Republic. That year, Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) had been asked to create a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris Expo.

From his exile in France and at the height of his artistic powers, Picasso had not yet settled on a topic.
Although his initial designs were apolitical in nature, when the attack on Guernica took place. Fate had spoken: Guernica would be his topic.

The bombing of Guernica (today’s Gernika-Lumo) marked the first deliberate mass attack on civilian bystanders in the modern era, and became a harbinger of more 20th and 21st century horrors to come—from ethnic cleansing and genocide to the development of nuclear warheads. Thanks to Picasso’s iconic masterpiece, the town of Guernica has not been relegated to a forgotten name in dust bin of history, but rather has remained alive in our global memory, a name among so many in the ongoing ghastly strand of outrages perpetuated by humankind upon itself.

E4TT premiered “The Guernica Project” in April 2017, marking the 80th anniversary of the 1937 massacre/conflagration, and Picasso’s monumental response to it. EATT toured the project performing in Madrid, Spain that October. This recording, which commemorates the 85th anniversary, features seven pieces by four modern composers, two from Spain and two from California in the U.S. The centerpiece of the project is composer/artist/musician Jeffrey Hoover’s “Guernica,” a Call-and-Response musical interpretation of Picasso’s masterpiece in four movements, and in six languages. Written for soprano and piano trio, these four movements honor those involved in the attack— Spanish (Francoists seeking to attack Basque Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War), German, Italian, and Latin (making the connection of townspeople to the Catholic Church and to one of the buildings that survived the aerial bombing); English (language of the Allies); and Basque (the local language). “The Guernica Project,” also honors Pablo Picasso with a second E4TT commission by co-founder and Senior Artistic Advisor David Garner: a ricercar for piano based on an encryption of the letters from parts of Picasso’s full name: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso.

In addition to the two commissions inspired by Picasso, the recording also features music by two Spanish composers who, like Hoover, E4TT encountered in their 2016 Call for Scores.

The first is a set of eight piano haikus by Mercedes Zavala, La colección de haikus. Each section is preceded by a verbal haiku, read on the recording by a different Spanish speaker. Roughly half of these
speakers hail from the Old World, with the other half from the New World. We are grateful to Mercedes Zavala, Claudia Montero, Kenya Autie, Ron San Miguel, Pilar Marin Gila, Isabel Pérez Dobarro, Jacobo Durán-Loriga, and Juan Garcia-Herreros for their beautifully evocative haiku readings and are particularly honored that Claudia Montero was able to read “her” haiku before she passed away in early 2021. The second piece was written by Spanish composer Mario Carro, whose song for soprano and cello, “Alta mar,” sets a text by the Spanish writer/poet of the Spanish “Generacion del 27 - Ernestina de Champourcin (1905 -1999), who was forced to go into exile during the Spanish Civil War. Also included is a song cycle for soprano and piano, El alma e la memoria by Garner. The piece is set to poems by the well-known Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939), who was greatly affected by the Spanish Civil War: separated from his brother by the advance of Franco’s forces. Machado and his mother had to eventually flee Madrid for France, where they both perished in 1939.

E4TT added a third piece by Garner for this recording, a piano homage (from his larger work, Cinq Hommages) to renowned Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909). The collection is finally rounded out with a second work by Jeffrey Hoover. Written for cello and piano, Hoover’s piece was inspired by famed surrealist Salvador Dalí’s eponymous painting, “Burning Giraffe.”

 

Advance accolades for “The Guernica Project” recording

The intersection of art, history, poetry and music always makes for fascinating connections and artistry,
particularly when investigating the tumultuous 20th century and visual art by painters such as Pablo Picasso. This is creative territory that Ensemble for These Times visits regularly, and the group does this beautifully, combining excellent music-making with a clear-sighted, evocative artistic vision that speaks to our time and the future as well. E4TT’s latest CD “The Guernica Project” represents a pinnacle achievement and a fitting commemoration of Picasso’s “Guernica,” as well as of the tragic event that inspired his masterwork.

Grammy-winning producer Kabir Sehgal

 

 

Music and painting are such agreeable collaborators and nowhere is this more evident than with E4TT ’s latest release, The Guernica Project. It is such a beautiful recording: so much expressed with just a few voices. To listen to this music while experiencing Picasso’s image allows us to see this iconic image in a
new way. Like Picasso’s painting, which evokes a time of struggle, this important recording brings complexity, urgency and clarity. Guernica has become an enduring and powerful protest symbol around the world. This rich and expressive album will be an enduring representation of this historic painting.

