Over the past decade, Copland House and the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, two of Westchester County’s leading cultural institutions, have forged a collaborative relationship. But on March 11, that relationship will briefly turn competitive. By chance, both institutions have scheduled concerts on that day, and both concerts explore perspectives on America that are framed, implicitly or explicitly, by views of Europe.
As part of its concert series in the music room at Merestead, a former estate in Mount Kisco, Copland House will present “An American Journey.” The program will feature Americana, a sonata for cello and piano by Dan Visconti, a two-time participant in the Copland House residency program at the former home of Aaron Copland in Cortlandt Manor.
The work was partly written during Mr. Visconti’s second Copland House stay, in 2010, after he had returned from a yearlong residency at the American Academy in Berlin. That experience, he said, had left him with “a little bit of culture shock” — a reaction to the highly theoretical approach to composition he encountered in Germany — even as it informed his views of his roots.
“There was something about being away from my home country for a while that really sharpened my own sense of American identity,” he said. “It caused me to look at some of our native American folk materials and the popular sources of our culture in different ways.”
What emerged was Americana, a panoramic work inspired by lyric fragments from five patriotic songs. He said he chose the fragments because they evoked images that suggested musical material around which he could organize movements. The process yielded movements based on colonial hymns, rock ’n’ roll grooves, drones, marches and, in the finale, a mix of styles, which segue into an epilogue that employs prerecorded tapes — the piece’s one concession to modern technology.
Although Americana generally steers clear of electronics, it embraces acoustic equivalents of the techniques of electric guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. This helps bestow an “almost hallucinogenic” quality on the piece, said the pianist Michael Boriskin, the artistic director of Copland House. Mr. Boriskin will be playing Americana with the cellist Joshua Roman, who helped develop it.
Mr. Roman, whom Mr. Boriskin recruited for an ensemble he brought to Caramoor’s outdoor festival last summer, said he and Mr. Visconti had, as students at the Cleveland Institute of Music nearly a decade ago, talked about pursuing a work that incorporates popular idioms into classical forms with an American twist. After graduating and making their marks in the world — Mr. Visconti as an award-winning composer, Mr. Roman as a 22-year-old principal with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra — they reunited and did just that with Americana.
“We’re two young Americans,” Mr. Roman said. “Why not have a great American sonata?” In developing the piece, Mr. Boriskin said, Mr. Visconti and Mr. Roman, both still in their 20s, have established themselves as worthy successors to Copland, who, as a student in France in the 1920s, was “struck by the notion that there was no culturally identified American music in the concert hall.”
—The New York Times, Phillip Lutz (March 2012) full article
In addition to these classical composers, Joshua performed Americana by Dan Visconti. This piece was unique. Joshua had warned us at the introduction of this piece that we would see something we had never seen before. That something was his playing part of the piece with his bow upside down and under the cello strings. It was such an extraordinary sound. Like the sounds of whales in the ocean. Astounding!
—Check This Art, Cheryl Lyon (November 2012) full review
Cellist Joshua Roman and pianist Andrius Zlabys made a winning duo at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron on Wednesday evening, November 16 in a program of Debussy, Piazzolla, Visconti and Brahms, the Clara I. Knight Young Artist Concert on the Tuesday Musical Association Series. The concert had strong regional connections: both of the artists as well as composer Dan Visconti are graduates of the Cleveland Institute of Music.
“[Visconti’s] cello suite Americana was conceived during the composer’s year in Berlin, a period that “made him acutely aware of being an American”. Of its five movements (some of which feature pre-recorded material), Roman selected three which take their inspiration from such iconic, all-American tunes as ‘Columbia, Gem of the Ocean’ and ‘Yankee Doodle.’
“Visconti has deconstructed the tunes to the point where they’re sometimes only subliminally recognizable, but the three movements were kinetic, accessible and fun, featuring extended cello and piano techniques, wistfully beautiful cello melodies and dance forms as well as cadenzas for the cello that ranged from Bachian to craggy and syncopated.
—Cleveland Classical, Daniel Hathaway (November 2011) full review
The focal point of cellist Joshua Roman’s recital was the world premiere of Dan Visconti’s Americana – a suite for cello and piano. Visconti told the audience the idea for Americana came after living abroad for a year. Living in Berlin, away from his home country, made him acutely aware of being American. On first listen, Visconti’s sound experiments and use of American source material reminded me of Charles Ives. But unlike Ives, who sometimes seemed to be experimenting for the sake of experimenting, striving to elicit discomfort in his audience, Americana is a cohesive tale that winds its way through the best aspects of our shared, American culture.
Verses from American songs inspired each of the piece’s five movements. The hymn like first movement comes from “America the Beautiful.” “This Land is Your Land” gave Visconti the idea for the percussive, rowdy second movement. Colliding dissonances played on the piano are meant to evoke the sea in the third movement, reminding us of “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean.” Accelerating passages for the cello and piano in the fourth movement imply a march that derives its impulsion from “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” For the final movement, “The Star Spangled Banner” catalyzed Visconti to imagine America’s adaptive spirit in music.
Roman, helped by [Helen] Huang, reached across hundreds of years of music on Thursday. They played Britten with the same vigor as Brahms.
But for those people who loved Roman because he offered something fresh, different, and adventurous he delivered a stunner with Americana. If he can continue to replicate Thursday night’s concert experience, we just might look back at this recital as a pivotal moment in Roman’s career.
–The Gathering Note, Zach Carstensen (June 2010) full review
When cellist Joshua Roman first emerged on the local scene, audiences swooned over his boyish looks, marveled at his still developing technique, and went along with his haphazard programing ideas. These days Roman’s poise, curiosity, and refined velvety sound are what grip audiences. His partnership with friend and composer Dan Visconti is long standing and Americana was the first major piece he wrote for Roman. Visconti’s use of American ballads, songs, and effects are sure to keep it firmly in the cellist’s repertory.
—from The Gathering Note’s critic’s pick of the most memorable concerts of 2010