CD Booklet

THE RAPPAPORT PRIZE
DAVID AMADO
Conductor
CAROLINE GOULDING
Violin
ZHOU TIAN
The Infinite Dance
PATRICK HARLIN
River of Doubt
GARTH NEUSTADTER
American Vignette

Rappaport Prize for Music Composition
The Rappaport Prize for Music Composition is a grant
awarded to the Atlantic Classical Orchestra from the
Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation in 2013.
The mission of the Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport
Foundation is to promote emerging and promising leaders
in public policy, science and the arts. Consistent with that
mission, the principal goal of The Rappaport Prize for
Music Composition is to promote and recognize some
of America’s emerging and most promising composers.
www.RappaportFoundation.org

Zhou Tian
GRAMMY-nominated composer Zhou Tian seeks inspiration from
different cultures and strives to mix them seamlessly into a musically satisfying
combination for performers and audience alike. Described as “absolutely
beautiful” and “utterly satisfying” (Fanfare), and “a prime example of 21stcentury
global multiculturalism,” his music has been performed by leading
orchestras and performers in the United States and abroad. His recent work,
Concerto for Orchestra—commissioned and recorded by the Cincinnati
Symphony and Music Director Louis Langrée—was nominated for a 2018
GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. His
large-scale suite for soloists, orchestra, and chorus, The Grand Canal, was
performed during a nationally televised celebration of the 60th anniversary
of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. His music has been
performed at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and
the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and broadcast on NPR and PBS.
Born in 1981 into a musical family in Hangzhou, China, Zhou attended
Shanghai Conservatory before immigrating to the United States. He holds
degrees from the Curtis Institute (B.M.), Juilliard School (M.M.) and USC
Thornton School of Music (D.M.A.). He studied composition with Jennifer
Higdon, Christopher Rouse, and Stephen Hartke. He is associate professor
of composition at Michigan State University College of Music. Visit
ZhouTianMusic.com for more.

Patrick Harlin
The New York Times writes that Patrick Harlin’s “aesthetics captures a
sense of tradition and innovation…” and that “Mr. Harlin is breaking new
ground.” Patrick’s music has been performed by the St. Louis Symphony,
Calgary Philharmonic, Alarm Will Sound, Kansas City Symphony, Collegium
Cincinnati, Calidore String Quartet, with recordings by The Rochester
Philharmonic Orchestra, Atlantic Classical Orchestra and more.
His output spans both music composition and sustainability with research
in soundscape ecology, a field that looks at the impacts of sound on a given
environment. Patrick focuses on soundscapes (the sum total of sounds in
an environment) as an important resource and indicator in each ecosystem.
This research has taken him to the Amazon rainforest and Book Cliffs, two
remote and imperiled regions. His string quartet The Wilderness Anthology
fuses these recorded soundscapes with live performance.
Patrick grew up in Seattle and holds a bachelor’s degrees from Western
Washington University and a doctorate from The University of Michigan.
He currently lives and teaches in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Garth Neustadter
Garth Neustadter is an Emmy Award-Winning composer and multiinstrumentalist.
He has composed feature-length scores for Warner Bros.,
PBS, Turner Classic Movies, and China’s CCTV. His works have been heard
in diverse venues ranging from Lincoln Center to Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater,
and he has collaborated with directors including James Franco (“TAR,”
starring Mila Kunis, Jessica Chastain, and Zach Braff). Most recently, his
work has been selected to be performed in upcoming seasons by Grammy
Award-winning violinist, Hilary Hahn. A graduate of the Yale School of Music
and Lawrence University, Neustadter received early attention when he was
selected as the First-Prize Winner of the Turner Classic Movies Young Film
Composers Competition. Most recently, he is a recipient of the prestigious
Rappaport Prize for Music Composition.

