Program Notes
Ikona (2008) for violin and piano is a contemplation of a 19th-century
Russian icon of St. Nicholas. Three elements are present in the iconic rendering: a
square (book of the Gospels), a triangle (created from the crosses of his stole)
and three circles (in which the figures of the saint, Christ and Mary appear nimbated).
The main motive is derived from three layers of pitch matrices, revealed through a
"window" created by the triangle. The 36x36 matrix is itself based on collections
of trichords (3x3). Although popularized in western myth as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas
was known for his generosity to children, justice for the oppressed, and fight to
support the Doctrine of the Trinity at the Council of Nicaea. Hence, the all-pervasive
number 3. The work, in three sections, not only follows in general ways the scansion
of the Lords Prayer, in Russian, but musically renders three ideas: the linear (the word),
the vertical (space), and the connection between the two in the way Eastern Orthodox
Christian sign the cross (up, down, right, left).
Performances
-University of Indianapolis, September 29, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-University of Iowa, September 22, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-University of Wisconsin, September 21, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Augustana College, September 17, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Illinois State University, September 16, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-University of Northern Iowa, September 15, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Drake University, September 14, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Northwestern College, September 13, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Fairfield Performing Arts Center, IA, September 12, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Washington University, St. Louis, MO, September 11, 2013 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Moscow Conservatory, December 21, 2009 (Malyshev, Gompper)
-Frankfurter Kuenstlerclub, Germany, June 21, 2009 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Sondheim Performing Arts Center, Fairfield, Iowa, November 9, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois, October 5, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Boston University, Boston, MA, October 2, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-St. John's Bowdoin Street, Boston, MA, October 1, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Denison University, Granville, Ohio, September 28, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Marshall University, Huntington, WV, September 26, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, September 22, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, September 21, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Northwestern College, Iowa, September 18, 2008 (Dávid, Gompper)
