Recital: Julian Seney '22, Viola

NEC: Williams Hall | Directions

290 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA
United States

NEC's students meet one-on-one each week with a faculty artist to perfect their craft. As each one leaves NEC to make their mark in the performance world, they present a full, professional recital that is free and open to the public. It's your first look at the artists of tomorrow.

Julian Seney '22 studies Viola with Kim Kashkashian.

View the concert program here.

This is an in-person event with a private stream available to the NEC community here: https://necmusic.edu/live

 

Artists
  • Julian Seney '22, viola
  • Philip Rawlinson, viola
  • Shalun Li and Ari Chais, piano
  • Brittany Bryant, Hannah Dunton, Sahana Narayana, Katie Purcell, Yifei Zhou, voice
  • Kim Kashkashian, studio teacher

  1. Lili Boulanger (transcr. Julian Seney) | from Clairières dans le ciel (1913)

    1. …Elle était descendue au bas de la prairie
    3. …Parfois, je suis triste
    13. …Demain fera un an
     

    Text

    1……Elle était descendue au bas de la prairie

    Elle était descendue au bas de la prairie
    et, comme la prairie était toute fleurie
    de plantes dont la tige aime à pousser dans l’eau,
    ces plantes inondées je les avais cueillies.
    Bientôt, s’étant mouillée, elle gagna le haut
    de cette prairie-là qui était toute fleurie.
    Elle riait et s’ébrouait avec la grâce
    dégingandée qu’ont les jeunes filles trop grandes.
    Elle avait le regard qu’ont les fleurs de lavande.

    3……Parfois, je suis triste

    Parfois, je suis triste. Et, soudain, je pense à elle.
     Alors, je suis joyeux. Mais je redeviens triste
    de ce que je ne sais pas combien elle m’aime.
    Elle est la jeune fille à l’âme toute claire,
    et qui, de dans son cœur, garde avec jalousie l’unique passion que l’on donne à un seul.
    Elle est partie avant que s’ouvrent les tilleuls,
    et, comme ils ont fleuri depuis qu’elle est partie,
    je me suis étonné de voir, ô mes amis,
    des branches de tilleuls qui n’avaient pas de fleurs.

    13….Demain fera un an

    Demain fera un an qu’à Audaux je cueillais
    les fleurs dont j’ai parlé, de la prairie mouillée.
    C’est aujourd’hui le plus beau jour des jours de Pâques.
    Je me suis enfoncé dans l’azur des campagnes,
    à travers bois, à travers prés, à travers champs. Comment, mon cœur, n’es-tu pas mort depuis un an?
    Mon cœur, je t’ai donné encore ce calvaire
    de revoir ce village où j’avais tant souffert,
    ces roses qui saignaient devant le presbytère,
    ces lilas qui me tuent dans les tristes parterres.
    Je me suis souvenu de ma détresse ancienne,
    et je ne sais comment je ne suis pas tombé
    sur l’ocre du sentier, le front dans la poussière.
    Plus rien. Je n’ai plus rien, plus rien qui me soutienne.
    Plus rien. Pourquoi fait-il si beau et pourquoi suis-je né?

    J’aurais voulu poser sur vos calmes genoux
    la fatigue qui rompt mon âme qui se couche
    ainsi qu’une pauvresse au fossé de la route.
    Dormir. Pouvoir dormir. Dormir à tout jamais
    sous les averses bleues, sous les tonnerres frais.
    Ne plus sentir. Ne plus savoir votre existence.
     Ne plus voir cet azur engloutir ces coteaux
     dans ce vertige bleu qui mêle l’air à l’eau,
    ni ce vide où je cherche en vain votre présence.
    Il me semble sentir pleurer au fond de moi,
    d’un lourd sanglot muet, quelqu’un qui n’est pas là.
    J’écris. Et la campagne est sonore de joie.
    «Elle était descendue au bas de la prairie,
    et comme la prairie était toute fleurie.»
    Plus rien. Je n’ai plus rien, plus rien qui me soutienne.

    Francis Jammes

    She had reached the low-lying meadow,
    and, since the meadow was all a-blossom
    with plants that like to grow in water,
    I had picked these flooded flowers.
    Soon, soaking wet, she reached the top
    of that blossoming meadow.
    She was laughing and gasping with the gawky grace
    of girls who are too tall.
    Her eyes looked like lavender flowers.



    Sometimes I am sad. And suddenly, I think of her.
    Then, I am overjoyed. But I grow sad again, because I do not know how much she loves me.
    She is the girl with the limpid soul,
    and who, in her heart, guards with jealousy the unrivaled passion garnered for one alone.
    She went before the limes had blossomed,
    and since they flowered after she had gone,
    I was astonished to see, my friends,
    lime-tree branches devoid of flowers.



