1. The quotation comes from the award’s Web site: http://www.music.northwestern.edu/about/prizes/nemmers-prize/ (accessed November 7, 2012).
2. Interviews took place in New York and California in 2011 and 2012 and were supplemented by extensive email correspondence and occasional phone calls.
3. Bernard Holland, “Shades of Brahms and Jerry Lee Lewis,” New York Times, February 23, 1996, C22. The three pieces on the program were 100 Greatest Dance Hits, Superstar Etude no. 1, and Still Movement with Hymn.
4. Bernard Holland, “Sorrowful Soliloquies from a Versatile American Voice,” New York Times, January 21, 2005, B4.
5. Carlo Boccadoro, “‘Non esiste una ricetta per scrivere’: Aaron Jay Kernis,” Musica Coelestis (Torino: Einaudi, 1999), 102–3 (translated by Giacomo Fiore with revisions by Aaron Jay Kernis).
6. Benjamin Ivry, “A Composer of Grand Gestures,” Christian Science Monitor, January 4, 2002, 20.
7. Ann McCutchan, The Muse That Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 240.
8. Aaron Jay Kernis, interview in Disney’s Millennium Symphonies, a supplemental booklet issued in conjunction with the performance of The Garden of Light (October 1999).
1. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Kernis come from my interviews or discussions with him.
2. Aaron Jay Kernis, interview on “The Composer’s Voice,” Minnesota Public Radio, September 6, 1998 (for Mahler); email message to the author (for Bartók).
3. The date of the move is clarified by Kernis’s report cards.
4. Aaron Jay Kernis, report card for 1967–68.
5. The address was 45 West Bort Street, Long Beach.
6. Rebecca Gratz (1781–1896) established the first Jewish Sunday school in the United States in Philadelphia in 1838.
7. I thank Uziel Adini for the information on Gratz College’s elementary school program, which no longer exists.
8. Aaron Jay Kernis, report card for 1968–69.
9. The first home was at 744 Mulberry Court, the second at 3117 Addison Court, Cornwells Heights.
10. Joshua Kosman, “String Players’ Choice: Why Star Performers Want New Compositions from Aaron Jay Kernis,” Strings 79 (July 1999): 34.
11. Programs from Bensalem High, November 27, 1974 (Baroque concert); December 17, 1976 (holiday concert); and April 15, 1977 (spring concert). The orchestra had about five first violins and five seconds.
12. This quotation is taken from a biographical statement Kernis submitted as part of his college applications (document in Kernis’s personal archive).
13. Ibid.
14. Kosman, “String Players’ Choice,” 34.
15. Renee P. Connor, “Student Scores Big with Original Works,” Courier Times (Bucks County), undated clipping (1975).
16. A few of the other students continued in music as well: for example, Sandra Sprecher is now a composer and videographer in New York.
17. This quotation is from the notes accompanying the score.
18. Ev Grimes, interview with Aaron Jay Kernis for the Yale Oral History of American Music Project, November 13, 1986.
19. Alan Rich, Careers and Opportunities in Music (New York: Dutton, 1964), 20.
20. Joseph Franklin, Settling Scores: A Life in the Margins of American Music (Santa Fe: Sunstone, 2006), 44.
21. Grimes, interview with Kernis.
22. Franklin, Settling Scores, 43–44.
23. Ibid., 44.
24. “John Adams: An Interview with Aaron Jay Kernis,” Conjunctions 19 (1992): 175.
25. “Little Tree” won the Fred Waring Choral Award in the junior division (1976); “Two Sonnets” and “Madrigal” took second prize in the Federation’s Cavalcade for Creative Youth Junior Composers Contest (1977).
26. Quotations in this paragraph are taken from interviews with Kernis by Miller, Grimes, and Boccadoro.
27. “Adams: Interview with Kernis,” 175.
28. Carlo Boccadoro, “‘Non esiste una ricetta per scrivere’: Aaron Jay Kernis,” Musica Coelestis (Torino: Einaudi, 1999), 104 (with addition by Kernis).
