[MUSIC]

Simone Dinnerstein: Hello, I'm Simone Dinnerstein, and tonight we are featuring several of the many innovative and unusual commissions from Musaics of the Bay. We have with us its founder and artistic director Audrey Vardanega, as well as composer and artist Milad Yousufi here on the Young Artists Showcase. The Young Artists Showcase has been generously underwritten since 1978 by the Harold W McGraw Jr. Family Foundation. Throughout those years, we have featured so many wonderful music organizations, and this one has a personal connection.

I first met pianist Audrey Vardanega in 2018 at the Mannes School of Music. She immediately impressed me, not only with her beautiful musicianship but by her thoughtful and articulate contributions to the class. Following her graduation, Audrey kept in touch with me asking advice about various projects. She had ambitions to start a concert series in her hometown of Oakland, California. Audrey, welcome to WQXR.

Audrey Vardanega: Thank you so much for having me here, Simone.

Simone Dinnerstein: I remember speaking with you at a cafe in Manhattan sometime late in 2019 when you were just beginning your concert series. Then March of 2020 hit us, and your series took a remarkably different direction. Tell us about the Stay-at-Home Symposium and what inspired you to create this innovative program.

Audrey Vardanega: So the March 2020 lockdown was a really pivotal moment for us because we started as a concert series basically catering to a community of music lovers in Oakland and Berkeley. And in March 2020 with the lockdown, we had extra funding from a fundraiser that we had done earlier the previous year.

Simone Dinnerstein: Mm-hmm.

Audrey Vardanega: And we were thinking, "Okay, how can we like best support artists right now?" So I had this crazy idea where I thought like, "Let's try to put an open call out there to the community of listeners and audience members and see if they have specific visual artworks or poems or sculptures or short films that they particularly love and have them submit these works of art through like a community submission form on our website. And I'll see if our network of composers are inspired by any of these individual community submissions and choose to write short pieces inspired by community-submitted artwork."

And so what ensued was a year and a half of this happening every week, and we brought together this wonderful and diverse and varied worldwide community of people, not just musicians, but just regular music lovers and art lovers who felt like they were very much part of the process of catalyzing new music. And so every week, a different performer or an ensemble would premiere each one of these new compositions, and then we would have like little conversations with the person who created the submission or who submitted the artwork, the composer, and the performers, so--

Simone Dinnerstein: And once you were able to have in-person concerts, you expanded this collaboration between visual artists and composers into an artist residency program, right?

Audrey Vardanega: So as soon as we were able to, we started doing residency programs, 'cause that felt like the natural iteration out of this year-and-a-half-long virtual project. It just felt like we needed to bring this energy in person and in Berkeley and Oakland. So we started, I think January 2022 was our first in-person residency program. And we've been able to keep those going ever since.

Simone Dinnerstein: That's so wonderful. Wow. Well, we are gonna listen to several works commissioned for this Stay-at-Home Symposium and Artist Residency program. Let's start with Nick Main's, Schizzo Notturno Degli Angeli Saggi. This work is a musical sketch for a violin and piano inspired by the imagery of angels, owls, and women best exemplified by Katie Swatland's painting Athena's Owl.

[MUSIC - Nicholas Main: Schizzo Notturno Degli Angeli Saggi]

Simone Dinnerstein: That was Schizzo Notturno Degli Angeli Saggi by composer Nick Main, performed by violinist Nigel Armstrong and our guest pianist Audrey Vardanega. The next three pieces all originated from the Stay-at-Home Symposium. Audrey commissioned composer Alistair Coleman to write something inspired by a painting by my father artist Simon Dinnerstein. Alistair chose Solaris, one of my dad's evocative palette paintings. Alistair named the composition Of Simon and Solaris and we will hear it performed now by violinist Emma Meinrenken.

[MUSIC - Alistair Coleman: Of Simon and Solaris]

Simone Dinnerstein: That was Alistair Coleman's piece, Of Simon and Solaris, performed by violinist Emma Meinrenken. The next work that we will hear is a composition for solo piano by composer Luke Hsu called Piccolo Pezzo, performed here by Salzburg-based pianist, Andrei Gologan. It was inspired by Berkeley, California-based painter Darril Tighe's painting, Homage to Edmundo.

[MUSIC - Luke Hsu: Piccolo Pezzo]

Simone Dinnerstein: That was Piccolo Pezzo by composer Luke Hsu, performed by pianist Andrei Gologan. Next, we will listen to Cellist Nick Reeves play Some Mornings Need Lullabies, a composition by Aileen Chao. The work was inspired by a painting by Marin-based visual artist, June Yokell, titled Now What?

