Applause at Strathmore - January/February 2012

january/february 2012

applause at STRATHMORE • January/February 2012

inside: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Joan of Arc takes center stage National Philharmonic Daniil Trifonov channels Tchaikovsky Washington Performing Arts Society Violinist Vadim Repin reaches out to audiences

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prelude

on the cover Duke Ellington illustration

by Ellen Byrne

58

Applause at Strathmore / January/february 2012

65

program notes

18

24

features

Jan. 5 26 / BSO SuperPops: Pops Goes Gershwin

Feb. 4, 5 53 / National Philharmonic: All Tchaikovsky

12 The Duke’s Legacy

Jan. 7 29 / National Philharmonic: Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites

Feb. 9 56 / BSO SuperPops: A BSO Valentine

14 The Joy of Jeanne

Jan. 7 31 /National Philharmonic: Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart Jan. 14 34 / BSO: Itzhak Perlman Jan. 20 37 / BSO: Off the Cuff— Also sprach Zarathustra!

Jan. 21 39 / Strathmore: Ethel Merman’s Broadway Jan. 23 41 / Strathmore: Bryan Adams—The Bare Bones Tour Jan. 28 42 / BSO: LIFE—A Journey Through Time Jan. 29 45 / WPAS: Simone Dinnerstein Feb. 2 48 / BSO: Bach’s “Brandenburg” Feb. 3 52 / Strathmore: All I Did Was Ask—An Evening with NPR’s Terry Gross

Feb. 10 58 / Strathmore: Wanda Sykes

Strathmore celebrates Duke Ellington’s influence on American culture The BSO spotlights Joan of Arc in Voices of Light

16 A Pint-Sized Debut Prodigy Ethan Bortnick, 11, makes first Strathmore appearance

Feb. 11 59 / National Philharmonic: The Brian Ganz Chopin Project

18 A Striking Performer

Feb. 12 62 / WPAS: Leif Ove Andsnes

Nurturing relationships at the Levine School of Music

Feb. 14 65 / Strathmore: Yasmin Levy with special guest Omar Faruk Tekbilek

BSO violinist is first mate on sailing trip to Maine

Feb. 15 66 / WPAS: Emerson String Quartet

23 Getting the Gold

Feb. 16 69 / BSO: The Genius of Mozart Feb. 16, 17, 18, 19 72 / Strathmore: Discover Ellington Feb. 24 77 / BSO: Off the Cuff— Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony

Colin Currie, BSO team up on percussion concerto

19 Bonded Through Music 20 Musician Profile 22 Going it Alone, Together Soloists dominate National Philharmonic all-Bach performance Pianist Daniil Trifonov anchors Tchaikovsky concert

24 Chained Melody Violinist Vadim Repin connects with listeners

departments

6 Musings of Strathmore CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl 6 A Note from BSO Music Director Marin Alsop 8 Calendar: March and April performances 96 Encore: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Vice President of Artistic

Feb. 25 79 / National Philharmonic: All Bach

Feb. 26 83 / Strathmore: Lily Tomlin

27 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 33 National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale

2 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

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Strathmore

partners ● Strathmore

Under the leadership of CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl and President Monica Jeffries Hazangeles, Strathmore welcomes thousands of artists and guests to the Music Center, Mansion and 11-acre campus. As well as presenting performing artists and fine art, Strathmore commissions and creates new works of art and music, including original productions Free to Sing and Take Joy. Education plays a key role in Strathmore’s programming, with classes and workshops in music and visual arts for all ages throughout the year. From presenting world-class performances by major artists, to supporting local artists, Strathmore nurtures arts, artists and community through creative and diverse programming of the highest quality. Visit www.strathmore.org, 301-581-5200.

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

● National Philharmonic

Led by Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski, the National Philharmonic is known for performances that are “powerful” and “thrilling.” The organization showcases world-renowned guest artists in symphonic masterpieces conducted by Maestro Gajewski, and monumental choral masterworks under Chorale Artistic Director Stan Engebretson, who “uncovers depth...structural coherence and visionary scope” (The Washington Post). The Philharmonic’s long-standing tradition of reasonably priced tickets and free admission to all young people age 7-17 assures its place as an accessible and enriching part of life in Montgomery County and the greater Washington area. The National Philharmonic also offers exceptional education programs for people of all ages. For more information, visit www.nationalphilharmonic.org.

● Washington Performing Arts Society

For more than four decades, the Washington Performing Arts Society has created profound opportunities for connecting the community to artists through both education and performance.

Through live events in venues across the D.C. metropolitan area, the careers of emerging artists are guided, and established artists who have close relationships with local audiences are invited to return. WPAS is one of the leading presenters in the nation. Set in the nation’s capital and reflecting a population that hails from around the globe, the company presents the highest caliber artists in classical music, jazz, gospel, contemporary dance and world music. For more information, visit www.WPAS.org.

● CityDance Ensemble

CityDance Ensemble, Inc. is home to CityDance Ensemble, a professional contemporary dance company that performs locally and around the world; CityDance Center at Strathmore, a dance school for youth and adults with a pre-professional training program for teens; CityDance Early Arts, an outreach program that provides free dance classes and performances to children in underserved neighborhoods; and CityDance FilmWORKS, a creator of original dance-on-camera productions. Learn more at www.citydance.net.

● Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras

Great music, artistry, plus the passion and exuberance of youth come together in one exceptional program—MCYO, the resident youth orchestra at the Music Center. Established in 1946, MCYO is the region’s premier orchestral training program, seating over 400 students in grades 4-12 in one of five quality orchestras. Concerts, chamber music, master classes and more. Discover MCYO. Hear the difference. Visit www.mcyo.org.

● Levine School of Music

Levine School of Music, the Washington D.C. region’s preeminent community music school, provides a welcoming environment where children and adults find lifelong inspiration and joy through learning, performing and experiencing music. Our distinguished faculty serve more than 3,500 students of all stages and abilities at four campuses in Northwest and Southeast D.C., Strathmore Music Center and in Arlington, Va. Learn more at www.levineschool.org.

● interPLAY

interPLAY company provides adults with cognitive differences with year-round rehearsals and concert experiences performing with traditional musicians. This activity results in a new personal language for those who have no musical education, and enlightened perspectives in the community about who can play serious music. interPLAY is always open for new players, musicians and mentors. Please contact Artistic Director Paula Moore at 301-229-0829.

4 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Applause at Strathmore Publisher CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl Music Center at Strathmore Founding Partners Strathmore Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Resident Artistic Partners National Philharmonic Washington Performing Arts Society Levine School of Music Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras CityDance Ensemble interPLAY Published by

Editor and Publisher Steve Hull Associate Publisher Susan Hull Senior Editor Cindy Murphy-Tofig Design Director Maire McArdle Art Director Karen Sulmonetti Advertising Director Sherri Greeves Advertising Account Executives Valerie Portney, Penny Skarupa, LuAnne Spurrell 7768 Woodmont Ave. Suite 204 Bethesda, MD 20814 301-718-7787 Fax: 301-718-1875 Volume 8, Number 3 Applause is published five times a year by the Music Center at Strathmore and Kohanza Media Ventures, LLC, publisher of Bethesda Magazine. Copyright 2010 Kohanza Media Ventures. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without permission is prohibited.

strathmore photo by jim morris

The Grammy Award-winning Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is internationally recognized as having achieved a preeminent place among the world’s most important orchestras. Under the inspired leadership of Music Director Marin Alsop, some of the world’s most renowned musicians have performed with the BSO. Continuing the orchestra’s 95-year history of high-quality education programs for music-lovers of all ages, the BSO presents mid-week education concerts, free lecture series and master classes. Since 2006, the BSO has offered Montgomery County grade schools BSO on the Go, an outreach initiative that brings small groups of BSO musicians into local schools for interactive music education workshops. For more information, visit BSOmusic.org.

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musings from Strathmore Are you a New Year’s resolution maker?

Between 40 and 45 percent of Americans made New Year’s resolutions last year. They listed “lose weight,” “exercise more” and “stop smoking” as their top three goals, closely followed by “money management” and “debt reduction.” Interestingly, 75 percent of those resolutions survived at least one week, 71 percent made it two weeks, 64 percent lasted one month and 46 percent made it past six months.

Though many resolutions fall by the wayside, it’s comforting to know that people who made any resolutions are still 10 times more likely to attain their goals than those who don’t. Compare that to only 4 percent of non-resolvers who will realize their goals after six months.

So, in the spirit of optimism, productivity and setting high expectations of success, here are a few of Strathmore’s New Year’s resolutions for 2012.

1. We resolve to surprise and delight our audiences. We have created several ways to engage, reward and surprise you over the coming year in the belief that the Strathmore experience should be a performance within itself—solid and dependable, and also surprisingly delightful.

2. We resolve to take Strathmore out and about by sending Strathmore programs and building partnerships throughout Montgomery County and the region. Working with David Denton, CEO of Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg, we are launching the Strathmore Society at Asbury for their 1,100 residents so they can enjoy Strathmore-quality programs both at Asbury and Strathmore.

We are also reaching out to east county schools and community institutions to bring the best of Strathmore’s education and performances to the U.S. 29 corridor students and audiences.

3. We resolve to refresh, renew and revitalize the Strathmore site. The new year will bring new outdoor sculptures, landscaping, outdoor lighting and a public walking track to celebrate the opening of the Symphony Park community. Plus, after 27 years, we’ve just rebuilt the Gudelsky Concert Pavilion, home of Strathmore’s free summer outdoor concerts and other community events. Happy New Year to each and every one of you, and may all your resolutions come true. Especially this one: “I resolve to come to Strathmore more often in 2012!”

CEO | Strathmore

from the BSO

Dear Friends, After recovering from the holiday rush, it’s refreshing to return to the Music Center at Strathmore and further explore the BSO’s 2011-12 season theme celebrating revolutionary women. In the fall, works such as Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher—performed in Baltimore and Carnegie Hall—and James Lee III’s Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan (BSO commission and world premiere) not only garnered national attention, but also allowed us to honor two female figures who changed the course of history. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to those patrons who attended these landmark performances and came to support the BSO’s commitment to music that challenges and inspires.

On March 3rd, we will revisit the story of Joan of Arc in Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, which brings music to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. As we continue to pay tribute to the 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc’s birth, I can’t help but be incredibly moved by her story. I’m confident that after witnessing this stirring production, no one will leave the performance unaffected.

Earlier this season, we hosted more than 400 participants across 10 special “Think-In” sessions, in preparation for a new initiative: The Women Of the World-Baltimore Festival, or WOW-Baltimore, which is set to take place March 2-4, 2012 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. WOW-Baltimore—the first such event in the United States—represents another dimension of the BSO’s role to the people in our region: We aspire to become a destination point and shared space for diverse cultural offerings, an arena for productive thought and discourse, and catalyst for inspiration and creative thought. I hope you’ll consider a visit to Baltimore to participate in this exciting event and the many other rich artistic opportunities the BSO has planned this season!

Marin Alsop

Music Director | Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 6 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

ELiot Pfanstiehl photo by michael ventura; Marin alsop photo by grant leighton

a note

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FILMS

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TASTINGS

calendar

[March/ April]

u THUR., MARCH 22, 8 P.M. u THURS., MARCH 1, 8 P.M. u THURS., MARCH 15, 8 P.M. Strathmore presents Strathmore presents Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Reel Around the Shamrock with Max Raabe und das Palast Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul Orchester Marin Alsop, conductor Culkin School of Traditional Irish Dance Co-Presented with Maestro Artist Colin Currie, percussion with Brendan Mulvhill and Billy Management Copland: Fanfare for the McComiskey Max Raabe embodCommon Man Eileen Ivers has earned the title “the ies the style and Tower: Fanfare for the Jimi Hendrix of the violin” (The New York musical glory of the Uncommon Woman Times), and her band Immigrant Soul, Cabaret era during Higdon: Percussion Concerto “rocks the house everywhere it plays” the turbulent WeiTchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 (The Boston Globe). mar Republic. He Copland’s famous fanfare earns a rewill share renditions FRI., MARCH 16, 8 P.M. sponse from composer Joan Tower. Coof “Night and Day,” u Washington Performing Arts Society lin Currie will bring to life the propulsive “Cheek to Cheek” and Maestro Artist Management rhythms of Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion and “I Got Rhythm,” and uncover lost Vadim Repin, violin Concerto. songs from the period.

Itamar Golan, piano u FRI., MARCH 2, 8 P.M. Washington Performing Arts Society Yefim Bronfman, piano Brahms: Sonata in F minor, Op. 5 Liszt: Selections from Transcendental Etudes, S.139 Prokofiev: Sonata No. 8 in B-flat Major “A marvel of digital dexterity, warmly romantic sentiment, and jaw-dropping bravura.” (Chicago Tribune) The Piano Masters Series is made possible through the generous support of Betsy and Robert Feinberg. u SAT., MARCH 3, 8 P.M. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Voices of Light – The Passion of Joan of Arc Marin Alsop, conductor Baltimore Choral Arts Society Tom Hall, director Einhorn: Voices of Light Voices of Light is a remarkable combination of the 1928 landmark silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc and Richard Einhorn’s haunting score for live soloists, chorus and orchestra. u FRI., MARCH 9, 8 P.M. Strathmore presents Spirit of Uganda Performers bring to life the sounds and movements of East Africa through standing drums, storytelling, dramatic choreography, bright, layered rhythms and call-and-response vocals.

Janáček: Sonata Ravel: Sonata No. 2 in G Major Grieg: Sonata No. 2 in G Major Chausson: Poème Ravel: Tzigane u

SAT., MARCH 17, 8 P.M. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto Jiří Bělohlávek, conductor Shai Wosner, piano Dvořák: Carnival Overture Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 Kodály: Dances of Galánta Janáček: Taras Bulba Jiří Bělohlávek goes from the ebullient Carnival Overture and the gypsy rhythms of the Hungarian town Galánta to the orchestral masterpiece Taras Bulba. Shai Wosner provides repose in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4.

u SUN., MARCH 18, 4 P.M. Washington Performing Arts Society Murray Perahia, piano

u FRI., MARCH 23, 8 P.M. Strathmore presents Ethan Bortnick and His Musical Time Machine He learned to play the piano at age 3, and now—at the ripe old age of 11—Ethan Bortnick astonishes audiences as he performs classics from Bach to The Beatles. u SAT., MARCH 24, 8 P.M. National Philharmonic All Mozart Victoria Gau, associate conductor William VerMeulen, horn Esther Heideman, soprano Linda Maguire, mezzo-soprano John Aler, tenor Kevin Deas, bass Mozart: Serenade in G Major, K. 525 (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat Major Mozart: Requiem Conductor Victoria Gau makes her National Philharmonic debut with the joyful Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (“A Little Night Music”) and Requiem, Mozart’s final work.

A free pre-concert lecture will be offered at 6:45 p.m.

“One of the most satisfying, illuminating, u WED., MARCH 28, 8 P.M. and all-around impressive pianists of Strathmore presents any generation.” (Los Angeles Times) Red Star Red Army Chorus and The Piano Masters Series is made posDance Ensemble sible through the generous support of This spectacular company of singers, Betsy and Robert Feinberg. dancers and musicians dazzles crowds

8 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

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calendar with its performance of folk tunes and military music and dance from old Russia. uFRI., MARCH 30, 8 P.M. SAT., MARCH 31, 8 P.M. Strathmore presents Patti LaBelle The two-time Grammy winner will dazzle with jazz standards, blues anthems and signature spirituals that have endeared her to fans.

[March/April] Khachaturian: Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (1919) French conductor Lionel Bringuier makes his BSO debut in three classic Russian orchestral showpieces, and accompanies concertmaster Jonathan Carney in the folk-inflected melodies of Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto.

uTUES., APRIL 17, 8 P.M. Strathmore presents uTHURS., APRIL 5, 8 P.M. The Music of Bill Monroe with Strathmore presents Peter Rowan, Tony Rice and Kevin Costner and Modern West The Travelin’ McCourys Oscar winner The stars of American roots pay tribute Kevin Costner to the Father of Bluegrass with the Travand his band, elin’ McCourys, singer-songwriter Peter Modern West, Rowan and acoustic guitarist Tony Rice. make country music that is uWED., APRIL 18, 8 P.M. rough-edged, Strathmore presents honest and true.

Paco de Lucia

u THUR., APRIL 26, 8 P.M. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Beethoven’s Violin Concerto Jun Märkl, conductor Arabella Steinbacher, violin Weber: Overture to Euryanthe Beethoven: Violin Concerto Schumann: Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish” German violinist Arabella Steinbacher makes her BSO debut.

Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony gained inspiration from the charm and spirit of the composer’s new home, the German Rhineland. u FRI., APRIL 27, 8 P.M. Strathmore presents Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra Co-Presented with Maestro Artist Management

Co-Presented with Blues Alley uSAT., APRIL 7, 2 P.M. AND 8 P.M. The greatest living master of the flaStrathmore presents menco guitar, Paco de Lucia is credVideo Games Live ited with creating a “fusion” style of Yuri Bashmet, conductor and viola Starring Tommy Tallarico with mem- flamenco influenced by jazz.

Mischa Maisky, cello bers of the National Philharmonic.

Yuri Bashmet is the pre-eminent Video footage, synchronized lighting, uTHUR., APRIL 19, 8 P.M. viola player of the modern age and the and live action converge with music Baltimore Symphony Orchestra founder and director of the Russian from the National Philharmonic.

BSO SuperPops Orchestra Moscow Soloists.

Do You Hear the People Sing?: THURS., APRIL 12, 8 P.M. u Miss Saigon to Les Misérables u SAT., APRIL 28, 8 P.M. Strathmore presents Jack Everly, conductor SUN., APRIL 29, 3 P.M. Viver Brasil Baltimore Choral Arts Society National Philharmonic Feet on the Ground Tom Hall, director Sarah Chang Plays The award-winning company illustrates Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto the breadth of Brazilian traditions and Do You Hear the People Sing? celebrates celebrations, including the vivacious the music of Alain Boublil and ClaudeSarah Chang, violin Carnaval, African orixás (deities), cerMichel Schönberg, who changed the Piotr Gajewski, conductor emonial celebrations and the Brazilian history of musical theater with their Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture martial arts/dance form of capoeira. masterpiece Les Misérables.

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor uFRI., APRIL 13, 8 P.M. uSAT., APRIL 21, 9 P.M. Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major Strathmore presents Strathmore presents Joshua Bell and Academy of Hebrides Overture was inspired by 2012 Spring Gala at Strathmore St. Martin in the Fields the beauty of Fingal’s Cave, found on Dionne Warwick Joshua Bell makes one of his first apone of the Hebrides Islands off the Dionne Warwick has had pearances with St. Martin in the Fields west coast of Scotland. Brahms’ Symnearly 60 charted hits, as its new music director with an allphony No. 3 was created when he was including “Don’t Make Beethoven program. a 50-year-old bachelor and pronounced Me Over” and “Walk on himself “frei aber froh” (“free but By.” uSAT., APRIL 14, 8 P.M. happy”). He used that motto (F–A flat–F) Baltimore Symphony Orchestra throughout the symphony, thus revealuSUN., APRIL 22, 7 P.M. Romeo and Juliet ing himself in a novel, yet personal and Strathmore presents intimate way.

Billy Collins and Mary Oliver Lionel Bringuier, conductor A free pre-concert lecture will be ofBilly Collins—a former U.S. poet laureJonathan Carney, violin fered at 6:45 p.m. on April 28 and at ate—and Pulitzer Prize winner Mary OliMussorgsky: Night on Bald 1:45 p.m. on April 29. ver bring their unique writing styles and Mountain Sponsored by Ameriprise Financial poetic insight to the Strathmore stage.

10 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

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The Duke’s Legacy Strathmore celebrates Duke Ellington’s music and his vast influence on American culture

By Meredith Carlson Daly

12 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

See page 73 for a listing of Discover Ellington events

ILLUSTRATION BY ELLEN BYRNE

a

s a child, Broadway performer Brian Stokes Mitchell awoke every Saturday to his dad’s favorite artists—Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington.

“That was the music of our house,” said Stokes Mitchell. “Occasionally, my mother would sneak in Harry Belafonte.

I didn’t think I liked it until my early 20s, when I realized my singing was injected with Ellington. I just love him.

I’m a big fan of the Big Band era. Count Basie has lots of energy; Ellington has this sophistication and wit about it.”

Stokes Mitchell and his wife named their 7-year-old son Ellington in part as a tribute to their fathers, who loved the late icon. And on Feb. 17, the Broadway performer will share his lifetime affinity for Ellington by performing selections from Ellington’s songbook.

The evening is part of Discover Ellington, Strathmore’s study of Ellington and how he influenced American culture. Strathmore’s in-depth study, Feb. 3 through Feb. 20, is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Strathmore’s Jazz Society and the Strathmore Artistic Initiatives Fund.

The comprehensive look includes Big Band performances, jazz ensembles and lectures. Part of Strathmore’s seasonlong Celebrating American Composers series, Discover Ellington culminates with selections from the composer’s sacred concerts.

“What I find so interesting is to see all of these events, one after the other; you really start to see the depth and impact on American cultural life that this one man had,” said Shelley Brown, Strathmore’s artistic director. “There are few people who have had as big an influence on American culture.”

Whether audience members are casual listeners or Duke aficionados, they will find an “infusion of knowledge and inspiration” in Discover Ellington said Ken

Kimery, executive director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and the Smithsonian Institution’s Jazz Oral History Program. Strathmore will make available sets of Ellington compositions for students and will be developing program notes for those interested in learning more.

“We really hope to fuel further study,” Brown noted. “Strathmore really does that well.”

Ellington’s career spanned more than 50 years and over 1,000 compositions. He bristled at the title “jazz musician”—his repertoire spanned blues, gospel, spirituals, ragtime and classical—and called his work “American music.” Indeed, Strathmore’s series, in partnership with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, celebrates it all.

In addition to the Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, Strathmore’s multifaceted series includes artists such as Stokes Mitchell, the Grammy-winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra led by

Strathmore is an ideal venue to honor Ellington, whose roots are in Washington, D.C. “This is a great concert hall and a great composer,” said Stokes Mitchell. “Jazz is quintessential America. Ellington took jazz to a new sophistication; he turned it into a classical music form.”

“This is a great way to honor Ellington,” Stokes Mitchell said of Strathmore’s series. “He was such a renaissance man.”

One of the unusual aspects of the Ellington series is the finale performance on Feb. 19. “Ellington: A Sacred Concert,” featuring the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and the Morgan State University Choir, will draw from the three sacred concerts Ellington composed in the last years of his life. Ellington always had been a religious man, but it was not until later in his life that he shared that side with the public. Ellington premiered his third sacred work in October 1973, less than a year before he died after a battle with cancer.

“Ellington took jazz to a new sophistication; he turned it into a classical music form.”

Brian Stokes Mitchell, Broadway performer Arturo O’Farrill, pianist Robert Glasper, the Morgan State University Choir and local tap dancing borthers John and Leo Manzari. Rusty Hassan, a jazz musician, educator and historian, will demonstrate how Ellington incorporated blues, ragtime, work songs and jazz into his compositions. Bassist Karine Chapdelaine and pianist Bob Sykes will transcribe improvisations of the Duke Ellington/Jimmy Blanton duo. And Strathmore’s annual free open house, “Discover Strathmore,” also will be dedicated to Ellington.

A performance of Ellington’s sacred music is a rare opportunity for musicians as well as audience members, Kimery said.

“Just being able to hear the production, the performance the way it was intended with the full complement of performers, is not commonly done,” Kimery said. “It’s very expensive to do and being able to hear it in a live setting, it’s a must-see.”

“We really look forward to the magnitude of making this happen, of having that many people on stage,” he added.

“It’s a tremendous experience.” 

applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 13

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Baltimore Symphony ORchestra

Joy

the

Jeanne of

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hen it comes to Joan of Arc, Marin Alsop is a believer.

“It’s not like I had any particular obsession with Jeanne d’Arc,” Alsop, the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra explains, “nothing beyond those statues I’ve seen where she’s usually on a horse. But on some level I think it’s quite a typical attitude for artists, to look back into history, to reflect what they see in their art.”

And so William Tell and William the Conqueror become enshrined in overture and opera; Stravinsky mines Aeschylus to create Oedipus Rex, and Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, becomes the subject of countless works of art in every medium.

The one on Alsop’s mind, however, is the BSO’s performance of composer Richard Einhorn’s 1994 musical com-

position Voices of Light, paired with the classic silent film that inspired it. The Passion of Joan of Arc, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, will be screened on March 3 at the Music Center at Strathmore as Alsop wields the baton.

“I think we are in a new age now,” she observes. “It’s time to start changing the way we present concerts and what we have to offer. And this presentation, it is truly so much more than the sum of its parts.”

Yet in this presentation even the parts are compelling. Einhorn, a contemporary American composer, felt inspired to create Voices of Light in 1988 when he stumbled upon a silent movie still in the archives of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A print of the original The Passion of Joan of Arc, thought for decades to have disappeared in a warehouse fire, turned up intact in a Norwegian mental institution. Because of these extraordinary finds, Alsop and

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the BSO can bring a unique and celebrated arts event to the D.C. area.

“Voices of Light stands on its own,” Alsop says. “But Richard wrote it to go with the film as a companion piece, to illuminate the film. The oratorio is a cross between the music of the time of Jeanne d’Arc and minimalism, which are closely related; Richard is really able to draw those two worlds together.”

To facilitate the kind of authenticity that has drawn audiences around the globe to this unique artistic event, Einhorn uses letters dictated by Joan of Arc herself—the Maid of Orleans was illiterate—plus a number of misogynistic medieval texts and writings from female mystics to create a compelling libretto.

And to find the perfect complement for the strings and woodwinds, the composer made a pilgrimage of his own.

“Richard went to Dômremy, her hometown in France, to the place where Jeanne lived and had her vi-

The Joan of Arc statue photo courtesy of the BSO

Marin Alsop talks Voices of Light, The Passion of Joan of Arc and the new age of the arts By Chris Slattery

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents Voices of Light Saturday, March 3, 8 P.M.

Baltimore Choral Arts Society

sions—which were triggered by the church bells. The audience will hear the actual church bells from Dômremy played by a synthesizer.”

Of course, the magic of the music is only part of the story. The history of The Passion of Joan of Arc—a French silent film about the trial, imprisonment, torture and execution of the patron saint of France, made in 1928 by director Carl Theodor Dreyer and starring the luminous Renee Jeanne Falconetti—is equally compelling.

“The film is spectacular,” says Alsop.

“You always see it come up on the Top 10 lists of film connoisseurs, and it’s almost like a Fellini film in a way; there’s an imagery, and the characters almost seem distorted. And despite being in her 30s at the time of filming, [Falconetti] plays the role of a 19-year-old in close-up and without any makeup, and it’s spectacular.”

Alsop says that for many of the actors involved, The Passion of Joan of Arc

“I think we are in a new age now. It’s time to start changing the way we present concerts and what we have to offer. And this presentation, it is truly so much more than the sum of its parts.”

Marin Alsop, Music Director, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was their only film. And if not for a remarkable discovery, the film might have been lost forever: warehouse fires had destroyed every copy, and though he tried to re-create the film, Dreyer died thinking his masterpiece was lost forever.

“It was thought that there was no original copy of the film,” says Alsop, “but then in the ‘80s there’s an amazing discovery—in a janitor’s closet, in a mental institution, in Oslo, Norway.”

Divine intervention, coincidence or the transcendent power of art?

Perhaps we’ll never know. The most miraculous thing about The Passion of Joan of Arc is the way it stays timeless, especially as the Voices of Light concert begins. Then it all comes together: the classic film, the contemporary oratorio and a spotlight that illuminates an extraordinary woman of passion, courage and conviction, born six centuries ago. 

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Strathmore

a pint-sized

debut

Strathmore presents Ethan Bortnick’s Musical Time Machine Friday, March 23, 8 P.M.

Pop, classical and ringtones will all be part of piano prodigy Ethan Bortnick’s first Strathmore appearance By M.J. McAteer

e

than Bortnick’s list of “youngest ever” accomplishments is as lengthy as a Wagner opera, and he is only 11 years old.

At age 9, Ethan, a piano prodigy, became the youngest ever artist to have his own PBS concert special.

At age 10, he became the youngest ever musician to have his own concert tour. Headlining at a Las Vegas casino was another “youngest ever” he reached at age 10.

So it is hardly surprising that when Ethan appears at the Music Center at Strathmore at 8 p.m. on March 23, he will be, yes, the youngest ever artist to perform a solo show at the Music Center.

“Ethan Bortnick’s Musical Time Machine” is a tour of music history that runs from Mozart to Justin Bieber. It showcases Ethan’s versatility, showmanship and his precocious range, as he performs classical works, jazz, pop and even disco.

“I want everyone to have fun at the concert,” Ethan says. “It’s a whole party.”

The show, which Ethan himself created, features his own compositions, too.

In one of his favorite segments, he builds music around the ringtones of audience members’ cell phones.

“I hear it, and then I play it on the piano,” he says simply.

That keen ear first manifested itself at age 3, after Ethan had listened to Baby Einstein CDs and started duplicating what he heard on his Sesame Street Elmo

keyboard. His father, Gene Bortnick, says he has no idea where Ethan got that ability; no other member of the family is similarly blessed, he says.

Ethan’s talents also mean he’s become a preteen philanthropist. His performances have helped raise a record $30 million for charitable causes. One of his favorite memories, he says, is of joining an array of pop luminaries including Barbra Streisand on “We Are the World 25 for Haiti.”

Ethan has been a guest of Oprah Winfrey, Jay Leno and Martha Stewart, and he has his own online musical variety show for preschoolers. But he continues to branch out. He not only stars in the film Anything Is Possible, which will be released in the spring, he co-wrote the soundtrack.

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Despite his out-sized talent, though, Ethan is in other ways a typical 11-yearold. He loves video games, especially Pokémon, and plays soccer and basketball, “of course.” When on tour, he spends his time “reading, drawing and eating,” and doing homework and Skype. Ethan always travels with parents, and they break up life on the road with outings such as a trip to Niagara Falls. “My dad and my mom are amazing people,” he says.

When asked what he sees himself doing five years from now, Ethan gives an age-appropriate response to what is obviously a grown-up preoccupation.

“In five years, I’ll think about what I want to do,” he says. “I haven’t planned it yet.” 

Join

STRATHMORE IN PARIS September in Paris—the days are still warm and the air is fresh and clean. The crowds of the peak tourist season are gone and the city is full of energy from “la rentrée” as Parisians return to the city from summer vacation.

Join Strathmore as we explore the City of Light. Highlights of the trip include: • 7 nights in the luxurious four star boutique Hôtel du Louvre—minutes from the Louvre Museum, The Opera Palais Garnier and Palais-Royal • Private tours of the Musée de l’Orangerie, Jacquemart-André Museum and The Opera Palais Garnier • A degustation of five wines with a wine expert at the famous Legrand Filles et Fils, followed by a dinner of French specialties • A visit to the beautiful gardens of Giverny, inspiration for many of Claude Monet’s most important works • Dinner cruise on the Bateaux Parisiens with live music Giverny

September 4–12, 2012

LEARN MORE

BY CONTACTING Bill Carey, Director of Membership and Community Relations (301) 581-5135 bcarey@strathmore.org Intimate Group with Limited Availability

The Opera Palais Garnier

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Baltimore Symphony ORchestra

a striking

performer Percussionist Colin Currie on pop music and the “fantastic appeal” of a Grammy-winning work

By Kathleen Wheaton

p

chris dawes

ercussionist Colin Currie’s friendship with Maestra Marin Alsop dates back to 1996, when she invited the then-19-yearold to perform a James MacMillan percussion concerto at the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz, Calif. Years later, Currie’s live recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto, conducted by Alsop with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, won a 2010 Grammy Award. Currie, now 35, says the BSO “is perhaps my most supportive orchestra in the United States.”

Q: Many parents of toddlers think they’ve given birth to a percussionist when they hear them banging on a pot with a spoon. Does that describe your musical trajectory?

A: I was pretty much the archetypal percussion baby, and I very much enjoyed playing on toy drum kits as well as ad hoc arrangements in the kitchen. I started drum lessons when I was 6. I loved jazz, big band and pop music, but in my early teens I ditched all that for the orchestra.

Q: Do you think your foray into pop music made you interested in innovation?

A: Basically, no. … That’s not to say there isn’t innovative pop music, but much of it is underground and harder to find. … What I did find quite clearly in 20th-century composers was that they were using avant-garde techniques with incredible imagination.

Q: You’ve said that Steve Reich has been a huge influence on you.

A: I first formed the Colin Currie Group [four young London-based percussionists devoted to performing the music of Steve Reich] to play at the BBC Proms to celebrate his 70th birthday. His Music for 18 Musicians came out in 1976, the year I was born, so I’ve always felt his music describes the times I’ve been alive.