29. Paul Celan, Speech-Grille and Selected Poems, trans. Joachim Heugroschel (New York: Dutton, 1971).
30. Boccadoro, Kernis, 109.
31. This quotation is from the program notes to the score.
1. Quotations in this paragraph (in order) come from Bill Zakariasen, “A Warm Welcome for Newest Music,” New York Daily News, June 10, 1983; Will Crutchfield, “New Compositions at Yale,” New Haven Register, February 10, 1983, 21; Andrew Porter, “Tumult of Mighty Harmonies,” New Yorker, June 20, 1983, 86–89; Tim Page, “Philharmonic: New Music in a Festival Rehearsal,” New York Times, June 9, 1983, C16; Alan Rich, “Invaders from the New West,” Newsweek, June 20, 1983, 81; Patrick J. Smith, “‘Horizons ’83’ Via the New York Philharmonic: Does a ‘New Romanticism’ Really Exist?” Musical America, October 1983, 23–24.
2. Samuel Lipman, “The Philharmonic’s New Horizons,” New Criterion, September 1983, 48.
3. Joan La Barbara, “‘There’s a Hungry Crowd Out There,’” Musical America, October 1983, 9.
4. Kernis was the youngest composer; only one was female. The composers whose works were presented included John Adams, Sándor Balassa, Luciano Berio, Marc Antonio Consoli, George Crumb, Peter Maxwell Davies, David Del Tredici, Jacob Druckman, Lukas Foss, John Harbison, Aaron Jay Kernis, Barbara Kolb, Fred Lerdahl, Donald Martino, Bernard Rands, George Rochberg, Leonard Rosenman, Frederic Rzewski, Gunther Schuller, William Schuman, Joseph Schwantner, Tison Street, Morton Subotnick, Toru Takemitsu, Nicholas Thorne, and Charles Wuorinen. Conductors were all male: Jacob Druckman, Lukas Foss, Raymond Leppard, Zubin Mehta, Larry Newland, Gunther Schuller, and Arthur Weisberg.
5. Crutchfield, “New Compositions at Yale.”
6. Quotations in this paragraph are taken from the festival’s program book.
7. Information about these rehearsals comes from a rehearsal schedule in Kernis’s papers.
8. Igor Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons, trans. Arthur Knodel and Ingolf Dahl (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), 63, 65.
9. The poem may be found at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175895 (accessed October 13, 2013).
10. The quotations in this paragraph are from Ev Grimes, interview with Aaron Jay Kernis, Yale Oral History of American Music Project, November 13, 1986.
11. James Rushton, interview with the author, July 13, 2012.
12. “Paris” and “The Blue Animals” first appeared in Anderson’s collection Looking for Jonathan (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968). “Walking Barefoot” was published in Death and Friends (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970). All three poems are found together in Jon Anderson, The Milky Way: Poems, 1967–1982 (New York: Ecco, 1982).
13. The quotation comes from the program notes to a performance at the Manhattan School.
14. The quotation comes from the notes to the score.
1. As in previous chapters, any quotes from Kernis not referenced by endnotes come from interviews or email correspondence with the author.
2. Ev Grimes, interview with Aaron Jay Kernis, Yale Oral History of American Music Project, November 13, 1986.
3. The quotation is from the notes to the New York Philharmonic New Music Project reading session, June 10, 1987.
4. The quotation is from the notes for performance by the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra, February 24, 1985. (The performances took place on February 17 and 24, 1985.)
5. The quotations in this paragraph are from Grimes, interview with Kernis.
6. The quotations in this paragraph are from the program notes to the performance of Invisible Mosaic I by the Andiamo chamber ensemble, February 7, 1989.
7. Ibid.
8. The earliest performances were by the Andiamo chamber ensemble (two of the three movements of Invisible Mosaic I), the Ensemble InterContemporaine in Paris, conducted by Kent Nagano (Invisible Mosaic II), and the American Composers Orchestra in New York under Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (Invisible Mosaic III).
