The Alabama Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Museum of Art present
AMERICAN RHAPSODY A FESTIVAL OF MUSIC AND ART
presented by
January 27 - February 4 | AlabamaSymphony.org Indicates that the work will be on view at the Birmingham Museum of Art during the American Festival *
Rockwell Kent (American, 1882 – 1971) Starlight, 1930. Wood engraving. Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Gift of Roy Curtis Green Produced between two of Rockwell Kent’s several extended stays in Greenland, Starlight and its austere landscape suggests such Arctic climes. Because we cannot see the central figure’s face, we are encouraged to place ourselves in his position, and thus to follow his gaze off into the starry night sky and contemplate the vastness and sublime beauty of the universe. This device hints at Kent’s interest in capturing states or conditions that transcend the individual. He once stated, “I don’t want petty self-expression. I want the elemental, infinite thing; I want to paint the rhythm of eternity.” Richard Danielpour found inspiration for First Light, composed in 1988, from Robert Duncan’s poem Four Pictures of the Real Universe. It captures the same reverence for the infinity of the night sky, broken only by the dawn: “…chords that hold the stars in their courses / outfoldings of sound from the seed of first light.” 1
Abraham Rattner (American, 1893 – 1978), Design for the Memory, 1943.
Oil on canvas. Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art; Gift of Leslie and Elton B. Stephens, Jr. The son of Jewish immigrants, Abraham Rattner did not confine his artistic use of subjects and symbols to his own faith, but also drew upon Christianity to explore various themes, including current events. Painted in the midst of the Second World War, A Design for Memory—which shows a demon devouring a crucifix—evokes the battle between good and evil being waged between the Allied and Axis powers at the time. Like Abraham Rattner, Leonard Bernstein grew up in a Jewish family and sometimes tapped eternal themes from Christianity. His Chichester Psalms combines styles of singing drawn from the Church with Judaic liturgical traditions. The music, life-affirming and hopeful, is a plea for peace in a violent, troubled time.
Albert Bierstadt, Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California, 1865. *
Oil on canvas. Gift of the Birmingham Public Library
Measuring more than five by eight feet, this monumental view of California’s Yosemite Valley was the German-born painter Albert Bierstadt’s first large-scale picture of locale, a subject for which he became well known. Painted in his studio using sketches made during a visit in 1863, Bierstadt paints the valley from a vantage point looking due west. A sunset bathes the valley’s rock formations—including Sentinel Rock on the left and El Capitan on the right—in a warm, golden light. Upon the artist’s death in 1902, one obituary characterized the use of “grandiose subjects and broad treatment” as the “Bierstadt period in American landscape.” Just as Bierstadt helped create a distinctive look for American painting, Aaron Copland heard the sound of the American heartland and turned it into music. By its bold landscapes, open harmonies and clarity, the Symphony No. 3 set a standard for American symphonic grandeur. 2
Theodore Earl Butler (American, 1860 – 1936), Flags, 1918. *
Oil on canvas. Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Gift of Marlene and Crawford Taylor in honor of Margaret G. Livingston, Thomas N. Carruthers, Jr., and William M. Spencer, III for their long years of service to this Museum, our community at large, and for their personal examples of servant leadership at its best Like many of his contemporaries, Theodore Butler first trained in New York but was drawn to France to further his artistic education, studying in Giverny with Claude Monet, who became a close friend. Butler married Monet’s stepdaughter, Suzanne Hoschedé, and following Suzanne’s death, married her sister, Marthe. Butler made France his permanent home, but returned to New York in 1913 to exhibit his work. Due to the outbreak of World War I the following year, he was forced to remain in the United States. This painting—one of his few to refer to the war—was painted in October of 1918, during an Allied flag celebration on New York’s Fifth Avenue, when it was lavishly draped with flags and dubbed “The Avenue of the Allies.” Painted just a month before the war’s end, the jubilation captured in the painting must have matched Butler’s own feelings as it became apparent that he could soon return to his adopted home. The jubilation of the crowd, the waving of flags, the bright sounds from a marching band – these images are the root of Charles Ives’ Country Band March, but with a twist. A great innovator, Ives affectionately satirizes an amateur marching band unable to keep it all together. It turns into a modernist collage of sound. The music slips out of unison, with the ensemble clashing against itself, cheerfully blurting out “wrong” notes and popular tunes of the day – lyrical, artful and exhilarating.