Q: Why is percussion such an important element of traditional folk and indigenous music?

A: I think it’s because everybody can relate to percussion very easily. If a lay person hears someone performing a complex violin solo, that may seem impossible to try and replicate. But if you see someone performing on a drum, or playing a drum solo, it seems as though anybody can have a go at it.

Q: Watching you play a pitched percus-

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Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents Colin Currie Thursday, March 22, 8 P.M. sion instrument is a little like watching someone play the piano. It doesn’t seem that just anybody could have a go at that.

A: Pitched percussion requires difficult techniques to play all the right notes accurately. Pitched percussion instruments are very awkward to perform on, but their sound is very beautiful, so they’re irresistible.

Q:: Could you talk about Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Percussion, which you’ll be playing at Strathmore?

A: It has fantastic appeal, which comes from the fact that it uses a wide range of instruments and moves around between them ceaselessly. There’s a huge amount of interaction between the soloists and the three-person percussion section in the orchestra, which is very rousing in its effect. 

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Strathmore

bonded through

music

At the Levine School of Music, nurturing relationships with students and the community leads to richer musical experiences for everyone By Ursula Werner

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here there is music, there is community.

It’s in the excitement before a master class by a world-renowned ensemble, on a dimly lit stage where teenagers rehearse and in the studio where wisdom is passed from teacher to student.

That feeling of community helps foster the Levine School of Music’s commitment to develop interpersonal relationships through the arts. Levine is able to extend those bonds through its locations at the Music Center at Strathmore, in Arlington and in northwest and southeast D.C. Nurturing those relationships makes for wonderful music-making, according to Cate Frazier-Neely, founder and director of the Levine Women’s Chorus.

“We work hard, laugh a lot and take a few minutes at the end of every rehearsal to share news with one another,” she says. “From someone’s child who has lost their first tooth, to the birth of a grandchild, to the death of a family member, sharing our lives creates a bond which allows music-making together to be more natural.”

Alumni continue the cycle, sharing their musical passion and nurturing it in others. Levine, in collaboration with Strathmore, will present Imani Winds for a master class on Jan. 24. Oboist and music educator Toyin Spellman-Diaz, a founding member of the Grammy-nominated quintet and a Levine alumna, is excited to return to the school.

“Returning to Levine to lead a mas-

Levine Women’s Chorus

ter class is so rewarding for me personally,” says Spellman-Diaz. “This is where I grew up musically and now I’m in a position to pass my knowledge onto a new generation.”

In February, Levine and Strathmore will collaborate again to present “Channeling Duke Ellington.” Levine faculty members Karine Chapdelaine (bass) and Bob Sykes (piano) will transcribe improvisations by the Duke EllingtonJimmy Blanton duo. The performance is part of Discover Ellington, Strathmore’s exploration of the works of the great American composer.

“The concert is really the perfect union of Levine and Strathmore’s respective strengths, and a wonderful format for music education,” says Lauren Campbell, Strathmore’s development and education manager. “Strathmore helps provide access to top-tier per-

formers and Levine brings its vibrant community of student and teacher musicians who get to learn from the best.”

Learn from the best and then share their talents, as middle- and high school students will during a March production of Legally Blonde: The Musical presented

by Act Two @ Levine. Levine faculty members offer vocal and theater coaching as part of this educational outreach, connecting students to musical theater while also nurturing community roots.

“One of my favorite things about Act Two @ Levine is the sense of family. I get to know so many other students and we’re all so close by the end of the show,” says student Heather Strauss.

And that’s Levine’s goal: to share and nurture the passion so that the community continues to welcome more and more members, united by their shared love of music. 

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Baltimore Symphony ORchestra

from

first violin to first mate

Rebecca Nichols traded her violinist’s chair for a seat on the bow during a four-week sailing trip to Maine By Sarah Lewin

f

or the past 20 years, on the Fourth of July, BSO violinist Rebecca Nichols could be found performing onstage in the BSO’s Star-Spangled Spectacular at Oregon Ridge. But this past summer, when she chose to play her violin she had an audience of one—and a whole lot of fish.

“I felt like I was playing hooky,” says Nichols, who took the summer off to sail to Maine with her husband Rick Boothby. It was the sixth time he had made the four-week journey, but only the first time that Nichols had signed on as crew. The two had been planning the trip for a year, saving up to take the time off and going on an overnight sea-trial to test the extent of Nichols’ seasickness.

Seasickness, in fact, was what Nichols had most worried about before they set out. But thanks to precautions like hugging the shoreline, avoiding overnight sailing, and, yes, medication, she was able to leave work behind and enjoy the vast ocean expanse for the whole month.

Nichols brought her spare violin, and frequently enjoyed playing duets with Boothby, an amateur violist, as they made their way up the coast. The experience was utterly different from her usual approach to music making, she says.

“I’ve been playing violin since I was 10, and I’ve always needed to focus on perfection,” she explains. “I’ve never

enjoyed just pulling out the violin and fooling around without much practice.

But playing a duet on a sailboat with your non-musician husband, you can’t be a perfectionist. You have to let go and have fun.”

Every day on the boat brought new surprises, she says, from the blue of the big sky surrounding her and her hus-

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band to the accord they reached sharing the space of their small boat.

“At first I wanted to go for the challenge of doing something new and different, and also to spend the summer with my husband,” recalls Nichols.

“But it turns out that I really loved the whole experience of sailing. I would go again in a heartbeat!” 

Art? WHO’S Art?

Art

A 2nd-grader sings and dances along with 19,999 of her MCPS 2nd and 5th grade peers at the Strathmore Student Concerts.

Jim Saah

Holly Haliniewski

MCPS

Strathmore introduces kids to

Getting hands-on with plaster at Summer Fine Art Camp.

World-renowned bassist Victor Wooten of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones coaches a twelve-year-old player at a free master class.

It’s worth every penny.

DONATE NOW

www.strathmore.org/support/donatenow.asp (301) 581-5145

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National Philharmonic

going it alone,

together With Brandenburg and Magnificat, nine soloists will highlight the light, joyful side of Bach’s genius

By M.J. McAteer

oing solo doesn’t mean having to go it alone, at least not on Feb. 25, when the National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale present an All-Bach concert that will showcase nine performers.

The 8 p.m. program at the Music Center at Strathmore will feature Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2, 3 and 4 and the Magnificat in D Major. The sprightly Brandenburgs, which will lead off the program, are among Bach’s most popular works and dazzle in their use of melody, counterpoint and harmony. Bach knew how to let his soloists “show off their stuff,” says National Philharmonic Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski, who explains that the composer used “the color and idiomatic possibilities of each instrument to great advantage.”

Performing solos in the Brandenburgs will be Nurit Bar-Josef, concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra (violin); and National Philharmonic mem-

bers Mark Hill (oboe), David Whiteside (flute), Nicolette Oppelt (flute), and well-known performer, recording artist and University of Maryland music professor Chris Gekker (trumpet).

Gekker will get the proceedings off to a vigorous start in the first movement of Bach’s Concerto No. 2 in F Major.

His solo is in a high register, which makes it exceptionally difficult to play, but also exceptionally difficult not to overplay, he says. Gekker plans to keep his trumpet work “light and dance-like,” the better to converse with the soloists on flute, oboe and violin.

Bar-Josef will be part of the exchange in Concerto No. 2, but her most strenuous workout will be in Concerto No. 4 in G Major. The Brandenburgs are new

National Philharmonic presents All Bach Saturday, Feb. 25, 8 P.M.

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Chris Gekker

to Bar-Josef’s repertoire, and she is excited about tackling them. “This,” she says simply, “is good stuff.”

More good stuff will follow intermission with the joyful Magnificat, featuring soprano Julie Keim, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wór, tenor Robert Breault and baritone Christòpheren Nomura.

Keim describes her arias as “eloquent and exacting. The craftsmanship is spectacular,” she says.

The movements of the Magnificat “vary wonderfully,” however, says Gajewski. In contrast to Keim’s “eloquent and exacting” arias, Breault calls his aria “fast and quirky.” The tenor, who appeared with the Philharmonic in November 2010 in a performance of Berlioz’s Requiem, says his solo even has a militaristic edge.

“I picture army men in armor on big horses,” he says.

Appropriately enough, Breault promises to bring his “full guns” to the performance.

But for the lucky audience at Strathmore that night, his vocal firepower will represent just one-ninth of the arsenal of talent that will be unleashed. 

Bar-Josef photo by Rosalie O’Connor, Gekker photo by Jill Bochicchio

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Nurit Bar-Josef

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National Philharmonic presents All Tchaikovsky

National Philharmonic

getting the

Saturday, Feb. 4, 8 P.M. and Sunday, Feb. 5, 3 P.M.

gold

Daniil Trifonov, winner of the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition, brings his flair and musical sensitivity to a new audience

By Pamela Toutant

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i a n i s t D a n i i l Tr i fonov, gold medal winner of the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition, will take a victory lap with the National Philharmonic on Feb. 4 and 5.

After winning first prize in the 13th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, third prize in the 16th Chopin Competition in Warsaw, and the gold medal in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow—all in the past year—the 20-year-old Trifonov has claimed his seat on the international stage.

“Mr. Trifonov has scintillating technique and a virtuosic flair,” reports critic Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times (July 19, 2011). The young musician is known for radiating musical sensitivity and the joy of music making.

Trifonov’s long, slightly upturned fingers seem to merge seamlessly with the keyboard, creating what Tommasini describes as, “a shimmering mist of sound.”

“We are thrilled that Daniil will be

performing with us,” says National Philharmonic Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski. “We made a commitment a year ago to play an allTchaikovsky program with the centerpiece being the winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. In fact, Daniil will be playing the same piece of music he played in that competition, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.” Also on the program will be Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise from Eugene Onegin and two of the composer’s major overtures: the Romeo and Juliet OvertureFantasy, and the 1812 Overture, which the National Philharmonic plays annually for fifth-graders from Montgomery County Public Schools.

The International Tchaikovsky Competition has a long and distinguished history and has been important to American concert development, explains Gajewski. “When it was founded at the height of the Cold War in 1958, the Soviets believed Tchaikovsky to be the domain of Russian artists. The competition was politically charged and there was tremendous pressure on the jurors

to pick a Soviet. Instead, the winner of the first competition was the American Van Cliburn.” At the 2011 competition, there was no controversy about Trifonov; the audience and jurors were in complete agreement.

A native of the city of Nizhny Novgorod near Moscow, Trifonov began studying piano at age 5. Following his North American solo concert tour in 2009, he was determined to study in the United States and was soon offered a full scholarship at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Reflecting on his recent success during an interview with The Plain Dealer’s Donald Rosenberg, the humble and softspoken Trifonov said, “Of course I was very happy when this happened, and now feel more and more possibilities. It’s also great luck. I played successfully, but competitions are never predictable.”

Given the high demand for seats at his performances, seeing Trifonov perform just might be one of those rare, once-in-alifetime opportunities. “He is a complete musician and has great audience appeal,” enthuses Gajewski. “He is a star.” 

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Washington Performing Arts Soci ety

chained

Melody

Vadim Repin and the art of reaching the audience

By Chris Slattery

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Washington Performing Arts Society and Maestro Artist Management present Vadim Repin Friday, March 16, 8 P.M.

adim Repin is one of us.

He may be a virtuoso, a violin masterof-the-universe whose performances have enthralled audiences around the world since he debuted at age 14 in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki and (a year later) at Carnegie Hall, but he knows what it’s like to be in the audience, and he wants to make that experience sublime.

“My No. 1 priority is to provide the musical journey I make to the audience, to make a connection onstage, to become a listener myself, and to share the music that gives me the most joy,” says Repin.

“It’s a chain reaction,” he adds. “I truly believe that, for a concert to be memorable, [being] a great artist is not enough.”

Of course, being a great artist is something Repin, who will perform with pianist Itamar Golan at the Music Center at Strathmore on March 16, seems to know how to do in his sleep. Repin was born in Siberia in 1971 to a non-musical family, but somehow started playing the violin when he was 5.

“I was always asking my mother for musical toys,” he explains. “She brought me to the first music school she saw, and at that school there was only a violin.

“It’s like destiny, in a way.”

For Repin the appeal of the instrument lay in its complexity: it became his “favorite toy,” he remembers, “because it was so much more complicated than any other toy I had.

“It was quite natural for me. I don’t remember struggling to make the sounds,” he says. “But even now, to make it sound easy and natural is very hard work.”

Work the young musician threw himself into, making his first stage performance at age 5 in his hometown of Novosibirsk, studying with Zakhar Bron at 7, and then, at age 11, winning the gold medal in all age categories in the Wienawski Competition. In 1989 he became the youngest winner of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Belgium.

That was the springboard to Repin’s performances with the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston and the Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and l’Orchestre de Paris. Over the years he’s become known for his gritty grace—an athletic, passionate, and distinctly Russian way of performing that blends exuberance of spirit and gentleness of soul without sacrificing technical perfection.

Repin says he believes in making sparks fly—“It begins in the first moment of a concert: the electricity, the spark”— and to watch him is to see man and violin take flight together. (That the instrument in question is the 1743 Bonjour violin by Guarneri del Gesù just adds to the experience.)

It’s a modus operandi that has brought Repin some of the world’s highest honors, including the Victoire d’Honneur, France’s most prestigious musical award. Early in his career, Repin developed a warm professional relationship with one of his childhood heroes, Yehudi Menuhin. The maestro said, after hearing him perform, that “Vadim Repin is simply the best and most perfect violinist that I have ever had the chance to hear.”

Repin, for his part, has noted that his taste was shaped and his confidence boosted under the great man’s mentorship.

Other heroes? Well, there’s Johannes Brahms. While Repin is known for his rich, romantic renditions of the great Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, he says that Brahms holds a special place in his heart.

“Brahms is my ultimate favorite,” he says, “the music that gives me the most pleasure to perform. The music is so wonderful—there is not one unlikely or bad note—and whatever he [composed] made people happy.”

“My No. 1 priority is to provide the musical journey I make to the audience ... to become a listener myself, and to share the music that gives me the most joy.”

Violinist Vadim Repin And making people happy is what Repin likes to do.

When he comes to Strathmore in a concert co-presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society and Maestro Artist Management, Repin will bring a program that includes a few of his favorites: Janáček’s Violin Sonata; Ravel’s Violin Sonata in G Major and Tzigane; Grieg’s Violin Sonata in G Major; and Chausson’s Poème.

“I’m choosing the pieces I’m most comfortable with,” he says. He has not been to Washington since his 2008 D.C. debut for WPAS at the Kennedy Center, and Repin is especially looking forward to this visit and the opportunity to link with the audience in a chain of musical appreciation.

“I want them somehow to take part, to come with me and be part of the passion and the emotion.

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Thursday, January 5, 2012, 8 p.m.

Thursday, January 5, 2012, 8 P.M.

Jack Everly, conductor

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director Jack Everly, Principal Pops Conductor

BSO SuperPops Pops Goes Gershwin Jack Everly, conductor Stewart Goodyear, piano Judy McLane, vocals The Music of George and Ira Gershwin

“Swanee”

arr. Hermann

Overture to Girl Crazy arr: Rose “Gershwin in Hollywood” arr. Bennett “I Got Rhythm” Judy McLane “Someone to Watch Over Me” Judy McLane

“They Can’t Take That Away From Me” arr: Salinger “Lullaby”

Overture to Rhapsody in Blue INTERMISSION

Selections from Porgy and Bess arr: Bennett “Walking the Dog”

Ira Steps Out

“Long Ago and Far Away”

“My Ship” “The Man That Got Away” Judy McLane Rhapsody in Blue arr: Grofé Stewart Goodyear The concert will end at approximately 10:00 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

26 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

Jack Everly is the principal pops conductor of the Baltimore and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras, Naples Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), and is the music director of the National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth on PBS. Everly is the music director of Yuletide Celebration, now a 26-year tradition. These theatrical symphonic holiday concerts are presented annually in December in Indianapolis and are seen by more than 40,000 concert-goers.

Originally appointed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Everly was conductor of the American Ballet Theatre for 14 years, where he served as music director. Everly has teamed with Marvin Hamlisch in Broadway shows including The Goodbye Girl, They’re Playing Our Song and A Chorus Line. He conducted Carol Channing hundreds of times in Hello, Dolly! in two separate Broadway productions.

Everly has conducted the songs for Disney’s animated classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and led the Czech Philharmonic on the recordings In the Presence and Sandi Patty’s 2011 release, Broadway Stories. He also conducted the critically praised Everything’s Coming Up Roses: The Complete Overtures of Broadway’s Jule Styne.

In 1998, Everly created the Symphonic Pops Consortium, serving as music director. The consortium, based in Indianapolis, produces a new theatrical pops program each season. In the past 12 years, more than 225 performances of SPC programs have taken place across the United States and Canada.

Everly photo by Michael Tammaro, Goodyear photo by Andrew Garn

presents

Thursday, January 5, 2012, 8 p.m.

Everly holds an honorary doctorate of arts from Franklin College in his home state of Indiana.

Stewart Goodyear, piano

Known for imagination, a graceful, elegant style and exquisite technique, Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished young artist whose career spans many genres—concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist and composer.

Goodyear has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin-in-theFields, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Seattle Symphony and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestras, among others.

This season, Goodyear makes his subscription debuts with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and returns on main season concerts to the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Winnipeg Symphony and many others.

He has appeared in recitals in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Bad Kissingen, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He has performed with the Festivals of Caramoor, Santa Fe and Ravinia.

In addition to his talents as a pianist, Goodyear is a composer and frequently performs his own works, including his

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director, Harvey M. and Lyn P. Meyerhoff Chair Jack Everly, Principal Pops Conductor Yuri Temirkanov, Music Director Emeritus Lee Mills, BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellow First Violins Jonathan Carney Concertmaster, Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Chair Madeline Adkins Associate Concertmaster, Wilhelmina Hahn Waidner Chair Igor Yuzefovich* Assistant Concertmaster James Boehm Kenneth Goldstein Wonju Kim Gregory Kuperstein Mari Matsumoto John Merrill Gregory Mulligan Rebecca Nichols Ellen Orner E. Craig Richmond Ellen Pendleton Troyer Andrew Wasyluszko Second Violins Qing Li Principal, E. Kirkbride and Ann H. Miller Chair Ivan Stefanovic Assistant Principal Leonid Berkovich Leonid Briskin Julie Parcells Christina Scroggins Wayne C. Taylor James Umber Charles Underwood Melissa Zaraya Rui Du** Violas Richard Field Principal, Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Chair Noah Chaves Associate Principal

Karin Brown Acting Assistant Principal Peter Minkler Sharon Pineo Myer Delmar Stewart Jeffrey Stewart Mary Woehr Cellos Dariusz Skoraczewski Principal Chang Woo Lee Associate Principal Bo Li Acting Assistant Principal Seth Low Susan Evans Esther Mellon Kristin Ostling* Paula SkolnickChildress Pei Lu** Basses Robert Barney Principal, Willard and Lillian Hackerman Chair Hampton Childress Associate Principal Owen Cummings Arnold Gregorian Mark Huang Jonathan Jensen David Sheets* Eric Stahl Flutes Emily Skala Principal, Dr. Clyde Alvin Clapp Chair Marcia Kämper Piccolo Laurie Sokoloff Oboes Katherine Needleman Principal, Robert H. and Ryda H. Levi Chair Michael Lisicky

solo piano work, “Variations on ‘Eleanor Rigby’,” which premiered at Lincoln Center in New York in August 2000, and his Piano Sonata, both of which have received continual acclaim by crit-

English Horn Jane Marvine Kenneth S. Battye and Legg Mason Chair Clarinets Steven Barta Principal, Anne Adalman Goodwin Chair Christopher Wolfe Assistant Principal William Jenken Edward Palanker Bass Clarinet Edward Palanker E-flat Clarinet Christopher Wolfe Bassoons Julie Green Gregorian Acting Principal Fei Xie Contrabassoon David P. Coombs Horns Philip Munds Principal, USF&G Foundation Chair Gabrielle Finck Associate Principal Beth Graham* Assistant Principal Mary C. Bisson Bruce Moore Trumpets Andrew Balio Principal, Harvey M. and Lyn P. Meyerhoff Chair Rene Hernandez Assistant Principal Ryan Darke** Trombones Christopher Dudley Principal, Alex. Brown & Sons Chair James Olin Co-Principal John Vance

Bass Trombone Randall S. Campora Tuba David T. Fedderly Principal Timpani Dennis Kain Principal Christopher Williams Assistant Principal Percussion Christopher Williams Principal, Lucille Schwilck Chair John Locke Brian Prechtl Piano Sidney M. and Miriam Friedberg Chair Jonathan Jensen Mary Woehr Director of Orchestra Personnel Marilyn Rife Assistant Personnel Manager Christopher Monte Librarians Mary Carroll Plaine Principal, Constance A. and Ramon F. Getzov Chair Raymond Kreuger Associate Stage Personnel Ennis Seibert Stage Manager Frank Serruto Technical Director Todd Price Assistant Stage Manager Larry Smith Sound *on leave ** Guest musican

ics and audiences alike.

A native of Toronto, Goodyear holds a master’s degree from The Juilliard School of Music, where he studied with Oxana Yablonskaya.

applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 27

Thursday, January 5, 2012, 8 p.m.

Judy McLane, vocals

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28 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

Judy McLane is currently playing the role of Tanya in the Broadway musical Mamma Mia! She received critical acclaim for her performance as Vienna in Johnny Guitar Off-Broadway.

She starred as Donna in the feature film Were the World Mine and has appeared on Broadway in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Aspects of Love and Chess.

Her tours include the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods, the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond, Mrs. Baskin in Big and Side by Side by Sondheim.

Some other favorite roles include Phyllis in Follies, Eva Peron in Evita, the title character in Victor/Victoria, Aldonza in Man of La Mancha, Luisa in Nine, Nancy in Oliver!, Florence in Chess, and Lily in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Additionally she has performed as Fiona in Brigadoon, Milly in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Mrs. Walker in Tommy, Rebecca in Rags, Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar, Ann in 1940’s Radio Hour, Isabella in Wuthering Heights, and Lucy in Wildhorn’s Jekyll & Hyde.

McLane has performed with the Bolshoi Orchestra in Moscow, the National Orchestra of Lyon, National Symphony of Canada, National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukee, Naples, Oklahoma City, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Seattle, St. Louis, Southwest Florida, Toronto and Chautauqua symphony orchestras.

She also has performed in Chess in Concert at Carnegie Hall.

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 3:30 p.m.

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 3:30 P.M.

Zuill Bailey, cello

● National Philharmonic Piotr Gajewski, Music Director and Conductor

presents

Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites

Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 Johann Sebastian Bach Prelude (1685-1750) Allemande Courante

Sarabande Minuet Gigue

Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Minuet

Gigue BREAK

Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009 Prelude Allemande Courante

Sarabande Bourrée Gigue Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010 Prelude Allemande

Courante

Sarabande Bourrée

Gigue INTERMISSION

Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 Prelude Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Gavotte

Gigue

Suite No. 6 in D major, BWV 1012 Prelude Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Gavotte

Gigue Presenting Sponsor: Ingleside at King Farm All Kids, All Free, All The Time is sponsored by The Gazette The Music Center at Strathmore • Marriott Concert Stage

Program Notes Suites for Unaccompanied Cello

Johann Sebastian Bach Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig, Germany

The six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello are among the most extraordinary inventions of Bach’s incomparable creative powers. Surprising for many 21st century listeners is the fact that in Bach’s time, the cello was considered an instrument inferior to the viola da gamba. The cello’s main use at the time was in filling out the continuo, or bass, of chamber and orchestral works. Yet around the same date that Bach wrote the six works for unaccompanied violin in 1720, he composed a similar series for unaccompanied cello. These cello suites have the distinction of being the first of their kind and now still arguably stand as the finest works in the cello repertoire.

In 1717, Bach was appointed applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 29

lisa-marie mazzucco

Zuill Bailey, cello

Widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent cellists of his generation, Zuill Bailey engages audiences with compelling artistry and technical finesse.

Bailey has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, San Francisco, Minnesota, Indianapolis, Nashville, Dallas, Milwaukee and Toronto, and prominent orchestras around the world.

This season Bailey performs the Dvořák Concerto with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, and the Elgar Concerto in Indianapolis under the baton of Krzysztof Urbanski.

The 2010-2011 season saw the release of a new album for Telarc International, Brahms Works for Cello and Piano.

The disc follows up the previous season’s critically acclaimed Complete Bach Cello Suites.

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 3:30 p.m.

composer and music director to Prince Leopold, ruler of the tiny state of Anhalt Cöthen. It was at his court that Bach wrote most of his chamber music.

The prince played the viola da gamba, an instrument whose range resembled that of the cello, and he had on his staff two members of the Abel family, who were great gambists and cellists for three generations. These cello suites were probably written for the younger of them, Christian Ferdinand Abel or another skilled cellist, Christian Bernhard Linigke, to play.

Each of Bach’s six cello suites has six movements. Each consists of a formal opening movement, the Prelude, and then five dances.

After the introductory improvisatory prelude, the suite proceeds with a slow and stately and often highly ornamented Allemande. The contemplative Allemande originated as a Renaissance and Baroque German dance and was still danced throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Its mood is usually serious and its tempo slow.

Following the Allemande is the Courante, or corrente, an Italian dance movement in triple meter that originated in the 16th century and became a regular part of the solo suite. After it comes the Sarabande, slow and majestic and characterized by beginning without an upbeat, with an accented dotted note on the second beat of its three-beat measure.

Last is a vivacious Gigue or jig from England. This fast dance movement in binary form is the traditional closing movement. Between the Sarabande and the Gigue there was leeway for the composer to insert a lighthearted dance. These inserted forms are called Galanteries and include the graceful minuet, the bright Gavotte, and the Bourrée, all originally French.

Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 1 in G

cellist Rostropovich said “doesn’t utilize melody—only texture, structure and rhythm.” The second movement is an Allemande, followed by a Courante, then a Sarabande. Before the final movement, a Gigue, Bach added a contrasting pair of graceful Minuets, considered optional dances.

Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008

Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 5, in

This suite, in a minor key, contrasts strongly with the preceding suite. Its Prelude is more a rumination than a declamation, and its distant and introspective wanderings from the home key give both freshness and emphasis to the return of D minor. The dances begin with a fresh and relaxed Allemande, followed by a nimble Courante, and then a poetic Sarabande.

A pair of graceful Minuets is used as the penultimate movement. A Gigue, or jig, closes the suite.

Suite No. 3 for Unaccompanied Cello in C Major, BWV 1009

The third cello suite is one of the longer works in the set of six, but it has a very defined structure.

Bach firmly establishes the home key in the first two measures of the Prelude. He begins with a descending C major scale, adds a broken chord of C major and a held low C, and then goes on with a rising scale. Although suite movements are basically entirely independent of one another, here the Allemande and the Courante seem to resemble the Prelude, because they, too, are based on scales and triads. Next is a stately Sarabande with a long, complex theme. The Bourrées are in C major and minor, the second played as a contrasting centerpiece between two performances of the first. The suite closes with an animated Gigue.

Major, BWV 1007 Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 4 in

The character of Suite No. 1 is easygoing and charming. Bach used the traditional forms in this suite, beginning with a Prelude, which the

suites. It begins with a Prelude that fixes the key of E flat firmly in mind.

The dances are an Allemande, moderate in pace and German in origin; a Courante, a French running or jumping dance; a stately Spanish Sarabande; a pair of lively French Bourrées, the second a contrasting centerpiece between two performances of the first; and to close, a lively Gigue.

E- Flat Major, BWV 1010

The Suite No. 4 is the most gracious, relaxed and light-hearted of the six

30 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

C Minor, BWV 1011

In the fifth cello suite, Bach specifies a variant of the usual tuning of the instrument’s highest string in order to make a different harmonic vocabulary available. The Prelude of this suite has two parts, in the manner of a French opera overture, the first grave, the second a fugue. The most elaborate Prelude in the series, it contains the only fugue in the suites. Next comes a meditative German Allemande; a quick Courante, a complex running (or jumping) dance follows, and then a slow and stately Spanish Sarabande; a pair of French Gavottes and a closing Gigue, this time derived from an Anglo Irish jig, round out the suite.

Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 6, in D Major, BWV 1012

In the sixth suite, the cello spends much time at the top of its range, and the work seems to have been intended for a variant of our modern cello, with one more string than the standard four. Bach is credited with having invented the viola pomposa, a five-stringed instrument somewhat larger than a viola, but small enough to be held horizontally and attached with a ribbon so that it could be held on the arm in front of the chest.

The Prelude of this suite sits firmly on D, and the rapid alternation between loud and soft suggests the manner of a solo concerto with accompaniment.

The dances are a highly ornamented Allemande, a rhythmic Courante, a particularly rich toned Sarabande, a pair of Gavottes and a Gigue.

Copyright Susan Halpern 2011

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 8 P.M.

earned a B.M. and M.M. in Orchestral Conducting. Upon completing his formal education, he continued refining his conducting skills at the 1983 Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, where he was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship. His teachers there included Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Gunther Schuller, Gustav Meier and Maurice Abravanel.

National Philharmonic Piotr Gajewski, Music Director and Conductor

presents

Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart

Zuill Bailey, cello Piotr Gajewski, conductor Zuill Bailey, cello

Grosse Fuge (“Grand Fugue”)

in B-Flat Major, Op. 133

Concerto for Cello and Orchestra

in C Major, H.VIIb:1

Moderato

Adagio

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Allegro molto INTERMISSION

Symphony No. 41, in C Major, K. 551

(“Jupiter” )

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Allegro vivace

Andante cantabile

Menuetto: Allegretto

Molto allegro All Kids, All Free, All the Time is sponsored by The Gazette The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Piotr Gajewski, conductor

Piotr Gajewski is widely credited with building the National Philharmonic to its present status as one of the most respected ensembles of its kind in the region. The Washington Post recognizes him as an “immensely talented and insightful conductor,” whose “standards, taste and sensitivity are impeccable.” In addition to

his appearances with the National Philharmonic, Gajewski is much in demand as a guest conductor. In recent years, he has appeared with most of the major orchestras in his native Poland, as well as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in England, the Karlovy Vary Symphony in the Czech Republic, the Okanagan Symphony in Canada and numerous orchestras in the United States.

Gajewski attended Carleton College and the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he

Widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent cellists of his generation, Zuill Bailey engages audiences with compelling artistry and technical

finesse.

Bailey has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, San Francisco, Minnesota, Indianapolis, Nashville, Dallas, Milwaukee and Toronto, and prominent orchestras around the world.

He has performed at the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall, where he made his debut with the U.S. premiere of Miklos Theodorakis’ Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra.

This season Bailey performs the Dvořák Concerto with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, and the Elgar Concerto in Indianapolis under the baton of Krzysztof Urbanski.

The 2010-2011 season saw the release of a new album for Telarc International, Brahms Works for Cello and Piano.

The disc, recorded with pianist Awadagin Pratt, follows up the previous season’s critically acclaimed Complete Bach Cello Suites, which topped the Classical Billboard charts.

Bailey performs on a 1693 Matteo Gofriller cello, formerly owned by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet.

He is the artistic director of El Paso Pro Musica, artistic director designate of the Sitka Summer Music Festival and Series (Alaska) and professor of cello at the University of Texas at El Paso.

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 31

gajewski photo by michael ventura, bailey photo by lisa-marie mazzucco

●

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

Program Notes Grosse Fuge (“Grand Fugue”) in B-Flat Major, Op. 133

Ludwig van Beethoven

third fugue, Allegro molto e con brio.

The long closing coda begins with all the instruments playing the principal subject in octaves and in long, sustained notes.

Born Dec. 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany; died March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria

Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in C

Beethoven originally wrote the Grosse Fuge in 1825 to be the finale of his String Quartet, Op. 130, but at the first performance, on March 21, 1826, its great weight so unbalanced the preceding movements as to threaten to spoil their success, even though two of those movements were encored. Some of the composer’s friends thought that although the public found the Grosse Fuge too difficult at first, it would come to appreciate it on repeated hearings. Others suggested that Beethoven immediately write a new closing movement for the String Quartet, which he did when his publisher added to the weight of their arguments an offer to issue the Grosse Fuge as a separate composition.

The Grosse Fuge’s intricacy and its greatness are such that the listener can hear it in several very different ways.

It can be understood as an introduction followed by a long fugue, or by a series of fugues. It is also a fugal theme with variations, each one of which is, in turn, built as a series of variations. It is also a large-scale sonata-form movement, in which each of the principal components is a fugue. It is even a cyclical work of four movements condensed into one: introduction, Allegro, slow movement and finale, each part except the first a fugue.

To begin, there is a thirty-measure overture that introduces the main theme and some of the transformations in which it will later be used.