9. Quotations in this paragraph are from the program notes to the performance of February 7, 1989.
10. Gerard Schwarz, interview with the author, October 10, 2012.
11. Carlo Boccadoro, “‘Non esiste una ricetta per scrivere’: Aaron Jay Kernis,” in Musica Coelestis (Torino: Einaudi, 1999), 113 (translation by Giacomo Fiore).
12. Hugh Wolff, interview with the author, July 25, 2012.
13. Brett Campbell, “An Interview with Aaron Jay Kernis: Coming to Cabrillo,” Classical Voice, August 10, 2009. http://www.sfcv.org/events-calendar/artist-spotlight/an-interview-with-aaron-jay-kernis-coming-to-cabrillo.
14. James Rushton, interview with the author, July 13, 2012.
15. Czesław Miłosz, introduction to Anna Swir, Happy as a Dog’s Tail (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), ix.
16. The original proposal included the following composers who did not end up taking part in the project: José Maceda (1917–2004), the Philippines; Gyorgy Ligeti (b. 1923), Austria; Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931), USSR; Léo Brouwer (b. 1939), Cuba; Heinz Holliger (b. 1939), Germany; and Coriún Aharonián (b. 1940), Uruguay. Copies of the films are housed in Special Collections at the library of the University of California, Santa Cruz and at the John Cage Archive in New York.
17. Cage texts are quoted courtesy of the John Cage Trust.
18. Funding came from the Jerome Foundation.
19. Letter from John Adams to Aaron Jay Kernis, March 23, 1988.
20. Wolff, interview with the author.
21. Kernis’s statements regarding his embrace of the symphonic form come from his program notes to the Symphony in Waves.
22. I thank the staff at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for providing copies of the program and the reviews.
23. The quotations in this paragraph are taken from two articles by Bernard Holland in the New York Times: “Welcome Whiffs of Haydn and Bach during a Year of You-Know-Who,” December 29, 1991, H25 (the first quotation); and “New York Chamber Symphony,” November 12, 1991, C14 (the remaining quotations).
24. Members of the quartet at this time were Eva Gruesser (violin 1), Robin Mayforth (violin 2), Anna Kruger (viola), and Astrid Schween (cello). The quartet had been founded in 1985 by cellist Laura Sewell. Kay Stern had been the original first violinist (Anna Kruger, email to the author, August 14, 2012).
25. The quotations in this paragraph come from Eva Gruesser, telephone interview with the author, September 24, 2012, and Anna Kruger, telephone interview and email with the author, August 11 and 14, 2012.
26. The quotation is taken from Kernis’s own analysis of his score, found among his personal papers.
27. Kernis transposes the modes, a practice that was not characteristic of medieval and Renaissance music. The phrygian section is centered on B, the lydian on B♭.
28. The quotations are from the program notes to the first string quartet.
29. Information in this paragraph comes in part from an email message from Evelyne Luest to the author, May 14, 2013.
30. Linda Hoeschler, interview with the author, July 27, 2012.
31. The quotations in this paragraph come from the program notes to the Chicago Symphony performance in November 2002.
32. Stephen Mitchell, ed., The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry (New York: HarperPerennial, 1989).
33. Mitchell, Enlightened Heart, 58.
34. The translation by A. Cohen is taken from the Soncino Bible (London: Soncino, 1945).
35. The quotations in this paragraph come from Kernis’s notes to the score.
1. Allan Kozinn, “Cellist Plays Solo and Chamber Pieces,” New York Times, March 12, 1989, 68; John Rockwell, “Andiamo in Works Old and New,” New York Times, February 9, 1989, C18.
2. Lou Harrison, interviews with the author and Fredric Lieberman, February 10 and October 21, 1994.
3. The quotations in this paragraph are from Kernis’s interviews with the author and with Jenny Raymond, Yale Oral History of American Music Project, August 1, 1998. Quotations in this chapter and elsewhere that are not directly referenced come from the author’s interviews with the composer.
