EDUCATION

We are excited about all of the rich history and interesting facts that orchestral music has to offer.  The information presented here is for those new to classical music, lovers of the art of classical music, parents that wish to share more information with their children, and anyone that loves to learn.  

The Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra is dedicated to sharing the joy of music with everyone and doing all we can to educate and inspire our audiences.  We have chosen some of the most interesting figures and works in our season and went in-depth to go beyond the concert program notes to bring you more stories and facts so you will be "in the know."  

Thank you to the Alabama State Council on the Arts for their support of this project.  Their investment in arts education allows us to bring this information to you.

Let us know what you think!  We are interested in your thoughts and welcome your suggestions.  Email us at tso@tsoonline.org.  Read on and be inspired!

Please enjoy the fantastic information from our 2017-2018 Season.  The 2018-2019 educational experience will go live on August 20!

Beethoven's Heiligenstadt House

THE MAJESTY OF BEETHOVEN

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2017

Beethoven short biography

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is considered to be one of the most important and prolific composers in Western music, and his name is often synonymous with “legend” or “genius.” The opening notes of his Fifth Symphony and the “Ode to Joy” theme from his Ninth Symphony are recognizable across generations and demographics. To summarize his life and creative output is a tremendous task, but we will touch on some key points here.

Beethoven was born on or around December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany. His father, Johann van Beethoven, was a prominent bass singer and eventual Kapellmeister of the Court of the Electorate of Cologne, and also served as young Ludwig’s first music teacher. Johann was a “stage father” of sorts; he saw the success that Leopold Mozart had with his children, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and hoped to find the same notoriety with his son. Beethoven’s first public performance on the piano was in 1778.

Soon after this, around 1779, Beethoven found his first true teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, the Court’s organist, who taught him the basics of musical composition. In the early to mid-1780s, Beethoven wrote his first works – piano sonatas and keyboard variations. After the death of his mother in 1787, Beethoven’s father descended into alcoholism, and Ludwig was left to look after the family finances. To earn extra money, he played viola in the Court orchestra.

In 1792, Beethoven moved to Vienna to study with the revered composer Franz Joseph Haydn – and he spent the rest of his life in Austria. He found success in Vienna, and completed his first set of string quartets and first symphonies – all of which showed notable influence of Haydn and Mozart - between 1798 and 1802. This compositional era is known as his “Early Period.” It was also around this time that he began to lose his hearing, which he lost completely by the age of 44.

The cause of Beethoven’s deafness remains unknown. It has been attributed to many things, including autoimmune disease, lead poisoning, and even his habit of immersing his head in frigid water in order to stay awake. When he began to lose his hearing around 1802, Beethoven moved to a small town outside Vienna called Heiligenstadt, where he explored coping mechanisms for his deafness and attempted to come to terms with this great change to his livelihood.

He returned to Vienna from Heiligenstadt the next year, and he brought with him a significant change to his compositional style. Most musicologists consider this change indicative of the start of his “Middle Period,” and also a bridge to a more Romantic idiom. His well-known Third Symphony (also called “Eroica”) and only opera, Fidelio, were composed during this period.

Beethoven had many personal difficulties from 1811-1817. His brother, Kasper, died in 1815, and Beethoven started a custody battle with his sister-in-law over his then 9-year-old nephew, Karl. Beethoven eventually got custody after a seemingly endless back-and-forth, but his relationship with Karl was never easy. Almost a decade later, in 1826, Karl attempted suicide. He survived, but soon after left home to join the army, and never saw Beethoven again.

Beethoven’s so-called “Late Period” began around this time, in 1815. Works from this period include the Missa Solemnis, the late string quartets, and his Ninth Symphony. Beethoven’s pieces from this era are known for their depth of emotional intensity and formal innovations. He struggled through many health challenges during the composition of these great works – especially the late string quartets.

After months of being bedridden, Beethoven died on March 26, 1827 at the age of 56. His funeral procession in Vienna three days later was attended by close to 20,000 people.

ABOUT THE WORKS

Both works featured in this concert – Symphony no. 4 in B-flat Major and Symphony no. 7 in A Major – are from Beethoven’s Middle Period. This was a time in which Beethoven found himself as a composer, and during which his deafness steadily progressed.

Symphony no. 4 was composed in 1806 and premiered in 1807. It was dedicated to Count Franz von Oppersdorf, who was related to Beethoven’s longtime patron, Prince Lichnowsky. French composer Hector Berlioz, a successor of Beethoven, called the second movement of Symphony no. 4 “the work of the Archangel Michael.” Despite this high praise, the Fourth Symphony is often overshadowed by the symphonies that came before and after it – Symphony no. 3 (Eroica) and Symphony no. 5. In comparison to these heavy, intense works, the Fourth Symphony is light, and even joyful; it is often thought to be more closely related to his first two symphonies.

Symphony no. 7 was composed in 1811-1812, and was premiered in Vienna in late 1813 with Beethoven himself at the podium. The concert was a charity performance for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau (part of the War of the Sixth Coalition). The symphony’s second movement was encored immediately. The entire piece is noted for rhythmic devices throughout that are suggestive of dance, such as dotted rhythms. Richard Wagner once called the piece the “apotheosis of dance.” Beethoven himself supposedly referred to the symphony as “one of my best works,” and critics have mostly revered it, too.

BEETHOVEN IN POP CULTURE

Beethoven’s status as a legend and musical genius has made him a popular subject of films, books, and plays – to various degrees of dramatization.

British actor Peter Ustinov wrote and starred in the 1983 play Beethoven’s Tenth, which is often compared to Amadeus – though it did not find even half the level of success.

Beethoven has been a subject of films since the early era of moviemaking, starting with the Life of Beethoven, a 1927 Austrian silent film. 1992’s Beethoven Lives Upstairs, a Canadian made-for-TV movie, won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program. One of the most well-known films about Beethoven is Immortal Beloved from 1994. Starring Gary Oldman, the biopic deals with determining the identity of a mystery woman – a so-called “immortal beloved” – to whom Beethoven allegedly left his estate, music, and all his affairs in his last will and testament. Most recently, Ed Harris starred in Copying Beethoven in 2006, which dramatizes the final years of Beethoven’s life and focuses on the composition of his Ninth Symphony.