The fugue proper starts off with its vigorous and rhythmic counter-subject in the first violin, to which the viola, playing the principal subject, seems at first to be only an accompaniment. The music slows to Meno mosso e moderato for a second fugue, and then speeds up again for the big

Born March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Austria; died May 31, 1809 in Vienna

Major, H.VIIb:1

Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn was one of the foremost composers in the history of orchestral music, but he wrote curiously few concertos. Haydn occupied the majority of his time composing works in other forms, notably the symphony.

Two of his finest concertos are for cello. This C-Major Concerto was not known for about 200 years. Haydn had listed its opening theme in a catalog of his works that he sketched around 1765, but the music was missing until 1961, when it turned up in a private library transferred from the castle of a once noble Czech family to the National Museum in Prague.

The concerto was given its first performance after its long absence at a concert of the Prague Spring Festival in 1962.

The opening Moderato is, in terms of the time, quite grandly laid out and is devoted to the intense exploitation of the theme with which it opens.

Next are a lyrical and almost sentimental Adagio and a finale, Allegro molto, of breathtakingly brilliant virtuosity.

Symphony No. 41, in C Major, K. 551 (“Jupiter”)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born Jan. 27 1756 in Salzburg; died Dec. 5, 1791 in Vienna

In 1788, when Mozart wrote this lofty symphony, his last, he was living a precarious life in Vienna, feeling the strain of debt and concerned about his future. The year before, he had stopped teaching to prepare Don Giovanni for its premiere in Prague, but the opera only yielded him a

32 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

pittance, and its Vienna production was a dismal failure. He had expected Emperor Joseph II to appoint him to the well-paid post of court-composer left vacant by the death of Gluck in 1787. Instead, he was offered the post at a meager salary that he could only describe as “too much for what I do, too little for what I could do.” The emperor did not want symphonies, concertos, or string quartets from Mozart; he simply desired dance music for the court balls at the Redoutensaal.

In desperate need, Mozart was obliged to take several loans from a friend.

Nevertheless, in the summer of 1788, Mozart composed an extraordinary symphonic trilogy, three of his greatest works. No records exist detailing why or for whom these last symphonies were composed.

Regardless of the circumstances, no one doubts that this brilliant and powerful symphony is anything but optimistic and triumphant. No one is sure who gave the symphony the name “Jupiter” or when, but it may have been the Anglo-German pianist and composer, Johann Baptist Cramer (17711858). He supposedly gave it the title “Jupiter” because of what he labeled the work’s “loftiness of ideas and nobility of treatment.” Another theory that Mozart’s son suggested is that Johann Peter Salomon, the German violinist who was Haydn’s impresario in London, might have given it the subtitle. In any case, the name first appeared officially in a concert program in Edinburgh in 1819 when it was already familiar to audiences there, before it spread to the Continent.

The magnificent first movement, Allegro vivace, may be described as fitting the standard scheme: Ideas in two related keys are stated, discussed and restated in the same key, but the ideas are monumental, and the development complex and extraordinarily imaginative. There are many different elements in the first theme alone: the virile first measures for full orchestra, the strings’ gentle answer, the martial rhythm in the winds accompanied by powerful chords of the strings and then a big

Saturday, January 7, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

orchestral tutti. After a long, sustained chord, the violins return to the opening figure, but quietly this time, while winds play a new contrapuntal melody that ends as a few repeated chords.

All this exposition happens in a very short space of time, and more musical invention still precedes the dramatic richness of the second theme and third themes. For the third theme, Mozart utilizes an excerpt from a comic bass aria from “Un bacio di mano” (“A Kiss on the Hand”) that he had recently written for somebody else’s opera buffa.

After that, elaborate development follows, joining the virile, the more feminine and the martial all together.

The second movement, Andante cantabile, with its stately melodies, offers not just lyrical contrast, but a new set of dramatic tensions and releases, with an orchestral texture whose rhythmic and dynamic complexity was then unprecedented. Under the charming surface, the listener feels suppressed agitation. Relief comes with the sense of lighthearted serenity in the third movement, Menuetto, Allegretto, whose music is dignified. The finale, Molto allegro, renews the elevated discourse with energy and intensity.

All the contrapuntal writing in the first three movements prepares the listener for the last movement. Shortly after settling in Vienna, Mozart discovered the music of Bach, which had revealed to him the expressive potential of counterpoint, especially fugues.

Bach’s influence is especially evident in the finale in which Mozart intricately combines the classical structure he uses in the first movement with Bach-like fugal procedures.

The principal theme is the little melody of just four notes that the first violins play at the beginning of the movement. By the coda, Mozart has taken what grows out of it, all the themes of the movement, and combined them contrapuntally, allowing the symphony to end in a triumphant tour-de-force.

“Jupiter” is scored for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale First Violins Justine Lamb-Budge, Concertmaster Jody Gatwood, Concertmaster emeritus Brenda Anna Michael Barbour Eva Cappelletti-Chao Maureen ConlonDorosh Claudia Chudacoff Lisa Cridge Doug Dubé Lysiane Gravel-Lacombe Jennifer Kim Regino Madrid Kim Miller Laura Miller Jennifer Rickard Adrian Semo Leslie Silverfine Chaerim Smith Olga Yanovich

Piccolo David LaVorgna

Second Violins Mayumi Pawel, Principal Katherine Budner Justin Gopal June Huang Nancy Jin Karin Kelleher Alexandra Mikhlin Joanna Owen Jean Provine Rachel Schenker Jennifer Shannon Ning Ma Shi Hilde Singer Cathy Stewart Rachael Stockton Kregg Stovner

French Horns Michael Hall, Principal Mark Wakefield Justin Drew Mark Hughes Ken Bell

Violas Julius Wirth, Principal Judy Silverman, Associate Principal Phyllis Freeman Leonora Karasina Stephanie Knutsen Mark Pfannschmidt Margaret Prechtl Jennifer Rende Sarah Scanlon Chris Shieh Adrienne Sommerville Tam Tran

Tuba William Clark

Cellos Lori Barnet, Principal April Chisholm Danielle Cho Ken Ding Andrew Hesse Hung-Lin Lin Ryan Murphy Todd Thiel Kerry Van Laanen Siri Warkentien Basses Robert Kurz, Principal Kelly Ali Jeremy Barth Barbara Fitzgerald David George William Hones Ed Malaga Mark Stephenson Flutes David Whiteside, Principal Nicolette Oppelt David LaVorgna

Oboes Mark Hill, Principal Kathy Ceasar-Spall Fatma Daglar English Horn Ron Erler Clarinets Cheryl Hill, Principal Carolyn Alvarez-Agria Suzanne Gekker Bass Clarinet Carolyn Alvarez-Agria Bassoons Erich Hecksher, Principal Benjamin Greanya Thomas Schneider Sandra Sisk Contrabassoon Nicholas Cohen

Trumpets Chris Gekker, Principal Robert Birch Carl Rowe John Abbraciamento Trombones David Sciannella, Principal Jim Armstrong Jeffrey Cortazzo

Timpani & Percussion Tom Maloy, Principal Aubrey Adams Curt Duer Robert Jenkins Gerald Novak Bill Richards Harp Rebecca Smith Elizabeth Blakeslee Keyboard William Neil Jeffery Watson Theodore Guerrant Sopranos Irene Arveson Nancy Dryden Baker Marietta R. Balaan Mary Bentley* Rosalind Breslow Rebecca Carlson Carol Chesley Youngjoo Chin Anne P. Claysmith Nancy A. Coleman** Victoria Corona Celia Cruz Tracy Davidson Eileen S. DeMarco Alejandra Durán-Böhme Lisa Edgley Amy Ellsworth Chelsea J. Fields Meg Flanagan Sarah B. Forman Caitlin A. Garry

Debbie Henderson Stephanie Henning Julie Hudson Jessica Holden Kloda Kaelyn Lowmaster Sharon Majchrzak Marianna J. Martindale Kathryn McKinley Sara W. Moses Katherine NelsonTracey* Gloria Nutzhorn Juliana S. O’Neill Nancy Orvis Emily Perlman** Lynette Posorske Stephanie Price Maggie Rheinstein Carlotta Richard Lisa Romano Ashley Rose Theresa Roys Aida L. Sánchez Jessica Schmidt Katherine Schnorrenberg Kara Schoo Shelly A. Schubert Carolyn J. Sullivan Melissa Valentine Ellen van Valkenburgh Susanne Villemarette Louise M. Wager Lynne Woods Altos Helen R. Altman Sybil Amitay Lynne Stein Benzion Elizabeth Bishop Carol Bruno Erlinda C. Dancer Sandra L. Daughton Jenelle M. Dennis Mary Fellman Shannon Finnegan Elissa Frankle Francesca Frey-Kim Maria A. Friedman Julia C. Friend Sarah Gilchrist Lois J. Goodstein Jacque Grenning Stacey A. Henning Jean Hochron Sara M. Josey* Marilyn Katz Casey Keeler Irene M. Kirkpatrick Martha J. Krieger** Melissa J. Lieberman* Nansy Mathews Jeanne Morin Susan E. Murray Daryl Newhouse Martha Newman Patricia Pillsbury Beryl M. Rothman Lisa Rovin Mary Jane Ruhl Jan Schiavone Deborah F. Silberman Lori J. Sommerfield Connie Soves Carol A. Stern Pattie Sullivan Bonnie S. Temple Renée Tietjen Caitlin S. Torgerson Virginia Van Brunt Christine Vocke Sarah Jane Wagoner

Allison Young Tenors Philip Bregstone Spencer Clark Gregory Daniel Paul J. DeMarco Ruth W. Faison* Greg Gross Carlos A. Herrán Michael Hirata Dominick Izzo Don Jansky Curt Jordan Tyler A. Loertscher Richard Lorr Jane Lyle David Malloy Michael McClellan Chantal McHale Duncan McHale Eleanor McIntire Wayne Meyer* Tom Nessinger Steve Nguyen Anita O’Leary Joe Richter Drew Riggs Jason Saffell Robert T. Saffell José Luis Sánchez Dennis Vander Tuig Taylor Witt Basses Russell Bowers Albert Bradford Ronald Cappelletti Bruce Carhart Pete Chang Dale S. Collinson Stephen Cook Clark V. Cooper Bopper Deyton J. William Gadzuk Robert Gerard Mike Hilton Chun-Hsien Huang William W. Josey** Allan Kirkpatrick Jack Legler Larry Maloney Ian Matthews Alan E. Mayers Dugald McConnell David J. McGoff Richard McMillan Kent Mikkelsen* John Milberg** Oliver Moles Alan Munter Leif Neve Tom Pappas Anthony Radich Harry Ransom, Jr. Edward Rejuney* Frank Roys Kevin Schellhase Harold Seifried Carey W. Smith Charles Sturrock Alun Thomas Donald A. Trayer Richard Wanerman Al Wigmore Theodore Guerrant, Accompanist * section leader ** asst. section leader

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 33

Saturday, January 14, 2012, 8 p.m.

Saturday, January 14, 2012, 8 P.M.

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director

presents

Itzhak Perlman Itzhak Perlman, conductor and violin

“Winter” from The Four Seasons, Antonio Vivaldi

Op. 8, No. 4 (1678-1741) Aggiaciatto tremar tra nevi algenti: Allegro non molto Passar al foco i di quieti: Largo

Camminar sopra il ghiaccio: Allegro “Summer” from The Four Seasons,

Op.8, No. 2 Languidezza per il caldo: Allegro non molto Toglie alle membra lasse il suo riposo: Adagio

Tempo impetuoso d’estate: Presto

Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

K. 183 [173dB] (1756-1791)

Allegro con brio Andante Menuetto Allegro

Itzhak Perlman, conductor and violin

Itzhak Perlman is beloved for his charm and humanity, as well as his talent. In January 2009, Perlman was honored to take part in the inauguration of President Barack Obama, premiering a piece written by John Williams and performing with clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianist Gabriela Montero and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In December 2003, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts granted Perlman a Kennedy Center Honor celebrating his distinguished achievements and contributions to the cultural and educational life of our nation.

In Perlman’s 2011-2012 season, he joins the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall in a gala concert to open its centennial season, and returns to the same orchestra in April 2012 on a play/conduct program. Other highlights of his 2011-2012 season include the gala opening of the new Kaufman Center in Kansas City, Mo., with the Kansas City Symphony, a play/conduct performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and recitals in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego and Washington, D.C.

INTERMISSION

The concert will end at approximately 9:50 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

34 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Program Notes The Four Seasons

Antonio Vivaldi Born March 4, 1678 in Venice, Italy; died in July 21, 1741 in Vienna, Austria

So popular is Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons today that it seems incomprehensible that these four delightful concertos should have languished in the musical attic for more than 200 years before reappearing around 1950, just in time for the invention of the long-playing record. For it was the LP that spread the Seasons’ fame throughout the world; today, with

Akira Kinoshita

Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 Johannes Brahms Allegro non troppo (1833-1897) Andante moderato Allegro giocoso Allegro energico e passionato

Saturday, January 14, 2012, 8 p.m.

more than 200 renditions produced, it probably ranks as the most recorded classical work in history.

How Vivaldi would have loved all those royalties! After a long and illustrious career in which he composed some 800 works—including 500 concertos for virtually every instrument extant in his time, as well as operas and church music—he died a pauper in 1741 in Vienna. But in his prime, he was a celebrated violin virtuoso, and his dynamic concertos influenced many other contemporary composers, including J. S. Bach. Ordained to the priesthood as a young man and known as the “Red Priest” for his flame-colored hair, Vivaldi rarely celebrated Mass—he claimed ill health as an excuse. Instead, he presided for some three decades as music master at Venice’s L’Ospedale della Pietà, a charity school for orphaned girls, and made its concerts one of Venice’s leading cultural attractions. And his health problems did not prevent him from traveling far beyond the Pietà to purvey his performing and creative talents.

By the 1720s, Vivaldi was devoting some of his time to the service of Count Wenzeslaus von Morzin of Bohemia. In 1725, he dedicated a remarkable new publication of 12 concertos, entitled Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione (“The Trial of Harmony and Invention”), to the Count— the first four of these concertos being The Four Seasons. But scholars believe the Seasons were actually composed a few years earlier, probably around 1720, making them contemporaries of Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concertos.

Although Vivaldi had written other concertos with colorful titles, the Seasons took descriptive writing several steps farther by graphically illustrating four sonnets, possibly written by Vivaldi himself, which are included in the original printed edition. Moreover, Vivaldi added verbal cues in the scores so performers would know exactly what they were representing.

“Winter” is another menacing season. Vivaldi may be recalling here the terrible winter of 1708-09 when Venice’s lagoon froze over. In an

extraordinary opening, the chattering instruments enter one by one, piling up harsh dissonances to evoke the bitter cold. By contrast, the slow movement conjures up the cozy atmosphere indoors by the fire, with the pattering raindrops outside imitated by plucked violins. The final Allegro portrays people attempting to walk slowly on the ice, then more quickly with frequent falls. As the string winds blow, the music reminds us that winter also brings pleasure as well as discomfort.

“Summer” is the most threatening of the seasons. Its imaginative opening is a portrait of summer’s breathless heat, with rumbles of a thunderstorm in the distance. The soloist imitates the rapid song of the cuckoo and later the turtledove and goldfinch. We hear the background buzz of insects in the slow movement as the peasant sleeps restlessly, fearing the coming storm that might damage his crops. In the last movement, the storm finally breaks with all the fury Vivaldi could muster from his small ensemble.

Instrumentation: Solo violin, strings and harpsichord.

Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, K. 183

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born in Jan. 27, 1756 Salzburg, Austria; died Dec. 5, 1791 in Vienna

If you’ve seen the movie Amadeus, you will immediately recognize the opening movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 25, for it is the wildly dramatic music heard as the raving, guilt-stricken Salieri is being rushed off to an asylum. Astonishingly, this unforgettable music was created by Mozart in October 1773, when he was only 17 years old.

The young composer had just returned to his hometown of Salzburg from a visit to Vienna with his father, the first of many journeys undertaken to seek a court appointment worthy of his genius. For many years, Mozart’s father had been employed at the court of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, but this was a provincial court far from the center of Austrian musical life. Moreover, Archbishop Hieronymous Colloredo seemed to have little

conception of how extraordinary Mozart’s talent really was.

However, that visit to Vienna was far from a total loss; while there, Mozart was exposed to important recent music, notably by his older colleague Joseph Haydn.

Thus, the works he composed when he returned home showed a tremendous advance over anything he had done before.

Symphony No. 25 was also influenced by a powerful artistic movement flourishing in literature, painting and music during the 1770s that became known as Sturm und Drang or “Storm and Stress.”

The extraordinary first movement opens with a turbulent theme, propelled by agitated syncopated rhythms.

In a master stroke, Mozart gives us a moment of relief from this whirlwind when the syncopations die away and the solo oboe sings a quieter, very mournful version of this theme: a wonderful change of weight and color.

Then, a new and equally stormy theme takes its place. For a real change of pace, this exposition section—which is usually repeated to fix everything in our memories—closes with a winsome little theme in the violins. The middle development section is exceptionally long and ingenious, pushing out the harmonic boundaries and again making striking use of the oboe’s plaintive timbre. After a recapitulation of the opening section, a brief, beautifully conceived coda lets this musical storm subside.

Though the slow-tempo second movement in E-flat major is much gentler, it still expresses powerful emotions. Heavy sighs in the violins are echoed darkly by the bassoons. Later, when we hear the opening music again, listen for a poignant passage of sighs creeping upward in the violins, which marvelously upsets the stability of the home key.

Returning to the stern world of G minor, the third movement minuet is anything but a gracious court dance.

The entire orchestra, made more powerful by four horns, rather than the usual two, shouts out the theme in a vehement unison. These massive phrases are echoed by softer ones for the strings alone. Moving to G major, the middle

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 35

Saturday, January 14, 2012, 8 p.m.

trio section provides a complete contrast with sweetly bucolic music for the wind instruments; the wind band was a popular ensemble in Austria during this period.

The final movement returns to the tempestuous mood of the first. Mozart uses only one theme to power this taut, single-minded sonata form; loud unison phrases strengthen its aggressive personality. An extensive use of chromatically altered pitches not found in a normal scale—a technique used throughout this symphony—intensifies the wild emotions expressed by a maturing young man beginning to feel very frustrated in his stifling community.

Instrumentation: Two oboes, two bassoons, four horns and strings.

Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98

Johannes Brahms Born May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany; died April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria

Brahms’ last and, in the opinion of many, greatest symphony made an inauspicious debut with its first audience: a small group of the composer’s friends—including conductor Hans Richter and Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick—gathered around two pianos in 1885 as Brahms and a colleague played through the score. They listened in stunned silence, then began tearing the work apart. Max Kalbeck, the composer’s first biographer, suggested Brahms publish the finale as a separate piece, throw out the third-movement scherzo, and rewrite the first two movements! A discouraged Brahms asked Kalbeck the next day, “If people like […] you do not like my music, who can be expected to like it?”

Fortunately, the musical public liked Symphony No. 4 much better than did Brahms’ friends. It was a resounding success at its premiere with the Meiningen Court Orchestra under the composer’s baton on Oct. 25, 1885, and was equally applauded on a nine-city tour that immediately followed, with Brahms and the distinguished conductor Hans von Bülow alternating on the podium.

Von Bülow responded to No. 4 as we do today, calling it “stupendous […] individual and rocklike. Incomparable strength from start to finish.”

What could have been so distressing about this noble work to those first listeners, all of whom were sophisticated musical professionals? While composing it during the summers of 1884 and 1885 in Mürzzuschlag in southern Austria’s Styrian Alps, Brahms wrote to von Bülow, “It tastes of the climate hereabouts; the cherries are hardly sweet here, you wouldn’t eat them!” Certainly compared to his first three symphonies, the work has something of the bitterness of sour cherries in its austerity, harmonic bite and predominantly tragic mood. It is the most tightly constructed of his symphonies, governed by an internal logic, inspired by the strictness of its celebrated passacaglia finale. But listeners will be less aware of this than of the work’s amazing range of moods, its wealth of lyrical melody and its overall drama, reaching powerful, passionate climaxes at the ends of both the first and final movements.

For Brahms, a firm structural foundation gave freedom for unfettered expressiveness. This is epitomized by the finale’s use of the Baroque passacaglia or chaconne form, in which a series of variations are created over a repeated theme, in this case just eight measures long. Brahms adopted his theme from Bach’s Cantata No. 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (“Toward You, Lord, I Long”). In 1880, he had played this cantata for von Bülow and, pointing out the theme, suggested, “What would you say to a symphonic movement written on this theme some day?”

The intimate opening of the Allegro non troppo first movement is utterly unique, suggesting that the symphony has already been in progress for some time. But the violins’ two-note motive of a descending third, followed by an ascending sixth, is the cornerstone of Brahms’ symphonic cathedral. By movement’s end, this gentle idea will reach heights of dramatic pathos. The complete melody then

36 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

unfolds in the violins, followed by a variation on it. Already, Brahms is announcing that the variations process will be an important force throughout the entire symphony. A mysterious passage of string arpeggios and cloudy harmonies and a fanfare motive are also important elements in this sonata form in E minor. The overall mood is subtle and autumnal, rising to heroic tragedy at the end over a heavy drumroll.

The slow movement, in E major, is full of nostalgia and melancholy. A dark, cloudy color is established by the four horns (the movement’s signature instruments), followed by clarinets, singing the principal melody in mournful middle register over a steady dotted-rhythm pattern in plucked strings. The second major theme in this compressed sonata form is one of Brahms’ lovely yearning tunes, sung by the cellos below arcing high violins. Of this movement Brahms’ close friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg wrote: “It is a walk through exquisite scenery at sunset, when the colors deepen and the crimson glows to purple.”

Evening’s purple brightens to golden daylight in the exuberant scherzo movement, in C major and marked Allegro giocoso. All melancholy is temporarily swept away in the most extroverted, joyful symphonic movement that the introspective Brahms ever wrote. The ringing of the triangle intensifies the jubilation.

And now comes the celebrated finale with its eight-measure passacaglia theme, stated clearly at the beginning by the winds. You may subliminally feel the eight-measure rhythm throughout the 30 variations, but you will be more conscious of the overall emotional trajectory. Brahms groups his variations in large blocks so there is no feeling of start and stop. A slower middle section opens with one of the most beautiful, sorrowful melodies ever written for the flute. After a recapitulation of the passacaglia theme, a dramatic set of variations builds to a tragic coda, powered by pounding timpani.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, triangle and strings.

Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2011

Friday, January 20, 2012, 8:15 p.m.

Friday, January 20, 2012, 8:15 PM.

New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Alsop appears frequently as a guest conductor with the most distinguished orchestras around the world.

In addition to her performance activities, she is also an active recording artist with award-winning cycles of Brahms, Barber and Dvořák.

Alsop attended Yale University and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at Tanglewood, where she studied with Leonard Bernstein.

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director

presents

Off the Cuff: Also sprach Zarathustra!

Marin Alsop, conductor

Also sprach Zarathustra Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Program Notes Also sprach Zarathustra

Richard Strauss Born June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany; died Sept. 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

The concert will end at approximately 9:30 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Alsop photo by DeaN Alexander

Marin Alsop, conductor Hailed as one of the world’s leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of conductor emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002 to 2008, and is music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California.

In 2005, Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this prestigious award. In 2007, she was honored with a European Women of Achievement Award, in 2008 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 Musical America named her “Conductor of the Year.”

In November 2010, she was inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame.

In February 2011, Alsop was named the music director of the Orquestra Sinfônica do estado de São Paulo, or the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, effective for the 2012-13 season. Alsop also was named to The Guardian’s Top 100 Women list in March 2011.

This spring Alsop was named an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre in London.

A regular guest conductor with the

With his sixth tone poem, Also sprach Zarathustra of 1896, Richard Strauss decisively proved that he was the most audacious composer in Europe.

Not content to express a straightforward story in music as he had done with his previous Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, here he took on the most controversial philosophical treatise of the day: Friedrich Nietzsche’s eponymous book, published in its entirety just three years earlier.

Moreover, this was the longest tone poem he’d yet written, and it demanded an even larger orchestra than his previous massive scores.

Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra is a series of 80 discourses on a variety of moral and philosophical topics, each of them ending with the phrase (in English): “Thus spake Zarathustra.” “Zarathustra” is the German rendering of Zoroaster, the sixth century B.C. Persian religious philosopher whose teachings are still followed by the Zoroastrians of India and the Middle East.

But the ideas promulgated in Nietzsche’s work are his own, not those

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 37

Friday, January 20, 2012, 8:15 p.m.

of the historical prophet. His Zarathustra lives apart from the world on a lofty mountaintop, from which he descends periodically to share his wisdom with unenlightened humanity.

Very roughly, Nietzsche opposed the constraints on man’s thinking and action imposed by traditional systems, including religion and science.

Humankind must cast them away in order to achieve a higher state of enlightenment.

The goal is a new order of being: the Übermensch or Superman, a concept hideously distorted by the Nazis in the 20th century.

As well as being drawn to Nietzsche’s rejection of traditional religion, Strauss was also attracted by the poetic beauty of his language. And despite the vilification he received, he was actually very conscious of the limitations of what his music could do.

As Strauss explained: “I did not intend to write philosophical music or portray Nietzsche’s great work musically. I meant rather to convey in music an idea of the evolution of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of development, religious as well as scientific, up to the ... idea of the Übermensch. The whole symphonic poem is intended as my homage to the genius of Nietzsche.”

Strauss’ tone poem is in one long, interlinked movement: the spectacular prologue, now firmly associated with Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film epic 2001: A Space Odyssey; eight sections bearing titles from Nietzsche’s book; and a quiet epilogue.

The crux of the musical drama revolves around the tension between C major, the key associated with Nature, and B minor/major, representing Humanity; just a half step apart on the scale, these keys are light-years apart harmonically.

Listeners often strain to follow the program sections and, since many of them flow together, inevitably get lost.

There are certain clear mileposts that will help you locate yourself, but generally it’s more satisfying simply to follow Strauss’ powerful overall trajectory.

Prologue: Representing Zarathustra on his mountaintop greeting the sunrise before descending to man’s world, this epic music opens with the most elemental of motives: a solo trumpet intoning C-G-C, an idea representing Nature that will reappear throughout the work. This rises to a resplendent C -major chord.

Then the music darkens to minor and descends from the mountaintop to a world full of fear and ignorance. This section, Von den Hinterweltlern, refers to those who seek meaning in religion and the promise of the afterlife.

Horns quietly quote the Gregorian chant setting of the Christian Credo, representing all religions.

Von der grossen Sehnsucht—“Of the Great Longing”—flows directly from the hymn. A buoyant, optimistic theme leaps more than three octaves from cellos to violins; it is the work’s second most important theme, representing humankind’s aspiring spirit.

Here it decisively rejects religion, represented by the organ intoning the “Magnificat” chant.

Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften—“Of Joys and Passions”— succeeds without pause and introduces a passionate new melody.

This section relates to Nietzsche’s words: “Once you had passions and called them evil. But now you have only your virtues. ... All your passions in the end became virtues, and all your devils became angels.”

With its voluptuous chromatic downward scales, the music suggests that Strauss’ passions are more erotic in conception than Nietzsche’s.

Toward the end, trombones cut through with an impatient theme, representing Satiety or Disgust.

The music then metamorphoses into mourning for Das Grablied— “The Grave Song”—a slow development of the “Passions” and “Man’s Spirit” themes.

Von der Wissenschaft—“Of Science”—provides a moment for listeners to find their bearings.

For science, Strauss chooses the

38 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

most learned of forms, the fugue, and begins it in the depths of cellos and basses. It is built from the C major Nature motive followed by the outline of the other polarity, B minor.

Turgid and clouded by thick chromatic harmonies, it provides even less comfort than religion, and the “Man’s Spirit” theme rejects it.

The struggle continues in Der Genesende—“The Convalescent”—in which the fugue returns and battles furiously with both the “Spirit of Man” and “Disgust” themes. This culminates in a grand restatement of the Prologue’s C major theme.

The next section contains some of Zarathustra’s most extraordinary orchestral writing: glittering music for high woodwinds and glockenspiel setting up Das Tanzlied.

This “Dance of the Superman”— Zoroaster’s celebration of his enlightenment—turns out to be a lilting Viennese waltz, and Strauss was roundly criticized for his frivolous choice.

But for him, the waltz represented the universal spirit of the dance, and he transfigures an unprepossessing tune with exquisite, scintillating scoring emphasizing the solo violin.

As the dance reaches its apotheosis, 12 bell strokes cut through the texture, introducing Das Nachtwandlerlied—“The NightWanderer’s Song”—Nietzsche’s culminating poem (“O Man! Take Heed!”).

Now the music closes in a quietly shocking epilogue. As violins and high woodwinds soar to a radiant B major chord, Humanity’s key, trombones and plucked low strings stubbornly interject Nature’s clashing C major.

Humankind’s enlightenment is never fully achieved, Strauss seems to say, and Nature’s mysteries persist despite our most fervent efforts.

Instrumentation: Three flutes, two piccolos, three oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, piccolo clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, six horns, four trumpets, three trombones, two tubas, timpani, percussion, two harps, organ and strings.

Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2011

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 8 p.m.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2012, 8 P.M.

● Strathmore Presents

Ethel Merman’s Broadway Starring Rita McKenzie Written by Christopher Powich and Rita McKenzie Musical Direction and Orchestrations by David Snyder Additional Material by Michael White Randy Slovacek, choreographer Eric Winterling, costume designer Paul Huntley, wig designer Matt Kraus, sound designer Daniel Foster, projections designer Set based on an original concept by Yael Pardess Directed by Christopher Powich ACT I “Gee, But It’s Good to be Here” Harold Karr and Matt Dubey Medley “The Parts I Played”

Roger Edens (1905-1970)

“Friendship”

Cole Porter (1891-1964)

“You’re the Top”

Cole Porter

“I Got Rhythm”

George Gershwin (1898-1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896-1983)

“Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries” Ray Henderson (1896-1970) and Lew Brown (1893-1958)

“I Got the Sun in the Morning (and the Moon at Night)”*

Irving Berlin

“There’s No Business Like Show Business”*

Irving Berlin

INTERMISSION

ACT II “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”*

Irving Berlin

“The Animal in Me”

Harry Revel (1905-1958) and Mack Gordon (1904-1959)

“The Hostess With the Mostess Irving Berlin (On The Ball)”*

“Anything Goes”

Cole Porter

“You’re Just in Love”*

Irving Berlin

“Some People”

Jule Styne (1905-1994) and Stephen Sondheim (1930-)

“World Take Me Back”

Jerry Herman (1931-)

“I Get a Kick Out of You”

Cole Porter

“Let’s Be Buddies”

Cole Porter

Medley “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” * Irving Berlin (1888-1989) “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun”* Irving Berlin “There’s No Business Like Show Business”*

Irving Berlin

“They Say It’s Wonderful”*

Irving Berlin

“An Old Fashioned Wedding”*

Irving Berlin

“Everything’s Coming Up Roses” Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim *Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. These selections are used by special arrangement with The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization on behalf of the Estate of Irving Berlin, 1065 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2400, New York, NY 10018.

All rights reserved.

Presented in association with Nellie’s Sports Bar The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage applause at Strathmore • January/february 2012 39

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 8 p.m.

Rita McKenzie

Launched off-Broadway at New York’s John Houseman Theater, Rita McKenzie’s personal success with Ethel Merman’s Broadway triggered a tour that took her to Carnegie Hall, Pasa-

dena Playhouse, Atlantic City and Las Vegas, plus eight cities in Japan.

Ethel Merman’s Broadway has been named the longest running one-woman show in theatrical history. McKenzie recently completed a critically acclaimed 10-week run of Ethel Merman’s Broadway at the Nederlander’s Broadway Series at the Gem Theatre in Detroit. In the fall of 2010 she played the show at the Laguna Playhouse where critics hailed the production and performance as one of the top of the season. McKenzie was recently nominated for a Broadway World Award for best leading actress in a touring musical for Los Angeles.

McKenzie has performed in the national tour of Neil Simon’s female version of The Odd Couple, and was honored for her outstanding portrayal of Olive Madison with a National Broadway Theatre nomination as Best Actress in a Touring Play. She also recently toured with Renee Taylor and Joe Bologna in Bermuda Avenue Triangle.

McKenzie starred in the Los Angeles

premiere of the off-Broadway musical Ruthless! at the Cannon Theatre and can be heard on the original cast album. She created the role of Phoebe Farber in Sam Harris’ production of Hurry! Hurry! Hollywood! in Los Angeles, and she played Maggie Jones in 42nd Street with Mariette Hartley. Her other starring roles include Aldonza in Man Of La Mancha, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, Belle Poitrine in Little Me, Domina in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Cleo in The Most Happy Fella, Widow Corney in Oliver!, and Nurse Custer in Whoopee!