4. Lesley Chamberlain, preface to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Futurist Cookbook, trans. Suzanne Brill (San Francisco: Bedford Arts, 1989), 7.
5. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “Manifesto of Futurist Cooking,” Gazzetta del Popolo (Turin), December 28, 1930.
6. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “Futurist Manifesto,” first published in the Gazzetta dell’Emilia (Bologna), February 5, 1909. Kernis took his English texts from The Futurist Cookbook, trans. Suzanne Brill, preface (unpaginated) and pp. 36, 101, 102, and 105–7.
7. These quotations come from the first movement of Kernis’s Le quattro stagioni dalla cucina futurismo. For the context in Marinetti’s manifesto, see the edition by Suzanne Brill cited in note 6, pp. 36, 101.
8. This assessment by Kernis is found in Carlo Boccadoro, “‘Non esiste una ricetta per scrivere’: Aaron Jay Kernis,” Musica Coelestis (Torino: Einaudi, 1999), 110, translated by Giacomo Fiore.
9. The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti, ed. R. W. Crump (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), passim. Further quotations from the poem are from this edition.
10. The sources on Rossetti consulted for this discussion include Janet Galligani Casey, “The Potential of Sisterhood: Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market,” Victorian Poetry 29, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 63–78; Ellen Golub, “Untying Goblin Apron Strings: A Psychoanalytic Reading of ‘Goblin Market,’” Literature and Psychology 25 (1975): 158–65; Kathleen Jones, Learning Not to Be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti (Gloucestershire: Windrush, 1991); Katherine Mayberry, Christina Rossetti and the Poetry of Discovery (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989); Dorothy Mermin, “Heroic Sisterhood in ‘Goblin Market,’” Victorian Poetry 21, no. 2 (Summer 1983): 107–18; Miriam Sagan, “Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’ and Feminist Literary Criticism,” Pre-Raphaelite Review 3 (1980): 66–76; and Sharon Smulders, Christina Rossetti Revisited (New York: Twayne, 1996).
11. Aaron Jay Kernis, undated note about Goblin Market in his personal archive.
12. Rebecca Miller, pers. comm.
13. Ibid.
14. Alastair Macaulay, “Attitudes in Slow-Motion: Colourful and Decadent,” The Times (London), January 16, 1995. The form is melodrama in the strict sense of spoken text over music.
15. The Absolut concerto series continued through 1994, when Absolut Vodka switched to Seagram’s as its distributor.
16. See, e.g., John Mueller, “The Polls—A Review,” Public Opinion Quarterly 57 (1993): 80–91. Mueller makes the point that the polls showed different results depending on the way in which the questions were stated. Nevertheless, the results indicate substantial support for military action.
17. For a detailed discussion of this work, see Xi Wang, “An Analysis of the Second Symphony of Aaron Jay Kernis,” DMA diss., Cornell University, 2009.
18. Hugh Wolff, interview with the author, July 25, 2012. Wolff notes that for many modern works with loud percussion, players wear special earplugs that reduce decibels without reducing detail.
19. Allan Ulrich, “An Onslaught of Anguish: Symphony Performs Kernis’ Potent ’91 Work,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 2002, D17.
20. Pierre Ruhe, “ASO, on War Footing, Captures Fury of Battle,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 7, 2004.
21. See, e.g., Anthony Tommasini, “Again, a Quest for the Great American Symphony,” New York Times, August 10, 1997, H27; Joshua Kosman, “Music That Cries Out to Be Heard: Kernis’ War Protest Captures a Moment in Time Without Getting Bogged Down in It,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 2002, Sunday Datebook, 50.
22. This quotation comes from the notes on the title page of the score.
23. The original triumvirate consisted of John Adams, Christopher Hogwood, and Hugh Wolff (see Chapter 4). After two years John Harbison replaced Adams.
24. Wolff conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in this recording, stimulated by Andrew Cornall at Argo Records. See Chapter 6.
