THE AMES PIANO QUARTET

WORLD PREMIERE OF LEE HOIBY'S CHAMBER PIECE,
Dark Rosaleen, Rhapsody on an Air by James Joyce,
FOR PIANO, VIOLIN, VIOLA, CELLO--
COMMISSIONED BY AMES TOWN & GOWN CHAMBER MUSIC ASSOCIATION, AMES, IOWA
SATURDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 4, 2000, AT 7:30 P.M.
AMES CITY AUDITORIUM, AMES, IOWA

On November 4, the world premiere of a new piano quartet by American composer Lee Hoiby will take place in Ames, Iowa. The work, "Dark Rosaleen, Rhapsody on an Air by James Joyce," was commissioned by the Ames Town & Gown Chamber Music Association to celebrate its 50th anniversary as a presenting organization. The performers will be the members of the Ames Piano Quartet, resident chamber ensemble at Iowa State University. The program on November 4 will also include the Piano Quintet in F minor by Johannes Brahms with guest artist violinist John Gilbert.

The commission of Lee Hoiby was made possible with generous support from the Iowa Arts Council (a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs), the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of Iowa State University, and the Alvin Edgar Fund for the Performing Arts, a part of the Iowa State University Foundation.

Lee Hoiby, a composer of international stature, has had a long artistic association with the state of Iowa. In particular, his operas have been featured in outstanding performances by the Des Moines Metro Opera. The Tempest was premiered there in 1986, and Summer and Smoke was performed in 1998. Although he is perhaps best known for his vocal music, Mr. Hoiby has also written numerous instrumental works, including pieces for violin and orchestra, a flute concerto, two piano concertos, solo piano works, and chamber works. In 1996 he was Composer-In-Residence at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Robert Larsen, artistic director of the Des Moines Metro Opera, cites the composer's "remarkably lyric voice . . . his elegant orchestration and . . . superb string writing." And it is precisely this lyricism that drew Ames Town & Gown and the Ames Piano Quartet to Mr. Hoiby's compositions and led them to approach him with this commission.

For more information about Mr. Hoiby, visit The Music of LEE HOIBY

In "Dark Rosaleen", Mr. Hoiby has drawn on the musical aspirations of writer James Joyce. As a student, Joyce had been enamored of a poem by James Clarence Mangin, entitled "Dark Rosaleen," and had gone so far as to create a melody to accompany the verse. He sang the melody for a close college friend, John Francis Byrne. Byrne, who was the model for Cranley in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in turn sang the melody for his son's college roommate, Lee Hoiby. And it is upon this melody that Hoiby has now based his Rhapsody.

The Ames Piano Quartet, chosen by Ames Town & Gown to be the first performers of the recently completed work, was founded in 1976 as resident ensemble at Iowa State University. Since that time, the Quartet has performed over 500 professional engagements in 40 states, in Austria, France, and the Far East. In the past 10 years, the Quartet has released a half-dozen critically acclaimed compact discs, the first on the Musical Heritage Society label, and subsequent ones with Dorian Recordings. The American Record Guide named the Quartet's CD of the Dvorak piano quartets "one of the best chamber music recordings of the century." Their seventh CD, featuring rarely heard masterworks by Russian composers Paul Juon and Sergei Taneyev, will be released in November by Dorian. The members of the Quartet are William David, piano; Mahlon Darlington, violin; Jonathan Sturm, viola; and George Work, cello. The ensemble is represented by Joanne Rile Management in Philadelphia.

The Ames Town & Gown Chamber Music Association sponsors five concerts annually, featuring outstanding chamber music ensembles and soloists from throughout the world. It also funds educational programs that bring many of these artists into personal contact with school children and university students. In addition to the Hoiby/Ames Piano Quartet performance and school outreach, this season also includes the Guarneri String Quartet, the Aulos Ensemble, baritone Dae-San No, and pianist Alexandra Mascolo-David. The artist roster for this season and the 50 years past includes an astonishing array of the world's most accomplished musicians. Artistic Director Paula Forrest cites this commission of the new piano quartet by Lee Hoiby as an opportunity for the organization to go beyond a celebration of past and future performances by making a very real and lasting contribution to the chamber music repertory.