    It will be a year tomorrow since at Audaux I picked
    those flowers I mentioned from the damp meadow.
    Today is the most beautiful of Easter days.
    I plunged deep into the blue countryside,
    across woods, across meadows, across fields.
    How is it, O heart, you did not die a year ago?
    O heart, once more I’ve caused you this Calvary
    of seeing again this village where I suffered so,
    the roses which bled before the vicarage,
    the lilacs that kill me in their melancholy beds.
    I recalled my old anguish
    and do not know why I did not fall headlong
    in the dust on the ochre path.
    Nothing more. I have nothing more, nothing to sustain me.
    Nothing more. Why is the weather so fair and why was I born?
    I would have wished to place on your quiet lap
    the fatigue which breaks my soul as it lies
    like a poor woman by the roadside ditch.
    To sleep. To be able to sleep. To sleep forever more
    beneath blue showers, beneath fresh thunder.
    To no longer feel. Be no longer aware that you exist.
    To no longer see this blue sky swallow up these hills
    in this reeling blue which mingles air and water,
    nor this void where I search for you in vain.
    I seem to feel a weeping within me,
    a heavy, silent sobbing, someone who is not there.
    I write. And the countryside is loud with joy.
    ‘She had reached the low-lying meadow,
    and like the meadow was all a-blossom.’
    Nothing more. I have nothing more, nothing to sustain me.

    Translation © Richard Stokes, author of A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000) provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder www.oxfordlieder.co.uk
     
    Artists
    • Shalun Li, piano

  2. Bernd Alois Zimmermann | Sonata for Solo Viola (1955)

    Text

    Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ,
    Daß du Mensch geboren bist
    Von einer Jungfrau, das ist wahr;
    Des freuet sich der Engel Schar.
    Kyrie eleison!

    Lutheran hymn

    Praised be you, Jesus Christ
    that you have been born as a man
    from a virgin - this is true -
    at which the host of angels rejoices.
    Kyrie eleison!

    Translation by Miles Coverdale

  3. Emmett Mathison '22 | Apros Estros, for two violas and five human voices (2022)

    World premiere

    Artists
    • Phllip Rawlinson, viola
    • Brittany Bryant, Hannah Dunton, Sahana Narayana, Katie Purcell, Yifei Zhou, voice

  4. Lera Auerbach | Arcanum

    Advenio
    Cinis
    Postremo
    Adempte

     

    Program note

    I. Advenio
    (Singular active indicative)
    Advenire, advenio, adveni, adventum
    [ad + veniō] to come (to), arrive (at), reach; to come on purpose, to come from outside, to arrive, put in, to reach, be brought, come into the hands of, to set in, arise, develop, to come (in time);interea dies advenit - meanwhile it was day;advenientes ad angulos noctis - reaching to the very corners of the night.

    II. Cinis
    (Nominative masculine singular)
    Cinis, cineris
    The residue from fire, ashes; the extinct or apparently extinct ashes of a fire; the spent or smoldering fires of love or enmity;Troia virum et noctium acerba cinis - Troy, bitter ash of men and nights; ashes as a condition of the body after death (as a stage in existence) ‘the grave’; Cinis hic docta puella fuit- this ash was a scholarly girl.

    III. Postremo
    (Adverb, ablative masculine of Postremus)
    At last, finally, after everything else, last of all, lastly (in a logical sequence), in the last place, finally; on the last occasion, most recently, for the last time; in the end, eventually; in the last resort; to sum up, in short, in fact, after all; primo… deinde…postremo - first…then…finally.

    IV. Adempte
    (Vocative masculine singular of Ademptus)
    Adimere, adimo, ademi, ademptus
    [ad + emō] to remove something by physical force, take away; to rescue, save (from death); to steal, confiscate; to capture, seize; to deprive of (life, sleep, etc.); to refuse or fail to give, deny, withhold; to render (vision) impossible; nox diem adimat- the day would not be long enough [night confiscates day]; to remove by exile or death, to banish, dispel; to acquire by purchase.                                                    
    – Lera Auerbach

     
    Artists
    • Shalun Li, piano

  5. Luciano Berio | Sequenza VI (1967)

  6. Duo Improvisation

    Artists
    • Ari Chais, piano

  7.  

    Thank you to my devoted teacher, Kim Kashkashian,
    who has done more for me than I could have ever imagined.

    Thank you to all of my other teachers and mentors
    who have challenged me to improve.

    Thank you to all of my beautiful friends and family—
    you continue to inspire me and give me hope.
     
    Thank you to my moms and dad who have made this all possible.
     
    I am grateful for each and every one of you and the loving support you give.

Tags
Student RecitalsCollegeStringsViola