25. The award from Meet the Composer was matched by local funding. After the first year, Meet the Composer canceled its support, feeling that Kernis was not engaging in enough direct outreach (a decision that “created a minor scandal,” according to Linda Hoeschler). For the next two years the partner organizations maintained his residency, but Kernis’s salary was somewhat reduced. He gave up his apartment in St. Paul and commuted from New York.
26. This information comes from Kernis’s letter of agreement for this position and from Andrea Matthews, “Bully Podium: SPCO Composer-in-Residence Aaron Jay Kernis Has Advice for Aspiring Composers and a Warning for Those Who Would Cut Arts Funding,” Minnesota Monthly, September 1995, 24–25.
27. Information in this paragraph comes from the author’s interview with Linda Hoeschler, July 27, 2012.
28. Michael Barone, interview with the author, July 27, 2012.
29. Ibid.
30. American Public Radio, press release, “Saint Paul Sunday Morning to Premiere Aaron Jay Kernis’s ‘Still Movement with Hymn,’ a New Work Commissioned by American Public Radio,” December 1, 1993.
31. This quotation is from the notes to the score.
32. Ann McCutchan, The Muse That Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 237.
33. For more details about the commission, see Julie Giacobassi, “Colored Field: Concerto for English Horn,” Double Reed 19, no. 2 (1996), 69–74.
34. Thanks to David Flachs, director of production at Schirmer, for this information.
35. Quotations in this paragraph from Frank and Pascal come from Joshua Kosman, “String Players’ Choice: Why Star Performers Want New Compositions from Aaron Jay Kernis,” Strings 79 (July 1999): 32–37. For an interview with Isbin about the Double Concerto, see Jim Tosone, “Breaking New Ground: A Conversation with Sharon Isbin,” Guitar Review 109 (Spring 1997): 12–19.
36. Quotations from Wolff, Alsop, Rushton, and Kernis come from interviews with the author.
1. This information comes from the award letter of January 20, 1995. Later quotations in the paragraph are taken from the awards ceremony program.
2. Andrew Cornall, interview with the author, July 25, 2012. Argo recordings of Kernis’s music include Symphony in Waves (New York Chamber Symphony, Gerard Schwarz, conducting) and the first string quartet (Lark Quartet), 1992; New Era Dance (Baltimore Symphony, David Zinman, conducting), 1995; Colored Field (Julie Giacobassi, English horn, with the San Francisco Symphony, Alasdair Neale, conducting) and Still Movement with Hymn, 1996; Invisible Mosaic III, Musica Celestis, Second Symphony (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Hugh Wolff, conducting), 1997; and Air (Joshua Bell, violin), Double Concerto for guitar and violin (Cho-Liang Lin, violin, Sharon Isbin, guitar), and Lament and Prayer (Pamela Frank, violin), 1999.
3. For a database of the festival’s programs, see http://cabrillomusic.org/index.php?option=com_festivalhistory (accessed September 27, 2012). The database erroneously lists Invisible Mosaic II.
4. Mark Swed, “Danger Ahead! Aaron Jay Kernis, a Profile of a Young Composer on the Fast Track,” NewMuse (Summer 1995): 2.
5. Jim Tosone, “Aaron Jay Kernis on Concerto for Violin, Guitar and Orchestra,” Guitar Review 109 (Spring 1997): 20.
6. This quotation comes from the program notes to the Yale performance of 2002.
7. Hugh Wolff, interview with the author, July 25, 2012.
8. Edward Rothstein, “Crying Out to the Heavens with 414 Voices,” New York Times, May 5, 1995, 13.
9. Johanna Keller, “Well, It All Began When Mahler Got Disney Thinking,” New York Times, October 3, 1999, “Art and Leisure,” 29.
10. Paul Lieberman, “For Eisner’s Kingdom, a New World; Disney’s Foray into the Realm of Classical Music—the CEO’s Idea—Debuts Tonight,” Los Angeles Times, October 8, 1999, 1.