[MUSIC - Aileen Chao: Some Mornings Need Lullabies]

Simone Dinnerstein: That was Some Mornings Need Lullabies by Aileen Chao, performed by Cellist Nick Reeves. We are very fortunate to have with us in the studio, the composer of the next work that we will hear. Milad Yousufi, welcome.

Milad Yousufi: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Simone Dinnerstein: Milad, we first met back in 2016 when you began studying with me at the Mannes School of Music. You've had quite a journey since those early days when you were a recently arrived refugee from Afghanistan finding your way in New York City. It soon became clear to me that although you were an extremely sensitive pianist, your passion lay in composition. But you're a true renaissance man and are not only a composer, but also a painter, calligrapher, and poet, and an all-around creative and intellectually curious person. I know that you first met Audrey in my class, on public elementary school concerts, but tell us how your relationship with Musaics of the Bay has grown since that time.

Milad Yousufi: I still vividly remember meeting Audrey in one of those classes. And, uh, we connected very quickly, me and Audrey, because Audrey's mom also comes from a refugee family here.

Simone Dinnerstein: Oh.

Milad Yousufi: And we share a very similar culture.

Simone Dinnerstein: Where-where does Audrey's mother come from?

Milad Yousufi: From China.

Simone Dinnerstein: I see.

Milad Yousufi: And we have very similar culture and somehow felt like, uh, she's my godmother and I’m her-

Simone Dinnerstein: Oh.

Milad Yousufi: -adopted son. So we-we really connected. And, uh, and I was-- I felt guilty and spoiled also because at Audrey's house, I had my own chair.

[laughter]

Milad Yousufi: Which no one was allowed to sit.

Simone Dinnerstein: Oh, really? [laughs]

Milad Yousufi: Audrey's mom never let anyone to sit there.

Simone Dinnerstein: That's wonderful. Wow.

Milad Yousufi: So-so that was like a warm and-and-and a great, uh, environment. But that's how we met and we connected very soon. And we-- Since then, we have been working on many wonderful projects.

Simone Dinnerstein: Oh, that's so wonderful. Well, I know that the composition that we are going to hear next is based on a poem that you wrote called I Cried. And what's really interesting about all this is that you then incorporated the written poem into a painting. Right? You used calligraphy within the painting to-to write the poetry. And, um, the musical composition that you made is inspired by this synthesis of poetry and art. So I thought it would be lovely if you could read the poem for us.

Milad Yousufi: Sure.

I cried. I cried, cried, and cried

Destiny made me a refugee

My religion is love

My life is wandering

Seeking, and seeking

I'll cross the ocean this year

I'll leave the forest behind

I'll find my home

I looked into my heart

I cried, cried, and cried

It was broken into pieces

I looked around, no one was there

No one was there to listen to my story

Obligations made me lost

Separated me from my beloved

I'll leave the strangers and don't look behind

I'll cross the ocean one day

I'll leave the forest behind

I'll find my home

I'll find my home.

[MUSIC - Milad Yousufi: I cried]

Simone Dinnerstein: You just listened to a performance by Cellist Andrew Janss, and Pianist Audrey Vardanega playing Milad Yousufi's, I cried. It's time for a quick break now here on the McGraw Family's Young Artist Showcase. Welcome back. We are listening to performances by Musaics of the Bay and are enjoying talking with its founder and artistic director, Audrey Vardanega, as well as composer and artist Milad Yousufi. The next work is a commission of Musaics of the Bay that was premiered by Violinist Nigel Armstrong, Pianist Audrey Vardanega, and Cellist Peter Myers at the Santa Cruz Symphony Chamber Music series at Cabrillo College in March of 2023. Audrey, tell us about Icefall.

Audrey Vardanega: So this was a really exciting new commission for us because previously we had done commissions always related to artwork or poetry or within the context of residency programs. But in this case, actually, we just decided to commission Peter to create something freely, just a-a piano trio. And Peter has such a rich harmonic imagination, and so when he presented us with this trio, it was very difficult to learn because there was so-- there was just so much going on.

Simone Dinnerstein: Mm.

Audrey Vardanega: And, um, it's just this like amazing epic world that he creates through his compositions and also through his arrangements.

Simone Dinnerstein: Mm-hmm.

Audrey Vardanega: So it was just a very inspiring process and to be able to perform it all together was really, really special.