CHURCH OF BEETHOVEN

Beethoven and his music continue to inspire people around the globe. Some, like Albuquerque’s Felix Wurman, were inspired spiritually. Wurman was a cellist in the New Mexico Symphony, and he wanted to provide a spiritual and creative outlet for people in the community who did not have a church home. The “Church of Beethoven” had its premiere “service” on February 10, 2008 in the Filling Station, an old Albuquerque gas station that was converted into a theater.

The Church of Beethoven is described as a Sunday variety show of sorts, with poetry readings, group singing, silence, and – of course – musical performance. Admission is free, as churches do not charge admission, either. Performances do not always include Beethoven or even classical music, but they center on what Wurman feels to be the great composer’s spirit. Wurman says, “[Beethoven] poured all that spirituality that he couldn’t find a place for in the traditional church, he poured it straight into his art. And that’s what most of the great creators did. And so I can just go and grab that incredible crystallized piece of beauty and present it to the people.”

Since its beginnings in 2008, the Church of Beethoven now has branches in Tucson, Arizona, Durham, North Carolina, Chicago, Illinois, and Santa Monica, California.

Wurman and his project were featured in an 2008 NPR article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97010881&sc=emaf

SHOUT FOR JOY - WINDS AND VOICE WITH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2017

Hovhaness short biography

Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) was an American composer who lived and worked during most of the 20th century. His musical output was enormous: he has 67 numbered symphonies and 434 opus numbers.

He was born Alan Vaness Chakmakjian in Somerville, Massachusetts to Haroutioun Hovanes Chakmakjian, an Armenian-born chemistry professor at Tufts University, and Madeleine Scott, an American of Scottish heritage. He legally changed his last name in 1930 after his mother’s death because no one could spell or say “Chakmakjian” correctly.

Young Hovhaness wrote his first piece – a cantata – at age 4. His parents saw his interest in music, and found him piano lessons. He studied piano through his teenage years, but at the age of 14, he decided to focus more on composition. After he graduated high school, he studied composition in Boston at both Tufts University and the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC). He was mostly successful in college, and even piqued the interest of composer Roger Sessions.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Hovhaness burned many of his early works; at least 1000 pieces were destroyed. He attributes this early sense of failure to Sessions’s criticism of his work. This insecurity persisted through the years. In 1942, he won a scholarship to the Tanglewood Festival to study with Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. There, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein critiqued his work harshly. Distraught, he left Tanglewood early.

In 1940, he became the organist of St. James Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown, MA – a position he held for ten years. It was during this time – since he was surrounded by Armenian people and customs – that he became interested in Armenian culture and traditional music. Although he earned the respect of composer John Cage and ballet dancer Martha Graham, his music was sometimes dismissed as being simply “Armenian” or “modern.”

Lousadzak, a concerto for piano and string orchestra that premiered in 1944, was the first of Hovhaness’s pieces to use aleatoric music, or music in which some element is left to chance. Hovhaness himself called this effect “spirit murmuring,” and it became a characteristic of many of his pieces from here forward.

Also around the mid-1940s, Hovhaness took an interest in Indian classical music, and brought many well-known Indian musicians to teach and perform in Boston. He himself learned to play the sitar. He began to develop his philosophy of musical creation, which he expressed in a 1940 application for a Guggenheim fellowship:

“I propose to create a heroic, monumental style of composition simple enough to inspire all people, completely free of fads, artificial mannerisms and false sophistications, direct, forceful, sincere, always original but never unnatural. Music must be freed from decadence and stagnation. There has been too much emphasis on small things while the great truths have been overlooked. The superficial must be dispensed with. Music must become virile to express big things. It is not my purpose to supply a few pseudo-intellectual musicians and critics with more food for brilliant argumentation, but rather to inspire all mankind with new heroism and spiritual nobility.” 

In 1948, Hovhaness joined the faculty of the Boston Conservatory of Music, and taught there until 1951, when he relocated to New York City to focus on being a full-time composer. While in New York, he worked for the U.S. government-sponsored news source Voice of America as a scriptwriter for the Armenian section and director of music for the Near East section. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition in both 1953 and 1954. Between 1951 and 1955, he wrote the score for two NBC documentaries, a ballet for Martha Graham, and the score for the Broadway play The Flowering Peach. His biggest break came in 1955, when the Houston Symphony premiered his Second Symphony (“Mysterious Mountain”), and MGM released recordings of his works.

Between 1959 and 1963, Hovhaness took research trips to India, Hawai’i, Japan, and South Korea in order to expand his knowledge of different kinds of traditional music, including Japanese gagaku music. In 1965, he went to Russia, Georgia, and Armenia on a U.S. government-sponsored tour – which ended up being the only time he ever visited Armenia.

In the early 1970s, Hovhaness relocated to Seattle and stayed there until he died in 2000. Between 1973 and 1992, he stayed very musically active, writing 37 new symphonies and many other symphonic and chamber works.

About Prayer of St. Gregory

Hovahness’s “Prayer of St. Gregory” was written during his early years in Boston, before he worked at the Boston Conservatory, but after he solidified his musical style with the concerto Lousadzak in 1944. Some scholars have called this era his “Armenian” period. It was premiered in New York City in October of 1946. Originally, it was an interlude from his opera Etchmiadzin. Hovhaness called it a “prayer in darkness.”

The subject is St. Gregory “The Illuminator,” the patron saint of the Armenian Apostolic Church, who was imprisoned for twelve years while trying to bring Christianity to Armenia in the early 4th century. It is modal, dark, and chorale-like. The gentle trumpet melody unfolds over understated string chords. The piece makes use of silence for dramatic effect, as Gregory’s cries fade into darkness.

About Siegfried Idyll and Wagner’s aesthetic

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was a German composer best known for his operatic works. Wagner was unique among composers of his time because he also wrote the libretti, or lyrics, to his operas. He became associated with a German term called Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art,” which is what he aspired to in his compositions. The Gesamtkunstwerk aimed to synthesize visual, poetic, musical, and dramatic arts. He is best known for his 4-opera set, the Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen), and for building his own opera house at Bayreuth in Germany. The Bayreuth Festival, which Wagner began at the end of his life to showcase his own works, continues annually to this day.