11. http://www.canalacademie.com/ida3578-Le-Theatre-du-Chatelet-une-tradition-de-l-audace.html (Canal Académie: Magazine francophone des Académies sur Internet, accessed July 10, 2012).
12. Jean-Luc Choplin, interview with the author, August 2, 2012.
13. Aaron Jay Kernis, pers. comm.; Gerard Schwarz, interview with the author, October 10, 2012.
14. As in other chapters, quotations from Kernis come from my interviews or discussions with him unless otherwise noted.
15. Anna Kruger, the original violist, was still with the ensemble for the commission and premiere of the second quartet but left the group in 1998 before the recording was made. (Anna Kruger, telephone interview and email correspondence with the author, August 11 and 14, 2012.) The new personnel consisted of Diane Pascal, Jennifer Orchard, Danielle Farina, and Astrid Schween.
16. Kaufman Cultural Center News, Winter 1997, 1.
17. This quotation comes from Kernis’s program notes.
18. Quotations in this paragraph come from Xi Wang’s interview with Kernis, reproduced in her dissertation (“An Analysis of the Second Symphony of Aaron Jay Kernis,” DMA diss., Cornell University, 2009, 49).
19. Choplin interview. The gradual increases in commission fee are documented in a series of preliminary contracts and communications in Kernis’s personal archive. A clause in the contract prevents me from disclosing the exact final fee.
20. Allan Kozinn’s claim, in a review of the premiere of the Central Park operas, that Kernis had “demanded, received, and rejected” seven versions of the libretto is patently false. Susan Feder, vice president of G. Schirmer (who negotiated Kernis’s commissions), corrected the record in a letter to the editor of the New York Times. See Allan Kozinn, “Playwrights as Librettists for a Trilogy Set in a Park,” New York Times, July 26, 1999, E1; Susan Feder, “‘Central Park’: Counting Librettos,” New York Times (letter to the editor), August 8, 1999, AR4. See also Anthony Tommasini, “Of Central Park They Sing,” New York Times, July 18, 1999, AR29. The discussion of this incident is based on documents in Kernis’s personal archive, including his letter to McNally, the Schirmer lawyer’s letter to Kellogg, and Kellogg’s formal statement.
21. Letter, Paul Kellogg to Jac Venza, executive producer of Great Performances, WNET, May 5, 1998.
22. Jenny Raymond, interview with Aaron Kernis for the Yale Oral History of American Music Project, August 1, 1998.
23. David Patrick Stearns, “A Premiere Composer,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 27, 2001, “Magazine,” C1, C8.
24. Karen Campbell, “Harmonic Convergence: Aaron Jay Kernis Connects with the Minnesota Orchestra as His Style Takes an Optimistic Turn,” Symphony Magazine (November–December 1998): 38–39.
25. James Oestreich, “A Most Audacious Dare Reverberates,” New York Times, December 17, 2006, A33. The Composer Institute did not take place in 2013 due to an ongoing labor dispute that silenced the Minnesota Orchestra for the entire 2012–13 season.
26. “Roth and Graham Win Arts Pulitzers: Also Honored Was Composer Aaron Jay Kernis.” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 15, 1998.
27. This quotation comes from a souvenir book issued in conjunction with the Millennium Symphonies performance.
28. Program book for the New York premiere, p. 21.
29. For more information about this project, see Sarah Thomas de Benítez, What Works in Street Children Programming: The JUCONI Model (International Youth Foundation), 2001.
30. Jelena Petrovic, “Y2 Composer,” LiveMusic (Spring 1999): 76.
31. Choplin interview.
32. Johanna Keller, “Well, It All Began When Mahler Got Disney Thinking,” New York Times, October 3, 1999, “Art and Leisure” 46.
33. Critic Paul Lieberman wrote that Masur wanted to eliminate the boy soprano but that Kernis insisted on retaining him as necessary to prefigure the children’s chorus. Kernis does not recall this discussion, however. See Paul Lieberman, “For Eisner’s Kingdom, a New World: Disney’s Foray into the Realm of Classical Music—the CEO’s Idea—Debuts Tonight,” Los Angeles Times, October 8, 1999, 1.