In addition, McKenzie also toured the country in Merman’s signature role as Annie Oakley in the 50th anniversary production of Annie Get Your Gun opposite Glenn Yarbrough. An accomplished TV and film actress, McKenzie guest-starred on NBC’s Caroline in the City, and portrayed Mrs. Littlejohn on Frasier and Rita Marcus on the Family Channel’s Big Brother Jake, and had a recurring role on Daddy Dearest.

The World is Your Stage.

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Monday, January 23, 2012, 8 p.m.

Monday, January 23, 2012, 8 P.M.

Bryan Adams

Grammy Awardwinning singersongwriter Bryan Adams is on the road with his Bare Bones Tour, which includes selections from the album 11.

He has spent the past three decades making music history. In 1991 he released Waking Up The Neighbours, which included the single “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.” The song earned Adams his first Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, as it was written for the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

In 1995, Adams released the single “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” from the movie Don Juan DeMarco, which became his second Academy Award nomination.

A third Academy Award nomination came for “I Finally Found Someone,” from the movie, The Mirror Has Two Faces.

● Strathmore Presents

Bryan Adams: The Bare Bones Tour Gary Breit, piano Jody Perpick, tour manager Don Prodaehl, production manager Rob Nevalaien, monitor mixer Ewan McRobb, lighting designer Craig Pattison, guitar technician Cole Perpick, production assistant

The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

RESERVE EARLY FOR VALENTINE'S DAY. Celebrate with complimentary roses, Lindt chocolate, and bubbles.

Try our award-winning pizza & Italian food at Geppetto Restaurant next door.

Oakville Grille and

Wine Bar

(301) 897-9100

www.oakvillewinebar.com

www.geppettorestaurant.com Wildwood Shopping Center 10257 Old Georgetown Road Bethesda, MD 20814

(301) 493-9230

GEPPETTO

applause at Strathmore • January/february 2012 41

Saturday, January 28, 2012, 8 p.m.

Saturday, January 28, 2012, 8 P.M.

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director

presents

LIFE: A Journey Through Time Marin Alsop, conductor

Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Ludwig van Beethoven Op. 68, “Pastoral” (1770-1827)

Allegro ma non troppo Andante molto mosso Allegro Allegro Allegretto INTERMISSION

LIFE: A Journey Through Time Philip Glass Elements (1937-) Beginnings Arranged for orchestra by Michael Riesman

Out of the Sea

On Land

In the Air

Out of the Dark Planet of Life Concepts and images by Frans Lanting Visual choreography and technical direction by Alexander V. Nichols LIFE project editing by Christine Eckstrom Introduction narrated by Peter Coyote Produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Frans Lanting Productions and Dunvagen Music Publishers LIFE: A Journey Through Time was originally commissioned and produced by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music/Music Director Marin Alsop. (c)Frans Lanting/www.lanting.com LIFE: A Journey Through Time (2006) Philip Glass (b. 1937)/arr. Michael Riesman (b.1943) (all movements listed here) Music by Philip Glass © 2006 Dunvagen Music Publishers. Used by permission.

Images by Frans Lanting © 2009 Frans Lanting. Used by permission.

The concert will end at approximately 10:00 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

42 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Marin Alsop, conductor For Marin Alsop’s biography, see page 37.

Program Notes Symphony No. 6 in F Major, “Pastoral”

Ludwig van Beethoven Born Dec. 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany; died March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria

Beethoven spent most of his adult life as an urban man living in Vienna, but his heart belonged to the country. Even when he was confined to the city, he seldom missed a daily walk on the walls that then encircled Vienna and from which he could gaze off into the surrounding countryside.

During the summers, he escaped town and spent the warm months in outlying villages. Musical sketchbook in hand, he roamed the fields and woodlands from dawn to dusk. He looked forward to these rural sojourns, as he denoted, “with the delight of a child.

No man on earth loves the country more; woods, trees and rocks give the response which man requires. ....”

So perhaps it is surprising that we have only one “Pastoral” Symphony from his pen: a work unique among Beethoven’s output for its sense of geniality and relaxation. Almost simultaneously with this piece, written in 1807 and early 1808, the composer was creating his Symphony No. 5, the work that defines him in the popular imagination.

That symphony is terse, dramatic, harmonically daring and driven by a mood of heroic struggle. The “Pastoral” is its sunnier sibling: leisurely, lyrical and radiating a joyful acceptance of life.

Since Beethoven gave descriptive titles to each of the movements, Romantic composers and commentators seized on the work as an early example of program music: a genre that portrays scenes and events in musical terms. But this was not Beethoven’s intention, as he suggests in his subtitle for the work as a whole: “Pastoral” Symphony, or a recollection of country life. More an expression of feeling than a painting.” And in his

Saturday, January 28, 2012, 8 p.m.

sketchbooks he wrote: “All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a failure. … ‘Pastoral’ Symphony: no picture, but something in which the emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the pleasure of the country [or] in which some feelings of country life are set forth.”

Movement 1 (“Cheerful impressions awakened by arrival in the country”): The work’s serene mood emerges instantly in the gracious, naïve opening phrase of this sonata-form movement. Unusual for Beethoven, harmonies are simple and straightforward, and they will remain so throughout the work, except for the “Storm” interlude. The scoring is gentle: only strings and woodwinds are used in this and the second movement. We share with Beethoven the mood of contentment and happiness that he described himself as feeling whenever he arrived at his country haunts. Notice the ecstatic burbling of the solo clarinet near the end of the movement—reminiscent of birdsong, but also a sound of sheer delight.

Movement 2 (“Scene by the brook”): The gentle second movement is the heart of this symphony and one of Beethoven’s most sublime creations.

Arpeggios on muted cellos, violas and second violins conjure the murmuring sounds of the brook. The lovely themes unfold in leisurely, repetitious fashion in this music that is as lazy and intoxicating as a summer day. Real birdcalls appear in an exquisite passage near the end, in which the solo flute, oboe and clarinet mimic, respectively, the nightingale, quail and cuckoo.

Movement 3 (“Merry gathering of country folk”): In this scherzo movement we finally meet the people who populate Beethoven’s country landscape. According to Beethoven’s amanuensis, Anton Schindler, there was an amateur band that played at The Three Ravens Tavern near Mödling, one of the composer’s favorite summer haunts. These musicians weren’t the world’s most polished ensemble, but Beethoven loved them and even composed waltzes for them.

Their spirit and style influenced this jovial peasant-dance movement. The middle or trio section has two parts: a pert melody introduced by solo oboe and a boisterous dance that sounds like a real Austrian hoedown.

Movement 4 (“Thunderstorm”): In the most overtly descriptive passage of the “Pastoral,” the dance is suddenly interrupted by the ominous rumbling of thunder in the cellos and double basses.

The timpani imitates the crack of thunder; the piccolo shrieks overhead; and two trombones add to the ruckus. The frightening sound deep in the orchestra is produced by cellos playing rapid fivenote patterns, clashing against four-note patterns in the double basses.

Movement 5 (“Shepherd’s Song: Glad and grateful feelings after the storm”): The storm subsides, and a rainbow appears in the rain-cleansed air. Beethoven opens his uplifting finale with the yodeling call of a ranz des vaches or Swiss shepherd’s song, from which his “Hymn of Thanksgiving” principal theme immediately develops. When this theme reappears near the end, it gradually sheds its folk simplicity and grows in grandeur to a sublime apotheosis.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani and strings.

LIFE: A Journey Through Time

Philip Glass Born Jan. 31, 1937 in Baltimore; now living in New York City and on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Philip Glass is perhaps the most famous of all contemporary composers and yet also among the most controversial. In his book Minimalists, K. Robert Schwartz wrote: “Philip Glass is more than just a composer. By the 1990s, he [had] attained the enviable status of mass-culture phenomenon. No living composer has sold more recordings and become such a force in a larger cultural arena outside the classical music ghetto. In an age when composers tend to operate on the marginalized fringe of society, Glass is a happy exception, possessing a huge

and trendy audience that blends fans of rock ‘n’ roll, New Age and classical music.” But enormous popularity also breeds enemies, and for some listeners Glass is too “simple” and too commercially successful to win their approval.

Along with Steve Reich and Terry Riley, Glass was one of the founding fathers of the late-20th-century movement known as “Minimalism”: that radical repost to 12-tone serialism that promoted clear tonal harmonies, hypnotic rhythms and easy-to-assimilate melodies repeated over and over again in trancelike, time-suspending patterns. But today, Glass firmly rejects that term as only appropriate for his earliest music; while retaining many of those characteristics, his music today is more lush—even Romantic—and much more complex.

Unlike most classical composers who tend to create in isolation, Glass is a man who enjoys working with others. As he says, “The emphasis of my work has been on collaboration throughout, whether with [stage director] Bob Wilson or [novelist] Doris Lessing, whether in music-theater, film or dance. I’m convinced that this is one of the major reasons that I followed a path different from other composers. There was always input from another person.”

This gift for collaborative creativity has been particularly fruitful in Glass’ many extraordinary scores for films, both features and documentaries. His first major film score was for Godfrey Reggio’s ecological documentary Koyaanisqatsi (1983), in which his propulsive and hypnotic music fused with beautiful and harrowing images of “life out of balance,” as humankind seeks to dominate our planet. After another similar project with Reggio, Powaqqatsi (1988), came a series of compelling scores: Martin Scorsese’s Kundun (1997) about the early life of the Dalai Lama, Peter Weir’s black comedy The Truman Show (1998), The Hours (2002), Robert McNamara’s documentary The Fog of War (2003) and The Illusionist (2006). Some of the music we’ll hear in LIFE is adapted from his

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 43

Saturday, January 28, 2012, 8 p.m.

dramatic 1998 score for Dracula, set to the classic 1931 silent movie.

LIFE: A Journey Through Time is a remarkable new example of Glass’ interest in collaborating with other artists. During the winter of 2004, the renowned National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting approached Marin Alsop and her Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music about creating a multimedia work, combining his photography with symphonic music.

Already for four years he had been working on an immense project of capturing on film creatures and scenes from the farthest reaches of the globe, as a study of the evolution of life on earth. Looking at these extraordinary images, Alsop and the other festival leaders readily agreed. Their attention quickly turned to Glass—his powerful music for Koyaanisqatsi made him seem the perfect choice. Early in 2005, Alsop and Lanting met with the composer in New York and got his consent. Designer Alexander Nichols

was signed on to create the choreographic montage between the photography and the music.

Commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival with the generosity of Richard and Mary Solari, and Jack and Peggy Baskin, the musical version of LIFE received its world premiere at Cabrillo, conducted

by Marin Alsop, in July 2006. In February 2007, it received its East Coast premiere here with the BSO. Rather than creating a wholly new score for LIFE, Glass has drawn together music he had previously written for smaller ensembles and, with Michael Riesman’s help, has revised them for large orchestra; they constitute a virtual mini-survey of his more recent work. The work is divided into seven sections: “Elements,” “Into the Air,” “Out of the Sea,” “On Land,” “Beginnings,” “Out of the Dark,” and “Planet of Life.” Glass’ music for the first part of “Elements” comes from his film score for The Secret Agent and for the second part from Dracula. Music

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from his chamber opera Les Enfants Terribles accompanies “Into the Air,” while a portion of Orion, Glass’ music for the 2004 Olympiad at Athens, is used for “Out of the Sea.” “On Land” is accompanied by parts of a new untitled piano piece and selections from the short film Passage. Other portions of Les Enfants Terribles are used for “Beginnings;” music from another chamber opera La Belle et la Bête accompanies “Out of the Dark;” and music for the short Peter Greenaway film The Man in the Bath underscores “Planet of Life.”

Now open your eyes, as well as your ears, for a powerful multisensory experience such as you have never before encountered in a concert hall.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, three horns, three trumpets, three trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, celeste and strings.

Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2011

Sunday, January 29, 2012, 7 p.m.

● Washington Performing Arts Society Celebrity Series presents

Simone Dinnerstein, piano Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2 Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

The Cohen Variations Daniel Felsenfeld

(1970-)

Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118, No. 2 Johannes Brahms

(1833-1897)

Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826 Johann Sebastian Bach

Sinfonia: Grave; Andante (1685-1750)

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Rondeaux

Capriccio INTERMISSION Kinderszenen, Op. 15 Robert Schumann Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (1810-1856)

(From Foreign Lands and Peoples) Curiose Geschichte (Curious Story)

Hasche-Mann (Blind Man’s Bluff)

Bittendes Kind (Pleading Child)

Glückes genug (Happiness)

Wichtige Begenbenheit (An Important Event)

Träumerei (Dreaming) Am Camin (At the Fireside)

Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the Hobbyhorse)

Fast zu ernst (Almost Too Serious)

Fürchtenmachen (Frightening)

Kind im Einschlummern (Child Falling Asleep)

Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks) Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825 Johann Sebastian Bach

Praeludium

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Minuet I and II

Gigue The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Simone Dinnerstein, piano American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has been called “a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess,” by Slate magazine, and praised by Time for her “arresting freshness and subtlety.” The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many “Best of 2007” lists, including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker.

Dinnerstein has since signed an exclusive agreement with Sony Classical.

Her first album for that label, Bach: A Strange Beauty, was released in January 2011 and immediately earned the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Classical Chart and made the Billboard Top 200 list of top-selling albums in all genres.

Dinnerstein’s performance schedule has taken her around the world since her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 2005, performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Recent and upcoming performances include her recital debuts at the Kennedy Center, the Vienna Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Aspen and Ravinia festivals, plus performances in Cologne, Paris, London, Copenhagen, Vilnius, Bremen, Rome, Lisbon, and at the Stuttgart Bach Festival. Other debut performances are with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Kristjan Järvi’s Absolute Ensemble and the Tokyo Symphony. In applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 45

Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

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Sunday, January 29, 2012, 7 p.m.

New York she has performed in Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series, and in three sold-out recitals at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues.

Most notably, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center.

In addition, Dinnerstein has founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public and hosted

by New York City public schools. The concerts raise funds for the schools’ Parent Teacher Associations.

Over the past few years, Dinnerstein has been featured in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, “O” The Oprah Magazine, Time, Slate, Stern, Cicero, The Sunday (London) Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others.

Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Dinnerstein lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. with her husband and son.

Program Notes Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2

Frédéric Chopin

Born Feb. 22, 1810, Zelazowa Wola, Poland; died Oct. 17, 1849 in Paris

Chopin composed the two nocturnes of his Opus 27 in Paris in 1835. The second of these, the Nocturne in D-flat Major, is suffused with the dark and subdued atmosphere we associate with the nocturne. The left hand establishes a

steady accompaniment that will continue throughout, while the right hand has the main theme, a flowing and endlessly lyric idea that glides along smoothly (Chopin marks it Lento sostenuto). The music grows more complex and dramatic as it proceeds, and at the climax Chopin first asks that it be con anima, then con forza, and finally appassionato. At the end, the calm of the beginning returns, and the music closes quietly.

The Cohen Variations

Daniel Felsenfeld Born in 1970 in Washington, D.C.

A note by the composer: The Cohen Variations is a love letter to two women. I took the famous song “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen and attempted something between a transcription and a set of vivid variations. The tune is always there, but things ebb and swirl around it. But The Cohen Variations is more than a transcription: it is a translation. Because when you take a song and convert it to an instrumental version, you lose—and are then obligated to make up for—lyrics. And Cohen’s song is a textbook-perfect marriage of words and music—and he is very spare and raw with both. So in sacrificing that vital element, I felt obligated to make up for it—or make a piece that at least tried. He stays in the same key; in mine, the tune is put through three different areas (and iterations). He uses only four different chords, I use many more. His song never speeds up, my piece ebbs and flows. But I never lose track of my adoration for the song. The Cohen Variations is a love letter, then, to “Suzanne.”

But ultimately, this is a piece about Simone Dinnerstein, and a love letter to her capacities. Many people can play the piano astonishingly well (and she certainly can do that), but few are possessed of such an individual intimacy and intelligent breadth, and even though I want what every composer wants, hoping the piece will have a long, healthy life under many sets of fingers (many of whom will bring something specific and personal to the work should they want to endeavor) The

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Cohen Variations were made for—and are, in a way, about—Simone.

Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118, No. 2

Johannes Brahms

Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany; died April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria

Brahms had a curious relationship with the piano. As a young man, he made his reputation as a virtuoso pianist and in those early years composed huge works in classical forms: of his first five published works, three are massive piano sonatas, all written before he was 21, and there are sets of variations from this period that rank among the most difficult piano music ever written. The composer–described in these years by a friend as “the young, heaven-storming Johannes” —seemed on the verge of creating a vast (and heroic) literature for solo piano.

But then an unexpected thing happened: at age 32 Brahms simply stopped writing music for solo piano. Over the final three decades of his life, he returned to the genre only twice: in 18789 (when he composed ten brief pieces) and at the very end of his life, when he wrote the 20 pieces that make up his Op. 116, 117, 118 and 119.

The 20 pieces of these four final sets are all very brief (they may accurately be described as miniatures, for all last only a few minutes), and Brahms gave them a range of titles: capriccio, intermezzo, ballade, romance, and rhapsody. But these are general titles, and their use can seem arbitrary; Brahms himself did not distinguish carefully between them. Almost all are in ABA form: an opening theme, a countermelody usually in a contrasting tempo and mood, and a return to the opening material, which is always varied on its reappearance. This is intensely personal music, as if Brahms were distilling a lifetime of experience and musical refinement into these pieces as he returned one last time to his own instrument.

Brahms composed the six pieces of his Opus 118 in the years 1892-3. The Intermezzo in A Major is like a lullaby (Brahms’ marking is Andante teneramente: “tenderly”), and that gentle mood prevails throughout, though the

Sunday, January 29, 2012, 7 p.m.

center section is elaborate and varied before the subtle reintroduction of the opening material.

Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825 Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826

Johann Sebastian Bach Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig, Germany

When Bach moved to Leipzig in 1723, his musical duties changed. For his music-loving prince in Cöthen, Bach had written the great part of his secular instrumental music, but now–as cantor of the Thomaskirche—he was charged with producing music for religious functions, and the music flowed out of him at a pace that would have exhausted even a Mozart: from the late 1720s came several hundred church cantatas and the St. Matthew Passion. But Bach did not altogether lose interest in instrumental music–he had written the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier in Cöthen, and now in Leipzig he continued to compose for keyboard.

Bach’s set of six partitas, originally written for harpsichord, was composed between 1726 and 1731 and published in the latter year as the first volume of his Clavier-Übung (“Keyboard Practice”). In a wonderful introductory note in the score, the composer described these works as having been “Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh their Spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach.” Bach understood the partita to be a suite of dance movements—its name implies a set of “parts” —based on the traditional sequence of allemande-courante-sarabande-gigue. He adopted this tradition but made it his own by supplementing it with three of what he called “galanteries”: extra movements, somewhat lighter in character and intended to make the work more attractive to listeners. These consisted of an introductory movement (in a different form in each of the six partitas) and two extra dance movements.

The Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major dates from 1726, when Bach was 41. It opens with a flowing and stately Praeludium, whose progress is enlivened by constant turns. Each of the four

traditional movements of the partita has a distinct national origin. The Allemande (that name suggests its German ancestry) is traditionally a slow dance of serious character, usually in 4/4 time and in binary form; the present Allemande moves along rather quickly. The Courante (French for “running”) is a lively movement in triple time; this one dances along its steady triplet figurations.

The Sarabande, of Latin American and Spanish heritage, is a stately dance in triple time, while the concluding Gigue (derived distantly from the Irish jig) rockets along at a blistering pace and requires some deft hand-crossings by the performer.

The interpolated “galanteries” in this partita—they come between the Sarabande and Gigue—are a pair of minuets that are played without pause. The first dances nimbly along its hard-edged main theme, while the second–much shorter–is chordal and restrained.

The Partita No. 2 in C minor comes from 1727, when Bach was also working on his St. Matthew Passion. It opens with an imposing Sinfonia in three parts: the opening Grave is built on steadily-dotted rhythms, the Andante moves easily above a walking bassline, and the concluding section is a spirited fugue. The partita’s C-minor tonality gives the Allemande, Courante and Sarabande a wistful, dark cast, and Bach keeps the tempo restrained in these movements as well. The interpolated movement here is a Rondeaux in 3/8, athletic and poised, and then Bach springs a surprise: He drops the expected Gigue and in its place concludes with a brilliant Capriccio in binary form.

Kinderszenen, Op. 15

Robert Schumann Born June 8, 1810 in Zwickau, Germany; died July 29, 1856 in Endenich, Germany

Kinderszenen, one of Schumann’s most frequently-performed compositions, originated in an almost incidental remark that the teenaged Clara Wieck made to her future husband: She told him one day that he sometimes seemed like a child to her (this was apparently

meant as an incidental observation rather than a furious denunciation).

Schumann was struck by this remark, and in February 1838—while Clara was absent on a seven-month concert tour—he composed about 30 very short piano pieces that he regarded as “reminiscences of an older person” about memories of childhood (Schumann was 27 at the time). From these, he chose 13 and published them under the title Kinderszenen: “Scenes from Childhood.”

To Clara he wrote: “You will like them, but you must forget that you are a virtuoso. They make a great impression—especially on myself!–when I play them.”

Schumann was very much attracted to the world of the child (Clara’s chance remark contained a large measure of truth), and he composed a good deal of music for children, including the 43 pieces in the Album for the Young of 1848. Schumann was quite right that one need not be a virtuoso to play the Kinderszenen, though some of them are certainly difficult enough: He intended these “adult” reminiscences to be playable by children, and everyone who has had at least a couple of years of piano lessons has performed some of them. It should be noted that, despite the specific titles, Schumann was not aiming for exact pictorial representation in these pieces: as was often the case with this composer, he wrote the music first and then went back later and decided what they were “about.” Schumann commented that “the titles were given afterward and these titles are, in fact, nothing but directions for the performance of the music.”

In any case, listeners will discover that they already know many of these charming pieces. They are all brief (the shortest lasts about half a minute), each conveys one specific impression, and there is an endearing innocence about all 13. The longest of them, Träumerei, has become almost the archetype of the dreamy romantic piano piece, but all listeners will discover old favorites along the way as this music–nicely calculated to charm both children and adults–unfolds.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger

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Thursday, February 2, 2012, 8 p.m.

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director

presents

Bach’s “Brandenburg” Nicholas McGegan, conductor Qing Li, violin Jane Marvine, oboe Sandra Gerster, oboe Fatma Daglar, oboe Philip Munds, horn Gabrielle Finck, horn Andrew Balio, trumpet

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, Johann Sebastian Bach

BWV 1046 (1685-1750)

Allegro Adagio Allegro

Menuet; Trio 1; Menuet; Polonaise;

Menuet; Trio 2; Menuet

Qing Li

Jane Marvine

Sandra Gerster

Fatma Daglar

Philip Munds

Gabrielle Finck

Andrew Balio

Orchestra Suite from Naïs Jean-Philippe Rameau

Ouverture; Vif (1683-1764) Entrée majesteuse des Dieux et des Peuples de la terre

Sarabande

Gavotte vive Rigaudons Entrée des Lutteurs Chaconne Air de Triomphe Menuets

Tambourins INTERMISSION Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major, H. VIIe:1 Franz Joseph Haydn

Allegro (1732-1809) Andante Finale: Allegro

Andrew Balio Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Adagio – Allegro (1756-1791) Andante con moto

Menuetto: Allegretto

Allegro Presenting Sponsor: M&T Bank The concert will end at approximately 10:00 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore • Marriott Concert Stage

48 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Nicholas McGegan, conductor

Nicholas McGegan is loved by audiences and orchestras for performances that match authority with enthusiasm, scholarship with joy, and curatorial responsibility with evangelical exuberance.

Through 25 years as its music director, McGegan has established the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra as the leading period performance band in America— with notable appearances at Carnegie Hall, the London Proms, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the International Handel Festival, Göttingen, where he has been artistic director since 1991.

Also active in opera, he was principal conductor at Sweden’s perfectly preserved 18th-century theater Drottningholm 1993-96, running the annual festival there.

He has been a guest conductor at orchestras like the Chicago Symphony; Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras; St. Louis, Toronto and Sydney symphonies; the New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong philharmonics; the Northern Sinfonia; the Scottish Chamber.

He also has been guest conductor with opera companies, including Covent Garden, San Francisco, Santa Fe and Washington.

His discography of over 100 releases includes the world premiere recording of Handel’s Susanna, which attracted both a Gramophone Award and Grammy nomination, and recent issues of the same composer’s Solomon, Samson and Acis and Galatea— a rarity in that it unearths the little-known version adapted by Felix Mendelssohn.

McGegan was educated at Cambridge and Oxford and taught at the Royal College of Music, London.

randy beach

Thursday, February 2, 2012, 8 P.M.

Thursday, February 2, 2012, 8 p.m.

Andrew Balio, principal trumpet

Wisconsin native Andrew Balio was appointed principal trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2001 by Yuri Temirkanov.

Prior orchestral appointments include principal trumpet of the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta in 1994, and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de Mexico in 1990, in addition to the Boston Philharmonic. He has also been a guest soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic of Norway. His solo debut was at age 15 with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, playing the Haydn Concerto.

As a soloist, Balio has appeared throughout Europe, South America, Japan and the U.S. under such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Yuri Temirkanov, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Günther Herbig. This coming year, he will premiere a concerto being written for him by Sergey Yevtushenko at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

As a teacher, Balio has taught master classes regularly in Russia and Italy, and the Conservatorio Nacional of Mexico, as well as in Brazil, Chile, Scandinavia, Israel, Japan and the U.S. He has recorded for the Sony, RCA, Angel, Phillips and Teldec labels.

Program Notes Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major

Johann Sebastian Bach

christian colberg

Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany

Like Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Bach’s six Brandenburg concertos did not win widespread fame until the age of the phonograph. Even the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg—a Prussian principality near

Berlin—to whom Bach sent these works in March 1721, may never have had them played by his court orchestra, nor apparently did he send Bach any acknowledgement or payment.

But, fortunately, he did preserve them in his court library; otherwise, these masterpieces of Bach’s instrumental art might have been lost to us, as were many of the works he wrote for the court of Cöthen between 1717 and 1722. That would have been a terrible loss, indeed, for as Bach scholar Malcolm Boyd writes, “the ‘Brandenburg’ Concertos show us the composer at his most cheerful and invigorating, and they are blessed with a tunefulness and rhythmic vitality which he rarely surpassed.”

Bach’s Cöthen period were years of great productivity. His employer, Prince Leopold, was an accomplished musician who sang and played the violin, viola da gamba and cello. The prince maintained a rich musical tradition at the court and an orchestra of approximately 17 very able musicians.

But by 1721, Bach was beginning to grow restless, and the sudden death of the prince’s first wife, followed by his remarriage to a woman with no interest in music, led the composer to look for other opportunities. He had met the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1719, and the nobleman had expressed interest in seeing more of his music.

Now he gathered together six of his best concertos, each scored for a different ensemble of orchestral and solo instruments, to send to the Margrave as an advertisement of his artistry.

Part of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1—movements one, two, and four—may have been written even earlier, probably in 1713, as a sinfonia for Cantata No. 208. The third movement was added later in Cöthen. Concerto No. 1 is scored for quite a large and richly colored ensemble, balanced between strings and wind instruments.

Bach also included the violino piccolo as one of the solo instruments: a small violin tuned somewhat higher than a normal violin.

The energetic first movement in F

major is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of contrasting colors bringing forward the three groups of his ensemble: the warm, heraldic sound of the two horns, the pungent trio of oboes and the smooth ensemble of strings, which carries the main ritornello, or returning, theme.

In D minor, the Adagio second movement is music of real pathos, even tragedy. Two soloists take the spotlight here: the first oboe and the little violino, often echoing each other in close counterpoint. But the main ensemble is also more deeply involved in singing this poignant song than we would hear in a Vivaldi slow movement. Throughout, the music is driven by disturbing harmonies and dissonance. Bach concludes with an extended coda that deepens the sorrow.

In a rolling 6/8 meter, movement three is the most danceable of the four. It again features the violino as soloist, but both the first horn and the first oboe also play solo roles.

The closing Minuet provides an extra movement beyond the usual three, and with its three contrasting trio sections, it is designed to show off again the three different instrumental groups. The first trio section moves to D minor and features an actual trio of players: two oboes and a bassoon. The second trio is a polacca or polonaise for the strings. The third trio is a lively workout for the two horns over ticktocking oboes. The Minuet itself returns over and over as a stately refrain.

Instrumentation: Soli: Piccolo, violin, three oboes, and two horns, with one bassoon, strings and harpsichord.

Orchestral Suite from Naïs

Jean-Philippe Rameau Born Sept. 25, 1683 in Dijon, France; died Sept. 12, 1764 in Paris

A contemporary of J.S. Bach and the greatest of the French late-Baroque composers, Jean-Philippe Rameau lived long enough—to just days before his 81st birthday—to combine two disparate musical careers in one lifetime. For

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 49

Thursday, February 2, 2012, 8 p.m.

his first career, he was one of France’s most renowned organists and also one of the 18th century’s most important music theoreticians. Rameau was largely selftaught as a composer, and his Treatise on Harmony (1722) and numerous other books and articles about the principles of musical composition instructed musicians for generations after.

In the early 1730s, when he had reached the age of 50, Rameau turned his attention to dramatic music for the Paris stage. Astonishingly, he then created some 60 operas, ballets and sets of theatrical incidental music, before his death in 1764.

Premiered in April 1749, Naïs was commissioned by Louis XV to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October 1748, bringing to a close the War of the Austrian Succession, which had convulsed Europe for much of that decade.

Belonging to the “Heroic Pastoral” category of Baroque opera, Naïs is set in classical Greece. Introducing an allegorical representation of the war just ended, its fiery, bellicose Overture is a stunning example of the descriptive overture Rameau had made his specialty. It represents the storming of Olympus by the mythological creatures the Titans and the Giants. On the stage, Jupiter is shown armed with thunderbolts and surrounded by the gods. The Titans are defeated, and Jupiter—representing Louis XV of France—offers to share power with Neptune (George II of England). Since trumpets and drums were the traditional instruments of war, they are dramatically featured in this rhythmically exhilarating music.

In a prologue and two acts, the opera tells of Neptune’s successful wooing of the water nymph Naïs; this simple, conflict-free plot is a mere pretext for a series of beautiful scenic tableaux. The Prologue continues the Overture’s allegorical scene. To the stately “Entrée majesteuse,” the goddess Flora and her attendants process onto the stage to restore the verdure of the countryside destroyed by the war.

Then we hear a pair of rigaudons, a lively, popular dance style in two beats that originated in the south of France and was

a particular favorite of Rameau.

Act I takes place at the Isthmian Games in Corinth in honor of Neptune, at which Naïs awards the laurels to the victorious athletes. A dance competition follows the games, giving Rameau opportunity to create many traditional courtly dances, popular in the Baroque era. Among them is the folkbased tambourin: a high-spirited dance from Provence named for the two-headed Provençal drum that, along with fifes, provided its traditional accompaniment.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, two piccolos, two oboes, two bassoons, two trumpets, percussion and strings.

Concerto for Trumpet in E-flat Major

Franz Joseph Haydn Born March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Austria; died May 31, 1809 in Vienna

In August 1795, Joseph Haydn came back to Austria after spending the better part of the preceding four years in London, where he was the celebrity of the day, fêted by no less than King George III himself, who urged him to stay on in England. But Haydn was so sufficiently homesick that he decided to return to his far-less-glorious position at the Esterházy court, where he had served for four decades. His new boss, Prince Nikolaus II, was perhaps the least sympathetic of the four Esterházy princes in Haydn’s career, and he was more interested in church music than in symphonies. And so the last decade and a half of the composer’s career was primarily devoted to writing six masses and the majestic, Handel-inspired oratorios The Creation and The Seasons.

Nevertheless, the invention of a new trumpet inspired one of Haydn’s few purely instrumental works from this period in 1796 and, indeed, the finest concerto he ever wrote: the Concerto for Trumpet in E-flat Major. It was composed for the newly keyed trumpet devised by Anton Weidinger, the trumpet soloist at the Royal Imperial Theater in Vienna. The natural trumpet that had been in use until this time was a brilliant, but rather limited, instrument that could only play complete scales in certain

50 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

keys and certain parts of its range. Weidinger added keys to the instrument that enabled the trumpet to play scales anywhere in its range and all the half steps in between. Weidinger unveiled his new trumpet—and the masterpiece Haydn had created to show it off—at a concert in Vienna on March 28, 1800.

The concerto opens with an elegant and surprisingly lyrical first movement in sonata form. The violins sing a principal theme that is built around smoothly flowing scales: music that would have been impossible for the natural trumpet to play in the low register the trumpet uses when it takes up the theme a moment later. And Haydn then doubles the ante by filling his melodic lines with slithering half steps, again totally beyond the natural trumpet’s capacities.

Liberated from playing gap-scaled fanfares, the trumpet now revels in its ability to sing legato melodies with all the facility of a woodwind instrument.

