by George!
miniature fantasies of
Ligeti & Telemann
by George!
1: an exclamation of wonder, awe, or surprise!
2: An old English battle cry, originating in the 16th century
3. The clamour of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady
program
by George!
interspersed and co-mingled
miniature fantasies of
Ligeti & Telemann
György Ligeti
musica ricercata
arr. for emi + ruckus
I. Sostenuto - Misurato - Prestissimo - Sostenuto
II. Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale - Più mosso, pesante - Senza tempo, rapido - Intenso, agitato
III. Allegro con spirito
IV. Tempo di Valse (poco vivace - “à l’orgue de Barbarie”)
V. Rubato, Lamentoso - Più mosso, non rubato
VI. Allegro molto capriccioso
VII. Cantabile, molto legato
VIII. Vivace, Energico
IX. (Béla Bartók in memoriam) Adagio, Mesto - Allegro maestoso - Più mosso, agitato
X. Vivace. Capriccioso - Più mosso
XI. (Omaggio a Girolamo Frescobaldi) Andante misurato
G.P. Telemann
flute fantasias
arr. for emi + ruckus
FANTASIA IN A MAJOR
Vivace - Allegro
FANTASIA IN A MINOR
Grave - Vivave - Adagio - Allegro
FANTASIA IN G MAJOR
Allegro - Adagio, Vivace - Allegro
FANTASIA IN G MINOR
Grave - Grave - Allegro - Dolce - Allegro - Presto
FANTASIA IN D MINOR
Dolce - Allegro - Spirituoso
FANTASIA IN D MAJOR
Alla francese - Presto
FANTASIA IN E MINOR
Largo - Spirituoso - Allegro
FANTASIA IN E MAJOR
Affettuoso - Allegro - Grave
FANTASIA IN C MAJOR
Preso - Allegro - Allegro
about
Georg Philipp Telemann’s Fantasias for Flute without Bass are a Baroque landmark, well, for flute players - an encyclopedia of tonalities and characters that challenges the performer to take on all roles at once. Crafted with a crystalline precision of form that parallels the Ligeti, they overflow with the sensual harmonic language of the Baroque. Though originally restrained to just a solo flute, here they are presented in Emi and Ruckus’ original arrangement for flute with newly composed bass lines for big-band continuo.
By George! features György Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata, a 25-minute journey through one fantastic world to the next as the listener takes inching steps towards all 12 notes of thr chromatic scale but as if it were a game of twister. Ligeti creates worlds of wonder which are by turns brutalist, tender, playful, and mysterious - made even more so vivid here with arrangements for flute, bassoon, cello, bass, guitar, theorbo, and keyboards.
Emi Ferguson
A 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Emi Ferguson can be heard live in concerts and festivals with groups including AMOC*, Ruckus, the Handel and Haydn Society, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque. Her recordings celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Her debut album, Amour Cruel, an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th-century French court, was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending four weeks on the classical, classical crossover, and world music Billboard charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus, debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive ... a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times. Emi has been a featured performer at the Marlboro, Lucerne, Ojai, Lake Champlain, Bach Virtuosi, and June in Buffalo festivals, often premiering new works by composers of our time. Emi was a featured performer alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero, where her performance of Amazing Grace was televised worldwide. Her performance that day is now part of the permanent collection at the 911 Museum. Emi has spoken and performed at several TEDx events and has been featured on media outlets including the Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, WQXR, and Vox talking about how music relates to our world today. As a radio host and programmer, Emi first started working with New York’s WQXR as a member of their Artist Propulsion Lab where she developed the podcast series "This Composer Is Sick" with Max Fine, exploring the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin. She has recently been named one of four new hosts for WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase and is also developing new programming for the youngest radio listeners, introducing them to music through exciting stories about composers, following on the success of her book Iconic Composers, co-written with Nicholas Csicsko alongside illustrations by David Lee Csicsko, introducing music lovers of all ages to 50 incredible Western Classical composers from the past 1000 years. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York.
team
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Ruckus
Ruckus is a shapeshifting, collaborative baroque ensemble with a visceral and playful approach to early music. The ensemble debuted in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo in a production directed by Christopher Alden featuring Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ambur Braid and Davóne Tines at National Sawdust. The band’s playing earned widespread critical acclaim: “achingly delicate one moment, incisive and punchy the next” (New York Times); “superb” (Opera News). Based in New York City, Ruckus’ core is a continuo group, the baroque equivalent of a jazz rhythm section: guitars, keyboards, cello, bassoon and bass. Other members include soloists of the violin, flute and oboe. The ensemble aims to fuse the early-music movement’s questing, creative spirit with the grit, groove and jangle of American roots music, creating a unique sound of “rough-edged intensity” (New Yorker). The group’s members are among the most creative and virtuosic performers in North American early music. Ruckus’ debut album, Fly the Coop, a collaboration with flutist Emi Ferguson, was Billboard’s #2 Classical album upon its release. Performances of Fly the Coop have been described as “a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” (New York Times). The Boston Musical Intelligencer describes the group as taking continuo playing to “not simply a new level, but a revelatory new dimension of dynamism altogether… an eruption of pure, pulsing hoedown joy.” The ensemble made its Ojai Festival debut in 2022, performing a wide range of music: from Bach, to the improvisational scores of Roscoe Mitchell and George Lewis, to a recital featuring Anthony Roth Costanzo, and an original opera by bassist Doug Balliett. Of their performances, San Francisco Classical Voice described Ruckus as “the world’s only period-instrument rock band.” 2022-23 season highlights include debuts at the Shriver Concert Hall Series in Baltimore, Boston’s Celebrity Series, and the Caramoor Festival. With Holy Manna, a program including arrangements of early American hymns from the shape-note tradition, Ruckus has begun a multi-project exploration of histories of American music. Other upcoming projects include a co-commission of a large-scale work by pioneering artist and NEA Jazz Master Roscoe Mitchell as part of a Bach & Bird Festival alongside the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, produced by The Metropolis Ensemble.