Caroline Goulding, Violin
For nearly a decade, the virtuoso violinist Caroline Goulding has performed with
the world’s premier orchestras, in recital and on record and has blossomed from
“precociously gifted” (Gramophone) 13-year-old soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra
to “a skilled violinist well on her way to an important career” (Washington Post).
Caroline is reopening the 2018 season with the release of her third album on
Claves Records since her GRAMMY-nominated and chart-topping debut recording
on Telarc in 2009. A prize of the Sommets Musicaux De Gstadd’s Prix ierry Scherz,
this recording embodies Korngold’s luscious Violin Concerto and Mozart’s exuberant
A major Concerto with the Berner Symphonieorchester led by conductor Kevin John
Edesui. Last season’s release of Caroline’s album with pianist Danae Dörken on the
ARS label including works by Schumann, Enescu, and Dvořák celebrated a nomination
for the prestigious Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik in the “Chamber Music.”
Since her 2006 Cleveland Orchestra debut, Caroline has appeared as soloist with the
Symphony Orchestras of Toronto, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, Indianapolis,
Phoenix, Boise, Victoria, Denver, Milwaukee, Stamford, Pasadena, Alabama, the
National Symphony, Florida Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in North
America. She has also appeared extensively in Europe and Asia with the Frankfurt
Radio Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, and the
Hong Kong Philharmonic. She has appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center,
the Kennedy Center, Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, the Tonhalle-Zurich, the
Louvre Museum, KKL-Lucerne, Beethoven-Saal Stuttgart, and the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum. A past participant of the Marlboro Music Festival, Aspen Music
Festival and Interlochen Arts Academy, Caroline enjoys connecting with others through
chamber music masterpieces.
Widely recognized by the classical music world’s most distinguished artists and
institutions for her “vibrant and intensely musical” playing (Cleveland Plain Dealer),
Caroline was a recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2011 and in 2009, she
won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and was the recipient of the
Helen Armstrong Violin Fellowship. She has also garnered significant attention from
music and mainstream press, appearing on NBC’s Today, MARTHA and Germany’s
Stars von Morgen hosted by Rolando Villazón. Caroline has also been heard on NPR’s
Performance Today, From the Top, and SiriusXM Satellite Radio.

Photo Credit: Girgia Bertazzi

David Amado, Conductor
Since the ACO’s inception in 1991this adventurous approach to programming
was in evidence under the orchestra’s founder and first Music Director, Andrew
McMullan. In July 2016, Amado officially began his duties as Music Director
of the ACO. He was chosen from over 130 applicants and was one of four ACO
guest conductors who performed in the 2016 Masterworks series in Vero Beach,
Stuart and Palm Beach Gardens. He will continue as Music Director in Delaware
and will divide time between Delaware and South Florida.
Descended from a long line of fine musicians, David Amado continues his
family’s tradition. He showed a predilection for music at a very early age, but
it was not until high school that he became dedicated to a musical career, while
training in the Pre-College Division of Juilliard. David continued his college
years at Juilliard, studying piano while simultaneously exploring other facets
of music, including the world of the orchestra. He received his Master’s in
Instrumental Conducting at Indiana University. After graduating he returned to
study again at Juilliard, but as a conductor, with Otto-Werner Mueller. David’s
first job was an apprenticeship with the Oregon Symphony, followed by a sixyear
tenure with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. In November 2008,
Maestro Amado conducted the Virginia Symphony. Other recent highlights of
his career include engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago
Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony, the Royal
Stockholm Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the New World Symphony
and the Detroit Symphony.

Photo Credit: Joe del Tufo

Atlantic Classical Orchestra
The Atlantic Classical Orchestra (ACO) is based in Florida, its primary purpose
being to present performances of both orchestral and chamber music in the rapidly
growing urban communities on the state’s eastern seaboard north of Miami. The
ACO’s principal subscription series are centered on the towns of Vero Beach and
Stuart and the orchestra’s members are drawn not only from Florida’s principal

Photo Credit: MaryAnn Ketcham
musical organizations but also major orchestras throughout the USA. As its name
implies, the ACO’s core repertory is based in the late 18th and early 19th century,
while the orchestra has developed an active commitment to the rediscovery of much
unjustly neglected music from the Romantic era, written for an orchestra of classical
proportions alongside championing the best and most accessible of contemporary
music with a special emphasis on the younger generation of American composers.