The Andante second movement in A-flat major is even more melodious: an Italianate siciliano in lilting 6/8-time, whose principal theme is even marked cantabile (“singing”). Here the trumpet’s ability to move easily by half-steps permits a darkly poignant middle section in the minor mode.

The finale is a vivacious Allegro in the sonata-rondo form Haydn favored for his closing movements. The merrily dancing rondo refrain—one of those tunes you can’t get out of your head— dominates the music and drives a harmonically roving development in the movement’s central episode. Throughout, the trumpet’s playful fanfares recall its traditional function in court ceremonies.

Instrumentation: Solo trumpet and two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born Jan. 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria; died Dec. 5, 1791 in Vienna

Mozart‘s final three symphonies are among the most astonishing creations in musical history. Not only are they

Thursday, February 2, 2012, 8 p.m.

his greatest symphonies, but they were composed in just six weeks during the summer of 1788. To add to their mystique, it was long believed that Mozart wrote them without any commission or external stimulus and that they were never performed during his lifetime.

But Mozart scholar Neal Zaslaw has made a strong case that this was not so.

“The very idea that Mozart would have written three such works, unprecedented in length and complexity, only to please himself or because he was inspired, flies in the face of his known attitudes to music and life, and the financial straits in which he then found himself,” writes Zaslaw. “While he may often have found great personal pleasure in composing … he composed to pay his rent and be a useful member of society. … ” In the summer of 1788, Mozart was in severe financial straits. As he was composing this symphony he began writing a series of letters to his fellow Mason Michael Puchberg, begging for huge loans, to which Puchberg (and others)

generously responded.

The first movement’s slow introduction immediately seizes our attention with loud fanfares. Notice the rapid descending scales in the violins; they will become a prominent feature in the main Allegro section. The Allegro’s gracious principal theme slips in quietly as though we had suddenly opened the drawing-room door on a conversation in progress. Throughout this sonata-form movement, supple, lyrical passages play against loud, rhythmically driven ones, which ultimately dominate.

The Andante con moto second movement is an adventurous struggle between Romantic passion and Classical control.

A prim little dotted-rhythm theme in two parts gives Mozart startling developmental possibilities as the movement progresses. More startling still are two wild minor-mode interruptions which threaten to tear the movement apart with their unbridled passion and extreme dissonance. After each of these outbursts, the orchestra manages—barely—to

recover its poise with soothing woodwind writing and sweetly consoling responses from the violins.

Trumpets and timpani return for the very grand minuet, whose chugging strings exude virile energy. The middle trio section prominently features the two clarinets, the upper taking the melody and the lower providing a burbling accompaniment. The melody here was borrowed from a folk ländler, the Austrian forerunner of the waltz.

The finale is a real barnburner in the humorous, high-spirited style of Haydn.

Also à la Haydn, it uses just one hurtling theme to propel its sonata-form course. Particularly delicious is the marvelous fiddle passagework that gives this movement the feeling of a kick-up-yourheels Austrian hoedown. Mozart tips his hat one more time to Papa Haydn with an abrupt, witty close.

Instrumentation: One flute, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2011

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Friday, February 3, 2012, 8 p.m.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2012, 8 P.M.

● Strathmore Presents

All I Did Was Ask: An Evening with NPR’s Terry Gross

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Terry Gross

As the host of Fresh Air, NPR’s weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, Terry Gross’ interviews are heard by more than 4.5 million people on nearly 500 public radio stations. Her guests have included many of the most celebrated artists, writers, actors and musicians of our time, such as Philip Roth, James Brown, John Travolta, Sonny Rollins and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Gross is known for her thoughtful, probing interview style. In her trusted company, even the most reticent guest relaxes and reflects on his or her life and work.

But Gross doesn’t shy away from controversy or asking challenging questions. That’s why Bill O’Reilly terminated his interview with her. Her interview with Gene Simmons of Kiss inspired Entertainment Weekly to name Simmons “Crackpot of the Year— Male.” In her speaking engagements,

52 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Gross plays sound bites from interviews that went especially well and especially badly to illustrate her discussion of interviewing techniques. Then she does something else that she never does on her program: She talks about her own life and career, giving the audience a chance to interview her.

Gross began hosting and producing Fresh Air in 1975, when it was a local program broadcast by WHYY in Philadelphia. NPR has distributed the daily program since 1987, and it is now NPR’s most listened-to program, after Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Gross’ book All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists was published by Hyperion in 2004.

In 1994, Fresh Air received a Peabody Award, which cited Gross for her “probing questions and unusual insights.” In 1999, America Women in Radio and Television gave Gross a Gracie Award in the category National Network Radio Personality. In 2003, Gross received the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, for advancing the “growth, quality and positive image of radio.”

Her other awards include the National Book Foundation’s 2007 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, as well as the 2011 Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community.

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Saturday, February 4, 2012, 8 p.m. and Sunday, February 5, 2012, 3 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2012, 8 P.M. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012, 3 P.M.

Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, where he was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship.

His teachers there included Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Gunther Schuller, Gustav Meier and Maurice Abravanel.

Gajewski is also a winner of many prizes and awards, among them a prize at New York’s prestigious Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition and, in 2006, Montgomery County’s Comcast Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Achievement Award.

● National Philharmonic Piotr Gajewski, Music Director and Conductor

presents

All Tchaikovsky Piotr Gajewski, conductor Daniil Trifonov, piano

Daniil Trifonov, piano

“Polonaise” from Eugene Onegin, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Op. 24 (1840-1893)

iano Concerto No. 1, in B-Flat minor, P

Op. 23 Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso – Allegro con spirito

Andantino semplice – Prestissimo

Allegro con fuoco INTERMISSION Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture

1812 Solemn Overture, Op. 49 Sunday Concert Presenting Sponsor: Ingleside at King Farm All Kids, All Free, All the Time sponsored by The Gazette The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Piotr Gajewski, conductor

Piotr Gajewski is widely credited with building the National Philharmonic to its present status as one of the most respected ensembles of its kind in the region.

The Washington Post recognizes him as an “immensely talented and insightful conductor,” whose “standards, taste and sensitivity are impeccable.” In addition to his appearances with the National

Philharmonic, Gajewski is much in demand as a guest conductor. In recent years, he has appeared with most of the major orchestras in his native Poland, as well as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in England, the Karlovy Vary Symphony in the Czech Republic, the Okanagan Symphony in Canada and numerous orchestras in the United States.

Gajewski attended Carleton College and the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he earned a B.M. and M.M. in Orchestral Conducting. Upon completing his formal education, he continued refining his conducting skills at the 1983

This past summer, Daniil Trifonov won grand prix, first prize and a gold medal in the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Trifonov also won the audience choice award and the award for the best performance of a Mozart concerto.

A few weeks before winning the Tchaikovsky competition, Trifonov was awarded first prize and gold medal at the 13th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition. In addition, he also won the prize for the best chamber music performance, the Pnina Salzman Prize for the best performance of a Chopin piece and the audience favorite prize. He also won third prize in the 16th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2010.

Born in 1991 in Nizhny Novgorod, Trifonov is a graduate of the Gnesin School of Music in Moscow. Since 2009 has been studying with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Trifonov has already performed in Russia, Poland, Japan, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland, China, Canada, the United States and Israel. As winner of the Guzik Foundation Career Grant, in 2009 he toured Italy and the U.S., including his debut in New York Carnegie Hall in May 2009.

applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 53

Gajewski photo by Michael Ventura, Trifonov photo by Vadim Shultshorizonta

Saturday, February 4, 2012, 8 p.m. and Sunday, February 5, 2012, 3 p.m.

He has played with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev, Sinfonia Varsovia and Krzysztof Penderecki, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Israel Camerata Orchestra, Israel Sinfonietta Beersheva, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica “Giuseppe Verdi” Milano, Sinfonietta de Lausanne, Nizhniy Novgorod Philharmonic Orchestra, Yaroslavl Philharmonic Orchestra, Siberian Symphonic Orchestra, “Musica Viva” Chamber Orchestras, “Gnessin’s Virtuosi” Chamber Orchestra, Republic of San Marino Symphony Orchestra and others.

Trifonov has performed at international music festivals, among them Rheingau (Germany), Easter Festival (Russia), Arpeggione (Austria), Musica in Villa (Italy), Santo Stefano (Italy), Dame Myra Hess Series (USA), Festival Pianistico di Trieste (Italy), International Music Festival “Chopin and his Europe” (Poland) and the International Chopin Piano Festival in Duszniki Zdroj (Poland).

Program Notes “Polonaise” from Eugene Onegin, Op. 24

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Born May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia; died Nov. 6, 1893 in St. Petersburg

The plot of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin is derived from one of the greatest masterpieces of Russian literature, the great narrative poem by Alexander Pushkin that the poet described as “a novel in verse” in the manner of Byron’s Don Juan. Tchaikovsky and Kostantin Shilovksy created the libretto, after Pushkin’s poem. Tchaikovsky took only 10 months—from May 1877 to February 1878—to write this finest of his 10 operas, a story of unrequited love. It had its premiere on March 29, 1879, performed by the students of the Moscow Conservatory.

Eugene Onegin is the tale of a cynical, disillusioned young dandy, Onegin, who is tired of his carefree life and has retired to a country estate, where he and a young romantic poet, Vladimir Lensky, become fast friends. Lensky introduces Onegin to his fiancée, Olga, and her older sister, the sensitive and retiring Tatiana, who falls in love with Onegin and pours out her heart to him in a long letter. Onegin admires her frankness, but tells her that he does not share her love; she is too naive, too romantic, and he has become too worldly. At a ball on Tatiana’s birthday, Onegin flirts with Olga and is challenged to a duel by Lensky, who is killed. Six years later, at a fashionable party in St. Petersburg, Onegin meets Tatiana again and finds that she is no longer the shy, sensitive country girl he had once known, but a poised and sophisticated woman, the wife now of a wealthy prince. For the first time, Onegin realizes that he loves Tatiana and tries to arouse her buried affection for him, but he fails.

The polonaise was originally a stately court dance or a royal ceremonial march that was introduced to Poland by a French king who sat on the Polish throne in the 16th century. In the 18th century, when the Saxon Germans were the kings of Poland, the polonaise became a popular dance in the West and also an instrumental work independent of its dance origins. It was characterized by triple meter, moderate tempo, an absence of upbeats and a repetition of rhythmic figures. In the Classical era, polonaises embraced broader, more expressive melodies, but in the hands of the 19th century Polish composers, the polonaise became a musical symbol of the Polish people’s struggle for independence from foreign rule. The Polonaise is danced at the party in St. Petersburg, in the first scene of Act III. Piano Concerto No. 1, in B-Flat minor, Op. 23

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Nicholas Rubinstein, the director of the conservatory in Moscow, became the young Tchaikovsky’s mentor when the composer began teaching there.

54 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

Tchaikovsky was usually eager for Rubinstein’s advice on his works in progress, but when Tchaikovsky played him his Piano Concerto No. 1, Rubinstein was surprisingly negative and presented his opinion in harsh terms.

Three years later, Tchaikovsky could still narrate them vividly in a letter to a friend, (here abridged): A torrent then poured from his mouth, gentle at first, then bursting out with the force of a thundering Jupiter. My Concerto was worthless, unplayable; the passagework fragmented and clumsy beyond salvation; the music trivial and vulgar; stolen, in places, from others. Perhaps one or two pages were salvageable; the rest was to be thrown away or completely rewritten. An impartial witness would have concluded that I was an untalented idiot, a hack who had submitted his rubbish to a great man. “I shall not change a single note,” I answered. “I shall publish it just as it is,” and I did.

The bold complexity of the concerto initially shocked Rubinstein, but he eventually admitted his error and began to play the work as part of his repertory. Before that, with determination and resilience, Tchaikovsky sent his new concerto to the brilliant German pianist and conductor, Hans von Bülow, who gave the world premiere in Boston on Oct. 25, 1875. “Think what appetite for music the Americans have,” Tchaikovsky wrote to RimskyKorsakov. “After each performance, Bülow had to repeat the entire finale. That could never happen here.”

When Tchaikovsky went to New York in 1891 for the opening of Carnegie Hall, he conducted a performance of the concerto at one of the gala inaugural concerts.

This concerto is now so familiar that listeners often overlook its several interesting features. The first of these is the broadly paced opening section, Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso, which is not just an introductory flourish. The movement itself is a protracted and brilliant discussion between piano and orchestra. Each

Saturday, February 4, 2012, 8 p.m. and Sunday, February 5, 2012, 3 p.m.

theme becomes so thoroughly developed that Tchaikovsky never recapitulates it. The composer adapted the principal theme of the Allegro con spirito section of the first movement from a beggar’s street song. In 1879, he wrote to his benefactress Madame von Meck, “It is curious that in Little Russia every blind beggar sings exactly the same tune with the same refrain. I have used part of it in my Piano Concerto.” The second movement, Andantino semplice and Prestissimo, combines a slow movement and the scherzo, whose waltzing theme Tchaikovsky derived from a French popular song. The finale, Allegro con fuoco, contrasts lyrical and boisterous Slavic elements before arriving at its imposing close.

The score calls for an orchestra of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.

Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture (Third Version)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky was a young and inexperienced composer when he began a descriptive overture based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. He worked over the idea thoroughly with his friend Mily Balakirev, a self-taught composer of extraordinary natural gifts. Balakirev’s compositions never gained him a career or a place in history like Tchaikovsky’s, but he possessed one quality that Tchaikovsky completely lacked: self-confidence.

Balakirev suggested the subject, the musical style and form, and while the work progressed, criticized the themes and their organization; when Tchaikovsky tired of the piece and allowed his attention to wander, Balakirev steered him back to Romeo.

In November 1869, Tchaikovsky completed the score, and in March 1870, the Orchestra of the Imperial Russian Music Society of Moscow, conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein, premiered it. Unfortunately, the debut was a sad failure, and Tchaikovsky

(and Balakirev) turned to revision.

The new version, still unsatisfactory, was performed in St. Petersburg in 1872. Tchaikovsky briefly considered composing an opera based on Romeo and Juliet, but instead returned to the fantasy-overture and in 1880, 10 years after his first revision of the piece, he completed the popular third version.

In it, he rewrote the ending and titled the piece, “Overture-Fantasia.” It was not performed until May 1886, but has become the standard version and is now performed regularly.

The overture follows the structure of sonata form, but the plot of Shakespeare’s play does not dictate a specific program for the music. Some of the themes do, however, represent specific character or plot developments in the play. According to Jonathan Kramer, the Andante introduction with chorale-type harmonies represents Friar Laurence. The Allegro that follows, consisting of quick scales and rhythms, represents the feud of the Capulet and Montague families. The love theme, of course, refers to Romeo and Juliet’s love, and is a quintessential romantic melody. In the coda all the main ideas of the composition recur and gain intensity. The death of the two young lovers ends the work.

The score calls for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, harp, and strings. Tchaikovsky attached no opus number to this work.

1812 Solemn Overture, Op. 49

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky One of the decisive events in the history of Europe took place in the year 1812.

Napoleon I, Emperor of France, led 500,000 soldiers into Russia, having conquered the rest of Europe; on Sept.

14 he took Moscow.

On Oct. 19, the Russians drove him out of the city and began the rout that was to destroy his army and ultimately free the continent from his rule.

To celebrate their victory, the Russians began to build a new cathedral in Moscow. This cathedral was to be consecrated in 1880 on the 25th anniversary of Czar Alexander II’s ascension to the throne, which was also to be celebrated by a grand Exposition of Russian Art and Industry.

The music committee for the event asked Tchaikovsky to write a big festive piece for the occasion to be performed in the great square in front of the new cathedral, so he decided to commemorate the events of 1812 in music. He wrote the music quickly in about five weeks of October and November 1880, but the cathedral was not ready and the performance did not take place. The work had its premiere on Aug. 20, 1882, at a concert devoted entirely to Tchaikovsky’s music, given in connection with another exposition.

While he was writing the work, he said, “Nothing is more unpleasant than manufacturing music for these occasions, but I did not have the courage to refuse. The overture will be very noisy.”

In fact, its loud and noisy character is completely appropriate to the occasion, yet Tchaikovsky was almost always pessimistic about the pieces he was working on, even the ones, like the 1812 Overture, that have become great favorites over the course of time.

This composition is a clearly descriptive work in which the French and Russian military forces do battle to the accompaniment of folk songs, hymns and the national anthems of their countries. Church bells ring, cannons boom, and there is even provision for adding a military band to the large orchestra, the whole more ceremonial than solemn.

The score calls for piccolo and two flutes, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, cannon, bells and strings, and the ad libitum brass band.

Copyright Susan Halpen, 2011

applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 55

Thursday, February 9, 2012, 8 p.m.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012, 8 P.M.

Jack Everly, conductor

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director Jack Everly, Principal Pops Conductor

presents

BSO SuperPops A BSO Valentine

“Down Abbey Road” Paul McCartney, arr: Hermann

(1942-)

“Just One of Those Things” Cole Porter, arr. Dragon

(1891-1964)

“Laura” David Raksin, arr: Hermann (1912-2004)

Selections featuring Tony DeSare

“That Old Black Magic” Harold Arlen (1905-1986) and

Johnny Mercer (1909-1976)

“Night and Day” Cole Porter

“Kiss” Prince (1958-)

“Two for the Road”

Henry Mancini (1924-1994) and Johnny Mercer

“Baby, Dream Your Dream”

Cy Coleman (1929-2004) and Dorothy Fields (1905-1974)

“How I Will Say I Love You”

Tony DeSare (1976-)

“I Love A Piano” Irving Berlin

(1888-1989) INTERMISSION

“Charade”

“Meglio Stasera”

(“It Had Better Be Tonight”)

“Moon River”

Henry Mancini, arr: Berens Henry Mancini Henry Mancini, arr: Hermann

Selections featuring Tony DeSare

“Just In Time” Jule Styne (1905-1994) and

Sammy Cahn (1913-1993)

“Marry Me” Tony DeSare

“Let’s Just Stay In” Tony DeSare

“Fire” Bruce Springsteen

(1949-)

“New Orleans Tango” Tony DeSare

“Autumn Leaves” Joseph Kosma (1905-1969) and

Johnny Mercer

“My Funny Valentine” Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and

Lorenz Hart (1895-1943)

“Something’s Gotta Give”

Johnny Mercer

The concert will end at approximately 10:00 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

56 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Jack Everly is the principal pops conductor of the Baltimore and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras, Naples Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), and is the music director of the National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth on PBS. Everly is the music director of Yuletide Celebration, now a 26-year tradition. These theatrical symphonic holiday concerts are presented annually in December in Indianapolis and are seen by more than 40,000 concert-goers.

Originally appointed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Everly was conductor of the American Ballet Theatre for 14 years, where he served as music director. Everly has teamed with Marvin Hamlisch in Broadway shows including The Goodbye Girl, They’re Playing Our Song and A Chorus Line. He conducted Carol Channing hundreds of times in Hello, Dolly! in two separate Broadway productions.

Everly has conducted the songs for Disney’s animated classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and led the Czech Philharmonic on the recordings In the Presence and Sandi Patty’s 2011 release, Broadway Stories. He also conducted the critically praised Everything’s Coming Up Roses: The Complete Overtures of Broadway’s Jule Styne.

In 1998, Everly created the Symphonic Pops Consortium, serving

everly photo by michael tammaro, desare photo by bill westmoreland

Jack Everly, conductor Tony DeSare, piano and vocalist

Thursday, February 9, 2012, 8 p.m

as music director. The consortium, based in Indianapolis, produces a new theatrical pops program each season. In the past 12 years, more than 225 performances of SPC programs have taken place across the United States and Canada.

Everly holds an honorary doctorate of arts from Franklin College in his home state of Indiana.

Tony DeSare, piano and vocalist

Singer, pianist and songwriter Tony DeSare was named a “Rising Star” male vocalist in the 2009 Downbeat Critics Poll. He has won critical and popular acclaim for his concert performances throughout the United States as well as in Australia, Japan

and Hong Kong. In January 2010, he launched an international tour at the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room in New York and in London, then continued on to cities such as Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C, Seattle, St. Louis and Palm Beach. “Let’s Just Stay In,” one of the original songs on his CD Radio Show, is featured in the film The Tooth Fairy.

Want You, DeSare’s debut CD, debuted at No. 16 on the Billboard chart when it was released in May 2005. He performed selections from the CD on national broadcasts of the CBS Early Show, NBC’s Weekend Today and the Fox News Channel.

DeSare composed and performed the title theme, “If I Had Drew,” to My Date with Drew, an independent documentary feature film about a guy who has 30 days and $1,100 to get a date with Drew Barrymore.

It has been featured on The Tonight Show, and The Today Show, as well as

in Playboy magazine, Entertainment Weekly and Premiere.

Shortly after moving to New York City in 1999, DeSare was cast as the star of the long-running Off-Broadway musical Our Sinatra. He was also featured in New York TV personality Bill Boggs’ OffBroadway show, Talk Show Confidential.

DeSare was born and raised in Glens Falls, N.Y., to a musical family and began singing and playing professionally at 17. By the time DeSare started college, he had opened for visiting headliners and built a large regional following. The Tony DeSare Trio was one of the most popular bands in central New York while DeSare attended Ithaca College.

DeSare’s noted versatility enables him to headline a variety of venues. He has performed at major jazz rooms such as Birdland and the Blue Note with his quartet; posh nightclubs like the Café Carlyle and Feinstein’s at the Regency; or with a 60-piece orchestra.

The Historic Avalon Theatre DC’s Only Independent Nonprofit Film Center Scan this QR code to see a short video about the Avalon:

You can make a gift to improve human health that costs nothing during your lifetime It’s true. By including the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in your estate plan, you’ll help guarantee our financial strength tomorrow, without affecting your cash flow or your family’s financial stability today.

Use a barcode-scanning app on your smart phone.

For more information on how you can make us part of your family, contact the Foundation at 301-402-5311 or visit us at www.fnih.org

Don’t have a smart phone? Visit www.theavalon.org/qr.

5612 Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 57

Friday, February 10, 2012, 8 p.m.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012, 8 P.M.

● Strathmore and AM Productions present

Wanda Sykes The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Make Every Meal Memorable

58 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Wanda Sykes

Wanda Sykes has been called “one of the funniest stand-up comics” by her peers and ranks among Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Funniest People in America. Her smart-witted stand-up has generated a multifaceted career that is thriving in many different areas and media.

Sykes recently wrapped the first season of her own late night talk show on Fox. The Wanda Sykes Show aired on Saturday nights. In October 2009 she was seen in her second HBO standup special I’m a Be Me. Sykes also returned as Barb in the CBS comedy The New Adventures of Old Christine in its fifth season.

Her first HBO comedy special, Wanda Sykes: Sick & Tired, debuted in October 2006 and was nominated for a 2007 primetime Emmy for outstanding variety, music or comedy special.

Sykes was seen in the feature films Evan Almighty, in which she co-starred with Steve Carell, the New Line feature Monster-In-Law starring opposite Jennifer Lopez and Jane Fonda, and was heard in the animated feature Over The Hedge for Dreamworks, as well as The Barnyard for Paramount Pictures.

In the fall of 2003 she was seen on Fox’s Wanda at Large, which she wrote, produced and starred in. She also has a one-hour Comedy Central special called Wanda Sykes: Tongue Untied. In addition, she can be seen on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm or heard on Comedy Central’s Crank Yankers as the voice of Gladys Murphy.

She spent five years as part of the HBO’s critically acclaimed Chris Rock Show. As a performer and writer on the show, she was nominated for three primetime Emmys and in 1999 won the Emmy for outstanding writing for a variety, music or comedy special.

She won three more Emmys, in 2002, 2004 and 2005, for her work on Inside the NFL.

Saturday, February 11, 2012, 8 p.m.

Saturday, February 11, 2012, 8 P.M.

concerto with the National Philharmonic and Gajewski, and Beethoven with the National Symphony of Costa Rica under the baton of Mykola Diadiura.

In January of 2012 he made his first appearances in South America, taking part in the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia.

Ganz is Artist-in-Residence at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and is on the piano faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. He lives in Annapolis.

● National Philharmonic Piotr Gajewski, Music Director and Conductor

presents

The Brian Ganz Chopin Project Brian Ganz, piano

Program Notes

Two Polonaises, Op. 40 Frédéric Chopin

No. 1 in A Major (1810-1849) No. 2 in C minor

Two Polonaises, Op. 40, No. 1 in A Major

Fantaisie (“Fantasy”) in F minor, Op. 49

Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major,

Op. 36

Born circa March 1, 1810, in Zelazowa Wola, Po-

and No. 2 in C minor

Frédéric Chopin land; died Oct. 17, 1849 in Paris

Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor,

Op. 66 (Posthumous)

Waltz in A Flat, Op. 42 intermission

Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61

Four Mazurkas, Op. 6

No. 1 in F-sharp minor No. 2 in C-sharp minor No. 3 in E Major No. 4 in E-flat minor

Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22

All Kids, All Free, All The Time is sponsored by The Gazette The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Michael Ventura

Brian Ganz, piano

Brian Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation.

Tonight’s recital is the second in his multiyear project with the National Philharmonic in

which he will perform the complete works of Chopin. The inaugural recital, called “masterly” by The Washington Post, featured solo works of the romantic composer. Future recitals will include all the chamber works and songs as well as the complete solo works.

The orchestral works will feature Ganz in collaboration with the National Philharmonic and Gajewski.

Since the January 2011 Chopin recital, Ganz has performed the Grieg piano

The polonaise was originally a stately court dance or a royal ceremonial march that was introduced to Poland by a French king who sat on the Polish throne in the 16th century. In the 18th century, when the Saxon Germans were the kings of Poland, the polonaise became a popular dance in the West and also an instrumental work independent of its dance origins. It was characterized by its triple meter, moderate tempo, absence of upbeats and repetition of rhythmic figures. In the latter half of the century, in the Classical era, polonaises embraced broader, more expressive melodies, but in the hands of the 19th century Polish composers, the polonaise became a musical symbol of the Polish people’s struggle for independence from foreign rule.

James Gibbons Huneker called the Chopin polonaises “heroic hymns of battle,” but while they breathe a militant spirit, they are not exclusively battle cries; the melancholy, poetic Chopin also constantly peers through. The two polonaises of Op. 40 have been said to depict the rise and fall of Poland. Anton Rubinstein actually labeled No. 1 “Poland’s Glory” and No. 2 “Poland’s Collapse.” No. 1 is universally known as the “Military,” for perfectly obvious reasons. It is straightforward, characterized by its brightness, power

applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 59

Saturday, February 11, 2012, 8 p.m.

and ceremonial, martial sound. It has been historically understood as evocative of the battle of the Hussards of Subieski. For a long time, Op. 40, No. 1 was the most popular and widely played of Chopin’s polonaises.

Chopin used some of his polonaises to express his rage at Poland’s loss of independence, and consequently, there is a sense of stormy violence in many of them. During September 1939, when Poland was invaded

by Germany at the very beginning of World War II, Polish radio broadcast the Op. 40, No. 1 polonaise daily as nationalistic protest, to rally the Polish people. Perhaps as a result, the Nazis later banned public performances of Chopin and destroyed the monument to the composer in Warsaw.

Op. 40, No. 2 was completed later in 1838, at the beginning of the winter that Chopin and George Sand spent on Majorca. It is a somber, march-like piece, Allegro maestoso, with a contrastingly lyrical central section. It begins with an ominous theme in the bass, with insistent chords that create an atmosphere of grim urgency. The second subject, a bit livelier, brightens the mood somewhat, but the dark character only recedes briefly in the gentle central section, whose subdued music is interrupted by violent outbursts. The foreboding main theme returns to bring the piece to its close.

Chopin dedicated these two polonaises to Julian Fontana, one of his Warsaw friends.

Fantaisie (“Fantasy”) in F minor, Op. 49

Frédéric Chopin

On Oct. 20, 1841, Chopin wrote from George Sand’s country estate at Nohant to a friend in Paris, “Today I finished the Fantasy. The weather is beautiful but I am sad at heart— not that it matters.” The immediate source of this sadness, according to some contemporary reports, was one of those frequent disputes that flared up between the composer and Sand, and their reconciliation that day took place in the presence of several visiting friends.

Whatever else may have been going on, Chopin had worked well. Fantaisie is one of his great pieces, rich in ideas and of a high order of invention.

The music begins with a slow funeral march that is almost a complete short work in itself. In a connecting passage, it doubles in speed to allow for the introduction of a series of dramatic and lyric episodes that are at once statements and developments; after a new slow section, some of the early ideas are recalled and extended. A brief, brilliant coda brings Fantaisie to an end.

Impromptu No. 2 in F-sharp Major, Op. 36

Frédéric Chopin

The Romantic period gave birth to the impromptu, a work intended to suggest the results of sudden inspiration.

The word “impromptu” first entered the musical vocabulary to denote an improvised piece, but by 1822, when the first impromptus were published, impromptu meant simply a work of spontaneous character, without fixed form.

Chopin’s four Impromptus are three-part pieces with contrasting themes, decorated and figurative or simple and lyrical, and there seem to be subtle links among them in the cast of their melodies.

By nature a very pianistic form, Impromptu No. 2 is a long and difficult work, which Chopin composed in 1839, not long after he and George Sand began to have a relationship. It was published in Leipzig in 1840.

Its contrasting themes are perhaps a graceful pastorale or nocturne and a march. Chopin begins with a motive that sounds like it might become the theme, but eventually becomes the chordal accompaniment. The left hand plays alone before the other hand presents the principal theme that repeats two notes (D sharp and C sharp) at its end, which occur in the beginning of the initial accompaniment phrase. The flamboyant second half of the theme then sounds, and then the two ideas are repeated. In the march-like central section, Chopin again uses a dotted figure, as he did in the second half of the theme in the

60 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

initial section. The first theme returns to round off the ternary form, before the coda, which is as long as all the material that came before and technically demanding with extremely fast scalar passages and extensive ornamentation.

Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66 (Posthumous)

Frédéric Chopin Chopin published three of his Impromptus a year or so after they were written, but for some reason, he kept aside an early one from 1834 that appeared in print for the first time 20 years later, with the title altered by the publisher to Fantaisie-Impromptu. For years musicians wondered why he had withheld this passionate and forceful work, for like every composer before and since his time, Chopin was eager to have the money and the reputation that only publication brings.

The best answer to this question came more than a century after the music was written, upon the observation of the close resemblance between the opening theme and that of an Impromptu by Ignaz Moscheles, a composer and pianist now almost unknown.

At that time, Moscheles was a figure of great importance, Mendelssohn’s mentor and Chopin’s friend. The similarity is too close to have been accidental. Chopin must have read through his friend’s piece and then decided to test the idea of writing a similar one by simply paraphrasing Moscheles’ opening measures.

Most musicologists as well as performers deem the contrasting section to be one of Chopin’s most inspired inventions, but he initially put the whole work aside, perhaps with the intention of rewriting it some day.

This work, like his other three impromptus, uses thematic material that is less lyrical than that found in his nocturnes. In the first and last sections of the work, Chopin uses a figure consisting of a complex three against four pattern actually made up of four groups of sixteenth notes against two sextuplets of eighth notes. The central section contrasts strongly with the principal section of this technically demanding work.

Saturday, February 11, 2012, 8 p.m.

Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 42

Frédéric Chopin

When Chopin made an early trip to Vienna, which was then the musical capital of his part of the world, the city was dancing to Joseph Lanner waltzes and those by the elder Johann Strauss, music that the young Pole recollected in the waltzes that he himself wrote years later.

Chopin’s waltzes may be played as brilliant idealizations of the Viennese ballroom waltz or sometimes, when a performer prefers to stress their harmonies and rhythms, as witty parodies.

The great Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 42, Vivace, composed in 1840, is a wonderful trick-piece in which the melody of the first thematic material naturally falls into rhythmic units of two beats subverting the three-beat waltz rhythm. The work as a whole contains a sequence of musical ideas rather than following the traditional ternary (ABA) form.

The drive to the conclusion is among the most exciting of all of Chopin’s waltzes, with an accelerando leading to an almost abrupt final flourish.

Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61

Frédéric Chopin

This extended major work, beginning with a slow introduction, is one of Chopin’s most lovely and memorable. It includes dance elements, a sonata-like development, and then what seems like a slow movement.

The sequence of formal elements in the Polonaise-Fantaisie seems unusual, that is to say the work does not follow expectations of conventions of the time. Yet that irregularity does not destroy the satisfaction this composition affords to the listener. Its rhapsodic continuousness does not lack a certain cohesiveness of its own. Chopin seems committed to thematic unity in this and his other later works, with musical motifs linking the main themes; lyrical passages are also unified and related by similar textures and rhythms that create a bond between them; nevertheless, the impression the listener gets is one

of spontaneity as Chopin emphasizes the unexpected.

