10/14/01 "A Special Piano Concert"
In celebration of our new Steinway piano, MDUUC pianists and their piano students play their favorite encores and great short works by composer/pianists. Click here for program notes.

11/11/01 "The Fifth & Sixth Days of Creation: Music About Animals"
A musical zoo to accompany the sermon of the day: "Darwin and God" Click here for program.

12/15-12/16/01 Amahl & the Night Visitors featuring Kate Rowland, Noah, Hannah, and Robert Mittman, Michael Prichard, and Scott Schrader.

1/13/02 "Early Music with Harpsichord featuring Ruth & Art Ungar"

2/10/02 "Classical Guitar Favorites: Adriana Rätsch-Rivera"

3/10/02 Allison Carter's string quartet ": Dvorak's "American" Quartet and Mozart's Viola Quintet

4/14/02 Unusual woodwind quintet concert featuring Vincent D'Indy's Sarabande et menuet, op. 24 (1885) and Ludwig Thuille's Sextet for Winds & Piano in B-flat, op. 6 (1888). Eva Langfeldt (oboe), Chris Diggins (clarinet), Art Ungar (bassoon) and guests Lisa Maher (flute), Bob Williams (horn), Shu Lu (piano). 

4/28/02 Poetry Forum led by Therese Baumberger, Intern Minister

4/28/02 Afternoon Piano Recital at 1pm by Dr. Lino Rivera

10/13/02 Lynne White presents Dances of Universal Peace in the Children's Chapel

11/3/02 Special Music Service at 10:30 with full orchestra and guests from the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Contra Costa Wind Symphony, Pleasanton Town Band, and Marin Catholic High School Orchestra : Dies irae from Verdi's Requiem

12/8/02 Alison Carter's String Quartet performs Faure's Piano Quartet

1/12/03 Devil Mountain Wind Quintet performs Holst's Piano Quartet & Woodwind Quintet. Eva Langfeldt (oboe), Chris Diggins (clarinet), Art Ungar (bassoon), Lisa Maher (flute), Bob Williams (horn), Shu Lu (piano). 

2/9/03 Music & the Poetry of Robert Frost : musical settings inspired by Frost's work, and readings from his poetry. Click here for program.

3/9/03 Classical Piano Recital featuring Ben Katt, student of Bill Wentz. performing works by Bach, Beethovan, Brahms, and others (free)

3/30/03 San Francisco Chamber Singers perform Hungarian choral music by Ligeti, Kodaly, and their students at 4pm (admission fee)

4/13/03 Devil Mountain Winds perform Romantic chamber music favorites (free)

4/20/03 Easter Festival Wind Ensemble conducted by Bob Williams and Laura Prichard (free-will offering). Music includes Flourish for Wind Band and the famous Folk Song Suite by Ralph Vaughan Williams, All Creatures Great and Small, arranged by Steve Bulla, Irish Tune from County Derry (Danny Boy) and Shepherds Hey (Morris Dance) arranged by Grainger, Deir In De (Irish Lullaby) arranged by Warren Barker, Old American Country Set by Henry Cowell, Easter Monday by Sousa

5/4/03 Special Piano Concert by Dr. Lino Rivera at 2pm (admission fee)

5/11/03 Musical Mother's Day Forum (free)

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October 13, 2001 Musical Forum
Piano Dedication Concert "Music from Great Pianist/Composers"

Nola, A Silhouette for piano duet (1916) Felix Arndt (1889-1918)
Elizabeth Moreskine and Lyda Dicus

Arndt's mother was the Countess Fevrier, related to Napoleon III. As a young man, he wrote special material for New York vaudeville stars and made piano rolls for Duo-Art. He wrote his big hit Nola as an engagement piece, ten months before he wed his sweetheart, Nola Locke. Later, orchestra leader Vincent Lopez made it his theme.

Arndt, a fine pianist, was also an influence on the young and then unknown George Gershwin, who would visit him at his studio in the Aeolian Building on 42nd St., between 6th and 7th Avenues. This contact may have been the inspiration for Gershwin's first piano rolls and through Arndt, Gershwin got his first job at Aeolian Hall.

Groovin' with Marge at Jazz Camp Marge Chapel
Marge Chapel

O Store Gud Jerry Ray, arranger
Scott Schrader

Originally a Swedish folk melody, "O Store Gud" by Carl Boberg (1859-1940) was the basis for the American hymn "How great Thou art." The Swedish poetry was first translated by Stuart K. Hine in 1899. Pianist Jerry Ray's arrangement is published in the collection Hymns with Style.

Little Playmates and "Halloween" Playmates
Lily Bernard, student of Lynne White

The Entertainer (1902) Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
Caitlin Montcriefe, student of Lynne White

From 1897 to 1918 the term "ragtime" was used to describe many types of music. While ragtime technically involved a syncopated melody played against a march-time bass, almost every up-tempo or rhythmic piece was thought of as "ragtime." The best known ragtime composer/pianist was Scott Joplin. His composition The Maple Leaf Rag was the first piece of sheet music to sell a million copies. The Entertainer, was made popular in our time by its use in the motion picture The Sting, with a score adapted from the music of Joplin by Marvin Manlich. Lynne White made the arrangement played today.