Siegfried Idyll is a symphonic poem originally conceived for 13 musicians. Wagner composed it as a birthday present for his second wife, Cosima, after their son, Siegfried, was born in 1869. It premiered privately in Wagner’s villa, Triebschen, in Lucerne, Switzerland, on Christmas morning in 1870. He set up the musicians on the staircase leading up to Cosima’s bedroom. Cosima herself wrote in her diary about the performance:

“When I woke up I heard a sound, it grew even louder, I could no longer imagine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music! After it had died away, Richard came to me with the five children and put into my hands the score of his ‘symphonic birthday greeting.’ I was in tears, but so, too, was the whole household; Richard had set up his orchestra on the stairs and thus consecrated our Tribschen forever! The Tribschen Idyll – so the work is called…”

Wagner intended the work to remain private. Its original title is Tribschen Idyll with Fidi’s birdsong and the orange sunrise, as symphonic birthday greeting. (Fidi was the nickname for their son, Siegfried.) However, he, to Cosima’s dismay, sold the piece to Schott for in 1878. In order to make it more marketable, he expanded it from 13 to 35 players.

Siegfried Idyll is unique in Wagner’s output. It remains one of his only purely orchestra works that is regularly played today. Additionally, Wagner used some of the material from Idyll in his 1876 Ring Cycle operas Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (in the “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” section).

The TSO will present the chamber orchestra version of Siegfried Idyll.

About Bach cantatas and “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen”

Cantata, which means “sung” in Italian, is typically a multi-movement vocal work with instrumental accompaniment, and often involves choir. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is the best-known composer of cantatas. He wrote hundreds of them – and at least 209 of them have survived. The earliest known Bach cantata was written in 1707, but most of them are from the years he spent as cantor of the main churches in Leipzig, Germany – Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche – starting in 1723. Sometimes, Bach would complete a full cantata every week, as the works were related to the cycle of the liturgical calendar.

Generally, Bach’s cantatas followed a 6-movement structure: Opening chorus – Recitative – Aria – Recitative or Arioso – Aria – Chorale. However, he did not always follow a specific structure. His main goal was to set the texts in the most expressive way possible.

“Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen” (“Shout for joy to God in all lands”) is Bach’s only cantata scored for solo soprano and trumpet, and is one of only four cantatas involving solo soprano voice. It is unique because it was, according to Bach’s own inscription, written for general use and not necessarily for a specific day in the liturgical calendar. He himself used it for the 15th Sunday after Trinity, and it premiered on September 17, 1730 in Leipzig. The text is from an unknown poet, but it uses various Biblical books, especially the book of Psalms. It is in 5 movements: Aria – Recitative – Aria – Chorale – Final Chorus.

About Concerto Grosso and Corelli

“Concerto grosso” means “ big concerto” in Italian, and is an orchestral piece consisting of musical material passed between a group of soloists (“concertino”) and orchestra (“ripieno” or “concerto grosso”). It was developed in the late 17th century. The first major composer to use the term was Archangelo Corelli. Corelli (1653-1713) was also a very well-known violinist who was active in Rome.

Op. 6, which includes the “Christmas Concerto,” is a set of 12 concerti grossi, arranged for publication after Corelli’s death in 1714. The first eight were composed for the church (including the Christmas Concerto) and the second four were intended as concert pieces. The Christmas Concerto was intended for a Christmas Eve service, and may have had its premiere in 1690. It is in six movements.

Susan Williams

Susan Williams, soprano, has performed nationally and internationally in a wide range of leading opera roles and as a vocal soloist. In December of 2016 she made her second trip to Kolkata, India to perform concerts with Kolkata Classics Concert Series. Twice, she has traveled to Havana, Cuba where she lectured and worked with students at the Instituto Superior de Arte. In Florida, she was soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the Master Chorale of South Florida, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the Frost Symphony Orchestra, and Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes for Miami’s Mainly Mozart Festival.

With the Duke Symphony Orchestra, she has sung Despina in Così fan tutte, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro, and Sophie in excerpts from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. For Opera Birmingham, she sang the Erste Knabe in Die Zauberflöte and the title role in over 30 performances of Barab’s Little Red Riding Hood. She toured northeast Ohio with Lyric Opera Cleveland’s Overtures and with Cleveland Opera as Adina in The Elixir of Love.

Under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst, she performed in The Cleveland Orchestra’s production of Le nozze di Figaro. She has been a soloist with the Tuscaloosa Symphony, the Akron Symphony, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, the Cleveland Bach Consort, and the Johnson City Symphony. In Graz, Austria, she sang the soprano solos in Mozart’s Coronation Mass and was a finalist in the Meistersinger Competition at the American Institute of Musical Studies.

A graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, she earned the master’s degree at the University of Akron, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the guidance of Mary Schiller. At Vanderbilt University, she was a 2013 member of the prestigious NATS internship program where she worked under master teacher Kenneth Bozeman. She was appointed as Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of Alabama in 2013. Prior to her position at the University of Alabama, Dr. Williams was a member of the voice faculty at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.

Her scholarly interests include using body movement systems and the use of virtual anatomy to enhance student learning in the studio. Her most recent article “Finding the Right Metaphor: Strategies to Optimize the Educational Value of Virtual Anatomy Software in the Voice Studio ” can be found in the Journal of Singing Volume 73, Number 2, November/December 2016. Dr. Williams began practicing yoga in 2001 and earned her 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher certification in June 2014.

Eric Yates

Eric Yates serves as an associate professor of trumpet at The University of Alabama, principal trumpet in the Tuscaloosa Symphony, and first trumpet of The University of Alabama Brass Quintet.

Yates is also an in-demand soloist and clinician and has appeared throughout the United States and in numerous countries as a soloist, touring ensemble member, and teacher. He has performed in Russia, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Cuba, and has presented master classes and recitals at the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories; the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana, Cuba; the American University of Rome, Italy; and at numerous institutions in the U.S., including Emory University, Furman University, the University of Georgia, Northwestern University, and others.

He has twice hosted the Trumpet Festival of the Southeast at The University of Alabama and served as a judge at the National Trumpet Competition since 2009. He was awarded the Best Cornet Player of the 2006 U.S. Open Brass Band Championships; toured with the award-winning Fountain City Brass Band of Kansas City, MO; and served two years as Principal Solo Cornet of the Prairie Brass Band of Arlington Heights, IL.

