World Premiere: August 4, 2019

Most Recent HSO Performance: This is the HSO’s first performance of this work

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, whip, bass drum, tamtam, drumset, toms, snare drum, djembe, congas, cymbals, woodblocks, suspended cymbals, tambourine, xylophone, castanets, and strings: violin I, violin II, viola, cello, and bass

Duration: 20'

É Gol! (“Goal!”) for Orchestra, Vocalist and Audience Members (2019)

Clarice Assad

(Born February 9, 1978 in Rio de Janeiro)

Composer, pianist, vocalist and educator Clarice Assad, daughter of renowned guitarist Sérgio Assad, was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1978 and has performed professionally since the age of seven. She studied piano, jazz and traditional Brazilian styles with Sheila Zagury and Leandro Braga, and continued her education with Natalie Fortin in Paris and at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, Roosevelt University in Chicago, and University of Michigan; her composition teachers include Ilya Levinson, Stacy Garrop, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers and Claude Baker. Among Assad’s many honors are residencies with the Albany Symphony, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, MacDowell Colony and Moab Music Festival, Aaron Copland Award, Gould Young Composer Award, Samuel Ostrowsky Humanities Award, several ASCAP awards in composition, Meet the Composer’s Van Lier Fellowship, McKnight Visiting Composer Fellowship, and a 2009 Latin Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Composition.

Clarice Assad’s music, which blends classical and jazz elements subtly infused with the Latin rhythms of her native Brazil, has been commissioned and performed by such leading artists and organizations as Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia Orchestra, Louisville Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo, New Century Chamber Orchestra, violinists Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Iwao Furusawa, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, soprano Melody Moore, pop singer Insooni, guitarist Denis Sungho, mandolinist Mike Marshall, LA Guitar Quartet, Turtle Island String Quartet and Concordia Chamber Players, and recorded on the Sony Classical, Universal Music, NSS Music, Nonesuch, Chandos, Telarc and Rob Digital labels. As a pianist and vocalist, Clarice Assad has received acclaim for her performances of both her original compositions and her arrangements and performances of popular Brazilian songs and jazz standards. She has appeared throughout her native Brazil, the United States and Europe at such distinguished venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Chicago, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in California, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Le Casino de Paris and Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Clarice Assad has also developed a pioneering music workshop called VOXPlorations, which explores new ways to create, teach and understand music for both musicians and non-musicians.

É Gol! (“Goal!”) was commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California, and premiered on August 4, 2019, conducted by Marin Alsop with the composer as singer. Assad wrote, “É Gol! was inspired by female Brazilian soccer player Marta Vieira da Silva, who is often regarded as the best female footballer of all time. The whole piece happens as if inside her mind as she prepares for a big game and experiences all the emotions everyone goes through when they have to deliver their best performance. É Gol! is scored for full orchestra and audience members, who are not passive listeners but are part of the score as active participants. Audience members will be led in and out of sections by performing sound effects, singing, simple body percussion movements, and other interesting textures that either match or contrast with the music played by the orchestra. The audience part, which is partly written and partly improvised, will be led by the composer. The work explores moments of Vieira da Silva’s life, culminating with a soccer match soundtrack finale.”

©2021 Dr. Richard E. Rodda