The Infinite Dance: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Zhou Tian
As I was composing this concerto, two kinds of dance music surfaced from memory
and inspired me: Bach’s violin Partitas and the traditional Chinese folk music played on
erhu – a two-stringed instrument also known as the Chinese violin. I became fascinated
by the idea of combining the two and somehow “continuing” the dance with a new
perspective – one that is based on the foundation of Western music while still carrying
the sense of freedom and improvised nature of traditional Chinese music. In my mind,
from Bach’s Baroque to China to Florida beaches (where the piece premieres), the dance
never stopped. Thus, the subtitle to the concerto, “The Infinite Dance.”
The work, consists of 3 movements, starts with the soloist alone in an energetic quasi
cadenza, supported by rhythmic sparkles from different sections of the orchestra; it turns
more and more lyrical and gradually unfolds into a songful Andante. Here, a simple
melody played by the soloist is slowly developed and intertwined through woodwinds
and strings as the music grows larger in orchestration. Eventually it reaches a full
soundscape and bursts into a vivid toccata, in which the motif from the beginning is
rejuvenated on the solo violin and the winds, contrasted by dark and bold harmonies
from the brass. After reaching a climactic point, a “real” cadenza appears, succeeded
by a shortened return of the toccata.
A second movement follows. Still and chorale-like at first, the soloist joins the plush
strings with an airy lullaby – she tenderly alters the sonic color through sul ponticello
(with the bow kept near the bridge) and flautando (creating a flute-like sound by moving
the bow lightly on the string near the fingerboard), masking the hinted atonality in the
melody with romanticism. The prolonged coda, supported by vibraphone, harp, quiet
trumpets and strings, features endless variations of a G minor chord – some bright,
some dissonant, infinitely changing.
The fast and lively finale is a virtuosic dance in perpetual motion. Here the bold,
syncopated orchestral figuration periodically “interrupts” the scherzo-like violin solo,
until the two switch roles. Perhaps more than the previous two movements, the finale
incorporates influences from non-western music, especially in the treatment of the
rhythm and gestures such as slides and glissandos. An accumulation of materials sends
the piece to a climax at the end.

2015 River of Doubt by Patrick Harlin
Naturalist and River of Doubt expedition member George Cherrie wrote of his time
in the Amazon, “Let there be the least break of harmony of sound, and instantly there
succeeds a deathlike silence, while all living things wait in dread for the inevitable
shriek that follows the night prowler’s stealthy spring.”
The desire to explore is a near universal trait whether it is through music, art, or
good old-fashioned adventure. During the ACO’s 25th anniversary season the RIVER
OF DOUBT commemorated yet another landmark, the 100th anniversary of the first
documented navigation of the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt) in the Brazilian Amazon
by former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and Brazilian General Cândido Rondon.
In 1913 South America was the least charted, inhabited continent on earth. The
expedition, co-led by Cândido Rondon the South American equal to Roosevelt, was
in many ways a disaster. A man in the expedition was murdered, the killer was left
behind in the forest to die, and Roosevelt himself nearly committed suicide to prevent
his company from risking starving to death awaiting his recovery from illness. By the
end of the ordeal, Roosevelt was fifty pounds lighter and thought to have sustained
injuries that ultimately shortened his life.
The trip was not without mystery. The Amazon is one of the most lush and biodiverse
regions on earth, yet expedition members essentially starved. Though it was always
suspected it was only later discovered the expedition was shadowed by indigenous
tribes living in the dense jungle (for whom Cândido Rondon was a tireless advocate)
over a large portion of their expedition. The tribes even debated whether or not to
ambush them. In her eponymous book, author Candice Millard describes how the
men encountered a number of huts which were recently vacated days, if not hours,
prior. In 2014 I traveled to the Amazon to record soundscapes and agree with the
sentiment that it is not the sounds of the jungle, but rather the sudden cessation of
sound that raise the alarm.