Before his appointment at The University of Alabama in 2007, Dr. Yates was an active performer in the Chicago area as principal trumpet of the Northbrook Symphony, co- principal trumpet of the Chicago Brass Choir, and a faculty member of the Lake Forest College Department of Music and Wright City College Department of Fine Arts in Chicago.

His performance career has included engagements with numerous professional orchestras in the United States, including the Alabama (Birmingham) Symphony Orchestra, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, the South Bend Symphony, the Illinois Symphony, the Elmhurst Symphony, the Northwest Indiana Symphony, and the Nashville Symphony. Dr. Yates’s trumpet performance skills and experience encompass all aspects of classical trumpet and cornet playing, from modern symphonic, chamber, and solo work to authentic period performance on historic natural trumpets.

He earned his Doctor of Music degree in trumpet performance from Northwestern University, and his principal teachers include Charles Geyer, Barbara Butler, Vincent Cichowicz, and Gary Armstrong.

In addition to his teaching duties at The University of Alabama, Dr. Yates also serves as chair of the performance pivision at the UA School of Music and director of the Alabama Brass Choir. He is a Courtois Performing Artist.

ANNUAL TSO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2017

Leroy Anderson

Leroy Anderson was an American composer who lived during the 20th century, and mostly wrote works in the light classical style. The Boston Pops orchestra, under the direction of conductor Arthur Fielder, premiered many of the Massachusetts native’s pieces throughout his lifetime.

Anderson was born on June 29, 1908 in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Swedish immigrants. Music was a large part of his life growing up; his mother was the organist at the Swedish Mission Church in Cambridge, and his father, a postal clerk, played the mandolin as a hobby. His mother gave him his first piano lessons when he was five years old. It was clear from an early age that Leroy had a knack for music, and even for writing his own melodies. When the boy was eleven, he began taking piano lessons at the New England Conservatory of Music. Anderson attended the Cambridge High and Latin School, an institution that prepared young people to enter Harvard University. While there, he mastered Swedish (which he already spoke informally at home), Latin, and French, and learned to play the trombone, mandolin, and double bass. He even conducted the school orchestra on pieces he composed a few times.

Anderson entered Harvard University in 1926, where he studied music primarily, and earned both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Music by 1930. He continued to study at Harvard during the 1930s, and worked toward a PhD in German and Scandinavian languages with the intention of becoming a language teacher. After all – he thought – a career in music did not hold much promise. He was offered a position teaching at a school in Pennsylvania, but at the last moment, turned it town to pursue music.

While in graduate school at Harvard, he began writing arrangements for the university band, and his work caught the attention of Arthur Fielder, director of the Boston Pops Orchestra. One of Anderson’s arrangements of Harvard songs called Harvard Fantasy was premiered by the BPO in 1936, and his first composition for the orchestra, Jazz Pizzicato, premiered in 1938. He continued to write and arrange for Fielder and the Pops Orchestra for many years.

When World War II broke out, Anderson was drafted into the U.S. Army, where his skill in languages proved useful. He first served in Iceland as a translator and interpreter for the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps starting in 1942. In 1943, he returned to the U.S., and graduated from Officer’s Candidate School in 1943. He then served at the Pentagon as Chief of the Scandinavian Department of Military Intelligence. After the war was over, Anderson remained in the military, but also pursued music, and composed one of his most well known pieces, The Syncopated Clock, in 1945 for the Boston Pops Orchestra. He was offered a promotion within the army, but declined it and decided to pursue music full-time, and was released from active duty in 1946. He and his wife then moved to New York City

In the summer of 1946, he spent some time in Connecticut and it was there, during a heat wave, that he composed what is possibly his most famous piece – the holiday classic, Sleigh Ride. The piece premiered in Boston in May of 1948, and by the end of that year, many NYC department stores were playing Sleigh Ride for their customers during the holiday season. He and his family relocated to Connecticut permanently in 1950, and Sleigh Ride became more and more popular around North America and Europe. Lyrics were written and rewritten, and it became ubiquitous during the holiday season in many cities and towns. It was during this time that he wrote many of his other well-known works, including Blue Tango, Bugler’s Holiday, and Forgotten Dreams.

During the 1950s, Anderson experimented with longer pieces and, as a result, worked with some larger orchestras. His Concerto in C Major for Piano and Orchestra has performed and recorded by Chicago’s Grant Park Symphony, the Cincinnati Pops, and the BBC Concert Orchestra (among others) throughout the years. During the 1960s and 1970s, Anderson’s works were used in popular television and radio programs. Anderson himself stayed active guest conducting and serving on the boards of local symphony orchestra. He died in Woodbury, Connecticut on May 18, 1975.

John Rutter (official bio from website)

John Rutter was born in London in 1945 and received his first musical education as a chorister at Highgate School.

He went on to study music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he wrote his first published compositions and conducted his first recording while still a student.

His compositional career has embraced both large and small-scale choral works, orchestral and instrumental pieces, a piano concerto, two children’s operas, music for television, and specialist writing for such groups as the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the King’s Singers.

His larger choral works, Gloria (1974), Requiem (1985), Magnificat (1990), Psalmfest (1993), and Mass of the Children (2003) have been performed many times in Britain, North America, and a growing number of other countries.

He co-edited four volumes in the Carols for Choirs series with Sir David Willcocks, and, more recently, has edited the first two volumes in the new Oxford Choral Classics series, Opera Choruses (1995) and European Sacred Music (1996).

From 1975 to 1979 he was Director of Music at Clare College, whose choir he directed in a number of broadcasts and recordings.

After giving up the Clare post to allow more time for composition, he formed the Cambridge Singers as a professional chamber choir primarily dedicated to recording, and he now divides his time between composition and conducting.

He has guest-conducted or lectured at many concert halls, universities, churches, music festivals, and conferences in Europe, Africa, North and Central America and Australasia.

In 1980 he was made an honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, and in 1988 a Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians.

In 1996 the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred a Lambeth Doctorate of Music upon him in recognition of his contribution to church music.

He was honored in the 2007 Queen’s New Year Honors List, being awarded a CBE for services to music.

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist who lived during the 20th century, and his songs form a large part of the Great American Songbook. He is perhaps best known for writing the songs “White Christmas” and “God Bless America,” among many others. Over the course of his career, he wrote at least 1,500 songs, including original scores for 20 Broadway shows and 15 Hollywood films.