Chopin composed the PolonaiseFantaisie in 1846 and dedicated it to Madame Veyret.

Four Mazurkas, Op. 6, No. 1 in F-flat minor, No. 2 in C-sharp minor, No. 3 in

an accented third beat, and its contrasting dynamics contribute to its color and sense of lively joyfulness as does the dialogue between showy right hand and the tricky left-hand subjects. The contrasting sections are softer and more reflective. The last piece is serious and very short with a repeating, gyratory melody.

E major, No. 4 in E-flat minor

Frédéric Chopin

Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22

Chopin was the first composer to adapt the style of the mazurka to art music.

Throughout his career he composed more than 50 mazurkas, more pieces than he composed in any other genre.

The mazurka is a folk dance that takes its name from the Mazury region, the ancient province of Mazovia in northeast Poland, where Chopin was born. It seems to have originated there as early as the 16th century, and in the 18th, Poland’s Saxon rulers introduced it to Germany. Like the waltz, the mazurka is always in triple meter; however, it differs from the waltz in its frequent displacement of accents and abundance of sharp, dotted rhythms. It captures the essence of Chopin’s music, a combination of song, dance and even storytelling that gives a human quality to all his music.

The four Mazurkas of Op. 6 (in Fsharp minor, C-sharp minor, E Major and E-flat minor) were published together in a group in 1832, and were the first mazurkas Chopin published. The set encompasses many modes of expression and a wide expanse of coloration.

The first piece of the four features an introspective, mournful theme, but a contrasting interlude is more lively and buoyant. This mazurka is somewhat rhythmically ambiguous, with accented third beats and tied downbeats, although the contrasting material is rhythmically simpler. The second piece is seemingly more dance-like and has a waltz-like bass line. Although the music seems straightforward, the interaction between the inner voices adds extra subtlety. One of the most Polish sounding of the set, it has a mood of both goodnature and intimacy. The third mazurka, Vivace, is the only one in a major key. Its driving rhythmic quality, with

Frédéric Chopin In 1831, when he arrived in Paris, Chopin completed the composition of a Grande polonaise brillante for piano and orchestra. Not even his greatest admirers have ever claimed that Chopin wrote particularly well for orchestra, but at that time, the quality of the orchestral accompaniment was not a critically important matter. A light background appropriate to Chopin’s own style of piano performance was what was needed and what he wrote.

In this Polonaise, Chopin gave new character to the style of the dance, expanding the form from the small pieces he had previously written by that name. Here he highlighted the virtuoso elements and increased the dimensions of the work. The piece has a three-part scheme with binary form in the Polonaise proper. The orchestral part had such little importance for the effect that Chopin intended to create that he often played the Polonaise, as you hear it today, as an unaccompanied piano solo.

In 1834, Chopin wrote an Andante for piano, an idyllic, rippling, nocturne-like piece that he named Andante spianato. He took the modifying word spianato from Italian to indicate a smooth and even level. Whether Chopin intended the term to be interpreted as applying to the characteristic qualities of performance or to signify that the Andante was to be played without the subtle rhythmic irregularities of a rubato, ordinarily an essential element of his performance style, cannot be determined. Chopin originally wrote and played the Andante and the Polonaise as two separate and discrete pieces, but after a while he began to play them together, and in 1836, he even published them as a pair connected by a bridge passage.

Copyright Susan Halpern, 2011

applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 61

Sunday, February 12, 2012, 7 p.m.

● Washington Performing Arts Society Piano Masters Series presents

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano Piano Sonata in C Minor, Hob.XVI:20

Moderato Andante con moto Finale allegro

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Suite for Piano, Op. 14 Béla Bartók

Allegro (1881-1945)

Scherzo Allegro molto Sostenuto

Images, Book One Claude Debussy

Reflets dans l’eau (1862-1918)

Hommage à Rameau Mouvement

INTERMISSION

Waltz in F minor, Op. 70, No. 2 Frédéric Chopin

(1810-1849)

Waltz in G-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 1

Waltz in D-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 3

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, Op. 47

Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 42

Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, No. 1

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 The WPAS Piano Masters Series is made possible through the generous support of Betsy and Robert Feinberg.

The Music Center at Strathmore • Marriott Concert Stage

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano The New York Times has called Leif Ove Andsnes “a pianist of magisterial elegance, power and insight.

Beethoven will figure prominently in Andsnes’

2011-12 season and beyond, in concerto performances, recitals and recordings. Together with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jiří Bělohlávek, he performed the Third Concerto in London and on tour in Spain. Soon after, he performed the First Concerto with the Vienna Symphony and Andris Nelsons, including concerts in Vienna’s Musikverein, and played the same two

62 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

concertos with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra in Gothenburg and Oslo.

Other highlights of the 2011-12 season include performances of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Hanover’s NDR Radiophilharmonie, Japan’s NHK Symphony, and his hometown orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic. While in Japan, he will also give recitals in Tokyo and Nagoya. Music by Chopin, Debussy, Bartók and Haydn will be featured on a recital program in North America and Europe. Among the many highlights of Andsnes’ 2010-11 season were two residencies: as Pianist in Residence with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and as Artist in Residence with his hometown orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic. An extensive spring recital tour took Andsnes to Boston, Chicago, and New York’s Carnegie Hall, followed by concerts in Rome, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, Hamburg, Geneva, and other cities.

Program Notes Piano Sonata in C Minor, Hob.XVI:20

Franz Joseph Haydn

Born March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Austria; died May 31, 1809 in Vienna

Haydn’s 104 symphonies and his 83 string quartets have become—generally—part of the repertory, but his 62 keyboard sonatas remain much less familiar. These sonatas span his creative career (he wrote the earliest about 1750 at age 18, the last in 1794 when he was 62), yet they are not widely performed, nor is a great deal known about them, and they have made their way into the repertory very slowly. As late as 1950, the distinguished piano pedagogue Ernest Hutcheson suggested that it did no real harm to the music if performers played individual movements from the sonatas rather than playing them complete.

The Sonata in C Minor raises the issue of the specific instrument Haydn was writing for. He originally drafted it in 1771, and on that occasion the manuscript was inscribed “Sonata for the Clavichord.” But Haydn held this sonata back for several years, revised it thoroughly, and published it as part of a group of six keyboard sonatas that

Lisa Marie Mazzucco

Sunday, February 12, 2012, 7 P.M.

Sunday, February 12, 2012, 7 p.m.

appeared in Vienna in 1780. As part of the revisions, Haydn added dynamic and phrasing markings that are possible on the piano but not on the clavichord, and it seems clear that ultimately this music was conceived for the greater expressive range of the piano (Haydn did not acquire his own first piano until the 1780s, but he doubtless had access to pianos long before that).

This is indeed very expressive music.

Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon has hailed it as “one of the very finest sonatas by Haydn” and has noted that it is “the first in a distinguished line of C minor keyboard sonatas by each of the principal figures in the Viennese Classical School, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.” The grave and shaded beginning of the opening Moderato may establish an atmosphere, but it does not prepare one for the variety of music that will follow; this movement can be urgent one moment, full of power and blistering runs, then subside into long and expressive pauses the next. The Andante con moto moves to A-flat major, and its opening theme—already ornate on its initial statement—undergoes a process of continuous variation. The Finale returns to the C minor mood of the first movement. Its slashing opening idea spins off energy as it goes, and Haydn’s writing here is particularly athletic and forceful, right through the emphatic concluding chords.

Suite for Piano, Op. 14

Béla Bartók

Born March 25, 1881 in Nagyszentmiklos, Hungary; died Sept. 26, 1945 in New York City

In 1912 Béla Bartók, then a professor at the Budapest Academy of Music and a well-known piano virtuoso, was struggling as a composer. He was having trouble getting his works performed or published, and after the rejection of his opera Bluebeard’s Castle by the judges of a national opera competition Bartók withdrew from public musical life. He stopped giving recitals and composing and instead devoted himself full-time to teaching and to collecting folk songs, which had become a passion with him. With his friend Zoltan Kodály, Bartók made

long tours through Romania, Transylvania, Hungary and North Africa, writing down the folk songs he heard and sometimes making crude recordings of them. In the process, Bartók collected well over 10,000 folk songs.

With the beginning of World War I in 1914, musical life went into decline all over Europe, and Bartók—with time on his hands—returned to composing.

During the war years he wrote the Sonatina for Piano, various choral arrangements and songs, the Second String Quartet, and the ballets The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin.

The Suite for Piano also dates from this period. Bartók completed the score in February 1916 and gave the first public performance in Budapest on April 21, 1919. The are four movements in the brief Suite for Piano. The opening Allegro shows its folk affiliations most readily in its jaunty opening theme, while the second movement—titled Scherzo—moves rapidly across the range of the keyboard. The Allegro molto is built on a pulsating ostinato in the left hand, over which the four-note main theme is heard. Curiously, the last movement, marked Sostenuto, is slow, and many have noted that the structure of the suite—several fast movements concluded by a slow one—is exactly that of Bartók’s Second String Quartet, written during this same period and also showing a North African influence. This final movement, quiet and oddly expressive, forms an effective conclusion to the suite.

Images, Book One

Claude Debussy Born Aug. 22, 1862 in Saint-Germain-enLaye, France; died March 25, 1918 in Paris

In the early years of this century, Debussy’s piano music, already a miracle of subtlety and tone color, took on a new depth and sophistication. It may be possible to find reasons for this in the composer’s life. After years of struggle, Debussy—now in his early 40s—had two significant successes: the opera Pelléas and Mélisande was produced in 1902, and La Mer followed three years later.

With these achievements behind him,

and with a new sense of orchestral sonority derived from composing the opera and La Mer, Debussy returned to composing for piano. He produced the first book of Images in 1905, the second in 1907.

Audiences should both take the title Images seriously and they should ignore it. It is true that some of these six individual pieces have visual titles and seem at first to proceed from the images they suggest. Yet Debussy’s intention here is much more subtle than mere tone-painting. He aims not for literal depiction of the title but for a refined projection of mood, a combination of title, rhythm and sonority to create an evocative sound-world all its own.

The first book consists of three quite different pieces. Some of Debussy’s finest works were inspired by water, and the first of this set—Reflets dans l’eau (“Reflections in the Water”)—is one of them. The repetition and growing complexity of the chordal melody from the beginning has inevitably been compared to dropping stones into the surface of water and watching the patterns of ripples interweave. The music rises to a shimmering climax and fades into silence on fragments of sound.

At the same time he was writing Images, Debussy was also editing an edition of the opera Les Fêtes de Polymnie by 18thcentury French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, and he wrote this movement quite literally as homage to the older composer. Debussy does not quote Rameau but instead writes in a baroque form, the sarabande, as a way of honoring a master whom he revered. A sarabande is an old dance (originally from the 16th century), and this one—in G-sharp minor—dances gravely. The abstractly-titled Mouvement is characterized by great rhythmic energy (Debussy marks it Animé); some have heard pre-echoes here of the sort of ostinato-based piano music Stravinsky and Bartók would write a generation later.

Waltz in F minor, Op. 70, No. 2

Waltz in G-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 1 Waltz in D-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 3

Frédéric Chopin Born Feb. 22, 1810 in Zelazowska Wola, Poland; died Oct. 17, 1849 in Paris

When Chopin died in 1849, a few months

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 63

Sunday, February 12, 2012, 7 p.m.

short of his 40th birthday, his final publication had been his Cello Sonata, Op. 65, which appeared in 1847. Chopin’s Opus 70, published in Berlin in 1855 six years after his death, consists of three waltzes, but these waltzes have nothing in common except their form, for they were composed over a span of 12 years (1829 to 1841).

At this recital, Leif Ove Andsnes performs the waltzes out of their published order. Chopin’s performance marking for the Waltz in F minor, composed in 1841, is Tempo giusto, and this music proceeds firmly along its way, with the ornate melody in the right hand flickering through a variety of moods. There is no tempo change for the somewhat brighter middle section, but this passes quickly, the subdued opening mood returns, and the music comes to an understated close.

Listeners will quickly recognize the Waltz in G-flat Major, also composed in 1841, as one of the movements later orchestrated as part of the ballet Les Sylphides. Its athletic opening theme (Chopin marks it brillante) gives way to a central episode marked cantabile whose falling phrases have a gracious Italianate flavor. The Waltz in D-flat Major is a very early work, composed in Warsaw on Oct. 3, 1829, when the composer was only 19. Its initial tempo marking is a comfortable Moderato, but it is the central section that had unusual meaning for the young composer: He had fallen in love with a girl named Konstantsya Gladkovska, and he wrote to a friend that she had been the inspiration for this waltz; in that letter Chopin copied out the theme of this central section as evidence of his emotion.

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, Op. 47

Chopin himself was the first to use the term “ballade” to refer to a piano composition, appropriating the name from the literary ballad: He appears to have been most taken with the lyric and dramatic possibilities of the term, for his four ballades fuse melodic writing with intensely dramatic—almost explosive—gestures. After Chopin’s death, Liszt, Grieg, Faure and Brahms

would compose works for solo piano that they too called ballades.

Formally, Chopin’s ballades most closely resemble the sonata-form movement (an opening idea contrasted with a second theme-group, and the two ideas developed and recapitulated), but the ballades are not strictly in sonata-form, nor was Chopin trying to write sonataform movements. His ballades are quite free in form, and their thematic development and harmonic progression are sometimes wildly original. All four ballades employ a six-beat meter (either 6/4 or 6/8), and the flowing quality of such a meter is particularly well-suited to the sweeping drama of this music. All four demand a pianist of the greatest skill.

Because of the literary association and the dramatic character of the music, many have been quick to search for extra-musical inspiration for the ballades, believing that such music must represent the attempt to capture actual events in sound. Some have heard the Polish struggle for independence in this music, others the depiction of medieval heroism. Chopin himself discouraged this kind of speculation and asked the listener to take the music on its own terms rather than as a representation of something else.

Chopin wrote the Ballade in A-flat Major in 1840-41 and performed the work in public in 1842. The least overtly dramatic of the four ballades, this one nevertheless contains music of extraordinary beauty. The opening theme—a quiet, rising figure—also contains the falling half-step that gives shape to the lilting second subject.

Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 42

The Waltz in A-flat Major—composed in 1840, just as Chopin turned 30—feels more like a breathless sequence of waltz-ideas than a tightlyunified structure in the expected ternary form. It has a brief introduction, a quiet but expectant trill, and off the music goes. Chopin supplies no tempo indication, but the implied marking is clearly very fast indeed, and the waltz ideas almost shower down around a listener. Particularly impressive is the

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first, where the left hand has the expected waltz rhythm 3/4, but the right-hand melody is accented in 6/8; this is quickly followed by a series of sparkling runs and further waltz-tunes. The central episode (insofar as one can be isolated) is a very brief, chordal waltz marked sostenuto, but Chopin passes through this quickly, as if anxious to get back to the energy of his opening ideas. These drive to an exciting conclusion, after which the sudden close feels almost brusque.

Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, No. 1

Chopin composed the two nocturnes of his Opus 62 in 1845-46: they were the last nocturnes he published during his lifetime. While the Nocturne in B Major shows the delicacy one expects from this form, this particular example is quite restrained. Chopin marks the opening both dolce and legato, and the music proceeds with unusual gentleness.

The middle section brings little contrast—Chopin marks it simply sostenuto, and it is just as restrained as the opening. Only the quietly-surging syncopations in the left hand ruffle the calm surface of this music. The most distinctive part of this nocturne comes at the return of the opening theme, for now Chopin buries it beneath a continuous (and very difficult) trill in the pianist’s right hand. Gradually this trill vanishes, and the Nocturne in B Major makes its way to the understated close.

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23

Chopin began work on the Ballade in G minor in 1831 in Vienna and completed it four years later in Paris. A portentous seven-bar introduction of uncertain tonality gives way to the opening episode, a waltz-like theme in G minor. The second theme is much more dramatic but, curiously, is related to the waltz theme.

This second theme undergoes a brilliant development, though this ballade lacks the recapitulation that would be expected at this point in a sonata-form movement. Instead, Chopin brings back the waltz theme briefly before launching into the coda, appropriately marked Presto con fuoco.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Sunday, February 14, 2012, 8 p.m.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 8 P.M.

goodwill ambassador for Children of Peace, a charity fighting to alleviate the plight of children caught up in the decades-old Middle East crisis.

●

Omar Faruk Tekbilek

Strathmore Presents

Yasmin Levy with special guest Omar Faruk Tekbilek Yasmin Levy, vocals Omar Faruk Tekbilek, ney, baglama, zurna, vocals Yechiel Hasson, guitar Vardan Hovanissian, flute, clarinet, zurna Miles Ofosu-Danso, electric upright bass Daniel Mandelman, piano Ishay Amir, percussion Presented in association with the Washington DCJCC The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Levy photo by Ali Taskiran, Tekbilek photo by Andonis Mamillos-Narada.

Yasmin Levy

Yasmin Levy’s most recent album, Sentir, was released in 2010 to great critical and public acclaim. With Sentir, Levy truly embraces a worldly sound. Produced by the acclaimed Javier Limón, her album draws songs not only from Ladino (“Mi Korason” and “Londje de Mi”) and flamenco (“Nos Llego El Final”) traditions but also from contemporary material. An important factor in Levy’s life and musical direction has been the legacy of her father, Yitzhak Levy, who died when Yasmin was only 1 year old. Sentir’s “Una Pastora” allows Levy, through the miracle of modern technology, to perform a posthumous duet with him.

The album garnered not only great critical acclaim from some of the most prestigious music critics at The New

York Times, USA Today and The Boston Globe, but also was highly praised by Banning Eyre on NPR’s All Things Considered. Sentir also went on to become one of Billboard’s Top 10 Best-selling World Music titles in winter 2010.

Levy’s deep, spiritual singing, passionate vocal delivery and striking looks continue to entrance fans. She has been nominated for three BBC (UK) Radio 3 World Music Awards and her appearance on BBC 2 TV’s Later…With Jools is still considered one of the highlights of that particular series. More recently, she has appeared on Greece’s ERT, which broadcast her Athens 2011 performance, in addition to appearances on television and radio in Australia, Germany, Israel, Sweden, Spain, Austria and Turkey. She was nominated for Holland’s Edison Award, the Dutch equivalent of the Grammys, for Best World Music Album for Mano Suave, released in 2009 in North America.

In September 2008, she was named

Omar Faruk Tekbilek was a musical prodigy born in Adana, Turkey to a family who nurtured his talents. At the age of 8, he began his musical career by developing proficiency on the kaval, a small diatonic flute. Tekbilek learned the intricate rhythms of Turkish music and eventually mastered several other instruments: the ney (bamboo flute), zurna (double-reed oboe like instrument with buzzing tone), baglama (long-necked lute) and oud (the classic lute), as well as percussion.

He moved to Istanbul in 1967 at age 16. He and his brother spent the following decade there as session musicians.

Tekbilek stayed true to his folkloric roots, but also explored Arabesque, Turkish and Western styles. In Istanbul he also met the Mevlevi Dervishes, the ancient Sufi order of Turkey. Though he did not join the order, the head ney player, Gunduz Kutbay, became another source of inspiration. After establishing himself as one of the top session musicians in Turkey, he began touring Europe and Australia. By 1971, he made his first tour of the United States as a member of a Turkish classical/folk ensemble. It was while touring in the U.S. that he met his future wife, Suzan, and in 1976 he relocated to upstate New York.

Tekbilek found few options for a Turkish musician in the United States, so he formed a band called the Sultans. They recorded five albums, but Tekbilek was still unknown outside his local musical community.

This was all about to change with the fateful meeting with Brian Keane in 1988. In the following years, he and Keane would produce another six recordings together, launching Tekbilek into the world music scene.

applause at Strathmore • January/february 2012 65

Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 8 p.m.

● Washington Performing Arts Society Celebrity Series presents

Emerson String Quartet Wu Han, piano tring Quartet in F Major, Op. 77, No. 2 S

Allegro moderato

Menuetto: Presto ma non troppo Andante Finale: Vivace assai

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25 Johannes Brahms

Allegro (1833-1897))

Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo Andante con moto Rondo alla Zingarese INTERMISSION

Quintet for Piano and Strings in Robert Schumann E-flat Major, Op. 44 (1810-1850) Allegro brillante In modo d’una Marcia Scherzo: Molto vivace Allegro, ma non troppo The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Emerson String Quartet

Over three decades, the Emerson String Quartet has amassed more than 30 acclaimed recordings since 1987, nine Grammy Awards (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize, and performed cycles of the complete

Beethoven, Bartók, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich string quartet works in the world’s musical capitals.

In 2011-2012, its 35th season as an ensemble, the Emerson String Quartet will perform extensively throughout North America and Europe.

The Emerson is Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University in New York, where the quartet’s members— in addition to conducting a concert series, teaching and coaching chamber music throughout the academic year— have conducted intensive string quartet workshops in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

The quartet has also overseen three

66 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Professional Training Workshops at Carnegie’s Weill Music Institute.

Formed in 1976, the Emerson String Quartet took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer alternate in the first chair position and are joined by violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel. The quartet is based in New York City.

Wu Han, piano

Wu Han ranks among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. She has risen to international prominence through her wide-ranging activities as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator and cultural entrepreneur.

In addition to her distinction as one of classical music’s most accomplished performers, Wu Han has established a reputation for her dynamic and innovative approach to the recording studio.

In 1997, Wu Han and David Finckel launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue of 12 albums has won widespread critical acclaim.

Program Notes String Quartet in F Major, Op. 77, No. 2

Franz Joseph Haydn

Born March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Austria; died May 31, 1809 in Vienna

Haydn returned to Vienna from England in 1795 to discover that his music was much in demand. In 1796, Count Joseph Erdödy commissioned a set of six quartets from Haydn, and these were eventually published as his Opus 76. In 1799, Prince Lobkowitz also commissioned a set of six quartets from Haydn. Haydn got the first two of these done, and then things changed.

In England, Haydn had been overwhelmed by the music of Handel, and in the years following his return from London his own interests were turning toward vocal music.

All of this might suggest a falling-off in

Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 8 P.M.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 8 p.m.

his final two completed quartets, but exactly the opposite is true; the two quartets of Opus 77 represent one of the summits of quartet-writing. In their balanced integration of all four voices, idiomatic writing, experiments with form and genial spirits (this music is just plain fun), these pieces stand at a level of quartet-writing that all subsequent practitioners of the form have been hard pressed to match.

If it is has become a cliché that Haydn liberated all four voices and made them democratic equals, then it should be noted that we return to an era of aristocracy in the opening movement of the Quartet in F Major, for the first violin pretty much dominates things here. Haydn avoids the traditional fast opening movement, choosing instead to set this at Allegro moderato. The gracious swing of the first violin’s opening phrase will dominate this movement, and it even intrudes into the accompaniment when he introduces his second subject. Haydn builds most of the development on this phrase, and at the end it drives the movement to a fullthroated climax.

Haydn reverses the expected order of the middle two movements. The minuet comes second here, but with it comes a further surprise: its marking is Presto, and the music zips along off-the-beat accents that often mask the downbeat. The trio brings yet one more surprise: Haydn slips into an unexpected key—D-flat Major— as the upper voices weave their long melody over the cello’s steady drone.

There is no true slow movement in this quartet; the third movement is built on an elegant little march that is marked Andante. It begins not as a quartet but as a duet: first violin and cello alone lay out the quiet central theme, and eventually the two middle voices join them. The movement is structured on continual repetition of this one theme: It is varied and embellished as it proceeds and finally rises to a splendid climax. The opening march now returns in its original form to lead the movement to a quiet close.

The Finale, marked Vivace assai (“Very fast”) seems to combine two quite different worlds: it is both a dance-finale and a sonata-form movement built on its firm opening idea. Full of energy, this

movement whips along, its high spirits enlivened with some very graceful counterpoint, deft use of silences, and enough foot-tapping fun to send an audience out the door feeling better about the whole process of being alive.

Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25

Johannes Brahms

Born May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany; died April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria

Like Mozart and Beethoven before him, Brahms did not make the move to Vienna all at once. He paid a number of visits before moving to that fabled city in the early 1860s, when he was in his late 20s. The Piano Quartet in G minor was among the pieces Brahms used to introduce himself to Vienna. Composed between 1857 and 1861, it had already been performed in Hamburg, with Clara Schumann at the piano. Reaction in Vienna was mixed; some critics were enthusiastic, but one called the quartet “an offense against the laws of style.” Exactly what he meant by that is unclear, for already evident in this music is the wonderful Brahmsian nobility, particularly in the sober, serious first movement.

The Piano Quartet in G minor is also big music, not just in its length, but in its air of gravity. And the wonderful gypsy finale is fired by Brahms’ lifelong passion for Hungarian music.

The massive opening Allegro is built on three separate theme-groups, all developed in some detail. The solemn pulse of quarter-notes at the very beginning recurs in a number of guises throughout the movement, which alternates the home key of G minor with lengthy passages in D major. For all its breadth and nobility, this movement often seems turbulent and troubled, and after a lengthy recapitulation it draws to a quiet close that resolves none of its tensions.

Brahms had originally called the second movement a scherzo, but he changed that name to Intermezzo, reflecting its gentler, less extroverted nature. This movement brings a sharp change of sound—the strings are muted, and their silvery color and swung

rhythms give this movement a mysterious, dark texture, in pleasing contrast to the powerful first movement. The trio section, marked Animato, seems to surge with new energy, though Brahms here retains the rocking 9/8 meter of the outer sections. The Andante con moto returns to the mood of the opening movement, but the center section brings a surprise: Brahms moves into shining C major, and the music marches smartly in the piano as strings provide stinging accents. The sense of a sturdy march is preserved here despite the music’s ¾ meter rather than the duple meter one expects in a march.

The concluding Rondo alla Zingarese (Rondo in the style of gypsies) is the most striking of the movements. Brahms had first come into contact with Hungarian music at the age of 15, when Hungarian refugees fleeing Russian rule had crossed Germany on their way to America. It was a case of love at first hearing, and this fiery finale, with its quick episodes and sudden tempo shifts, is saturated with gypsy music; it should properly be played by performers with flashing earrings and flowing kerchiefs. The basic rondo theme is built on a series of three-bar phrases, and along the way the episodes are by turn sultry, playful, swaying, fiery and languorous. Brahms rips the music to its close with a sizzling coda marked Molto presto.

Quintet for Piano and Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 44

Robert Schumann

Born June 8, 1810 in Zwickau, Germany; died July 29, 1850 in Endenich, Germany

On Sept. 12, 1840, Schumann married the young piano virtuosa Clara Wieck, a match that had been bitterly opposed by her father. With his father-inlaw’s lawsuits and assaults on his character behind him, Schumann settled down to one of the happiest and most productive phases of his life, and his interests appeared to change by the year. From 1840 came a series of song-cycles, from 1841 a number of symphonic works, and in 1842 Schumann turned to chamber music. But this was not an easy transition for a composer who did not play a stringed instrument, and the three string quartets he

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 67

Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 8 p.m.

wrote that summer gave him unusual difficulty. And so it must have been with some relief that Schumann fused the string quartet and the piano in his next composition—the Quintet for Piano and Strings, which he began on Sept. 23 and completed Oct. 12. The first performance, a private one with Clara at the piano, took place in November. A second performance was scheduled in the Schumann home on Dec. 8, but Clara was sick and so Mendelssohn replaced her and sight read the piano part; the members of the Gewandhaus Quartet (whose first violinist Ferdinand David would three years later give the first performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto) were the other performers.

Schumann’s Quintet for Piano and Strings is his most successful chamber work. The piano is the dominant force in this music—there is hardly a measure when it is not playing—and Schumann uses it in different ways, sometimes setting it against the other four instruments,

sometimes using all five in unison.

The opening is a perfect example of the latter. This aptly-named Allegro brillante bursts to life as all five instruments shout out the opening idea, whose angular outline will shape much of the movement. Piano alone has the singing second subject: Schumann marks this dolce as the piano presents it, then espressivo as viola and cello take it up in turn. This second theme may bring welcome relief, but it is the driving energy of the opening subject that propels the music, and—built up to nearly symphonic proportions—it powers the movement to a resounding close.

The second movement—In modo d’una Marcia—is much in the manner of a funeral march, though Schumann did not himself call it that. The awkward tread of the march section, in C minor, is interrupted by two episodes: the first a wistful interlude for first violin, the second—Agitato—driven by pounding triplets in the piano.

Schumann combines his various episodes in the final pages of this movement, which closes quietly in serene C major. The propulsive Scherzo molto vivace runs up and down the scale, and again Schumann provides two interludes: the first feels like an instrumental transcription of one of his songs, while the second powers its way along a steady rush of sixteenth-note perpetual motion.

The last movement is the most complex, for it returns not just to the manner of the opening movement but also to its thematic material. This Allegro, ma non troppo begins in a “wrong” key (G minor) and only gradually makes its way to E-flat major; while its second theme, for first violin, arrives in E major. At the climax of this sonata-form structure, Schumann brings matters to a grand pause, then re-introduces the opening subject of the first movement and develops it fugally, ingeniously using the first theme of the finale as a countersubject.

It is brilliant writing, and it drives the piece to a triumphant close.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Dana Reitz | Jennifer Tipton | Sara Rudner Necessary Weather

March 24 at 7:30p March 25 at 2:00p 2011/2012 PERFORMANCE SERIES

“Every dance performance uses theatrical lighting, but none has explored the interaction of light and movement with such striking originality as Necessary Weather.”

-The New York Times

FOR TICKET INFORMATION VISIT WWW.AMERICANDANCE.ORG OR CALL 866-811-4111 68 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Thursday, February 16, 2012, 8 p.m.

Lise de la Salle, piano

Thursday, February 16, 2012, 8 P.M.

In just a few years, through her international concert appearances and her award-winning Naive recordings, 22-year-old Lise de la Salle has established a presence as one of today’s most exciting young artists and a musician of uncommon sensibility and maturity.

A native of France, now living in Paris, de la Salle first came to international attention in 2005, at the age of 16, with a Bach/Liszt recording that was selected as Recording of the Month by Gramophone Magazine.

In this country, she has played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, the San Francisco Symphony, twice with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and she will make her second appearance with the Minnesota Orchestra with the Gershwin Concerto in F this season.

● Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director

presents

The Genius of Mozart James Gaffigan, conductor Lise de la Salle, piano Tragic Overture in D Minor, Op. 81 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart K. 466 (1756-1791)

Allegro Romanza Rondo: Allegro Assai

Lise De La Salle INTERMISSION

Overture to The Flying Dutchman Richard Wagner

(1813-1883)

Program Notes Tragic Overture, Op. 81

Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24 Richard Strauss

(1864-1949)

Johannes Brahms Born May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany; died April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria

gaffigan photo by Margaretta K. Mitchell, de la Salle photo by Lynn Goldsmith

Presenting Sponsor: DLA Piper Media Sponsor: WETA 90.9 FM The concert will end at approximately 9:50 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

James Gaffigan, conductor Hailed for the natural ease of his conducting and the compelling insight of his musicianship, James Gaffigan continues to attract international attention and is considered by many to be the most outstanding young American conductor working today.

During the 2011-2012 season, he makes débuts at the Spoleto Festival USA, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony, and returns to the Minnesota Orchestra and the Toronto, National, Dallas, Baltimore and Milwaukee symphony orchestras.

Some works by the musical masters provoked controversy, not only at their premieres but even long afterward. Brahms’ Tragic Overture seems to fall into this category. It puzzled its first audience at its debut in Vienna on Dec. 20, 1880, and it still splits listeners today. Its extreme dramatic contrasts, loose form, and the question of how it really pertains to the classical definition of tragedy have caused some to dismiss it, others—including this writer—to rank it among Brahms’ finest achievements.

Exactly what prompted Brahms to compose this piece remains unclear. His first biographer, Max Kalbeck, wrote that the work was intended for a proposed production of Goethe’s Faust at Vienna’s Burgtheater, yet Brahms insisted that he

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 69

Thursday, February 16, 2012, 8 p.m.

created the overture with no specific tragedy in mind. Composed during the summer of 1880 at the fashionable Austrian resort of Bad Ischl, it was in fact a companion piece to the composer’s merry Academic Festival Overture, composed in response to an honorary doctorate from the University of Breslau.

The work opens unforgettably with two loud chords that are the piece’s signature: a musical symbol of tragedy’s crushing power. From this Aeschylean beginning, Brahms builds a storm of angry passion, then lets it subside into a hushed, trancelike passage. A mournful lone oboe tries to soar while a quartet of bassoons and horns brutally crush it with the opening chords. Finally, the violins sing out the rich, Brahmsian second melody, but this, too, is a song that struggles to take flight.

The development section returns us to the opening chords and theme. But then Brahms drops his usual working-out procedures to create a contrasting lyrical intermezzo: lightly scored for woodwinds and strings, in a slower tempo, and emphasizing a gentle dotted-rhythm theme in the winds that’s later turned into intricate counterpoint by the strings.

