CHARLES IVES
The Unanswered Question (1906; 1930-35)
Surely Charles Ives’s Unanswered Question is one of his boldest, most original compositions; it likely is also his most well-known and easily approachable. Clocking in at just about six minutes, A Contemplation of a Serious Matter, or The Unanswered Perennial Question (as Ives’s full title reads) manages to be a miniature philosophy lesson about the universe and man’s existence in it, with an elegance akin to that of Einstein’s E= mc2. Three groups of players are situated in various parts of the performance space, carry on their musical argument, each with its own tempo, key signature, texture, and sonority: first, the haunting, never-changing, chorale-like, maddeningly placid background created by a string orchestra off stage; it represents, according to Ives, “the silence of the Druids—who know, see and hear nothing”—the eternity of the universe. Second, a solo trumpet poses the “eternal question of existence” seven times. And third, a quartet of flutes represents mankind’s search for a reply. But as the piece progresses, and the futility of the quest becomes more and more obvious, the winds grow more and more agitated with frustration to the point of shrillness, remaining silent after the question has been posed for a last time. When has silence been this eloquent?

DAVID ROBERTSON, conductor, born in 1958 in Santa Monica, California
David Robertson is the twelfth music director of the 131-year-old Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, embarking on his sixth season there in the fall of 2010; he also continues as the principal guest conductor of London’s acclaimed BBC Symphony Orchestra, a post he has held since 2005. His popularity also makes him a welcome guest with orchestras throughout the world; in fact Musical America named him Conductor of the Year in 2000. “I have never looked at any of the musical positions I have held as stepping stones; I don’t look at life as a waiting-room experience. What I like to do is to really concentrate on what I’m doing at the moment. I let the rest of the stuff take care of itself.” His affinity for and expertise in 20th century repertoire led to his eight-year tenure as music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain (in Lyons, France), which champions new music. And speaking in a Carnegie Hall interview about the “transformative” nature of a live concert, David Robertson said: “Everybody comes into the concert hall with different experiences. If you perform a well-known work, there are people who have perhaps done their doctoral thesis on that work, and they know it intimately. [Then] there are people who are hearing the work perhaps for the first time in a live performance…You can provide an open structure where, once people get inside, the layered richness of that type of human creativity is expressed in such a way that each person hears the things that only they can hear in the program.”

“He’s a brilliant musician and a master programmer.” The New Yorker

“Mr. Robertson makes everything seem fresh and startling.” The New York Times

Find additional upcoming performances with David Robertson

KAREN GOMYO, violin
Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo, who received the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2008, first caught public attention just one week after her 15th birthday when she won the 1997 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. She became the youngest musician ever to be presented in the Young Concert Artists Series, and made her New York critically acclaimed debut as the recipient of the Summis Auspiciis Prize. She has since appeared as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across the U.S., Canada, South America, Europe, and Asia.

Highlights of her 2008–09 season include re-engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, led by Leonard Slatkin; St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under Gilbert Varga; Houston Symphony Orchestra under Louis Langrée; Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Kwamé Ryan; and first-time appearances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Xian Zhang; and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, New Jersey Symphony, and Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico, San Francisco Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra.

Karen Gomyo has a keen interest in modern tango music, has taken tango dance lessons, and joined a special residency program at Banff in the summer of 2005, studying and exercising improvisation on the violin. In this field she has collaborated with artists such as Piazzolla’s pianist Pablo Ziegler, bandeonist Raul Jaurena, and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera.

Born in Tokyo to a Japanese painter and French professor of philosophy, Karen Gomyo was raised in Montreal. At age five she had already begun performing in public. She was one of 10 children chosen to play in a master class in Chicago given by the late Dorothy DeLay, and was promptly taken under the pedagogue’s wing to study on full scholarship at The Juilliard School. Ms. Gomyo continued her studies with Mauricio Fuks at Indiana University, and with Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she graduated in May 2007 with an Artist Diploma. Ms. Gomyo last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in its Concerts in the Parks in July 2005, performing Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole conducted by Xian Zhang.