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) The CD can be purchased on cdbaby at the link below. It will soon be available on iTunes and Amazon. www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RobertMaggio

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: SONGBOOK FOR ANNAMARIA was composed before, during and immediately after the adoption of our daughter, Annamaria LaSalle Maggio. Each movement is based on an old popular tune that provides further insight into its meaning (e.g., the hard-driving work ethic of the railroad song, on which “…all the live long day” is based, suggests the round- the-clock duties of the parent). 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 sang to Annamaria. The first movement, “we’re bound away…” tracks the excited beginnings of our journey into parenthood. The second movement, “when you wake…” is both a tender lullaby for Annamaria, and a gentle farewell to my grandmother, Marie Basili who slowly vanished from Alzheimer’s. “jimmy crack corn…” is a playful, intense scherzo; it was a favorite of my dad and his two brothers. “… all the live long day” is a passacaglia, whose repetitive rhythmic motion was inspired by the never-ending responsibilities and the boundless love I found in fatherhood.

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

Premiered by the Borromeo String 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

RAIN AND ASH. In the summer of 2007, after 17 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 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; five days later, my father died suddenly of a heart attack. It was a profound loss for me. “Rain” opens with a dance-like arrangement of an old Neapolitan lullaby. The festive dance music returns three times, alternating with more lyrical sections; with each return, the festivities grow more and more jubilant. “Ash” begins with the violin sweetly recalling the Neapolitan lullaby, which is abruptly silenced by violent repeated chords. These “brutal” chords interrupt the music’s flow throughout the movement, appearing increasingly further apart; in between these interruptions the lullaby returns in various states (plaintive, distant, sweet, mysterious, wailing), yet never fully intact, permanently altered. It hovers in memory, always just out of reach. About halfway through the second movement, a new lullaby surfaces, “Skye Boat Song.” A tune that I’ve always found hauntingly beautiful, the boat song becomes a metaphor for the journey of grieving, and the acceptance of loss.