The recapitulation sneaks in on us in a stretched-out reprise of the opening theme by trombones and horns. After a gentle, melancholy interjection by Brahms’ beloved clarinets, the work hurtles to a fast, loud finish that’s more emphatic than tragic.

Piano Concerto in D Minor, K. 466

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born Jan. 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria; died Dec. 5, 1791 in Vienna

Mozart was at the height of his fame in Vienna as composer/piano virtuoso in February 1785 when he wrote his celebrated Piano Concerto in D Minor.

This is the most dramatic of all Mozart’s piano concertos and one of only two he wrote in minor keys (the other is No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491).

The drama of the first movement is worthy of Mozart’s most powerful operas, especially those that do battle with the supernatural, like Don Giovanni and

Idomeneo. First we hear agitated syncopated music for violins and violas over an ominous, rumbling surge in cellos and basses. Shrieking violins soon take up the bass motive, transforming it into lightning bolts in a black sky. Michael Steinberg writes of this music that it is “all atmosphere and gesture—no theme.” Woodwinds introduce the second theme, anxiously questioning how to escape this terror. Ultimately, the violins close the orchestral exposition with a poignant melody, pleading for mercy.

On entering, the piano presents one more thought—like a heroic individual trying to calm the tempest. The middle development section returns to the storm music, giving the pianist opportunities to create quite a virtuosic tempest herself. Finally, the storm dies down, and the movement closes quietly with the beautiful pleading melody.

Movement two: In the clear air of B-flat major, the piano sings a serene and uncomplicated melody, like sunshine suddenly breaking through the storm clouds. In this rondo-form movement, we will hear this refrain returning several times. The middle episode brings a surprise: a return of the stormy mood, now in G minor. The gentle closing coda is especially fine, with beautiful writing for both the woodwinds and the piano.

The storm clouds roll back for the finale. The pianist begins melodramatically with a theme that is miles away from the typical merry rondo refrain used for concerto finales in that era.

But this is a more complex rondo form than movement two’s, incorporating the developmental features of a sonata as the orchestra soon demonstrates on its entrance. Before long, a flute-oboebassoon trio suggests a perky tune in F major, and the piano eagerly takes it up. And, ultimately, this tune, embraced by woodwinds and piano, will be the source of the happy ending in which stormy D minor is banished in favor of fair-weather D major.

Instrumentation: Solo piano and one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

70 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Overture to The Flying Dutchman

Richard Wagner

Born May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, Germany; died Feb. 13, 1882 in Venice, Italy

For centuries, sailors have told the admonitory legend of the “Flying Dutchman,” about the terrible fate that awaits any mariner foolish enough to pit his will against God, the devil and the sea. In this tale, the Dutchman once swore an oath that nothing could stop him rounding the Cape of Good Hope. For his blasphemy, God or the devil condemned him to continue sailing until the Last Judgment.

Though he knew the legend from childhood, Richard Wagner was especially captivated by Heinrich Heine’s retelling of the tale in his 1834 short story “The Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski,” for Heine added a new twist to the story: Every seven years, the Dutchman is allowed to set foot on land in hopes of finding a loving woman who will sacrifice herself and redeem him at last from his suffering.

The Flying Dutchman was the first of his operas to unfurl his unique and utterly revolutionary voice. And so perhaps it’s not surprising that it was not a success at its first performance in Dresden on Jan. 2, 1843.

The extraordinary thrust and intensity of this music—and especially its uninhibited use of brass instruments—was unprecedented for its period and established the richly colored, full-blooded sound that would become Wagner’s signature.

When the music becomes quieter, we hear the English horn intoning the haunting music of Senta’s ballad, in which she expresses her longing for the Dutchman even before she has met him. Later we hear a very different kind of melody: the jaunty, foursquare song of the Norwegian sailors, ordinary folk who live in a world of easy contentment denied to the Dutchman. These three themes contend stormily until the closing coda, in which Senta’s song carries the music to a soaring apotheosis representing the Dutchman’s longsought redemption.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, harp and strings.

Thursday, February 16, 2012, 8 p.m.

Death and Transfiguration

Richard Strauss Born June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany; died Sept. 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Death and Transfiguration (or Tod und Verklärung in its original German title) was the second of Richard Strauss’ enduring tone poems, following on the heels of Don Juan, which had set the musical world on fire in 1888.

In 1894, Strauss explained the tone poem thus: “It was six years ago that it occurred to me to present in the form of a tone poem the dying hours of a man who had striven towards the highest idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist. The sick man lies in bed, asleep, with heavy, irregular breathing; friendly dreams conjure a smile on the features of the deeply suffering man; he wakes up; he is once more racked with horrible agonies; his limbs shake with fever. As the attack passes and the pain leaves off, his thoughts wander through

his past life. His childhood passes before him—the time of his youth with its strivings and passions—and then, as the pains already begin to return, there appears to him the fruits of his life’s path, the conception, the ideal which he has sought to realize, to present artistically, but which he has never been able to complete, since it is not for man to be able to accomplish such things.

The hour of death approaches, the soul leaves the body in order to find those things which could not be fulfilled here below gloriously achieved in everlasting space.”

Though Strauss later disavowed this program, it remains an extremely clear guide to what we’ll hear in the course of this work.

Everything he described is easily recognizable in the music: the “heavy, irregular breathing” in the irregular rhythms of the strings in the opening measures; the wistful memories of childhood epitomized by the oboe’s poignant theme, which recurs throughout the

work; the dying man’s spasms of pain in the loud, agitated passages; his memories of passion past; and the moment of his death, with the soul leaving the body on a chromatic scale vanishing off the top of the orchestra’s range.

You will have to wait some 13 minutes before you hear the beautiful, ascending theme that stands for the ideal the dying man has pursued throughout his life, and it will appear only in a tentative, incomplete form in the brass and violins.

This theme does not come into its full glory until the work’s closing “Transfiguration” section. There it is repeated and expanded, and finally culminates in ethereal radiance at the top of the strings, lit by the ruddy glow of the brass.

Instrumentation: Three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, tam tam, two harps and strings.

Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2011

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Miranda Konstantinidou Designer & Founder

Come discover the first Konplott store in the USA. applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 71

Friday, February 17, Saturday, February 18 and Sunday, February 19, 2012

DISCOVER ELLINGTON SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012, 8 P.M.

● Strathmore presents

Big Band Ellington: Duke Goes Latin Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra Arturo O’Farrill, conductor Paquito D’Rivera, clarinet

Ellington Overture

“Oclupaca”

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012, 8 P.M.

Erika von Kleist (commissioned) (1982-) Michael Philip Mossman

(1959-) “Isfahan”

Duke Ellington

(1899-1974)

●

Strathmore

presents

Brian Stokes Mitchell Sings Ellington American Songbook

“Purple Gazelle”

Duke Ellington

“In A Sentimental Mood”

Duke Ellington

“Caravan”

“Peanut Vendor”

Duke Ellington

“Happy Go Lucky”

Duke Ellington

Afro Cuban Jazz Suite

Chico O’Farrill

Brian Stokes Mitchell, vocals Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra David Baker, conductor Manzari Brothers, tap dancers

Ellington Afro-Latin Suite

Michael Philip Mossman

(commissioned) “Perdido”

Juan Tizol

(1900-1984)

Duke Ellington/Juan Tizol

(1921-2001)

The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

72 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Friday, February 17, Saturday, February 18 and Sunday, February 19, 2012

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2012, 4 P.M.

● Strathmore presents

Ellington: A Sacred Concert Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra David Baker, conductor Morgan State University Choir Eric Conway, director Allan Harris, vocals Kehembe V. Eichelberger, vocals Manzari Brothers, tap dancers

“The Biggest and Duke Ellington Busiest Intersection” (1899-1974) “Something ‘bout Believing” “Tell Me It’s the Truth” “Hallelujah” “My Love” “Is God a Three-Letter Word for Love?”

“Will You Be There?”

“Ain’t But the One” INTERMISSION

“It’s Freedom”

“Ain’t Nobody Nowhere Nothin’

without God” “Heaven”

“The Shepherd”

“Come Sunday”

“David Danced Before the Lord”

“Almighty God”

“Praise God and Dance”

DISCOVER ELLINGTON also includes the following events

Friday, Feb. 3, 11 A.M. Ellington Standards Chris Vadala Trio The Mansion at Strathmore Chris Vadala, director of jazz studies at the University of Maryland, is joined by guitarist Rick Whitehead and John Previti.

Monday, Feb. 13, 7:30-9 P.M. “The Duke” The Mansion at Strathmore Jazz musician and educator Rusty Hassan will demonstrate how blues, spirituals, work songs, ragtime and New Orleans “jazz” were incorporated into Ellington’s compositions.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 7:30 P.M. Mostly Ellington Robert Glasper, piano The Mansion at Strathmore Robert Glasper will perform the music of Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and his own original work.

FRI., FEB 17, 7 P.M. Levine School of Music presents Channeling Duke Ellington Education Center, Room 309 The famous improvisations of the Duke Ellington/Jimmy Blanton duo are transcribed note for note and lovingly performed by bassist Karine Chapdelaine and pianist Bob Sykes alongside the performers’ own original improvised ideas.

Saturday, Feb. 18, 5 P.M. Discover Ellington: Panel Discussion The Mansion at Strathmore Panelists John Edward Hasse, curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution, accomplished jazz musician and educator Davey Yarborough and composer and author David Schiff (whose book, Ellington Century, will be released in February) will explore the influences, relevance and legacy of Duke Ellington in a discussion led by Strathmore CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl.

Monday, Feb. 20, 11 A.M.-4 P.M. Discover Strathmore: Duke Ellington Strathmore’s annual open house explores all things Ellington, with live performances and workshops.

Best of several sacred concerts Ellington composed, not a re-creation of one particular program.

The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 73

Friday, February 17, Saturday, February 18 and Sunday, February 19, 2012

ABOUT DISCOVER ELLINGTON As Strathmore explores some of our country’s most transformative composers in its season-long Celebrating American Composers series, we would be remiss not to observe the innovative work of a Washington, D.C. native, the incomparable Duke Ellington. Not only is he firmly rooted in the musical history of our area, but experts are also delving into the history of this most revered composer to offer new insight into his life, legacy, collaborators and contributions to American music.

In the next several weeks, we will get to know Ellington. Known to many as a jazz artist, Ellington is nothing short of an American cultural icon. His achievements place him at the center of American cultural history, and our American identity.

“Ellington’s 50 years of unstinting labor produced one of the largest oeuvres in 20th century music, over 2,000 works. This repertoire remains at once well known and hidden. Because Ellington composed most of his music solely for performance by his own orchestra he didn’t publish any but a tiny portion of his works in their fully scored form. Many of the published scores available today are actually transcriptions of recordings,” writes David Schiff in a recent review of Harvey G. Cohen’s Duke Ellington’s America.

After the period of modernism where music was regarded as either high or low art, composers such as Ellington and Gershwin were often considered the latter. Following the collapse of modernism, these composers can be reviewed with a contemporary perspective that gives fresh insight and significance to their work.

Please enjoy the concerts. I hope you will hear Ellington in ways you haven’t before. When you do, I am sure you will agree that this Washingtonian was so much more than just a jazz composer, but indeed was a gifted Broadway composer, classical composer and artist that helped define the American 20th century.

Shelley Brown Artistic Director, Strathmore

Brian Stokes Mitchell, vocals Brian Stokes Mitchell has enjoyed a rich and varied career on Broadway, television, film and recordings, along with appearances in America’s greatest concert halls.

Stokes’ musical artistry has kept him in demand by some of the country’s finest conductors and orchestras. He has performed selections from Porgy and Bess with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall; works by Aaron Copland and various contemporary composers at the

Hollywood Bowl with the L.A. Philharmonic under the batons of Leonard Slatkin and John Mauceri; and Broadway tunes at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center under the baton of Marvin Hamlisch. He debuted Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici’s “Rip Van Winkle” with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin.

Stokes headlined the Carnegie Hall concert presentation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific with Reba McEntire, which aired on

74 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

PBS in spring 2006 and was also released on DVD and CD. He reprised his role along with Reba McEntire in July 2007 at the Hollywood Bowl and returned there in 2008 to star as Javert in Les Misérables and in 2009 as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls.

Stokes’ Broadway career includes performances in Man of La Mancha (for which he received a Tony nomination and Helen Hayes Award), Kiss Me Kate (for which he received a Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Ragtime (Tony nomination), August Wilson’s King Hedley II (Tony nomination), Kiss of the Spider Woman, Jelly’s Last Jam, and David Merrick’s Oh, Kay! His television career took off with a seven-year stint on Trapper John, MD. Numerous other film and TV appearances include roles on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Frasier and Crossing Jordan.

In 2007 he released his self-titled album as the inaugural artist on the Playbill Records label. In addition to singing, Stokes produced the album and also wrote many of the arrangements and orchestrations.

As an author Stokes wrote the forward to At This Theatre and co-authored Lights On Broadway with Brian Stokes Mitchell, a colorful theatrical primer for young people.

The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra

Led by pianist and musical director Arturo O’Farrill and composed of 18 soloists who play classics of the Afro Latin tradition, The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra exemplifies the best that Latin jazz culture offers: rich tradition through music and timeless appeal around the world. Latin jazz is a general term given to music that combines rhythms from African and Latin American countries with jazz

Friday, February 17, Saturday, February 18 and Sunday, February 19, 2012

harmonies from the United States.

Afro-Cuban Latin jazz includes salsa, merengue, songo, son, mambo, bolero, charanga and cha cha cha.

Arturo O’Farrill also directs the band that preserves much of his father’s music, the Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra. He has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Fort Apache Band, Carla Bley, Lester Bowie, Harry Belafonte, Freddy Cole and Wynton Marsalis.

The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra was a resident orchestra at Jazz at Lincoln Center from 2002 to 2007 and has toured internationally. The large ensemble also commissions new work and leads educational events when on the road.

In 2006 the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra received a Grammy nomination for its debut album Una Noche Involvidable and in 2009 won a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year for Song for Chico.

The band is currently in its fourth season of New York concerts at Symphony Space. Ultimately, it seeks to provide an opportunity for a new generation of composers, arrangers and instrumentalists to further explore and define the music.

Arturo O’Farrill, conductor

Winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, Arturo O’Farrill was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. In 2002, O’Farrill and Wynton Marsalis created the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center due in part to a large and demanding body of music in the genre of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz that deserved to be much more widely appreciated and experienced by the general jazz audience. O’Farrill recently received the distinguished alumnus

medal from Brooklyn College and was a visiting professor of music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

O’Farrill has toured throughout the United States, Europe and Asia with groups of all sizes, and is also the recipient of the 2007 Outstanding Achievement in Jazz Award from the Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations and the 2009 Jazz Journalists Award.

A recognized composer, O’Farrill has received commissions from Meet the Composer, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Philadelphia Music Project and The Big Apple Circus.

Paquito D’Rivera, clarinet

An extraordinarily versatile musician, composer and Grammy Award winner, Paquito D’Rivera’s 50year musical career has crossed the boundaries of the diverse styles of jazz, classical and Latin music.

Born in Havana, Cuba, he performed at age 10 with the National Theater Orchestra, studied at the Havana Conservatory of Music and, at 17, became a featured soloist with the Cuban National Symphony.

A founding member of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, D’Rivera directed that group for two years while also playing with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. D’Rivera was also a founding member and co-director of the innovative Grammy Award-winning musical ensemble Irakere. In 2007, D’Rivera won his ninth Grammy for best Latin jazz album with Funk Tango.

In 2008, for the third year in a row, he was voted Clarinetist of the Year in a DownBeat Magazine reader’s poll.

D’Rivera has been a featured soloist with the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and the

Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has also performed with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, the Costa Rica National Symphony, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Bronx Arts Ensemble and the St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, among others.

D’Rivera also has received widespread recognition as a composer, receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition in 2007, as well as an appointment as composer-in-residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in 2007-08.

Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra

In 1990, the U.S. Congress, recognizing the importance of jazz in American culture, authorized the establishment of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra (SJMO).

As the national jazz orchestra, the SJMO perpetuates some of the greatest music that jazz has created. Through its 20 years, the orchestra has distinguished itself as one of the crown jewels of the Smithsonian.

The band has performed for audiences at the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center, the White House, U.S. Capitol and at the Apollo Theater. The orchestra also performed at 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, at the Ravinia and the Monterey Jazz Festivals, and in Canada, Europe, and the Middle East.

The orchestra is led by David Baker, a leading jazz educator, author and recipient of the American Jazz Masters Award given by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Manzari Brothers

Tap dancing siblings The Manzari Brothers, John and Leo, were born

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 75

Friday, February 17, Saturday, February 18 and Sunday, February 19, 2012

Leo Manzari

John Manzari

and raised in Washington, D.C. John is pursuing an undergraduate degree at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, and Leo is a junior at The Field School in Washington. The Manzari Brothers were among a celebrated group of artists who performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in honor of the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s inauguration. They have also performed at the 26th annual Mayor’s Arts Awards, the Larry King Cardiac Foundation Gala 2011, the DC Jazz Fest, the Jerry Lewis Telethon, the Astaire Awards Honoring Kenny Ortega and at the Arena Stage grand opening gala.

John and Leo were personally invited by Nigel Lythgoe to perform on the season finale of So You Think You Can Dance last year, and were also special guests on the Mo’Nique Show, where they performed with Maurice Hines and Suzanne Douglas.

John and Leo were each nominated for the 27th Helen Hayes Award for outstanding supporting actor in a resident musical in 2010 for Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies. That same year, the brothers received a grant from The Boomerang Fund for Artists.

Morgan State University Choir

The Morgan State University Choir is one of the nation’s most prestigious university choral ensembles. The choral forces of this critically acclaimed choir include The University Choir and The Morgan Singers. While classical, gospel and contemporary popular music comprise the choir’s repertoire, the choir is noted for its emphasis on preserving the heritage of the spiritual.

During its 1999-2000 season, the

choir was featured with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a newly commissioned work for the millennium, “All Rise,” by Wynton Marsalis.

In April 2008, the choir sang at Carnegie Hall performing Faure’s Requiem Mass with Bobby McFerrin and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and also performed there with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, contributing to the BSO’s performance of Leonard Bernstein’s seldom-performed piece, Mass.

Eric Conway, director

Eric Conway is the director of the Morgan State University Choir as well as chairperson of the fine arts department.

Conway received his doctor of musical arts degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he majored in piano performance and minored in conducting.

Some of his significant accomplishments as pianist include a tour of Eastern Africa sponsored by the United States Information Agency.

He has performed as soloist with several orchestras, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Concert Artists, Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Georgetown University Orchestra and the Millbrook Orchestra in Shepardstown, W.V. Conway’s choral accomplishments include working closely with some of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, including Robert Shaw, Sir Nevelle Mariner and Donald Neuen.

He has also conducted the BSO with Soulful Symphony in the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. concert.

Allan Harris, vocals

76 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Allan Harris is a world-class singer, guitarist and songwriter.

Perhaps best known for his interpretations of jazz standards, Harris’ smooth

vocals and guitar styling easily cross genres, from jazz to rock and blues.

A three-time winner of the New York Nightlife Award for outstanding jazz vocalist, Harris is regularly featured at the world’s great music festivals, including Jazz Aspen, Wien Jazz Festival in Austria and the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy.

Harris’ artistry transcends his diverse vocal performances. He has composed Cross That River, a musical celebrating the Old West as told through the words and music of an African American cowboy, and has received a Chamber Music America Grant for the project.

In addition to music, Harris is a long-time supporter of the Children’s Miracle Network, helping to raise funds for children’s hospitals, and has performed many times alongside Vince Gill and Amy Grant at the Challenge Aspen Gala, an annual charity concert/ golf tournament to benefit military service people who have sustained disabilities.

Kehembe V. Eichelberger, vocals

Professor and chair of the Department of Music at Howard University, Kehembe V. Eichelberger performs as soloist and in ensembles on all Kennedy Center stages, Wolf Trap Farm Park and numerous universities in the Washington, D.C. area. Eichelberger has performed with the Northern Virginia Opera, Washington Opera, Metropolitan Opera and Victoria Opera in Australia. She has appeared on radio, television and on nine recordings. She has had roles in opera, oratorio and musicals, including Carmen, Carmen Jones, Harlem Nocturne, Verdi’s Requiem Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

Friday, February 24, 2012, 8:15 p.m.

Friday, February 24, 2012, 8:15 P.M.

named her “Conductor of the Year.”

In November 2010, she was inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame.

In February 2011, Alsop was named the music director of the Orquestra Sinfônica do estado de São Paulo, or the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, effective for the 2012-13 season. Alsop was named to The Guardian’s Top 100 Women list in March 2011. This spring Alsop was named an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre in London.

A regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Alsop appears frequently as a guest conductor with the most distinguished orchestras around the world.

In addition to her performance activities, she is also an active recording artist with award-winning cycles of Brahms, Barber and Dvořák.

Alsop attended Yale University and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at Tanglewood, where she studied with Leonard Bernstein.

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Music Director

presents

Off the Cuff: Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony Marin Alsop, conductor

Symphony No. 5 Sergei Prokofiev in B-flat Major, Op. 100 (1891-1953)

Andante Allegro moderato Adagio Allegro giocoso

The concert will end at approximately 9:30 P.M. The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Marin Alsop, conductor

Hailed as one of the world’s leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in

classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of conductor emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002 to 2008, and is music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California.

In 2005, Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this prestigious award. In 2007, she was honored with a European Women of Achievement Award, in 2008 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 Musical America

Program Notes Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major

Sergei Prokofiev Born April 23, 1891 in Sontsovka, Ukraine; died March 5, 1953 in Moscow

The premiere of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in Moscow on Jan. 13, 1945 was an occasion charged with emotion.

The great Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter vividly recalled the moment as Prokofiev mounted the podium: “He stood like a monument on a pedestal. And then, when [he] had taken his place … and silence reigned in the hall, artillery salvos suddenly thundered forth. His baton was raised. He waited, and began only after the cannons had stopped. There was something very significant in this, something symbolic. It was as if all of

applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 77

DeaN Alexander

●

Friday, February 24, 2012, 8:15 p.m.

us—including Prokofiev—had reached some kind of shared turning point.”

Richter’s observation was correct. The cannons that interrupted the start of the Fifth Symphony were celebrating the news that the Soviet Army was crossing the Vistula River into the territory of Nazi Germany.

The end of World War II was now assuredly in sight.

The music that followed this joyful roar proved worthy of the moment, and 40 minutes later, the audience set off its own explosion.

For with his longest and arguably greatest symphony, Prokofiev had summed up the mood of the Russian people at this momentous time in their history with music that paid tribute both to the terrible suffering they had experienced and to the victory that would soon be theirs.

Prokofiev, too, had reached a personal turning point. Since he returned from the West to the U.S.S.R. in 1936, he had struggled to adjust to Stalin’s cultural whims. Now for a brief moment, he was at the apex of his career: no longer a suspiciously watched “foreigner” but the voice of the Russian people.

Later, Prokofiev commented that the Fifth Symphony was “very important not only for the musical material that went into it, but because I was returning to the symphonic form after a break of 16 years. The Fifth Symphony is the culmination of an entire period of my work. I conceived of it as a symphony on the greatness of the human soul.”

Oddly, it had been easier to be a composer in the Soviet Union during World War II than in the years before or after: Stalin was too busy prosecuting the war to worry about subversive artists.

Retreats far from the front lines were set aside for Soviet creators, and Prokofiev had spent most of 1944 at a “House of Creative Work” near Ivanovo, west of Moscow, with other leading composers, including Shostakovich, Glière and Khachaturian.

Buoyed by the news of the

successful Normandy invasion in June, Prokofiev wrote the Fifth very rapidly during the summer and early fall.

The sonata-form first movement, in the home key of B-flat major, is unusual for being a slow movement, and in fact slow tempos dominate the symphony.

It opens with the haunting principal theme sung in octaves by flutes and bassoon. Strings then reveal its beauty with lush harmonies.

A wartime mood prevails with drums and dark brass adding military color and weight. As the tempo quickens slightly, flute and oboe present the more flowing and optimistic second theme. The exposition section closes with a grand fanfare-like theme for full orchestra envisioning the victory to come.

Working out all these themes, the development section reaches a powerful climax, out of which the principal theme, now triumphant rather than wistful, is trumpeted forth by the brass.

To cymbal crashes and blows on the gong, the movement reaches a staggering conclusion—expressive of Russia’s will to prevail—mighty enough to close a symphony. But there’s still much more to come.

Leaving memories of the war behind, the second movement is a wry, ironic scherzo in D minor set to propulsive rhythms.

Prokofiev originally intended this music for his ballet Romeo and Juliet, written a decade earlier, and it is a very characteristic expression of his blackcomedy vein. A solo clarinet sings the winding, sassy principal theme.

The scherzo music segues smoothly into a slightly slower trio section, opened by oboe and clarinet singing a downward sliding tune. Subtle, imaginative scoring characterizes this section, which has an elusive, slightly macabre mood.

Many commentators have suggested that the third movement Adagio—the heart of this symphony—was patterned after the grief-laden third movement of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

The success of the Shostakovich work, written nearly a decade earlier, had made it a model of the ideal

78 applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

symphony for Soviet composers. But though Prokofiev’s Adagio is also music of mourning, it is more sensuous and artful than Shostakovich’s blunt cry of pain.

Its quality of lyric tragedy is embodied in its beautiful, poignant principal theme, introduced by the woodwinds but soon passed to its rightful owners, the strings.

The gorgeous string writing here is vintage Prokofiev, as first violins soar to the stratosphere, arcing against the second violins not far below.

The movement’s middle section is darker and more turbulent in its depiction of wartime suffering.

Two funeral-march themes—one emphasizing jagged dotted-rhythms and associated with strings, the other for winds and containing a sinister trill—strive against each other. This rises to a climax of shattering volume and dissonance before the ethereal close.

After a brief recall of the melody that launched the symphony (heard most clearly in richly divided cellos), the Allegro giocoso finale shakes off the sorrows of war and exuberantly prepares for peace. Its manic, almost comic mood is a violent contrast to the Adagio.

Over rollicking horns, the clarinet leads with a theme of Prokofievian drollery, followed by a chirpy idea for oboes, and finally a jauntily optimistic tune for flute.

The development transforms the clarinet theme into a smoother, very Slavic melody for low strings, which is given lively fugal treatment.

With whirring, clattering percussion and the Slavic tune blazing in the brass, the symphony closes with a joyful noise.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, piccolo clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano and strings.

Program Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2011

Saturday, February 25, 2012, 8 p.m.

Saturday, February 25, 2012, 8 P.M.

● National Philharmonic Piotr Gajewski, Music Director and Conductor

presents

All Bach Piotr Gajewski, conductor Nurit Bar-Josef, violin David Whiteside, flute Nicolette Driehuys Oppelt, flute Mark Hill, oboe Chris Gekker, trumpet Julie Keim, soprano Magdalena Wór, mezzo-soprano Robert Breault, tenor Christòpheren Nomura, baritone National Philharmonic Chorale

Gajewski photo by Michael Ventura. bar-josef photo rosalie o’connor

Brandenburg Concerto No. 2,

in F Major, BWV 1047 Allegro moderato Andante Allegro assai

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, in G Major, BWV 1048 Allegro moderato Adagio Allegro

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, in G Major, BWV 1049 Allegro Andante Presto

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

INTERMISSION Magnificat, BWV 243

“Magnificat” (chorus)

“Et exultavit” (aria, soprano)

“Quia respexit” (aria, soprano) “Omnes generationes” (chorus) “Quia fecit mihi magna” (aria, bass)

“Et misericordia”

(duet, mezzo-soprano and tenor)

“Fecit potentiam” (chorus)

“Deposuit potentes” (aria, tenor) “Esurientes” (aria, mezzo-soprano) “Suscepit Israel” (chorus)

“Sicut locutus est” (chorus)

“Gloria Patri” (chorus) All Kids, All Free, All The Time is sponsored by The Gazette The Music Center at Strathmore • Marriott Concert Stage

Piotr Gajewski, conductor

Piotr Gajewski is widely credited with building the National Philharmonic to its present status as one of the most respected ensembles of its kind in the region. The Washington Post recognizes him as an “immensely talented and insightful conductor,” whose “standards, taste and sensitivity are impeccable.” In addition to his appearances with the National Philharmonic, Gajewski is much in demand as a guest conductor. In recent years, he has appeared with most of the major orchestras in his native Poland, as well as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in England, the Karlovy Vary Symphony in the Czech Republic, the Okanagan Symphony in Canada and numerous orchestras in the United States.

Gajewski attended Carleton College and the University of Cincinnati, CollegeConservatory of Music, where he earned a B.M. and M.M. in Orchestral Conducting. Upon completing his formal education, he continued refining his conducting skills at the 1983 Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, where he was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship. His teachers there included Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Gunther Schuller, Gustav Meier and Maurice Abravanel.

Nurit Bar-Josef, violin

Nurit Bar-Josef, who made her solo debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in February 2001, joined the orchestra as concertmaster in September 2001. She previously spent three years as assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops and one year as assistant principal second violin with the Saint Louis Symphony.

An active chamber musician, she has performed piano quartets with André Previn at his Rising Stars Festival at Caramoor, and diverse repertoire at Tanglewood Music Center, and the festivals of applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 79

Taos, Garth Newel (Virginia), Portland (Maine), Steamboat Springs (Colorado) and in Philadelphia, New York City, Israel and Boston. As a chamber musician, Bar-Josef is a member of both the Walden Chamber Players and the Dryden Quartet, and is also a member of the new Kennedy Center Chamber Players ensemble.

David Whiteside, flute

The Boston Globe called David Whiteside’s playing “fiery and virtuosic” and The Washington Post wrote “dazzling,” “eloquent,” “sparkling virtuosity and multi-hued sonorities,” “evocative ... full, lustrous and imbued with an appropriately inquisitive spirit.”

Whiteside is principal flutist with the National Philharmonic, flutist with the Verge Ensemble of the Contemporary Music Forum, and performs and teaches at festivals in Burgos, Spain; St. Petersburg, Russia; Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Italy and at the Summit Music Festival in New York.

He has appeared with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Julius Baker in Carnegie Hall, with James Galway at the Edinburgh Festival, with the Aeolian Chamber Players at the Bowdoin International Festival and at the Bach Aria Festival at SUNY Stony Brook.

Nicolette Driehuys Oppelt, flute

Flutist Nicolette Driehuys Oppelt was born in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, and began studying flute at age 11 with Hans van Loenen, principal flutist of the Gelder’s Orkest in Arnhem.

After immigrating with her family to Charlotte, N.C., in 1977 she attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts for both high school and

college, studying with Philip Dunigan.

While there, she was a two-time winner of the school’s concerto competition. She also appeared as a soloist on the Dutch national television show Jonge Mensen op weg naar het Concertpodium (“Young People on Their Way to the Concert Stage”) with her father, conductor Leo Driehuys, on the podium.

Oppelt has been actively performing in the Washington metropolitan area since 1990. In addition to being a member of the National Philharmonic flute section, she serves as principal flutist of the National Gallery Orchestra, Washington Concert Opera, the Virginia Chamber Orchestra and the Amadeus Orchestra.

United States, Europe and Asia. The New York Times has described his playing as “clear toned and pitch perfect.” Currently a professor of trumpet at the University of Maryland, Gekker was a member of the American Brass Quintet for 18 years, and on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University.

He was principal trumpet with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and frequently performed and recorded as principal with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He has been a guest principal trumpet with the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony and remains in demand with many groups such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Mark Hill, oboe

Julie Keim, soprano

Mark Hill has earned a wide reputation as an oboe and English horn soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, recording artist and teacher. Currently principal oboe of the National Philharmonic, his orchestral experience includes performances with the New York Philharmonic, the New York Chamber Symphony, the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony and Orpheus.

In the area of chamber music he has appeared and collaborated with such artists as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Guarneri String Quartet, the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Bach Aria Group, the Mendelssohn String Quartet, Claude Frank, Jaime Laredo, Paula Robison, the Sylvan Winds and the Left Bank Concert Society.

Chris Gekker, trumpet

80 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

Chris Gekker, principal trumpet of the National Philharmonic, has been a featured soloist at concert halls throughout the

Nationally recognized soprano Julie Keim is known for her outstanding musicality and vital vocal quality. She has performed in a variety of venues, including The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Washington National Cathedral. She was featured soloist at the White House performing before President George W. Bush and the first lady for the National Day of Prayer.

Among the many ensembles with which Keim has been a featured soloist are the Santa Fe Symphony, Baltimore Choral Arts Society, Oratorio Society of Charlottesville, Texas Baroque Ensemble and The Desert Chorale. In the Washington, D.C. area, she has appeared with many of the leading musical organizations including the Washington Bach Consort, the Cathedral Choral Society and the National Philharmonic.

