Arizona Friends of Chamber Music
Commissioning program

ROBERT MAGGIO Robert Maggio’s music has been described by the American Record Guide as “lyrical, passionate, melodic, and rhythmically charged.” He has been awarded fellowships by both the Pew and Guggenheim Foundations and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which stated: “Maggio does not fear being beautiful in his music, which is grand yet reticent, tuneful yet tough, gorgeous in sound yet lean in method.” He has created a substantial body of works in every genre for groups such as the Atlanta Symphony, the American Dance Festival (for which he was composer-in-residence) and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is currently Professor and Chairman of the Department of Music Theory and Composition in the School of Music at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. His works can be heard on the CRI and Albany labels. Website: http://www.robertmaggio.net/ Also on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/robertmaggio CD: (2010) String Quartet No.1 (Corigliano Quartet), String Quartet No.2 (Borromeo Quartet)

1) String Quartet No.1 ("Songbook for Annamaria")

Premiered by the Colorado Quartet. January 2003.

Commissioned by AFCM.

Sponsored by: Mr. and Mrs. Charles Peters.

Performances: Approximately 15 times, by Colorado, Liric, Serafin String Quartets, at the National Gallery (Washington, DC), West Chester University, Soundfest Summer Music Program (Cape Cod, Mass.), Constitution Center (Philadelphia). Also (12/2/09), by Corigliano String Quartet, at West Chester University, Community Series at Swarthmore House,Swarthmore, Chamber Music NOW! (Philadelphia), Wilmington (DE)

The composer writes: "I began composing this quartet in January 2001. Near the end of that month, in the same week, my grandmother, Marie Basili, passed away, and my daughter, Annamaria, came into my life (after a long-awaited adoption). Annamaria is named, in part, after her great-grandmother, and this music is both a dedication to the memory of Marie Basili and a celebration of the arrival of Annamaria LaSalle Maggio. Each movement in this songbook is based on an old popular tune, alluded to in the titles of the movements. These songs are personal favorites of mine: some of them my parents sang to me when I was a child, and some of them I now sing to Annamaria."

2) String Quartet No.2 ("Rain and Ash")

Premiered by the Borromeo Strng Quartet, January 2009

Commissioned by AFCM.

Sponsored by: Herschell and Jill Rosenzweig, Helmut Abt, Harold G. Basser (in memory of his wife Suzanne).

Published: Theodore Presser Company

Maggio’s new work is his second string quartet to be commissioned and premiered by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. He writes: “’Rain and Ash’ (String Quartet No. 2) is structured in two highly contrasting movements. The celebratory first movement, ‘Rain’, is a compact rondo that alternates between an earthy, dance-like refrain and more lyrical episodes. The energetic melody of the refrain is heard a total of four times, becoming more ecstatic and jubilant with each return.

“The second movement, ‘Ash’, begins with a serene melody, high in the first violin, which is abruptly silenced by violent repeated chords. These ‘brutal’ chords interrupt the flow throughout the movement, appearing increasingly further apart; in between them the melody returns in various states (plaintive, distant, sweet, mysterious, wailing), yet it is never intact, and is permanently altered. The fullness of the violin’s opening melody hovers in memory, always just out of reach.

“In the summer of 2007, after seventeen years of sharing our lives together, my partner and I held a civil union ceremony in a quiet courtyard near our home. We exchanged rings and vows in front of our seven-year-old daughter, our parents and siblings, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins, and friends. It was an emotionally powerful and rewarding ceremony, and the dinner party that followed was magnificent. It was the best day of my life…and it rained like I had never seen it rain before. Someone told me that evening that the rain was an omen of good luck. If so, it was short-lived because five days later my father died suddenly of a heart attack. It is the most profound loss in my life.

“In homage to both my family’s Italian American roots, and those of my partner’s family, the opening theme of both movements is based on a Neapolitan lullaby. About halfway through the second movement, I introduce a new melody, ‘Skye Boat Song’, often used as a lullaby. A tune that I’ve always found hauntingly beautiful, this second lullaby becomes a metaphor for the journey of grieving, the acceptance of loss, and the openness to change.”