By A Meadow Brook from Woodland Sketches, op. 51 Edward MacDowell (1861-1908)
Elizabeth Moreskine

The works of Edward Macdowell, American composer and pianist, are filled with Romanticism wrapped in simplicity. Franz Liszt heard his First Piano Concerto and strongly encouraged him; by 1884 German firms had published ten of his works. After several years in Europe he moved to Boston in 1888 to pursue a performing career. Compositions of the Boston years included his popular Woodland Sketches, a set of ten piano miniatures based on tales of Uncle Remus.

In 1896 he became the first professor of music at Columbia University, and conducted several choirs in New York. The graceful Woodland Sketches are perfect character pieces, each reflecting a definite idea that draws a picture for the listener.

Friend Like Me from Aladdin and the King of Thieves Mark Watters
Rachel Dlott

She's Like the Swallow Nancy Telfer
Eva Langfeldt

Nancy Telfer is a distinguished Canadian composer who has written over 140 works for chamber ensembles, bands, orchestras and choirs. Originally a music teacher, she now composes on a full-time basis. Her oratorio The Journey was highlighted at the World Council of Churches in 1983, and Sing Praises was presented at the Twelfth Biennial Conference of the Lutheran Churches in 1984. Telfer has always been interested in the outdoors and has often drawn inspiration from the beauty of natural environments.

La fille aux cheveux de lin (1910) Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Lyda Dicus

French composer and pianist Claude Debussy heard African and East Asian music at the Paris World Exposition of 1891. He was fascinated with non-European sounds and scales, including the pentatonic (five-note) black-key sounds that open his prelude La fille aux cheveux de lin (the girl with the flaxen hair). As in his famous ballet music L'apres midi d'un faune, Debussy frames the beautiful melody with many different harmonizations. Modernist painter Pablo Picasso loved this type of variation technique and called this compositional approach "musical Cubism."

Polonaise Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)
Lino Rivera

No great composer has devoted himself as exclusively to the piano Chopin. By all accounts an inspired improviser, he composed while playing, writing down his thoughts only with difficulty. For the concert-giving years 1828-32 he wrote brilliant virtuoso pieces; the teaching side of his career is represented by polished pieces of moderate difficulty (like etudes and nocturnes). The large-scale works - polonaises, scherzos, and sonatas - he wrote for himself and a small circle of admirers.

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November 11, 2001 Musical Forum
A Musical Zoo to accompany Dave Sammons' sermon "Darwin and God"

Genesis, 1:1 &endash; 2:4, read by Laura Stanfield Prichard

L'Après~midi d'un Dinosaur by Gordon Jacob (1895-1986)
Cavatina from The Thieving Magpie by Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)

Arthur Ungar, bassoon and Ruth Ungar, piano

A Pair of Doves , an original poem by Elizabeth Moreskine

All Creatures Now Are Merry Minded, an English madrigal by Thomas Bateson

Eva Langfeldt, Laura Prichard, Scott Schrader (dir.), Joia Turner, Lynne White

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square by Manning Sherwin

Scott Schrader, piano

Dancin' Dolphins by Herbie Hancock

Marge Chapel, piano

Selections from Lynn Ungar's Poetry about Animals

Read by Arliss Ungar

I Got Me Flowers from Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Robert Mittman, baritone, Lino Rivera, piano

The Colors of the Wind from Pocohontas by Stephen Schwartz

Laura Fischer, alto, Lino Rivera, piano

The Swan from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns

Allison Carter, violin , Lino Rivera, piano

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February 9, 2003 Special Poetry Forum
Music and the Poetry of Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Two Poems from North of Boston (1914) by Robert Frost

• Mending Wall
• Blueberries

Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' (1944) by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II (Michael Prichard, baritone)

Two Musical Poems by Robert Frost

• On a Bird Singing in Its Sleep from A Further Range (1936)
• Our Singing Strength from New Hampshire (1923)

A Morning in May and Where Snowdrops Bloom by Jeanine Yeager (Scott Schrader, piano)

Two Poems from New Hampshire (1923) by Robert Frost

• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
• The Aim Was Song

Trees (1918) by Oscar Rasbach & Joyce Kilmer (Deb Baltzo, soprano and Lyda Dicus, piano)

Two Poems from West-Running Brook (1928) by Robert Frost

• What Fifty Said
• Acquainted with the Night

Evening Star from Tannhäuser(1843) by Richard Wagner (Laura Prichard, piano)

Two Mystical Poems by Robert Frost

• Take Something Like a Star - An Afterward from Complete Poems (1949)
• Prayer in Spring from A Boy's Will (1913)

Recordings of Robert Frost reciting his poems (WAVe Files)
http://www.robertfrost.org/indexgood.html

Poetry on the Web of Robert Frost
http://www.ixpres.com/klarrow/html/robert_frost.html