Ted Nash, Grammy-award winning
saxophonist and composer of “The Presidential Suite” and “Portrait in Seven Shades”

 

TRACK TIMINGS and LISTINGS
Mercedes Zavala: La colección de haikus (2002-5) (7:42)
1 1 Haiku read by Mercedes Zavala 0:20
2 2 Haiku read by Kenya Autie 0:39
3 3 Haiku read by Ron San Miguel 0:44
4 4 Haiku read by Pilar Marin Gila 0:50
5 5 Haiku read by Claudia Montero 0:36
6 6 Haiku ready by Isabel Pérez Dobarro 0:58
7 7 Haiku read by Jacobo Durán-Loriga 1:43
8 8 Haiku read by Juan Garcia-Herreros 1:48
Dale Tsang, piano

Jeffrey Hoover (1959-2021): Guernica (2016) (19:27)
9 1 Ultimate Betrayal 6:18
10 2 Marketplace 4:36
11 3 Eyewitness 4:09
12 4 The Canvas 4:23
Nanette McGuinness, soprano
Ilana Blumberg, violin
Anne Lerner, cello
Dale Tsang, piano

Jeffrey Hoover (1959-2021)
13 Burning Giraffe (2015) 10:47
Anne Lerner, cello
Dale Tsang, piano

Mario Carro (b. 1979)
14 Alta mar (2005) 4:21
Nanette McGuinness, soprano
Anne Lerner, cello

David Garner (b. 1954):
15 Ricercar on Pablo Picasso (2017) 3:31.                                                                                     Dale Tsang, piano

David Garner (b. 1954)
16 Albeniz (from Cinq Hommages, rev. 1987) 3:23
Dale Tsang, piano

David Garner (b. 1954): El alma y la memoria (1994) (12:43)
17 1 ¿Mi corazón se ha dormido? 2:58
18 2 RENACIMIENTO 5:00
19 3 Desde el umbral 2:25
20 4 Y podrás conocerte recordando 2:25
Nanette McGuinness, soprano
Dale Tsang, piano
Total Time: 61:59

 

About the Podcast, “For Good Measure”

 

 

E4TT to launch a new podcast with BIPOC and women creative artists, based on the

group’s three-year #MeetTheArtist Interview series

 

San Francisco contemporary music chamber group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) is proud to announce the launch of its new podcast, “For Good Measure,” an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists from underrepresented communities, with a special focus on women composers. “For Good Measure” expands E4TT’s three-season “#MeetTheArtist” series that began in July 2020. Podcast episodes will be released weekly on all podcast platforms including Apple and Spotify, among others.

Following the 2020 success of curated interviews with composer Elinor Armer, visual artist Corinne
Whitaker, and soprano Chelsea Hollow, E4TT expanded its “#Meet the Artist” interview series in
2021 with month-long spotlights on individual BIPOC composers and musicians. The series began in
January 2021 with composer/performer Pamela Z (b. 1956), continued in February with composer/educator Jonathan Bailey Holland (b. 1974), March with Anthony R. Green (b. 1984), April with inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993), May with Sakari Dixon Vanderveer, June with Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1978), July with Shannon Sea, August with Marcus Norris (b. 1991), September with Brice Smith, October with Nicolas Lell Benavides (b. 1987), November with Angélica Negrón (b. 1981) and December with Darian Donovan Thomas (b.1993). E4TT’s third #MeetTheArtist series this year features: Dawn Norfleet, Juhi Bansal, Vivian Fung, Valerie Liu, Erika Oba, and Monica Chew.

Produced and hosted by E4TT soprano and Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, engineered by composer Stephanie Neumann, and designed by E4TT Assistant Director Brennan Stokes, the interviews cover a wide range of topics.

ARTIST BIOS
ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES:

Winners of The American Prize in 2021 for Chamber Music Performance, The Ensemble For These Times - E4TT consists of award-winning soprano and Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, pianist Margaret Halbig, and Senior Artistic Advisor and San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty member, composer David Garner. The group focuses on 20th and 21st century music that is relevant, engaging, original and compelling—music that resonates with today and speaks to tomorrow,
that harnesses the power of artistic beauty, intelligence, wit, lyricism, and irony to create a deep understanding of our times and the human condition. E4TT made its international debut in Berlin in 2012; was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest for a four-city tour of Hungary in 2014; and performed at the Krakow Culture Festival in 2016 and at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017. E4TT has performed locally at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues. E4TT’s critically acclaimed recordings include “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan,” which was released in 2020 in honor of the centennial of this seminal 20th century poet, and won a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards. The group’s debut CD, “Surviving: Women’s Words,” released on the Centaur label in 2016, was also honored with a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards. E4TT’s second CD, “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (Centaur Records, 2018), features a cello duo by Hollywood movie maven and Hungarian émigré Miklós Rózsa, along with works by three of his compatriots who perished in the Holocaust; “The Hungarians” won a Gold Medal in the Global Music Awards the year of its release.

