A CUBE performance from March 30, 2001 at Columbia College, Chicago

Leaving, Arriving (2001)---Russ Grazier
	for violin and ensemble (World premiere)

Guillaume Combet, violin
Caroline Pittman, flute
Patricia Morehead, oboe
Teresa Reilly, clarinet	
Greg Flint, horn
Lewis Kirk, bassoon	
Jon Johnson, percussion
Sebastian Huydts, piano	
Philip Morehead, conductor

A chamber concerto for violin and chamber ensemble, Leaving, Arriving was composed in New Hampshire between November 2000 and February 2001. It is a single movement piece in two primary sections that are connected by a violin cadenza at the center of the piece. For several years prior to the composition of this piece I had been interested in writing a chamber work that featured violin, specifically a work in which the violin would be the only string instrument. The idea of a supporting cast that primarily consisted of wind instruments intrigued me. The ensemble I decided upon is a woodwind quintet plus a percussionist and pianist. This combination offers a wide range of instrumental qualities to play off the violin within a relatively small cast. The slow opening section of the work is filled with a recurring motif – descending half-steps which are often accompanied by half-step trills in the winds. These half-steps become an integral part of the fast-paced second half of the piece in which the violin trades frantic riffs with the ensemble. The piece was written for and dedicated to both CUBE and this evening’s guest soloist, Guillaume Combet.

Russ Grazier, Jr. is a Co-Founder of the Portsmouth Music & Arts Center (PMAC) and its Executive Director. A native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Russ is a composer and saxophonist who has taught saxophone, composition, and music theory for over 25 years.
He earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Composition with Saxophone Concentration at Boston Conservatory and a Master’s degree in Composition at Peabody Conservatory. Additionally, he studied graduate-level composition at the University of Chicago.
He has taught at some of the most prestigious music schools in the country, including Boston Conservatory, Roosevelt University (Chicago), the University of Chicago College, the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, and the Merit School of Music (Chicago). Russ has been composer in residence with Chicago’s CUBE Ensemble, and his music has been performed by the Contemporary Chamber Players of Chicago, the West End String Quartet, CUBE, Voices from the Heart, and many other ensembles and soloists. In 2011, he won the Duo Fujin one-day composition competition and his winning work, analecta for flute and saxophone, was performed by the duo on their tour of the Southeast U.S. in Spring 2012.
He is past president of Art-Speak, the cultural commission for Portsmouth, where he lives with his wife, Katie, and their two sons, Max and Jake.

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THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT

In fifth grade I had a close friend named Ryan.  We were the oddest pair in the class.  Teachers didn’t understand it.  Our classmates didn’t really get it either.  How could we be friends?  I was a nerd, he was a jock.  And we had very little in common.

I can’t prove it but I think Ryan’s stepfather was abusive, which is why he spent so much time at my house.  My parents were kind to him, as they were kind to all my friends, what few I had.  And despite our lack of common interests, there was a genuine exchange.  He taught me about sports, and I, nerd that I was, taught him about computers (which is deeply ironic because today I am a technophobe, having lost touch with computer science many many years ago).

Ryan was pretty full of himself.  Whenever he did a math problem at the blackboard, he’d sign his name “Ryan Lastname, Number 1”.  It was comical, really.  But for whatever reason, maybe it was out of pity, he befriended me and took me under his wing.  Because I had skipped a grade, he was a year older, 12 to my 11.  And the difference between 12 and 11 can be sort of staggering when you’re a kid.  Ryan wasn’t just a friend, he was someone to look up to for me, because he was older.

My parents had a camper trailer out in our back yard that they weren’t  using for anything.  And when Ryan spent the night at our place, which was often, that’s where we’d stay.  It was air conditioned and perfectly cool for hot summer nights between fifth and sixth grade.  Fifth grade was elementary school.  The impending sixth grade was middle school, quite an advancement for both of us.

In the trailer we discussed a lot of things, baring our souls as close friends do.  A lot of time we broached the topic of sex.  Ryan was a year ahead of me and was already in puberty, and I was not.  Ryan took it upon himself to teach me all the street slang that my parents wouldn’t let me in on.  Ryan had a girlfriend named Tammy, and that impressed me too.

Everything changed once we advanced to middle school.  Ryan began hanging out with a pair of sixth grade tough guys named Joe and Eugene.  Years later I heard through the grapevine that it was peer pressure that put Ryan up to it, but Ryan turned on me.  Joe and Eugene began a merciless campaign to make my life living hell, and Ryan, I imagine, was presented an ultimatum.  Us or him.  And Ryan chose Joe and Eugene.

I was like, what the hell, man, what did I ever do to you?  So I phoned Ryan and just asked him point blank, “Are… are we still friends?”

And he hung up on me.... 

(more text follows)

Alto Saxophone: David Nabb
Strings: Jeff Issokson

The Cruelty Is the Point

Robert Gross

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