34. The concerts, held on November 11 and 18, 1999, were called “Messages for the Millennium.” The six works were composed by Thomas Adès (England), Hans Werner Henze (Germany), Kaija Saariaho (Finland), Somei Satoh (Japan), John Corigliano (United States), and Giya Kancheli (Republic of Georgia). Thanks to Welz Kauffmann for his insights into the input and efforts of Masur (Welz Kauffman, interview with the author, August 3, 2012).
35. Millennium Symphonies souvenir book.
36. Quotations in this paragraph and the next from Philip Kennicott, “The Night Mahler Met Mickey Mouse,” Washington Post, October 9, 1999, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2–630025.html; Mark Swed, “Some Beauty in This Strange Beast,” Los Angeles Times, October 11, 1999, 1; Paul Griffiths, “Disney ‘Millennium Symphonies,’” New York Times, October 11, 1999, E3; and Greg Sandow, “Disney Takes a Cautious Ride Into Classical Music,” Wall Street Journal, November 1, 1999, A24. Information on the audience response comes from the Choplin and Kauffmann interviews as well as the author’s interview with Elizabeth Dworkin (September 25, 2012).
37. David Patrick Stearns, “New York Harvests a Garden of Delights,” USA Today, October 12, 1999, 5D.
38. Choplin interview.
39. Swed, “Some Beauty” (“effusive lyricism”); Griffiths, “Disney ‘Millennium Symphonies’” (“exultant rhythms”). The comments about frequent climaxes and the work being too big to hold together successfully are derived from comments by Sandow, “Disney Takes a Cautious Ride,” and Kennicott, “The Night Mahler Met Mickey Mouse.”
40. Sandow, “Disney Takes a Cautious Ride.” At the time Garden of Light was in preparation, Kernis began to feel a need for help with managing his career. He turned to Elizabeth Dworkin, who remains his representative.
41. Michael Anthony, “Kernis’ Stirring ‘Garden of Light’ Premieres in Minneapolis,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 20, 2002.
42. Matt Peiken, “Kernis Succeeds in Giving New Life to Concertos,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 19, 2000, 1E-2E.
43. These directions come from the score.
44. Jane M. Von Bergen, “Kimmel Puts His Money—and Stamp—on Institutions,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 14, 2001, A1, A22.
45. From the Grawemeyer Web site http://grawemeyer.org/ (accessed August 15, 2012).
46. Information and quotations in this paragraph come from Marc Satterwhite, email to the author, August 14, 2012.
47. Anthony Tommasini, “In Philadelphia, New Hall’s Sound Is in the Ear of the Beholder,” New York Times, December 17, 2001, E1.
1. This information comes from interviews with Aaron Kernis and Evelyne Luest. As in previous chapters, quotations from Kernis come from my interviews or phone conversations with him unless otherwise indicated.
2. Quotations in this paragraph come from “Sonic Mass and Scope,” G. Schirmer News, February 2004, 1.
3. Quotations in this paragraph come from the program notes to the first performance.
4. This quotation comes from the program notes to the Singapore performance.
5. On this piece, see the article by H. Wiley Hitchcock, “Henry Cowell’s Ostinato Pianissimo,” Musical Quarterly 70 (1984): 23–44.
6. Emanuele Arciuli, email message to the author, May 23, 2013.
7. For information about the concert, see Allan Kozinn, “Many-Faceted Dreams of That Time Round Midnight,” New York Times, November 21, 2002, E6.
8. This quotation comes from Kernis’s program notes.
9. Welz Kauffman, interview with the author, August 3, 2012, and follow-up email messages.
10. http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/miller/kernis/.
11. On Wise and the Cincinnati temple, see http://www.wisetemple.org/?page=history (accessed August 13, 2012).
12. The first organ in a Reform temple was introduced in 1815 in Berlin. See Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Organ,” http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11761-organ (accessed October 5, 2012).