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Viktor Schreckengost, designer (American, 1906 – 2008); manufactured by Cowan Pottery Studio (Rocky River Ohio, active 1912 – 1931), Jazz Bowl, about 1930. *
Engobed and glazed ceramic, with sgraffito design. Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art; Museum purchase with funds provided by the Harold and Regina Simon Fund Known as the New Yorker or Jazz Bowl, this large and colorful punch bowl, glazed in a rich Egyptian blue, is considered an icon of American Art Deco design. The first Jazz Bowl was commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt who wanted a “New Yorkish” punch bowl for the inaugural celebration marking her husband’s second term as Governor of New York. As the designer Viktor Schreckengost once recalled, “…I tried to think: what would be New Yorkish? And then I remembered New York. As I recalled, it was this peculiar blue light that came over the city at night. With all the high buildings and the stop and go lights and the jazz bands that were playing the Cotton Club, and Duke Ellington. So I started to put these ideas together.” Decorated with streetlights, skyscrapers, cocktails, drunken revelers and musical instruments, including a bass drum head emblazoned with the word “JAZZ,” this vibrant vessel tells the story of a night out on the town. The design was so successful that Cowan put it into production, and Mrs. Roosevelt later ordered two more, reportedly one for Hyde Park and the other for the White House. The Alabama Symphony’s Sound Investment patrons commissioned Susan Botti’s Glaze for these world premiere performances. Ancient, beautiful pottery that Botti had seen on trips to Italy and Taiwan stuck in her imagination. “The touch of humanity – captured through fire – held in and out of time, by a glaze,” the composer writes of her inspiration. “The glaze itself not only protects and preserves, but beautifies and transforms the object it contains.”
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Jack Whitten (American, born 1939), Black Table Setting (Homage to Duke Ellington), 1974. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Purchase with funds provided by Jack Drake and Joel and Karen Piassick Raised in Bessemer, Alabama, Jack Whitten moved to New York in 1960 to study art. Whitten’s works—inspired by events, celebrated personalities, or close friends—are notable for the innovative techniques with which they were created. This painting—an homage to composer, pianist, and bandleader Duke Ellington (1899 – 1974)— was made with a sheet metal blade attached to a wheeled rake dragging paint across the canvas’s surface. Duke Ellington left an indelible mark on American culture. As a jazz composer he was constantly pushing the boarders of his art. Three Black Kings, a “ballet for orchestra,” evoke Balthazaar, King of the Magi; Solomon, King of Israel; and Martin Luther King, Jr – a friend to Ellington, in mutual admiration.
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Vito Acconci (American, born 1940), Sleeping Dog Couch, 1984. *
Carpet, leather and wood. Museum purchase with funds provided by the general acquisition fund; Conservation assistance provided by Carpet Specialties, Inc. Vito Acconci has worked variously as a performance and installation artist, designer, and landscape architect. The participation of the audience and a keen sense of humor verging on the absurd are elements frequently found in his work. In 1988, an art critic for the New York Times wrote, “It may be that in his most recent work Mr. Acconci wants to show us a visual banality that is particularly American…His supremely tacky ‘’Sleeping Dog Couch,’’…would be at home in the average shopping mall. But such effects at best muffle the artist’s intentions; at worst, they add an inhuman dimension to the witty, provocative humanness that seems to be his goal.” Art that taps American pop culture is often strikingly self-aware – humorous but that’s also a commentary on humor; playfulness that shows the serious skill that goes into play. Like Acconci’s Sleeping Dog Couch, John Adams’ Lollapalooza is at once fun, slight, and warmly human. It’s pop art in the best sense. The title, Adams writes, is an “archetypal American word,” suggesting “something large, outlandish, oversized but not unduly refined.”