Berlin was born Israel Beilin on May 11, 1888 in Imperial Russia to Jewish parents. His father was a cantor in a synagogue, and moved with the family to New York City around 1893. His father died when Berlin was only 13 years old. Berlin started taking jobs to help support the family before that at the age of 8, and started selling newspapers in the Bowery. It was there that he was first exposed to a variety of music and sound effects that spilled from the saloons and restaurants on the city streets.

He left home around the age of 14 and moved to the Lower East Side, taking up residence in lodging houses that sheltered other homeless boys. He sang to customers in saloons and on the streets in order to make money, and eventually got a job as a singing waiter in Chinatown. During his free time, he learned to play the piano and to improvise.

A staffer for the music publisher Harry Von Tilzer took notice of the young Berlin and eventually hired him as a songwriter. When Berlin was only 20, he also became a lyricist with the Ted Snyder publishing company. Between 1910 and 1920, Berlin rose to fame as a songwriter in Tin Pan Alley and on Broadway. He had his first hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” in 1911. He was a featured performer at Oscar Hammerstein’s vaudeville house. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” went on to be recorded by such well-known artists as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and Johnny Mercer. Also during this time, Berlin honed his skills as a songwriter, moving away from ragtime and toward love songs.

In 1917, Berlin was drafted into the army during World War I. However, Berlin was so famous by this time that the army wanted to use him for his musical talents. He composed an all-soldier review called “Yip Yip Yaphank.” It was also during this time that he penned one of his most famous songs, “God Bless America,” although it would not be introduced to the public for another 20 years.

After the war, Berlin returned to Tin Pan Alley and collaborated with a man named Sam Harris to build the Music Box Theater in 1921. In its early years, the Music Box was a place almost solely devoted to Berlin’s musical revues. During the 1920s and 1930s, Berlin composed many songs, mostly for his own shows. “Puttin’ On the Ritz” was composed in 1928, and was made famous by Fred Astaire in the 1946 Blue Skies. “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” another one of his well-known tunes, premiered in 1937.

“God Bless America” was released in 1938, almost 20 years after its composition, when singer Kate Smith needed a patriotic song to mark the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day. The song became a second national anthem after the U.S. entered World War II. Berlin continued to write patriotic songs throughout the war, including many from the stage show “This is the Army,” which was shown at military bases all over the world.

During the 1940s, Berlin’s career as a composer for the stage and screen continued. The 1942 film Holiday Inn featured what was to become one of his most famous songs, “White Christmas,” first sung in the film by Bing Crosby. Berlin won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “White Christmas, which was the first of seven Oscar nominations he would receive throughout his life. In 1946, he wrote the lyrics and music to Annie Get Your Gun, based on the life of Annie Oakley.

For several decades during his later life, Berlin retreated from the public eye, with his last stage show being the musical Mr. President, which premiered in 1962 on Broadway. He died on September 22, 1989 at the age of 101.

Prentice Concert Chorale                                                     

The Prentice Concert Chorale, directed by Dr. Leslie Poss, presents a full season of concerts and frequently performs for/with local arts and civic organizations. Now in its 47th Season, the Prentice Chorale has served the greater Tuscaloosa and West Alabama communities with a wide variety of cultural experiences. The Chorale’s broad-spectrum repertoire of choral masterworks includes Durufle’s Requiem, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s B minor Mass, and Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil. Additionally, the Chorale performs a variety of traditional and contemporary choral music, ranging from anthems and festival compositions to Broadway classics, spirituals, and folk music.  The 2017-2018 season concludes with a May 20, 2018 performance of Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the First Presbyterian Church’s Sanctuary Choir; Ms. Marjorie Johnston, director.

Joining the Prentice Chorale for this year’s holiday concert are the Shelton Singers directed by Dr. J. F. Mark Brown. The Shelton Singers were the first ensemble to be established in the Shelton State Music Department, and they are still the principle choral performing ensemble on campus. An auditioned concert choir, the choir performs major works, traditional choral repertoire, and full-scale musicals and themed concerts. This Shelton Singer’s first performance with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra.

DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Puccini short biography

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was one of the foremost opera composers of the Romantic and modern periods, and is widely considered to be the greatest opera composer after Verdi. He was born in Lucca, Italy in 1858 as “Giacomo Antonio Domenica Michele Secondo Maria Puccini.” He came from a long line of important musicians in Lucca. His great-great grandfather was maestro di cappella of the Cathedral of San Martina, and all the generations who followed him studied music at Bologna in order to compose music for the church. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all served as maestro di cappella, and his father wrote one opera. His father died when Puccini was only six years old, so he was too young to take over the maestro role.

Puccini received general and musical training at the seminary of San Michele in Lucca, and received a diploma from the Pacini School of Music in 1880. He received a scholarship to complete his studies at the Milan Conservatory, where he was roommates with fellow opera composer Pietro Mascagni. He wrote the instrumental Capriccio Sinfonica in 1883 as a thesis composition at the Conservatory. One of his professors, Amilcare Ponchielli, upon noting the vocal style of the piece, suggested that his next work be an opera. Ponchielli introduced him to a young librettist, Fernando Fontana, who collaborated with Puccini on his first opera, Le Villa, which was first performed in 1883.

Giulio Ricordi, who was the head of the prominent Ricordi music publishers, was impressed with Le Villaand commissioned Puccini to write another opera. This was Edgar, also written with Fontana, and was premiered in 1889. Reviews were mixed – mostly due to the libretto – and Puccini revised it several times (a practice he continued throughout his career). For his next work, Manon Lescaut, Puccini vowed to write his own libretto. Ricordi persuaded him to collaborate with someone and Puccini agreed – but remained very selective. Five librettists ended up contributing to Manon, which premiered in 1893. It was very successful. George Bernard Shaw noted that Puccini looked like “an heir to Verdi.”

The lauded La boheme (based on the 1851 novel by French writer Henri Murger) was Puccini’s next work, premiering in 1896 with Toscanini conducting/ It remains one of the most frequently performed operas of all times. However, Puccini struggled financially during its composition, and noted that his situation at the time of its creation mirrored the struggles of some of the characters in the story.

Tosca, which premiered in 1900, is considered to be his first opera in the verismo style – or an opera that aims to depict life realistically, including violence. Tosca is more through-composed (instead of set pieces and arias) than some of his earlier works, and uses Wagner-like musical signatures (“leitmotivs”) to weave sections together.