Simone Dinnerstein: Wonderful. Well, let's listen to it.

[MUSIC - Peter Myers: Icefall]

[applause]

Simone Dinnerstein: That was Icefall by Peter Myers, performed by Violinist Nigel Armstrong, pianist Audrey Vardanega, and Peter Myers himself at the cello. We are going to close with two songs from another fascinating program, The Growing Songs Project. Audrey, how did this one, this particular, of your many projects, how did this one originate? [laughs]

Audrey Vardanega: Yeah, so this actually came through, um, my partner Christos Vayenas, who's our Director of Curation, and he had been connected to Mahsa Vahdat, who is this extraordinary Persian vocalist, activist, educator, renaissance woman. And she approached us because she resides in Berkeley with her husband. And she said that this was one of her visions, was to create a sort of program that was a nexus between the Persian vocal tradition, which is so rich and so deep, and so connected to poetry and Western classical music arrangement and composition.

So the process was really interesting because we kickstarted it with Mahsa essentially creating melodies based on Persian poems for each of the-the participating singers who were her vocal students.

Simone Dinnerstein: Oh.

Audrey Vardanega: So after the melodies were constructed, then the melodies were passed off to the participating composers who would create basically an arrangement of harmony and instrumentation to go under the melodies. So it was, um, this really wonderful melding of different music traditions. And the rehearsal process was very enriching because, for the vocalists, they-they're not used to necessarily working with scores.

Simone Dinnerstein: Mm-hmm.

Audrey Vardanega: Whereas the participating instrumentalists and the composers like we're tied to the score.

Simone Dinnerstein: Mm-hmm. Well, we're gonna start by hearing the composition. Here's Colorful Night by Mahsa Vahdat. And it's a piece for voice, cello, and piano performed by Mahsa Vahdat herself with cellist Peter Myers and pianist Audrey Vardanega.

[MUSIC - Mahsa Vahdat: Colorful Night]

Simone Dinnerstein: That was Colorful Night by Mahsa Vahdat played here by cellist Peter Myers and pianist Audrey Vardanega with Mahsa Vahdat as the vocalist. Milad, tell us a little bit about the final work on our program, Az Jamaadi.

Milad Yousufi: First of all, it was a great project that we had done recently this year, and I enjoyed every minute of that residency. And obviously, Mahsa is a wonderful, great singer, uh, living legend from Iran. So it was an honor for me to be a little part of this project. And, um, when Mahsa sang the song, she was in Sweden for a concert. She just did the phone recording and sent it to me and I was thinking, how can we make the-- make this beautiful song, uh, stand out? And we worked on a spiritual aspect of the song that Rumi wrote. What are the notes we can use, the time signature, what we can do at the ending, at the beginning to make it stand out more? So it was a- it was a collective. It was a teamwork.

Simone Dinnerstein: Yeah. It's wonderful. Wonderful. And so the-the poem is by Rumi, it means to God we must return. Right? But Mahsa Vahdat, she composed the melody.

Milad Yousufi: Yes. She had the theme.

Simone Dinnerstein: Okay, great. Well, it's-- I'm really looking forward to listening to it now. So, um, let's listen to Az Jamaadi, To God We Must Return, by Mahsa Vahdat.

[MUSIC - Mahsa Vahdat: Az Jamaadi]

[applause]

Simone Dinnerstein: Az Jamaadi, To God We Must Return. The melody was composed by Mahsa Vahdat who also sang in that performance. And it was arranged by one of our guests today, Milad Yousufi, who also plays the piano in that recording. Featuring vocalists Elana Sasson and Adrienne Shamszad, as well as the duduk player Khatchadour Khatchadourian, cellist Peter Myers, and violinist Nigel Armstrong. That completes this week's edition of the McGraw Family's Young Artist Showcase which is generously underwritten on WQXR by the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Family Foundation. Here's Terry McGraw with more.

Terry McGraw: Good evening everyone. It's great to be with you, and it's always great being with the Young Artist showcase and to hear these really wonderful and inspiring musicians as they continue to share their incredible gifts with us every week. I can't wait to hear the fabulous talent coming up on the showcase, and I am so pleased to be able to support this series all through its well over four decades on WQXR, and there's so much more to come.

Simone Dinnerstein: Thank you, Terry. And special thanks to our WQXR program producers Laura Boyman and Max Fine. Our generous program underwriter is the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Family Foundation. I'm Simone Dinnerstein. Goodnight.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.