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Bob Thompson (American, 1937 – 1966), Ornette, 1960-61.
Oil on canvas. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Junior Patrons of the Birmingham Museum of Art Ornette portrays Bob Thompson’s friend Ornette Coleman (1930 – 2015), the great jazz saxophonist and composer, who is remembered as one of the pioneers of improvisation. Thompson often attended jazz performances and drew upon music for inspiration. The loosely painted female forms seeming to float throughout this composition are Thompson’s way of visualizing how jazz might appear in the mind of a musician. Jazz music has inspired composers and visual artists to sketch out their own impressions of the quintessential American art. In 1956, Elie Seigmeister sat down at his piano and improvised some music – not so much a tune as a vibe. “Then came the idea,” he recalled. “A jazz piece for clarinet – not any traditional kind of jazz, but my own.” His saucy, likeable Clarinet Concerto, not well known today, is a valuable addition to the repertoire.
Willard LeRoy Metcalf, Pont Royal, 1913. *
Oil on canvas. Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Partial and promised gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald L. Cook Regarded as one of America’s foremost Impressionist painters, Willard LeRoy Metcalf spent his early career in France, painting in Claude Monet’s presence in Giverny, as well undertaking formal studies in Paris. Here, this “American in Paris” depicts the Pont Royal, Paris’s third oldest bridge, as seen from his room in the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire on the Left Bank of the Seine. It’s a well-worn tale : the callow young American visits Paris and, dazzled by the experience, returns brimming with a head full of fresh ideas. George Gershwin’s iconic An American in Paris evokes the sights and sounds of Paris in the 1920s. “Found” sounds, like a taxi car horn, add a measure of authenticity to this musical memoir. As much as any composer, Gershwin was successfully synthesizing high art and mass appeal, and doing it on his own, American, terms. 7
AMERICAN RHAPSODY A FESTIVAL OF MUSIC AND ART
CARLOS CONDUCTS COPLAND 3 Alys Stephens Center, Jemison Concert Hall Fri. & Sat., January 27 & 28, 2017 | 8 pm
Carlos Izcaray, conductor / Augustine Mercante, countertenor ASO Chorus, Philip Copeland, director Jewish-American composers step into the spotlight in this program featuring Copland’s monumental third symphony, “the greatest American symphony ever written.” The ASO Chorus joins us for a popular work by Leonard Bernstein, referred to as “West Side Story meets the Book of Psalms.” DANIELPOUR: First Light BERNSTEIN: Chichester Psalms COPLAND: Symphony No. 3
GERSHWIN’S AN AMERICAN IN PARIS Alys Stephens Center, Jemison Concert Hall Fri. & Sat., February 3 & 4, 2017 | 8 pm
Carlos Izcaray, conductor / Richard Stoltzman, clarinet Explore the streets of 1920’s Paris through the iconic music of George Gershwin, tap your feet to a jazz-infused Clarinet Concerto as performed by the phenomenal Richard Stoltzman, and behold the premiere of a new work by our 2016-2017 Sound Investment Composer in Residence, Susan Botti. IVES: Country Band March BOTTI: Glaze (world premiere) ELLINGTON: Three Black Kings
ADAMS: Lollapalooza SIEGMEISTER: Clarinet Concerto GERSHWIN: An American in Paris
Concert on Feb. 3 sponsored by Vulcan Value Partners Concert on Feb. 4 sponsored by Doctors for the ASO To purchase tickets: Visit AlabamaSymphony.org or contact the Box Office at 205.975.2787 1200 10th Avenue S. / Birmingham, AL 35205