Converging Traditions
June 4, 5, 6, 8 p.m.
Studio Z, 275 East Fourth Street, St. Paul
$10

Two traditions converge to forge new musical frontiers in this concert featuring world premieres of Paul Elwood’s Appalachian-infused work, The Labyrinths of Time, and Seasons, a new work by Chinese-born composer Gao Hong. Both composers will be strumming along with Zeitgeist – Elwood on banjo and Gao on pipa.

Program Notes

Seasons: Chun, Xia, Qiu, Dong (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) by Gao Hong

Gao Hong wrote this piece to depict the various characteristics and resulting emotions brought on by each of the four seasons.

Spring marks the end of frigid winter and a new beginning. It is filled with fresh air, the returning sounds of birds and raindrops and wind. A new hope arises. Buds reappear on trees; plants and flowers once again grow without restrictions.

Summer is a hectic and crazy. People travel heavily, roads are crowded with people traveling long and short distances and going to soccer games and kids activities. Also, summer is unpredictable. One minute the sky is blue and in a split second the weather can change from peaceful to violent. In this movement Hong uses dense, fast-changing harmonies to express both the motions and emotions of summer.

Fall brings new challenges along with its own distinct brand of beauty. But the leaves turn and eventually fall to the ground. Winds howl and temperatures fall as the inevitable onslaught of winter nears. The sad, lonely feelings of autumn are expressed through the use of long, hanging notes, and a variety of note-bending techniques on the pipa.

Frozen ground, icy roads and snowstorms mark the winter months. The layers upon layers of snow create a feeling of peace and purity. The events surrounding the holiday season put people in a cheerful mood. And you always know that after the long, cold winter, spring will come! In the movement, Hong uses the instruments to create many different layers depicting the beauty of the snowflakes and the hope of things to come.

a forty-four smokeless by Paul Elwood

a forty-four smokeless was commissioned by Zeitgeist with funds from the American Composers Forum Jerome Commissioning Program in 2007. The ensemble requested a composition with five-string banjo; composer Paul Elwood wrote the banjo part for himself, and the piece is based on the Appalachian folk tune Little Sadie. Little is known about the factual events in the song about a man named Lee Brown who dispassionately murders a woman named Little Sadie. It is thought the events occurred in North Carolina because that is the only place where a town named Thomasville is only 60 miles from a town named Jericho, where Brown, in the song, says he ran after the murder. It is a curious tune in which the murderer expresses no remorse – and no reason for the killing is given. One verse of the song, not used in this composition, says “Forty one days, forty one nights, forty one years to wear the ball and the stripes; I'll be here for the rest of my life, and all I done was kill my wife.” In spite of the dark nature of the text, as is the case with many folk songs, the tune has entered the common repertoire of many bluegrass and old-time bands.

Some melodic and harmonic material in the composition is derived from Little Sadie, but the piece also wanders freely amongst other musical material exploring the coloristic and harmonic combinations of the diverse instruments in the ensemble. The composition is dedicated to Zeitgeist.

The Golden Road

The Golden Road (titled after the Grateful Dead's song, The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion), for pipa, banjo and piano, was composed in 2000 for pipa player Min Xiao-Fen, pianist Stephen Drury and composer Paul Elwood on banjo. While the piece makes no use of material from the Grateful Dead song, the composition does make use of an old Irish tune called The Cuckoo’s Nest, heard in the middle of the piece (and one of Elwood's all-time favorite melodies). The banjo is tuned like the pipa (requiring heavier guitar strings) and makes use of traditional bluegrass picking and Appalachian clawhammer styles. The Golden Road was premiered by Xiao-Fen, Drury and Elwood at the New England Conservatory in 2003.

Lyle Lofgren, Remembering The Old Songs: LITTLE SADIE
Originally published: Inside Bluegrass, January 2002
www.lizlyle.lofgrens.org/RmOlSngs/RTOS-Sadie.html

Tickets can be reserved online or by calling 651-755-1600.