2014 American Vignette: Suite for Chamber Orchestra by Garth Neustadter
American Vignette, is an overarching work featuring four musical illustrations
inspired by the American landscape as seen through the eyes of a traveler. The series
of vignettes echoes the infinitely diverse and undefined borders of the American spirit.
The opening vignette, Invitation, is a brief fanfare that establishes the overall tone
and motivic elements of the entire work. At just over a minute in length, it serves as a
prelude to introduce the structures that will be developed throughout.
Cerulean Sky encapsulates feelings of the great American landscape -expansive,
stark, open, and vast. Increasingly reflective and pensive, the sparse orchestration
evokes a certain melancholiness, nostalgia , and longing one can associate with the
uncertainty of the seemingly infinite horizon.
The third vignette, Roadside Attraction, begins somewhat impishly and mischievously,
before embarking on a boisterous romp. The central section of the movement is
improvisatory in nature, reflecting the energy and spontaneity of a rustic communal
dance; driving in rhythm towards a frenzied return to the opening sentiments of mirth,
youth, and joviality.
The finale, The Open Road, takes its name from a poem by Walt Whitman, in
which Whitman celebrates a communion with the outdoors and brotherhood of the
common man. With a penchant for adventure and the unexplored, Whitman’s focus
is on the joys of his journey and the unconfined freedom of the open road. Inspired
by the traditions of American jazz and folk idioms, the music is rhythmically vibrant
and energetically bright, expressing the clarity of the present and the spirit of hope
and anticipation for the future.

The Atlantic Classical Orchestra
Concertmaster
Assistant Concertmaster
Violin 1
Violin 1
Violin 1
Violin 1
Violin 1
Violin 1
Principal Violin 2
Violin 2
Violin 2
Violin 2
Violin 2
Violin 2
Principal Viola
Viola
Viola
Viola
Principal Cello
Cello
Cello
Leonid Sigal
Amy Sims
Aleksandr Zhuk
Monica Cheveresan
Alan Grunfeld
Evgeni Antonyan
Ragga Chung
Michelle Skinner
Sha Zhang
Eduardo Martinez
Dale Sandvold
Randolph Margitza
Caroline Buse
Siobhan Cronin
Sandra Robbins
Diane K. Weisberg
Chauncey Patterson
Junah Chung
Ashley Garritson
Chris Glansdorp
Aziz Sapaev
Cello
Principal Contrabass
Contrabass
Principal Flute
Flute
Principal Oboe
Oboe
Principal Clarinet
Clarinet
Principal Bassoon
Second Basson
Principal Horn
Horn
Principal Trumpet
Trumpet
Tympani
Perc Principal
Trombone
Tuba
Piano
Harp
Elizabeth Aron
Luis Gomez
Janet Clippard
Christina Burr
Karen Dixon
Erika Yamada
Sara Diehl
Paul Green
Thomas Servinsky
Gabriel Beavers
Geronis Bravo
Robert Fant
Chris Jackson
Brian Stanley
James Hacker
Andrew Proctor
Gary Mayone
John Kricker
Calvin Jenkins
Tao Lin
Kay Kemper

THE RAPPAPORT PRIZE
Caroline Goulding, violin
Atlantic Classical Orchestra
David Amado, conductor
1
2
3
4
5
6
Zhou Tian
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
The Infinite Dance
Vivo
09:41
Andante Amoroso
07:57
Allegrio con Brio
04:32
Patrick Harlin
River of Doubt for
Orchestra Score in C
River of Doubt
Cloud Forest
Rondon
Garth Neustadter
American Vignette for
Chamber Orchestra
7 Invitation
8 Cerulean Sky
9 Roadside Attraction
10 The Open Road
Total Time:
11:31
05:10
05:15
01:28
05:24
03:00
05:09
70:38
Recorded January, 5-6, 2017, live
at The Wertheim Performing Arts
Center at Florida International
University, Miami, Florida
Engineer: Name
Producer: Laura Garritson Parker
Cover Designer: Assunta Bailey
ARTEK
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Unauthorized duplication is a
violation of applicable laws.
Made in the USA.
This CD is dedicated to Stewart Robertson, Distinguished Conductor Emeritus
of the Atlantic Classical Orchestra.