On February 25, 1903, Puccini, along with his wife and son, was in a horrific car accident. He barely survived, and his progress on his next work, Madama Butterfly, was significantly impaired. It eventually premiered almost a year later in 1904 at La Scala. Typical of Puccini, it went through many revisions, and the fifth version is what is most often heard today.

After 1904, Puccini composed and published much less often. His longtime librettist and friend, Giuseppe Giacosa, died, his wife accused him of having an affair, and his longtime supporter and publisher, Ricordi, died as well. However, he still completed several large works up until his death. In 1910, La fanciulla del West premiered. 1916’s La rondine was originally conceived as an operetta, but Puccini ended up ridding the work of spoken words parts. In 1918, Il trittico premiered, which was a set of three one-act operas: a horrific happening (Il tabarro), a tragedy (Suor Angelica), and a comedy (Gianni Schicchi). His final opera, Turandot, was left unfinished at the time of his death. It was finished by composer Franco Alfano, and premiered at La Scala in 1926.

Throughout his life, Puccini remained indifferent to politics (he did not take a stance during World War I, for instance), and preferred to stay out of the public eye. From 1891 onward, he spent most of his time in a small town outside of Lucca called Torre del Lago. He had a love of cars and hunting, and he could indulge his interests there without disturbance from the public. He built a residence in Torre del Lago in 1900 called Villa Musea Puccini, where he and his family lived until 1921.

Puccini was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1923, and died in November of 1924. News of his death reached Rome during a performance of La boheme, which was halted in his honor.

Puccini’s style/about Verismo opera

Puccini is generally considered to be a composer of the late Romantic style. He is often grouped into what is called the giovane scuola (“young school”) with other post-Verdi Italian composers who graduated from the Milan Conservatory around the same time, such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, and Umberto Giordano. However, Puccini was always trying to refresh his style, both over time and within specific works; he was known to update and revise his operas many times. He also often used outside music in his operas – such as his integration of Chinese folk themes in Turandot.

Most of his operas have at least one set piece that can work as a stand-alone aria in concert performances. As his career progressed, though, he moved away from this “set piece” style of writing and worked toward a more through-composed style. This coincided with the verismo opera movement.

Verismo is a style of Italian opera that began around 1890 with Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticano; it reached its height in the early 1900s, and stretched into the 1920s. Other composers from the giovane scuola also wrote in this style. Verismo opera has its roots in the Italian verismo literary movement, which itself is an extension of the international Naturalism movement. Composers of verismo works attempt to portray a more realistic version of life, including the violent events and struggles experienced by the lower classes. It rejects the mythical subjects common to Romanticism.

Musically, verismo operas do not follow a recitative-set piece structure, and are generally more through-composed. Arias do exist, but arise naturally from the dramatic surroundings and do not stand alone as well as arias from earlier operas.

Puccini’s career fell right into the time when verismo was most popular in Italian opera, as only two of his operas were premiered before Cavalleria rusticano. Some musicologists consider him to be a purely verismo composer, starting with Tosca in 1900, but others believe he followed more of a hybrid model. Generally, though, Puccini is considered to be part of the movement, and perhaps even the prime example of a verismo composer.

About Baubles, Bangles, and Beads

“Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” is a song from the 1953 musical Kismet, which was adapted from the music of Russian Romantic composer Alexander Borodin. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1954. The music and lyrics were co-written/adapted by Robert Wright and George Forrest.

“Baubles” is adapted from a theme in the second movement of Borodin’s famous String Quartet in D (1881). Peggy Lee released the most well-known and best-selling version in 1954. The song has also been recorded by Frank Sinatra, the Kirby Stone Four, Julie Andrews, Marlene Dietrich, and Tuscaloosa’s own Dinah Washington.

ANNUAL DISCOVERY DAY – DANCING MUSICAL CHARACTERS

ANNUAL FAMILY DISCOVERY CONCERT

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2018

Britten short biography

Benjamin Britten (1913-1975) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist best known for his operatic and vocal works. He was born in Suffolk, England on November 22, 1913, and was the youngest of four children. He was born into a middle-class family, and was the only one of the family to show any musical prowess. His mother recognized his interest at a young age, and had him begin piano lessons at age 7, and viola lessons at age 10. She hoped that he would become “the fourth B” of great composers – the other three being Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

Britten went to prep school in the town of Lowestoft. While there, he witnessed a good deal of corporal punishment, and he believes that this influenced his later staunch pacifist philosophy. When he was a teenager, he began composition lessons with the prominent composer Frank Bridge. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music (RCM) in 1930, where he studied composition with John Ireland and piano with Arthur Benjamin until 1933. However, he continued to study privately with Bridge, as he was dissatisfied with the instruction he received there, despite winning many prizes in composition.

His first works to gain critical and public attention were his Sinfonietta (1932) and A Boy Was Born (1934), written for the BBC singers. In 1935, the BBC approached Britten to write a score to a film, The King’s Stamp. It was through this work in film that he met the writer W.H. Auden, who became a key collaborator in the coming years. They worked together on the song cycle Our Hunting Fathers (1936) and the operetta Paul Bunyan (1941) in addition to several BBC films. Auden helped Britten to expand his political and intellectual horizons, and introduced him to other young artists in England and beyond.

In 1937, Britten met the tenor Peter Pears, who would become his life and professional partner. Britten wrote a number of works for Pears, and they also gave many performances together throughout their lifetimes. In April of 1939, Britten and Pears moved to North America, eventually settling in New York City. Britten was against World War II, and had heard from Auden, who had moved to the U.S. earlier that year, that it was a better place for pacifists and artists. While in America, Britten wrote several key works, including the Violin Concerto and the Sinfonia da requiem, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic.

In 1942, Britten read The Borough, a collection of poems by George Crabbe, and the images and content in the book made him homesick for England. So, he and Pears moved back, and registered as conscientious objectors to World War II. The content of Crabbe’s work inspired his first full-length opera, Peter Grimes, which premiered in 1945 to great critical acclaim, and positioned Britten as one of the most successful British opera composers since Henry Purcell (1659-1695).

