60560

Program:
Carol Worthey – Fantasia
       Hong Kong Premiere
Daniel Godfrey – Night Walk
Tina Davidson – Star Myths
Oliver Knussen – Ophelia's Last Dance

Composer Carol Worthey has this to say about Fantasia:

“I originally wrote the first rendition of this work as a child of eleven. One year earlier, at age ten, a different work Etude Fantastique was performed in Carnegie Hall, and so during the intervening year, I was suddenly knowing with certainty “Yes, I am a composer” and trying my hand at new pieces. Fantasia was a result of this, and it began with a more contemporary version of the kind of broken chord base that Mozart used (“Alberti bass”) but infused with a polytonal added note for flavor. When I look back at these initial passages, I am amazed at how the bittersweet, nostalgic theme becomes harmonically adventurous, made tender by dissonances that resolve in interesting ways. But the original score had been lost in the meanderings of life.

“In 1975 I decided to reconstruct what I could of this piece. Fortunately, I was able to exactly recall the initial moment of inspiration as an eleven-year-old. And so I was able to write down the beginning of the composition, at least the first page and a half. When I was 11, the original score had been premiered by internationally known Concert Pianist Vivian Rivkin at Hunter College Auditorium in Manhattan; Ms. Rivkin had been the pianist who had performed my earlier work at Carnegie Hall the year before. As a child, I had been in love with the ballet music (by British composer Brian Easdale ) in the movie The Red Shoes with Moira Shearer . The movie was a natural to engross me, since it is centered around a brilliant, tormented composer and a beautiful prima ballerina in the throes of a domineering impressario who didn't want her to give up her dancing for marriage. As an eleven-year-old, I was most definitely influenced by the mood and scenario of The Red Shoes ballet music, based on a Hans Christian Anderson story about a young girl who puts on magic red shoes and dances herself to death. In reconstructing the original work, I found as a grown woman and a much more seasoned composer that I had to evolve the original score into worlds, harmonies and pianistic runs that an eleven-year-old might not have been able to create. And so on page two of the score, I moved the original material into a new place, harmonically and in every way.

“ Fantasia functions both as an abstract work and a programmatic (story-telling) piece. It is a very vivid evocation of what I drew on the artwork cover: A young girl, in the throes of teenage passion, somehow sneaks into an abandoned carnival at night and dances through it, imagining a marching band and daredevil acts in the big tent, feeling the loneliness and mystery of the abandoned carnival, reliving nostalgic memories and dreaming of passionate love for the future. Fantasia is both the composer as a child, as a teenager and as a woman, empowered by a lifetime of exploration into compositional art. May it engage you as it has me for all these years!”