Program Notes THOMAS E. BARKER, born in Atlanta, Georgia, is presently a Doctoral candidate at Columbia University and holds a certificate of fellowship from the Blair Academy of Music - Peabody College for Teachers, a Diploma from Manhattan School of Music, and two Bachelors and a Masters degree from the Juilliard School. His principal composition teachers include Charles Wuorinen, Milton Babbitt, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Chou Wen-Chung, and Jack Beeson. In 1979, Barker was the composer selected to represent the United States in the Belgium Mellenium Festivities at the Festival of Flanders, Bruxelles, Belgium and he has received the Charles E. Ives Award, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; a Kanter-Plaut Foundation Grant; and a Koninklijke Academic of the Arts Honor. Mr. Barker's Sonata for Vibraphone was recently performed by Daniel Druckman in a concert by the New York New Music Ensemble November 17, and the composer is currently working on a commission from Florida Symphony bass clarinetist Theodore Schoen as well as a work for violin and piano which will be premiered at Lincoln Center May 15. Trikhyalo, commissioned by The Group for Contemporary Music and completed this fall, is a serial work, as are all of Barker's compositions. According to the composer, "Serialism is not just a technique for me. It is a life-long commitment, a language for which the possibilities are endless. Not to sound pretentious, because I think he was a genius, but I believe that Schoenberg only scratched the surface." A khyal is an Indian raga form that traditionally contains nine parts and, although Trikhyalo ("Tri-" connotates the three players) is not improvisatory, its row and overall structure are generated from the Indian model. Listeners may not be able, at first hearing, to delineate the nine parts but one can listen for initial presentations of each hexachord of the row and, halfway through the work, a presentation of the row/raga/melody in its entirety. Following variations and development of this theme, each player is given a brilliant solo and the work ends with a coda that presents the original material so transformed that it could almost be a whole new piece. *************************************************************************** 9/21/1986 concert, Chamber Players at Trinity Barker - THREE PIECES FOR FRENCH HORN The Three Pieces for French Horn were composed in the last two years. They were written at two different times; La Chasse was commissioned in September of 1984 and premiered in the spring of 1985 at the Hartt School of Music. Mr. Hoyle also performed La Chasse in Rome in June, 1985. Lauda and Apotheoses were both commissioned early this year and this concert marks their world premiere. The composer, Mr. Barker, is very accomplished in his field. He has received a D.M.A. from Columbia University and both a B.M. and an M.M. from the Juilliard School, as well as holding a position as Adjunct Professor of Music at Mercy College of Music and appearing as a guest artist lecturer at Bowdoin College. Mr. Barker was chosen U.S. Representative to the Belgium Millennium Festivities in Brussels, and has received several grants, including a Meet the Composer Grant for the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra and an American Symphony League Grant, which featured him as guest composer for the Atlanta Symphony. Currently, he is a finalist for Composer in Residence for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. His instructors in composition include Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt. His Three Pieces for French Horn are written in the twelve-tone style, i.e., each note of the chromatic scale is sounded before the repetition of any note. Lauda, as the name implies, is a majestic song of praise which is in three sections, fast - slow - fast. Apotheoses is a slow funeral song, giving the sense of the deification and glory of the dead. It was written just after Mr. Barker had finished a Requiem for Orchestra. La Chasse is a piece which creates the experience of the hunt. It is divided into four sections: the first is a fast movement depicting the ride into the country as the hunt begins. This is followed by the slowly moving action of stalking the prey. Next follows the gunfire in a slow movement, and the piece concludes with the quickly-moving, victorious return from the hunt. An interesting detail to note is that each piece is based on the same twelve-tone row. Through the clever use of inversion, retrograde, and other devices, the works are masterfully related. - Geoffrey Greene, '87 -