13. Stephen Mitchell, A Book of Psalms, Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).
14. On the tortured history of the auditorium and the political maneuverings that repeatedly blocked its construction, see Leta E. Miller, Music and Politics in San Francisco: From the 1906 Quake to the Second World War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), chap. 6. The history of the San Francisco Conservatory is detailed in ibid., chap. 5.
15. It is also possible to perform the work without guitar; Kernis provides additional notes for the pianist in this version. The premiere took place on January 28, 2007.
16. This quotation comes from Kernis’s program notes.
17. This information comes from the program notes to the performance at Yale University, November 6, 2009.
18. Ibid.
19. Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, trans. Peter Cole (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
20. Gerard Schwarz, interview with the author, October 10, 2012.
21. In his setting of this text, Kernis omitted one of Ibn Gabirol’s four stanzas and one recurrence of the refrain.
22. The Ashamnu text in its present form is already found in the liturgy of Amram Gaon, who died in 875; see Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993), 125. On this prayer see also Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996), 38–39. Thanks to Peter Cole for reading and commenting on this portion of my text.
23. This quotation comes from unpublished comments that Kernis provided to a reporter who was writing about his trumpet concerto. He further revised these comments for the present book. I thank Kernis’s agent Elizabeth Dworkin for making these comments available to me.
24. See Anthony Tommasini, “The Tried and the True Step in after the Storm,” New York Times, December 30, 2010, 3.
25. This quotation is from the program notes.
26. The pitches sounded by the shofar can vary depending on the performer and the instrument. Some shofarot are made from ram’s horns; others come from the horns of other animals. Particularly popular today are Yemenite kudu horns. The pitches for the tekiah and shevarim blasts are usually close to a fifth but can sometimes be a fourth. The overtones that speak also depend, of course, on the size of the instrument.
27. Schwarz interview.
1. One place this quotation is found is in Kernis’s notes for the first string quartet, 1991.
2. Aaron Jay Kernis, “Composer’s Voice,” a program aired on Minnesota Public Radio, September 6, 1998.
3. Ibid.
4. As in previous chapters, quotations from Kernis come from interviews with him or from email correspondence unless stated otherwise.
5. These works are, in the order listed in the text, On Distant Shores (2011), L’arte della danssar (2011), Perpetual Chaconne (2012), Pieces of Winter Sky (2012), and Dreamsongs (2013).
6. Fifteenth-Century Dance and Music: Twelve Transcribed Italian Treatises and Collections in the Tradition of Domenico da Piacenza, trans. and annot. A. William Smith (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1995).
7. “Dorma ador” (2000) is based on a tune in the Portuguese manner created by Janika Vandervelde.
8. The text quoted here is taken from the introductory material published in Kernis’s score. The translation is my own.
9. The Italian text as given here is taken from the introductory material in Kernis’s score. The translation is my own.
10. James Rushton, interview with the author, July 13, 2012.
11. Philip Collins, “The Future Is Now: Aaron Jay Kernis Works Futurism, Minimalism, Politics, and the Sounds of the Street into His Unpredictable Musical Compositions,” Metro Santa Cruz, August 10–16, 1995, 9–10.
12. “Composer’s Voice,” program on Minnesota Public Radio, May 2, 1993.
13. Email message to the author, July 29, 2012.
14. “Aaron Jay Kernis Awarded $100,000 2012 Nemmers Composition Prize,” http://www.music.northwestern.edu/about/prizes/nemmers-prize/2012-press-release.html (accessed November 5, 2012).
15. Andrea Matthews, “Bully Podium: SPCO Composer-in-Residence Aaron Jay Kernis Has Advice for Aspiring Composers and a Warning for Those Who Would Cut Arts Funding,” Minnesota Monthly, September 1995, 24–25.
16. Gerard Schwarz, interview with the author, October 10, 2012.
17. Peter Occhiogrosso, “Dig the New Breed,” Lingo 4 (1995): 17.