Ravinia 2019, Issue 7, Week 14

very quickly. As Sergei Sergeevich [Prokofiev] suggested, I provided two or three variants for each place in the sonata that required editing. Then I numbered them and gave them to him to look over. With a pencil, he marked what he found suitable and made a few corrections. That is how—with a minimum of discussion—the vi- olin version of the sonata was completed.” This arrangement was published as Violin Sona- ta No. 2, op. 94bis. In actuality, it was completed before the Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, op. 80, which occupied Prokofiev until 1946. A youth- ful violin sonata written in 1903 was left unpub- lished. Oistrakh and pianist Lev Oborin intro- duced the Sonata No. 2 in Moscow on June 17, 1944. This piece displays neither the startling melodic and harmonic dissonance nor the driv- ing, angular rhythm that earned Prokofiev a du- bious reputation as an enfant terrible . Instead, its music is grounded in the standard designs of the 18th century: a sonata-allegro first movement with two distinct themes; a scherzo movement with a contrasting portion in the middle; a slow, lyrical movement; and an exuberant finale. GITY RAZAZ (b. 1986) Cadenza for the Once Young Growing up in Tehran, Iran, Gity Razaz found few outlets for her energy and musical creativity beyond her private piano lessons. Composition took hold after her mother accepted a research position at Baylor University and the family moved to Houston, TX. The pre-college summer music school, American Festival for the Arts, of- fered Razaz her first formal composition stud- ies. She double-majored in pre-med and music composition at the University of Houston before transferring to The Juilliard School in order to focus on composition. Since graduating from Juilliard in 2012 with a master’s degree in composition, Razaz has devoted herself to composition, often devel- oping collaborations between performing mu- sicians, dancers, and soundscape artists. These partnerships have resulted in innovative works such as the one-act opera Fault Lines (2018), confronting racism and classism in America during World War II, for Washington Nation- al Opera; the full-length ballet The Kreutzer Sonata (2019) for Ballet Moscow; and Shadow Lines (2014) and Legend of Sigh (2015) for cello and prerecorded electronics. Razaz has received several awards for her compositions, including the Libby Larsen Prize in the International Al- liance for Women in Music’s 28th Search for New Music Competition (2009) and the An- drew Imbrie Award (2019) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. During the sum- mer of 2017, Razaz served as the Chautauqua Opera Company’s composer-in-residence, in partnership with the American Opera Project. As an educator, Razaz teaches through the Luna Composition Lab at the Kaufman Music Center, a composition program for those “who self-identify as female, non-binary, or gender non-conforming,” and is a teaching fellow with the New York Philharmonic Very Young Com- posers program. She instructed music theory and ear training for one year as an adjunct fac- ulty member at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and she has served on the advisory committee for the American Federation of Teachers Grad- uate Scholarship. Regarding her recent Cadenza for the Once Young , Razaz has provided the following com- mentary: “When Yevgeny [Kutik] explained to me the concept behind his extended [recording] project Meditations on Family , I decided to write my short violin piece about my grandparents, specifically about my grandmother. After the death of my grandfather, my grandmother (or Mamani, as we call her) moved to the US to be close to her family. She and Babaee (my grand- father) were living in Iran all alone after their children immigrated to US and Europe, so it was only natural for Mamani to come live here after her husband of 60+ years had passed. However, after a short period of five years, Mamani de- cided to move back to Iran as she was homesick and missed visiting Babaee’s resting place and all their memories. This piece is dedicated to their lasting love and decades of companionship.” Washington Performing Arts commissioned Cadenza for the Once Young in 2018 for Yevgeny Kutik, who gave the premiere on April 23, 2019. ANDREIA PINTO CORREIA (b. 1971) Litania Portuguese composer Andreia Pinto Correia studied at the Academia de Amadores de Música in her hometown of Lisbon before coming to the United States, initially to study jazz saxophone at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and later composition at the New England Conser- vatory, where she pursued master’s and doctoral degrees under Bob Brookmeyer and Michael Gandolfi. She has received further guidance and encouragement from John Harbison and Steven Stucky. In addition, Pinto Correia co-curated The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art, and Society festival presented by the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities at Rutgers University. Pinto Correia has garnered numerous awards for her compositions, among them the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fel- lowship, Rockefeller Foundation Center Fellow- ship, Herb Alpert/Ucross Residency Prize, Toru Takemitsu Composition Award by the Japan Society, and the honorary title of Fellow of the Australian National University–Canberra. In addition to commissions from such organiza- tions as the Boston Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet, Chamber Music America, Fromm Mu- sic Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Pinto Correa has fostered interdisciplinary col- laborations with filmmakers, choreographers, writers, historians, and marine biologists. In describing her recent composition Litania , Pinto Correi writes: “In his Book of Disquiet , the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (Bernar- do Soares) writes this short phrase: ‘Litania: We are two abysses—a well staring at the sky.’ The initial inspiration for this miniature for violin Sergei Prokofiev (1953) Gity Razaz Andreia Pinto Correia (photo: Tiago Miranda) SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 91