Also in 1945, The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, arguably his most well-known and popular work, premiered. It was written for an educational film called The Instruments of the Orchestra. Shortly thereafter, he composed his second and third operas, The Rape of Lucretia (1946) and Albert Herring (1947). Around this time, Britten and Pears moved from London to Aldeburgh in East Suffolk, and began the preliminary work on starting a music festival. In 1948, the first annual Aldeburgh Festival occurred. It continues to this day, and focuses on the music of British composers.

During the 1950s, Britten composed even more operas: Billy Budd (1951), Gloriana (1953 – for the coronation of Elizabeth II), and The Turn of the Screw (1954). He took a trip to East Asia in 1956, where he was inspired by the traditional music he heard and observed. He used what he had learned from watching Japanese noh plays and from seeing a Balinese gamelan in his work throughout the 1960s.

In 1962, he was commissioned to write a work for the opening of a newly-built cathedral in Coventry, England. The original Coventry Cathedral was destroyed during World War II. The result was what is considered to be his watershed work: the War Requiem. It features the Latin Requiem Mass side-by-side with settings of English World War I poet Wilfred Owen, and is a plea for peace amid suffering.

In 1970, Britten began work on what was to be his final opera, Death in Venice, based on the novella by Thomas Mann. During the process, he learned that he had to have heart surgery to repair a defective valve. He completed the work in 1973 right before he entered the hospital. During surgery, he suffered a stroke, which greatly affected his right hand. It was now much more difficult for him to conduct, play the piano, and write music. Despite this setback, he continued to write music for the next two years, including his final String Quartet and Phaedra, both completed in 1975. Britten died of heart failure on December 4, 1975.

About The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra is subtitled “Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Henry Purcell,” and is based on the second movement, “Rondeau,” of Purcell’s Abdelazer suite. It was commissioned for an educational film featuring the London Symphony Orchestra called The Instruments of the Orchestra in 1945. It was conducted by Malcolm Sargent and narrated by Britten’s longtime collaborator and librettist Eric Crozier.

The piece is scored for a full symphony orchestra, and is intended to show off the tone and unique qualities of the different families of instruments. The Purcell theme is played by the entire orchestra first, and then is broken down into the different instrument groups during the variations. The groups are then put back together, gradually, in a fugue.

The Young Person’s Guide remains Britten’s most-performed work, and is one of the most popular pieces played on family and children’s concerts. It is also used in many film soundtracks. Most recently, it was prominently featured in Wes Anderson’s 2012 movie, Moonrise Kingdom alongside other works by Britten.

Benjamin Britten and music for children

Throughout his life, Britten dedicated himself to educating young people, and wrote a number of works intended to be heard and performed by children. Aside from his most famous Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, he wrote two operas intended for child performers: The Little Sweep (1949) and Noye’s Fludde(1958), which is based on the biblical story of Noah.

Many of his other works feature children’s or boys’ choir alongside the orchestra, traditional choir, or within an opera. Those pieces include: Spring Symphony (1949), Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac (1952), The Turn of the Screw (1954), Missa Brevis (1959), War Requiem (1962), Voices for Today (1965), and The Golden Vanity (1966). Britten was also drawn to operatic subject matter concerning the loss of innocence of children as they mature into adults. Child characters are also prominently featured in many of his operas and stage works.

About Theme and Variations form

Theme and Variations is a musical form in which original or borrowed material (the theme) is repeated in an altered form (variations). Composers can manipulate the theme in a number of ways. They can vary the rhythm, the melody, the tempo, and even the tonality (it can move from major to minor, for instance). Sometimes, the theme is original, as in Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations and sometimes it is a borrowed theme from another composer such as Johannes Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn or Britten’s Young Person’s Guide.

Examples of variation form date from before the Baroque period, and is thought to have first emerged in the 16th century in a piece by Luis de Narváez from 1538 called Diferencias. Later examples of variation form are Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the finale of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, and the final movement of Beethoven’s Third Symphony (“Eroica”). Franz Schubert was known to write variations on his own songs, most notably in the String Quartet “Death and the Maiden” and in the “Trout” String Quintet. It continues to be a popular form to this day.

TSO FAMILY CONCERT OVERVIEW POWERPOINT

TSO FAMILY CONCERT- MEET THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SHOW!

TSO FAMILY CONCERT- STUDY GUIDE

TSO FAMILY CONCERT- CROSSWORD PUZZLE

MUSICAL BRILLIANCE – THE PHENOMENAL STEWART GOODYEAR

MONDAY, MAY 7, 2018

Gunther Schuller short biography

Gunther Schuller (1925-2015) was an American composer, conductor, and French horn player who also had a career as a jazz musician, author, and arts administrator. He was born in Queens, New York City to German immigrant parents. His father was a violinist in the New York Philharmonic, so Gunther was exposed to classical music from a very young age. During his formative years, he studied French horn and flute in the precollege division at the Manhattan School of Music, but dropped out of high school to perform professionally. By the age of 15, he played horn with the American Ballet Theatre and soon thereafter, he won the principal horn position with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

During his time at the Cincinnati Symphony in the 1940s, Schuller heard Duke Ellington in concert, and this sparked a keen and even obsessive interest in jazz music. In 1949-1950, he recorded with Miles Davis, and in 1959, he founded the Modern Jazz Society with pianist John Lewis. During a lecture at Brandeis University in 1957, he coined the term “Third Stream” to define a musical genre that combines classical and jazz idioms, including improvisation. This style was a key part of Schuller’s aesthetic throughout his career. Works utilizing the Third Stream philosophy include Transformation for jazz ensemble (1957), Abstraction for nine instruments (1959), Variations on a Theme of Thelonius Monk for 13 instruments (1960), and Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959).

In 1959, Schuller gave up performing in order to devote his time to composition, teaching, and writing. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was President of the New England Conservatory of Music. From 1970-1984, he was Artistic Director of the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood Center, and, while there, created the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. His interest in jazz continued, and he also served as Co-director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and editor-in-chief of Jazz Masterworks Editions.

From 1993 until his death, he was Artistic Director of the Northwest Bach Festival in Spokane, Washington, and appeared as a guest conductor in cities around the country. He continued to compose until the end of his life. In 2009, the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered his orchestral work, Where the World Ends. He died on June 21, 2015 at the age of 89.

Although he never earned any formal degree in his lifetime, Schuller was the recipient of ten honorary degrees from various institutions. He won the MacArthur Genius Grant in 1991, and won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in composition for his piece, Of Reminiscences and Reflections for the Louisville Orchestra. He also won two Grammy Awards – for Best Album Notes (1976) and Best Chamber Music Performance, as conductor of the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble (1974). He is the author of seven books, including works on conducting, horn technique, and jazz history.

