SIRENS: A CONCERTO FOR THEREMIN AND ORCHESTRA (2018)
I. "Clara's Violin"
II. "Ulysses"
III. "Fugal Horn"

Albany Symphony - NOT FOR DUPLICATION OR REBROADCAST

Carolina Eyck, theremin
David Alan Miller, conductor

Recording of New York premiere: Nov. 9, 2019

COMPOSER'S NOTE:
The theremin has many paradoxical qualities. It is an electronic instrument, yet can sound profoundly musical, even human. While it is the forerunner for so many subsequent technological inventions ranging from high security alarm systems to the synthesizer, it also remains the electronic instrument most sensitive to human presence, despite the fact that it is played without being touched. Playing the theremin presents its highly unique challenges and marvels, among them dealing with its imaginary, fluctuating aerial fingerboard (for which having absolute pitch is preferable). Also, dynamics and articulations are achieved inversely, as the default state of the instrument – when at rest – is sound, the hand carving away at its negative space much like a sculptor chisels at stone, through interference within the electromagnetic field. To perform the theremin as the inventor intended was to imprint the human musical capacity and technique onto the non-human: it was to lend soul to a machine.

This concerto explores, in the course of its three movements, different connotations of the term "siren." Movement I ("Clara's Violin") presents a musical depiction of the legendary theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore's story, the narrative created through an interaction of leitmotifs derived from the names of the related characters and the instruments they played. Movement II ("Ulysses") enacts Kafka’s parable “The Silence of the Sirens,” based on Homer’s tale from the Odyssey, in which an alternate theory is presented regarding the nature of musical torment inflicted by the deadly Sirens upon the sailors’ ears: Kafka maintains that even more lethal than their seductive song, in fact, were their punishing interruptions of silence. For the composer, the irresistible challenge was to create an atmosphere so unsettlingly radiant as to tantalize the listener, the Sirens’ melody (and corresponding leitmotif) interrupted at odd moments with increasingly deafening silences. A loop canon in two voices concludes the movement (as the Sirens were a pair!). The trance is interrupted by Movement III (“Fugal Horn”) a romping, scherzando fugue that degenerates into the final type of “siren” presented in this concerto: an alarm, evoked by the wide glissando effect that is one of the instrument’s trademarks (not unlike the orchestral “siren” utilized frequently by composers of the early-mid-20th century, notably Varese). Following a climactic shriek, and a merging of theremin and orchestra into one “meta-theremin,” leitmotifs based upon the composer’s own signature conclude the work.

WMHT LIVE Broadcast - December 1, 2019

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        An internationally acclaimed composer, pianist and thereminist, Dalit Hadass Warshaw’s works have been performed by numerous orchestral ensembles, including the New York and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras (Zubin Mehta conducting), the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Albany Symphony and the Grand Rapids Symphony. 

Warshaw’s music has been widely praised for its lyricism, unique orchestral palette, distinctive harmonic vocabulary, emotional intensity and vivid portrayal of character. Notable orchestral premieres within the last decade include “Conjuring Tristan,” a “narrative concerto” for piano and orchestra based on Thomas Mann’s “Tristan,” and "Sirens: A Concerto for Theremin and Orchestra," performed by both the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Albany Symphony. “Sirens” was described by the Boston Globe as a “sublimely expressive concerto,” and listed among “Boston’s Best Classical Music Concerts in 2019.” 

Accolades in recent years include a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016), the Copland House Residency Award (2023), two MacDowell Fellowships (2019, 2024), a commission from New York State Council on the Arts (2022), and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2017), given to mid-career composers of exceptional gifts. Warshaw has also been the recipient of five ASCAP Foundation Grants to Young Composers, a Fulbright Scholarship to Israel, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and two BMI Awards, among other honors.

In addition to performing the premiere of her piano concerto with the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2015, Warshaw has soloed as pianist with the Rockland Symphony, Cheyenne Symphony, and the Misgav Chamber Players under the direction of Lukas Foss, and has been featured widely as both soloist and chamber player in venues such as Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Bargemusic, where she debuted her seven-movement piano work, “Different Loves, A Cycle of Classical Portraits,” in 2021.

Having studied theremin with the renowned Clara Rockmore from an early age, she has appeared as theremin soloist with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the New York Festival of Song, and the San Francisco Symphony, also performing with ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and the Elbphilharmonie. 

Warshaw holds Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in music composition from the Juilliard School, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University.  A full-time member of the composition faculty at the Boston Conservatory from 2004 to 2014 and former composition faculty at the Juilliard School Extension and Pre-College, she currently serves as Adjunct Professor of Composition at Brooklyn College (CUNY). 

Warshaw’s portrait CD, "Invocations," was released in January 2011 and is available on Albany Records. Her debut orchestral CD will be released on the BMOP/sound label in September 2024.

WMHT LIVE Broadcast - December 1, 2019

Dalit Warshaw