Violinist ILANA BLUMBERG has appeared across the United States and internationally, in solo appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, the Albany Symphony (NY), Symphony Napa Valley, and the Merced Symphony, as well as performances at the prestigious Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Marlboro Music Festival, the La Jolla Summerfest as a 'Rising Star', the Aspen Music Festival, and many others. She appears frequently throughout the Bay Area with the Marin, Silicon Valley, West Edge Opera,
Berkeley, and California Symphonies, as well as with the Golden Gate String Quartet, eco ensemble, and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble.

E4TT cellist ANNE LERNER completed her B.A. in Music at Northwestern University as a Cello Per formance major after three years as a Spanish Literature major at Bryn Mawr College, earning a M.M. in cello performance at the San Francisco Conservatory, where she earned a Master of Music in Cello Performance. She has performed with numerous Bay Area orchestras and is a sought-after chamber musician and performer of contemporary music. A dedicated educator, Anne conducts two youth orchestras in the Marin Symphony Youth Program, is on the faculties of Dominican Uni-versity and San Rafael High School and maintains a large private studio.

Soprano and E4TT co-founder and Artistic Executive Director NANETTE MCGUINNESS has performed in 12 languages on two continents in over 25 roles with the Silesian State (Czech Republic), Opera San Jose (Opera in the Schools), and West Bay, Pacific Repertory, Trinity Lyric, and Livermore Valley Operas, among others. Solo concert engagements include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, as well as Shéhérézade (Ravel), Nuits d’étés (Berlioz), Stabat Mater (Rossini), Requiem (Fauré), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), Vesperae Solennes (Mozart), and Handel’s Messiah and Solomon. Her CD of music by 19th and 20th century women composers, Fabulous Femmes (Centaur)—which was called “perfect for the song recital lover” by Chamber Music Magazine—features several premiere recordings.

E4TT pianist DALE TSANG earned her BM in piano performance from the University of Southern California, her MM from the University of Michigan and her DMA from Rice University. Nominated for the 1997 Van Cliburn competition, she took first prize in the 2001 Carmel Music Society Competition and was a semi-finalist in the 1999 Washington International Competition. Tsang performed at the Aspen Music Festival, the Holland Music Sessions and the Sarasota Music Festival. Tsang is a faculty member at Laney College and an active solo and chamber musician, both nationally and internationally.

 

Ensemble for These Times’ first three award-winning recordings

E4TT’s debut CD, Surviving: Women’s Words (Centaur CRC 3490, 2016), new music to poems by four women Holocaust survivors, won a Silver Medal in the 2016 Global Music Awards. Lesley Mitchell-Clarke in The Whole Note wrote of it, “Now more than ever [...] the potent and timeless messages of survival, love, tolerance and forgiveness contained on this brilliant presentation need to resonate throughout the world.”

E4TT’s second CD, “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (Centaur, 2018, Gold Medal in the 2018 Global Music Awards) features a rarely heard cello duo composed by Hollywood movie maven (and Hungarian émigré) Miklós Rózsa (Spellbound, Ben-Hur), along with works by three others of his compatriots who perished in the Holocaust Stephen Smoliar wrote in “The Rehearsal Studio,” “Lerner Wright and Tsang knew how to tap into the rhetorical side of Rósza’s Opus 8 duo, making it clear that there was more to the music than the composer’s skill in reflecting Hungarian idioms.”

“Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan" (Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards) honors the centennial of seminal writer Paul Celan (1920-1970) whose work speaks to his experiences of loss, disempowerment, and survival under a brutal regime via four premiere recordings of works by E4TT co-founder David Garner and Jared Redmond to poems by Celan; Stephen Eddins, to poetry by Celan contemporary, Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), with a reading by son Anthony Milosz); and Libby Larsen. Writes Raul da Gama in The Whole Note, “Paul Celan was one of the 20th century’s most profound poets. To listen to this breathtaking recording of his poetry is to be drawn to its haunting beauty as if by gossamer strings.”

“The Guernica Project” and “For Good Measure” are supported, in part, by grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission and the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov. E4TT is grateful to: Lehendakaritza, the Delegation of the Basque Country in the USA for assistance in preparing the translation; Valerie Arrechea for help with the Basque pronunciation; the Zazpiak Bat Dance Group (Arrechea, dir.), for joining us with a San Juan Zortziko Aurresku (Basque honor dance) at the project premiere in 2017; El Museo de la Paz de Gernika (Gernikako Bakaeren Museoa) for allowing us to show historical images from their archives at the premiere; Mercedes Zavala, the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza, and the American Space in Madrid for bringing “The Guernica Project” to Spain in 2017; violinist Alejandro Saiz San Emeterio for joining us for our Madrid tour; Spain Arts and Culture and the Euskal Gazeta for their help in publicizing the premiere.

Max Horowitz 347.267.9563 maxcrossover@gmail.com

 

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