Schuller and Miles Davis recording (Deception): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F2suRc9iLU

About Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee

In 1959, Gunther Schuller quit performing to focus solely on composition and teaching. Seven Studies was one of the first works to come out of this period of new productivity. It was commissioned for the Minneapolis Symphony, and is an attempt to find musical equivalents for seven paintings by the Swiss modernist painter Paul Klee (1879-1940).

Schuller wrote, “Each of the seven pieces bears a slightly different relationship to the original Klee picture from which it stems. Some relate to actual design, shape, or color scheme of painting, while others take the general mode of the picture or its title as a point of departure.”

Schuller coined the term “Third Stream” in 1957 to describe a hybrid musical genre combining classical and jazz idioms. Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee is probably his most popular work in this style.

Interview with Schuller about Seven Studies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4yW_IcntYE

Classical music and visual arts

Visual artists have been inspiring composers for centuries. Aside from Gunther Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, here are some examples of works written in response to paintings and other visual art.

Igor Stravinsky’s 1951 opera The Rake’s Progress was based on the story told in the William Hogarth (1697-1764) collection A Rake’s Progress. Franz Lizst’s 1857 symphonic poem Hunnenschlacht was inspired by a work of the same name by German muralist Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805-1874). Paul Hindemith’s symphony Mathis der Maler (1934) was based on the tableau paintings of German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528). Perhaps most famous is Modest Mussorgsky’s 1874 piano work Pictures at an Exhibition (along with Ravel’s more well-known 1922 orchestration), which is inspired by a series of watercolors and sketches by Russian architect and painter Viktor Hartmann (1834-1873).

YouTube Links:

Hindemith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqVSuAcMahM

Schuller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7jpI-DQEXs

Mussorgsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPnPJ9mcwWQ

About Debussy’s Ibéria

“Ibéria” is part of an orchestra triptych by French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) called Images pour orchestre, and was written between 1905 and 1912. It was intended to be a sequel to Images for solo piano (1901-1907), and Debussy originally conceived it for two pianos. However, he ultimately decided that the colors he wanted to express would be better suited for the orchestra.

Of the three pieces in the collection – Gigues, Ibéria, and Rondes des printemps – Ibéria is the most popular. Formally, it has three sections, and is a triptych within the larger triptych. The three sections are titled:

i. Par les rues et par les chemins (Through the streets and the paths)

ii. Les parfums de la nuit (The fragrance of the night)

iii. Le matin d’un jour de fête (The morning of a festival day)

Ibéria is inspired by impressions of Spain, but these impressions came purely from Debussy’s imagination; he had spent no more than a few hours in the country.

Debussy is often referred to as an “impressionist” composer. In this piece, though, Debussy said that he was “trying to achieve something different – an effect of reality.” Was he trying to move away from “impressionistic” images? Spanish composer Manuel de Falla seems to believe that impressionism prevailed: “The echoes from the villages, a kind of sevillana – the generic theme of the work – which seems to float in a clear atmosphere of scintillating light; the intoxicating spell of Andalusian mights, the festive gaiety of a people dancing to the joyous strains of a banda of guitars and bandurrias…all this whirls in the air, approaches and recedes, and our imagination is continually kept awake and dazzled by the power of an intensely expressive and richly varied music.”

About Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concert no. 2

This giant in the piano concerto repertoire was written by late Romantic Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) in 1901. It premiered with Rachmaninoff at the piano and his cousin, Alexander Siloti, conducting.

Critics panned his First Symphony in 1897, and Rachmaninoff fell into a deep depression as a result. He turned to daily hypnotherapy with a doctor named Nikolai Dahl and found it very effective. Afterwards, he traveled to the Mediterranean to recover for a few months, and returned to Russia with a collection of new musical creations – including the second piano concerto. Rachmaninoff dedicated the work to Dahl to show his gratitude.

The concerto was a huge critical success, and has been one of the staples of the Romantic piano repertoire ever since. In fact, it is so popular that non-classical musicians have used it in their work. Frank Sinatra’s 1945 song “Full Moon and Empty Arms” (written by Buddy Kaye) uses the last movement of the concerto, and Muse’s 2001 song “Space Dementia” takes themes from the first movement. Additionally, it has been used in a number of film scores, including Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter (2010).

Sinatra: Full Moon and Empty Arms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsdCtsRczY

Stewart Goodyear

Proclaimed "a phenomenon" by the Los Angeles Times and "one of the best pianists of his generation" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished young pianist as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist and composer. Mr. Goodyear has performed with major orchestras of the world , including the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Bournemouth Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, MDR Symphony Orchestra (Leipzig),  Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony , Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Goodyear began his training at The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, received his bachelor's degree from Curtis Institute of Music, and completed his master's at The Juilliard School. Known as an improviser and composer, he has been commissioned by orchestras and chamber music organizations, and performs his own solo works.  This year, Mr. Goodyear premiered his suite for piano and orchestra, "Callaloo", with Kristjan Jarvi and MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig, and in July of this year, the Clarosa Quartet will premiere his Piano Quartet commissioned by the Kingston Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Goodyear performed all 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas in one day at Koerner Hall, McCarter Theatre, the Mondavi Center, and the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas.
 
Mr. Goodyear's discography includes Beethoven's Complete Piano Sonatas (which received a Juno nomination for Best Classical Solo Recording in 2014) and Diabelli Variations for the Marquis Classics label, Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto and Grieg's Piano Concerto, and Rachmaninov's Piano Concertos No. 2 and 3, both recorded with the Czech National Symphony under Stanislav Bogunia and Hans Matthias Forster respectively, and released to critical acclaim on the Steinway and Sons label. His Rachmaninov recording received a Juno nomination for Best Classical Album for Soloist and Large Ensemble Accompaniment. Also for Steinway and Sons is Mr. Goodyear's recording of his own transcription of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker (Complete Ballet)", which was released October 2015 and was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best classical music recordings of 2015.
 
Highlights of the 2016-2017 season are recitals dates at McCarter Theatre and the Phillips Collection, return engagements with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Symphony, and his debut at the Savannah Music Festival performing the complete Beethoven piano sonatas in one day.