Keim’s concert repertoire comprises a wide range of works, including Carmina Burana, Ein deustches Requiem, Poulenc’s Gloria, Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert and the virtuoso solo cantatas “Exsultate, jubilate,” “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen” and Vivaldi’s “In furore.”

Not limited to recital and oratorio works, Keim’s virtuosity and versatility extend to classic American popular music.

Keim photo by Devon cass

Saturday, February 25, 2012, 8 p.m.

Saturday, February 25, 2012, 8 p.m.

Her first CD, Only Yesterday, was recently nominated for three Grammy awards.

She recently released a new recording of Christmas music with harpist, Eric Sabatino. Titled A Child My Choice, it features Richard Wayne Dirksen’s beloved Christmas carol by the same name, along with many other seasonal favorites.

Magdalena Wór, mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wór is the first place winner of the Heinz Rehfuss Vocal Competition (2005), a Metropolitan Opera Competition national finalist (2002), a winner of the Mozart Society of Atlanta Competition, and an alumna of the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Summer Opera Program and Chautauqua Music Institution’s Marlena Malas Voice Program and St. Louis Opera Theatre’s Gerdine Young Artist Program.

Wór was a member of the DomingoCafritz Young Artist Program at the Washington National Opera from 2006 to 2008. She has recently appeared with The Metropolitan Opera, National Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony and New Trinity Baroque.

Robert Breault, tenor

Robert Breault enjoys an international career that features an extraordinary breadth of repertoire.

Breault’s concert career highlights include performances with major orchestras worldwide, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Atlanta Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, London Philharmonia Orchestra, National Symphony of Taiwan, Jerusalem Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and Utah Symphony.

Breault’s opera career features a wide array of repertoire and companies.

Performances with New York City

Opera include Carmen, La Traviata and Semele, for which he was awarded the company’s “Kolozsvar Award.” He has performed numerous times with Atlanta Opera, Opera Orchestra of New York and Arizona Opera.

Christòpheren Nomura,

assai is in fugal style, but the sparkling music is so high-spirited that the “learned” character of its complex counterpoint goes almost unnoticed.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, in G Major, BWV 1048

Johann Sebastian Bach

baritone

Hailed as one of classical music’s “rising stars” by the Wall Street Journal, Christòpheren Nomura has appeared with many of the prominent North American orchestras including the Boston, San Francisco, National, Vancouver, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Pacific, Utah, and Memphis symphonies; the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Orchestra of St. Luke’s; Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; and Symphony Nova Scotia.

Program Notes Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047

Johann Sebastian Bach Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig, Germany

When Prince Leopold went to Carlsbad to take the waters in 1718 and 1720, he took Bach and several other court musicians along. It was probably on one of these trips that Bach met Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, a devoted amateur musician and a collector of concertos, who commissioned a set of six concerti from Bach.

The Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 is written for four soloists with strings and basso continuo.

The first of the concerto’s three movements is a jaunty Allegro in which the four solo instruments converse among themselves and with the rest of the orchestra. The middle movement, Andante, is scored only for solo flute, oboe and violin with basso continuo. The final Allegro

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 has only two movements, both of them Allegro.

Two Adagio chords separate them in a cadence that provides a framework for an improvised, ornamental keyboard cadenza (which is the Italian word for “cadence”), if the performers so wish. Both movements are in the key of G major, but the differences in meter, rhythm, form and texture provide a great deal of contrast between them. Only strings are used (with a keyboard for the continuo, of course): three violins, three violas, three cellos and double bass. Bach writes for the strings in greatly varied ways. The instruments of each group are variously treated: as a homogeneous choir playing in unison or in independent parts, or the individual parts from the various groups are combined. In the entire second movement and in about half of the first, the three cello parts are actually reduced to one single part.

By this concentration, Bach provides the bass line with even more emphatic power than usual, for in the Baroque era, the bass could often be considered functionally more important than the upper parts.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, in G Major, BWV 1049

Johann Sebastian Bach Bach’s chosen combination for this concerto of solo violin with a pair of flutes or recorders is particularly felicitous, offering a range of effects from brilliant virtuosity to compelling sweetness. The solo grouping is quite unusual for the time, but not out of character with the use of a wide range of wind instruments and experimentation with varied scorings that other composers were espousing. In the Allegro first movement, the solo group, a violin and two recorders or

applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 81

Saturday, February 25, 2012, 8 p.m.

flutes, is very much in the forefront.

The opening phrase, which later recurs as a ritornello between passages of contrasting material, is almost the only one in which the violin does not lead. The movement has buoyancy and a broad dance-like feel. The violin part is often a great deal more difficult than in any of Bach’s violin concertos. In the central Andante, Bach does not reduce the orchestra, as he does in the other Brandenburgs, and he writes contrasting echo effects for the large and small bodies of instruments, using an opposition of groups that is usual for concerto grossi. Even though there was a tradition in which final movements of concertos were lighter in texture and material, this exuberant Presto is a dashing fugue of dazzling virtuosity, interrupted just before its end by smashing chords derived from the fugue subject.

Magnificat, BWV 243

Johann Sebastian Bach Magnificat is the first word in the Latin Bible of the canticle in praise of the Lord that the Virgin Mary sang on her visit to her cousin Elisabeth. Since earliest Christian times, Magnificat has been sung in the office of Vespers or Evensong, especially at Christmas and at the Feast of the Visitation. In 1671, Heinrich Schütz composed a beautiful setting of the Biblical text as translated into German by Martin Luther.

Bach, a generation or two later, set the same text in Latin for his church, St. Thomas in Leipzig. Magnificat consists of a series of 12 short and precise movements for vocal soloists, a chorus in five parts (first and second sopranos, altos, tenors and basses), and a large orchestra of two flutes, two oboes, two oboi d’amore (alto oboes), three trumpets, timpani, strings and continuo.

The opening chorus is one of the most memorable and spectacular of all Baroque choruses, with its highly embellished phrases: “Magnificat anima mea Dominum” (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”).

Bach’s Magnificat, Text and Translations No. 1. Chorus and full orchestra: “Magnificat anima mea Dominum.” (“My soul doth magnifiy the Lord.”)

No. 2. Mezzo-soprano and strings: “Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.” (“And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.”)

No. 3. Soprano, oboe d’amore and basso continuo: “Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae: Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent” (“For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth [she shall be called] blessed.”)

No. 4. Chorus, flutes, oboi d’amore and strings: “Omnes generationes.” (“[By] all generations.”)

No. 5. Bass and continuo: “Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est; et sanctum nomen eius.” (“For he hath done me great things, that is mighty; and holy is his name.”)

No. 6. Mezzo-soprano, tenor, flutes and muted strings: “Et misericordia eius a progenii in progenies timentibus eium.” (“And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.”)

No. 7. Chorus and full orchestra: “Fecit potentiam in brachio suo; dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.” (“He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.”)

No. 8. Tenor, violins and continuo: “Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles.” (“He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree.”)

No. 9. Mezzo-soprano, flutes and continuo: “Esurientes implevit bonis; et divites dimisit inanes.” (“He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent away empty.”)

No. 10. Chrous: “Suscepit Israel puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae suae;” (“He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;”) No. 11. Chorus and continuo: “Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham, et semini eius in saecula.” (“As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.”)

No. 12. Chorus and full orchestra: “Gloria patri, filio, et spiritui sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.” (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”)

No. 2, “Et exultavit” is light and joyful; No. 3, “Quia respexit,” is wistful and sad; both are sung by sopranos. No. 4, the monumental chorus “Omnes generations,” offers a multitude of blessings of the generations, magnifying the Virgin’s blessing. No. 5, “Quia fecit,” features bass soloist.

No. 6, “Et misericordia,” is a powerful and moving duet for mezzo-soprano and tenor. No. 7, “Fecit potentiam” has much forward momentum. No. 8, “Deposuit potentes” highlights tenor and violins.

In No. 9, “Esurientes,” for mezzosoprano, introduced by a pair of lilting flutes, the soloist sings of the hungry

82 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

being filled with good things while the rich are sent away. In No. 10, the unique combination of countertenor and soprano is heard in the meditative setting of “Suscepit Israel.” The oboe melody in this number is the traditional Magnificat chant.

No. 11, the penultimate chorus, “Sicut locutus est,” anticipates the jubilation to come. In the final number, No. 12, when the chorus sings the words, “Sicut erat in principio” (“As it was in the beginning”), it is to music taken from the opening number, making the work cyclical in its structure.

Magnificat ends powerfully, with the devotion becoming exultation.

Sunday, February 26, 2012, 7 p.m.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2012, 7 P.M.

● Strathmore Presents

Lily Tomlin Paul Cilione, Tour Manager The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage

Greg Gorman

Lily Tomlin

Lily Tomlin, one of America’s foremost comediennes, continues to venture across an ever-widening range of media, starring in television, theater, motion pictures, animation and video.

Throughout her extraordinary entertainment career, Tomlin has received numerous awards including six Emmys, two Tonys, a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics’ Circle Award. She also received a Grammy for her comedy album, This is a Recording, plus two Peabody Awards for the television special Edith Ann’s Christmas: Just Say Noël and for narrating and executive producing the HBO film, The Celluloid Closet.

Tomlin claims she wasn’t funny as a child, but admits she “knew who was and lifted all their material right off the TV screen.” Her favorites included Lucille Ball, Bea Lillie, Imogene Coca and Jean Carroll. After high school, Tomlin enrolled at Wayne State University to study medicine, but her elective courses in theater arts compelled her to leave college to become a performer in local coffee houses. She moved to New York in 1965, where she soon built a strong following with her appearances at landmark clubs such as The Improvisation, Cafe Au Go Go and the Upstairs at the Downstairs.

Tomlin made her television debut in 1966 on The Garry Moore Show and then made several memorable appearances on The Merv Griffin Show, which led to a move to California. In December 1969, Tomlin joined the cast of Laugh-In and immediately rose to national prominence with her characterizations of Ernestine, the irascible telephone operator, and Edith Ann, the devilish 6-year-old. After Laugh-In, Tomlin went on to co-write, with Jane Wagner, and star in six comedy television specials: The Lily Tomlin Show (1973), Lily (1973), Lily (1975), Lily Tomlin (1975), Lily: Sold Out (1981) and Lily for President? (1982), for which she won three Emmy Awards and a Writers Guild of America Award.

Tomlin made her Broadway debut in the 1977 play, Appearing Nitely, written and directed by Jane Wagner. Appearing Nitely included such favorite characters as Ernestine and Judith Beasley, the Calumet City housewife, and also introduced Trudy the bag lady, Crystal the hang-gliding quadriplegic, Rick the singles bar cruiser, Glenna as a child of the ’60s and Sister Boogie Woman, a 77-year-old blues revivalist. Tomlin next appeared on Broadway in 1985 in a yearlong run of Wagner’s play, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. The Broadway success was followed by a 14-city tour that spanned four and a half years. It was then extended with a cross-country, 29-city tour of The Search, a new production of The

Search on Broadway, a six-month run in San Francisco, and a six-week run as part of the 2004 season at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

Tomlin made her film debut as Linnea, a gospel singer and mother of two deaf children in Nashville (1975); her memorable performance was nominated for an Academy Award. She next starred opposite Art Carney as a would-be actress living on the fringes of Hollywood in The Late Show (1977).

She went on to star with John Travolta in Moment By Moment (1978), and then teamed with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton in the comedy 9 to 5 (1980). She starred as the happy homemaker who became The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), and the eccentric woman whose soul invades Steve Martin’s body in All of Me (1984). She then teamed with Bette Midler for Big Business (1988).

In the ’90s, Tomlin starred in the film adaptation of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life In the Universe (1991); appeared as part of an ensemble cast in Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog (1992); starred opposite Tom Waits in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993); and portrayed Miss Jane Hathaway in the screen adaptation of the popular television series The Beverly Hillbillies (1993). She also was seen in A Prairie Home Companion (2006). Tomlin next appeared in the film The Walker (2007).

She also played a sensitivity-training expert assigned to instruct employees on social and political correctness in Pink Panther II (2009). For her extensive work in film, Tomlin has received the Crystal Award from Women in Film.

In 2002, Tomlin joined the cast of the hit NBC series, The West Wing, playing President Bartlett’s assistant, Debbie Fiderer—a role for which she received a 2003 Screen Actors Guild nomination for best actress in a drama series. Tomlin continued in the role of Debbie through 2006, the final season of West Wing.

In 2011, Tomlin can be seen on Showtime’s new series, Web Therapy, as Lisa Kudrow’s narcissistic mother. She is also appearing on the CBS drama NCIS and the cable series Eastbound and Down.

applause at Strathmore • January/february 2012 83

Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc. Board of Directors EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Nancy E. Hardwick Chair William G. “Bill” Robertson * Vice Chair Jerome W. Breslow, Esq. Secretary and Parliamentarian Dale S. Rosenthal * Treasurer Solomon Graham At-Large Dickie S. Carter At-Large

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Joseph F. Beach, ex officio Robert G. Brewer, Jr., Esq. * Hope B. Eastman, Esq. Starr G. Ezra Hon. Nancy Floreen, ex officio

Thomas H. Graham Paul L. Hatchett Dianne Kay Delia K. “Dede” Lang Carolyn P. Leonard * Hon. Laurence Levitan James F. Mannarino * J. Alberto Martinez, MD Caroline Huang McLaughlin Thomas A. Natelli Kenneth O’Brien DeRionne P. Pollard Donna Rattley Washington Gabriel Romero, AIA Wendy J. Susswein, ex officio Carol A. Trawick * Regina Brady “Ginny” Vasan James S. Whang *Committee Chairs

Left to right: Board members Bill Robertson and Gabe Romero with Strathmore donor Susan Nordeen at the 2011 President’s Luncheon; Board member Carol Trawick with headliner Daryl Davis at tART, Strathmore’s fall fundraiser; New Strathmore supporters Caroline Romanoff and Jeff Aslen enjoying tART; Strathmore supporters Mark Spradley and Tas Robin with former board Chair Dr. Allison Bryant at the 2011 President’s Luncheon

Strathmore thanks the individuals and organizations who have made contributions between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011. Their support of at least $500 enables us to continue to offer the affordable, accessible, quality programming that has become our hallmark.

$250,000+ Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County Maryland State Arts Council Post-Newsweek Media, Inc. (includes in-kind) Carol Trawick

$100,000+ Carolyn and Jeffrey Leonard Lockheed Martin Corporation

$50,000+ Booz Allen Hamilton Elizabeth Culp Delia and Marvin Lang The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

$25,000+ Alban Inspections, Inc. Pamela and Morris Brown, Jr. Yanqiu He and Kenneth O’Brien Laura Henderson National Endowment for the Arts PGA Tour, Inc. PNC Financial Services Group Symphony Park LLC

$15,000+ Anthony M. Natelli Foundation Asbury Methodist Village Fidelity Investments GEICO Philanthropic Foundation Giant Food Nancy Hardwick Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation

Constance Lohse and Robert Brewer MARPAT Foundation Katharine and John Pan

$10,000+ Adventist Health Care Bank of America Jonita and Richard S. Carter Chevy Chase Bank, a division of Capital One, N.A. Clark Construction Group, LLC Comcast EagleBank Elizabeth and Peter Forster Glenstone Foundation Dorothy and Sol Graham Effie and John Macklin The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, Inc. Montgomery County Department of Economic Development Janine and Phillip O’Brien PEPCO S & R Technology Holdings LLC Ann and Jim Simpson Deborah and Leon Snead Annie and Sami Totah Meredith Weiser and Michael Rosenbaum Hailin and James Whang Paul and Peggy Young, NOVA Research Company

$5,000+ Susan and Brian Bayly Mary and Greg Bruch Margaret and James Conley Debbie Driesman and Frank Islam

84 Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Ellen and Michael Gold Lana Halpern Julie and John Hamre Liz and Joel Helke Igersheim Family Foundation The John Ben Snow Memorial Trust Lerch, Early & Brewer, Chartered J. Alberto Martinez Caroline and John Patrick McLaughlin Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Della and William Robertson Lorraine and Barry Rogstad John Sherman, in memory of Deane Sherman Ronald West Lien and S. Bing Yao Ellen and Bernard Young

$2,500+ Anonymous Louise Appell Barbara Benson Foree and A.G.W. Biddle Ashley and Chris Boam Karen Brugge Frances and Leonard Burka Peter Yale Chen Alison Cole and Jan Peterson Carin and Bruce Cooper Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts Carolyn Degroot Hope Eastman Starr and Fred Ezra Michelle Feagin Carolyn Goldman and Sydney Polakoff

Marla Grossman and Eric Steinmiller Arlene and Robert Hillerson Cheryl and Richard Hoffman Carlos Horcasitas Alexine and Aaron Jackson Lucy Jackson-Campbell Dianne Kay Rosalie Kessler and Steve Katzki Peter S. Kimmel, in memory of Martin S. Kimmel Teri Hanna Knowles and John M. Knowles Grace and David Lee Judie and Harry Linowes Jill and Jim Lipton Sharon and David Lockwood Janet L. Mahaney Delores Maloney Patricia and Roscoe Moore Katherine and William Parsons Charlotte and Charles Perret Mindy and Charles Postal Laura Pruitt Gerald Raine (Deceased) Dale Rosenthal Elaine and Stuart Rothenberg Janet and Michael Rowan Phyllis and Ken Schwartz Tanya and Stephen Spano Jane and Richard Stoker Richard Tanzillo Peter Vance Treibley Nancy Voorhees Susan Wellman Anne Witkowsky and John Barker

top left: Jim Saah, top right: Margot I. Schulman, bottom left: Margot I. Schulman, bottom right: Jim Saah

Donors

$1,000+ Anonymous Judy and Joseph Antonucci Dena Baker and Terry Jacobs Sheila and Kenneth Berman Bethesda Magazine Julia and Stuart Bloch Harriet and Jerome Breslow Carol and Scott Brewer Vicki Britt and Robert Selzer Beverly Burke Halinah Rizzo-Busack and James Busack Lucie and Guy Campbell Eleanor and Oscar Caroglanian Allen Clark Elana and David Cohen Caroline and Jack Daggitt Nancy Davies Federal Realty Investment Trust Susan and Howard Feibus Senator Jennie Forehand and William E. Forehand, Jr. Noreen and Michael Friedman Suzanne and Mark Friis Nancy Frohman and James LaTorre Greene-Milstein Family Foundation Joan and Norman Gurevich Linda and John Hanson Sara and James Harris Monica Jeffries Hazangeles and John Peter Hazangeles Jill Herscot and Andrew Bartley Wilma and Arthur Holmes, Jr. Eileen Horan Linda and I. Robert Horowitz Linda and Van Hubbard James Hubert Blake High School Vicki Hawkins-Jones and Michael Jones Joan Jordano Bridget and Joseph Judge Renee Korda and Mark Olson Ineke and Peter Kreeger Carole and Robert Kurman Susan and Gary Labovich Marvin Lawrence Lerner Enterprises Barbara and Laurence Levitan Diana Locke and Robert Toense Nancy and Dan Longo M&T Bank Jacqueline and J. Thomas Manger Janice McCall Virginia and Robert McCloskey Ann G. Miller, in memory of Jesse Miller Lissa Muscatine and Bradley Graham Susan Nordeen Karen O’Connell and Tim Martins Pabst Brewing Company Gloria Paul and Robert Atlas Susan and Bryan Penfield Cynthia and Eliot Pfanstiehl Restaurant Associates at Strathmore Reznick Group Jane and Paul Rice Tasneem Robin-Bhatti Rodgers Consulting Gabriel Romero Karen Rosenthal and M. Alexander Stiffman Katherine Rumbaugh Carol Salzman and Michael Mann George Schu Estelle Schwalb Mary Kay Shartle-Galotto and Jack Galotto Roberta and Lawrence Shulman Ann and Sanford Stass Merle and Steven Steiner

Wendy and Donald Susswein Heather VanKeuren Jerry Weast Judith Welch Judy Whalley and Henry Otto Jennifer Whitlow

$500+ Anonymous Fran Abrams Judy and Michael Ackerman Frances Albergo Mary Kay and Dave Almy Lisa and Marvin Ausherman Eric Bailey Sue Baldwin and Ron Sussman Kathryn Barclay Katherine Bent Michelle and Lester Borodinsky John Caldwell Trish and Timothy Carrico Kathy and C. Bennett Chamberlin Karen and William Dahut Renata and David Denton David Dise Judy Douglas Embassy of Austria Winifred and Anthony Fitzpatrick Gail Fleder Marlies and Karl Flicker Nancy Floreen and David Stewart John Fluke Joanne Fort Victor Frattali Marilyn and William Funderburk Pamela Gates and Robert Schultz Linda and Greg Fuortes Juan Gaddis Jane Godfrey Joshua Grove Guardian Realty Management, Inc. Gerri Hall and David Nickels Carol and Larry Horn Randy Hostetler Living Room Fund Bootsie and David Humenansky Zorina and John Keiser Henrietta and Christopher Keller Deloise and Lewis Kellert David Kessler Joyce Pascal-Kilgore and James Kilgore Marisabel Kubiak Catherine and Isiah Leggett Bertie and Howard Lehrer Phyllis and Ira Lieberman Ada Linowes Dorothy Linowes Brenda Loube Susan and Eric Luse Nancy McGinness Lisa McKillop Steven Meyer Manny Miller Terry Murray Victoria and Roy Muth Bob Mutschler Linda Nee Margie Pearson and Richard Lampl Potomac Valley Alumnae Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority William Rawn Associates Architects, Inc. Margaret and Lawrence Roffee Sandy Spring Builders, Inc. Melissa Santos and Mark Richards Christine Schreve and Thomas Bowersox Alison Serino and Brian Baczkowski Donald Simonds Cora and Murray Simpson Harry Storm Mary Talarico and Michael Sundermeyer

Left to right: Board members Paul Hatchett and Dianne Kay at Strathmore’s fall fundraiser; Suzanne Firstenberg, First Lady of Montgomery County Catherine Leggett and Strathmore supporter Bill Bronrott at tART, Strathmore’s fall fundraiser

Marilyn and Mark Tenenbaum Marion and Dennis Torchia Trade Center Management Associates, LLC Myra Turoff and Kenneth Weiner Anne and James Tyson Kevin Vigilante Neil Weidenhammer Jean and Robert Wirth J. Lynn Westergaard Irene and Alan Wurtzel Susan and Jack Yanovski Con Brio Society Securing the future of Strathmore through a planned gift.

Louise Appell John Cahill Jonita and Richard S. Carter

STRATHMORE STAFF Eliot Pfanstiehl Chief Executive Officer Monica Jeffries Hazangeles President Carol Maryman Executive Assistant to the President & CEO Mary Kay Almy Executive Board Assistant

DEVELOPMENT Bianca Beckham Director of Institutional Giving Bill Carey Director of Donor and Community Relations Lauren Campbell Development & Education Manager Julie Hamre Development Associate

PROGRAMMING Shelley Brown VP/Artistic Director Georgina Javor Director of Programming Holly J. M. Haliniewski Fine Art Program & Education Manager Sarah Jenny Hospitality Coordinator

EDUCATION Betty Scott Education Coordinator

OPERATIONS Mark J. Grabowski Executive VP of Operations Miriam Teitel Director of Operations Allen V. McCallum, Jr. Director of Patron Services Jasper Cox Director of Finance Mac Campbell Operations Manager Phoebe Anderson Dana Operations Assitant

Irene Cooperman Trudie Cushing and Neil Beskin Yanqiu He and Kenneth O’Brien Vivian and Peter Hsueh Tina and Art Lazerow Diana Locke and Robert Toense Janet L. Mahaney Carol and Alan Mowbray Barbara and David Ronis Henry Schalizki Phyllis and Ken Schwartz Annie Simonian Totah and Sami Totah Maryellen Trautman and Darrell Lemke Carol Trawick Peter Vance Treibley Myra Turoff and Kenneth Weiner Julie Zignego

Allen C. Clark Manager of Information Services Kristin Lobiondo Rentals Manager Christopher S. Inman Manager of Security Chadwick Sands Ticket Office Manager Hilary White Assistant Ticket Office Manager Wil Johnson Ticket Services Coordinator Christopher A. Dunn IT Technician Johnathon Fuentes Operations Specialist Brandon Gowan Operations Specialist Jon Foster Production Stage Manager William Kassman Lead Stage Technician Lyle Jaeger Lead Lighting Technician Caldwell Gray Lead Audio Technician

THE SHOPS AT STRATHMORE Charlene McClelland Director of Retail Merchandising Lorie Wickert Director of Retail Operations and Online Sales

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Jennifer A. Buzzell VP, Marketing and Communications Jerry Hasard Director of Marketing Julia Allal Group Sales and Outreach Manager Michael Fila Manager of Media Relations

STRATHMORE TEA ROOM Mary Mendoza Godbout Tea Room Manager

Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 85

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Susan Liss and Family Lori Laitman and Bruce Rosenblum Liddy Manson “In memory of James Gavin Manson” Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rudman

Governing Members Gold ($5,000-$9,999) The Charles Delmar Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Stephen M. Lans Dr. David Leckrone and Marlene Berlin Mr. and Mrs. William Rogers Mike and Janet Rowan The John Ben Snow Memorial Trust Ms. Deborah Wise / Edith and Herbert Lehman Foundation, Inc.

Board of directors OFFICERS

Kenneth W. DeFontes, Jr.*, Chairman Kathleen A. Chagnon, Esq.*, Secretary Lainy LeBow-Sachs*, Vice Chair Paul Meecham*, President & CEO The Honorable Steven R. Schuh*, Treasurer

BOARD MEMBERS Jimmy Berg A.G.W. Biddle, III Robert L. Bogomolny Barbara M. Bozzuto * Constance R. Caplan Robert B. Coutts Susan Dorsey, Ph.D.^ Governing Members Chair George A. Drastal* Alan S. Edelman* Ambassador Susan G. Esserman* Michael G. Hansen Beth J. Kaplan Murray M. Kappelman, M.D. Sandra Levi Gerstung Jon H. Levinson Ava Lias-Booker, Esq. Susan M. Liss, Esq.* Howard Majev, Esq. Liddy Manson David Oros Marge Penhallegon^, President, Baltimore Symphony Associates Michael P. Pinto Margery Pozefsky Scott Rifkin, M.D. Ann L. Rosenberg Bruce E. Rosenblum*

GOVERNING MEMBERS SILVER Richard E. Rudman Stephen D. Shawe, Esq. The Honorable James T. Smith, Jr. Solomon H. Snyder, M.D. * William R. Wagner

LIFE DIRECTORS Peter G. Angelos, Esq. Willard Hackerman H. Thomas Howell, Esq. Yo-Yo Ma Harvey M. Meyerhoff Decatur H. Miller, Esq. Linda Hambleton Panitz

DIRECTORS EMERITI Barry D. Berman, Esq. Richard Hug M. Sigmund Shapiro

CHAIRMAN LAUREATE Calman J. Zamoiski, Jr.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ENDOWMENT TRUST

Benjamin H. Griswold, IV, Chairman Terry Meyerhoff Rubenstein, Secretary Michael G. Bronfein Kenneth W. DeFontes, Jr. Mark R. Fetting Paul Meecham The Honorable Steven R. Schuh Calman J. Zamoiski, Jr. *Board Executive Committee ^ ex-officio

SYMPHONY SOCIETY

SUPPORTERS OF THE BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is deeply grateful to the individual, corporate, foundation and government donors whose annual giving plays a vital role in sustaining the Orchestra’s tradition of musical excellence. The following donors have given between June 1, 2010-November 28, 2011.

LEADERSHIP CIRCLE

Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Maryland State Arts Council National Endowment for the Arts

CHAIRMAN’S CIRCLE PARTNERS ($25,000 and above) DLA Piper M&T Bank Music & Arts Vocus PNC

CORPORATE PARTNERS

($10,000-$24,999) Hughes Network Systems, LLC Mid-Atlantic Federal Credit Union RBC Wealth Management

($2,500-$4,999) Anonymous (3) Mr. and Mrs. David S. Cohen Jane C. Corrigan Kari Peterson and Benito R. and Ben De Leon Mr. Joseph Fainberg Sherry and Bruce Feldman Mr. and Mrs. Denis C. Gagnon Drs. Ronald and Barbara Gots Betty Huse MD Charitable Foundation Madeleine and Joseph Jacobs Dr. Robert Lee Justice & Marie Fujimura-Justice Marc E. Lackritz and Mary B. DeOreo Burt and Karen Leete Mr. and Mrs. Howard Lehrer Mrs. June Linowitz and Dr. Howard Eisner Dr. James and Jill Lipton Dr. Diana Locke and Mr. Robert E. Toense Marie McCormack Paul Meecham and Laura Leach Mr. and Mrs. Humayun Mirza David Nickels and Gerri Hall Jan S. Peterson and Alison E. Cole Ms. Nancy Rice Mr. and Mrs. John Rounsaville Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Silver Ms. Patricia Smith and Dr. Frances Lussier Diane L. Sondheimer and Peter E. Novick Mr. Alan Strasser and Ms. Patricia Hartge John and Susan Warshawsky Dr. Edward Whitman Paul A. and Peggy L. Young, NOVA Research Company

Total Wine & More Washington National Opera ($2,500-$9,999) Arts Consulting Group, Inc. Classical Movements, Inc. Downtown Piano Works Georgetown Paper Stock of Rockville, Inc. S. Kann Sons Company Foundation, Inc.

MAESTRA’S CIRCLE

($10,000 and above) Mr. and Mrs. A. G. W. Biddle, III The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation George and Katherine Drastal Ms. Susan Esserman and Mr. Andrew Marks Michael G. Hansen and Nancy E. Randa Hilary B. Miller and Dr. Katherine N. Bent

86 Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

($1,000-$2,499) Anonymous (3) Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Abell Mrs. Rachel Abraham Dr. and Mrs. Marshall Ackerman Mr. William Baer and Ms. Nancy Hendry Ms. Elaine Belman David and Sherry Berz Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Block/ Venable Foundation, Inc. Hon. and Mrs. Anthony Borwick Dr. Nancy Bridges Gordon F. Brown Catoctin Breeze Vineyard Bradley Christmas and Tara Flynn Dr. Mark Cinnamon and Ms. Doreen Kelly Mr. Herbert Cohen Jane E. Cohen Mr. and Mrs. Arthur C. Cox John Day and Peter Brehm Joan de Pontet Jackson and Jean H. Diehl Marcia Diehl & Julie Kurland Sharon and Jerry Farber Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fax Kenneth and Diane Feinberg Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Fitzpatrick Mr. and Mrs. Roberto B. Friedman William and Carol Fuentevilla Mr. and Mrs. William Gibb Peter Gil

Dr. and Mrs. Sanford Glazer Mr. Harvey Gold Dr. Joseph Gootenberg & Dr. Susan Leibenhaut Barry E. and Barbara Gordon Mark and Lynne Groban Mr. and Mrs. Norman M. Gurevich Ms. Lana Halpern Ms. Gloria Shaw Hamilton Mr. and Mrs. John Hanson Sara and James A. Harris, Jr. Mr. Fred Hart and Ms. Elizabeth Knight Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Herman Ellen and Herb Herscowitz David A. and Barbara L. Heywood Mr. Aaron Hoag Fran and Bill Holmes Betty W. Jensen The Paul L. Joyner Family Dr. Henry Kahwaty Ms. Carolyn Kaplan Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kelber Virginia and Dale Kiesewetter Dr. and Mrs. Peter C. Luchsinger Michael and Judy Mael Howard and Linda Martin Mr. Winton Matthews Bebe McMeekin Dr. and Mrs. Stanley R. Milstein Dr. and Mrs. Donald Mullikin Douglas and Barbara Norland Ms. Patricia Normile Jerry and Marie Perlet Ms. Margaret K. Quigg Ted and Stephanie Ranft Dr. and Mrs. Gerald Rogell Dr. Steven R. Rosenthal Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Sagoskin Peggy and David Salazar Estelle D. Schwalb Anne Weiss & Joseph Schwartz Bernard and Rita Segerman Ms. Phyllis Seidelson Mr. Donald M. Simonds Marshall and Deborah Sluyter Mr. & Mrs. Edgar Smith Don Spero and Nancy Chasen Mr. and Mrs. Richard D. Spero Jennifer Kosh Stern and William H. Turner Ms. Mary K. Sturtevant Margot and Phil Sunshine Mr. and Mrs. Richard Swerdlow Mr. and Mrs. William Thompson Mr. and Mrs. Richard Tullos Ms. Elyse Vinitsky David Wellman and Marjorie Coombs Wellman Ms. Susan Wellman Ms. Joan Wilkins Ms. Ann Willis Sylvia and Peter Winik Robert and Jean Wirth Mr. and Mrs. David K. Wise Marc and Amy Wish Eileen and Lee Woods Ms. Norma Yess H. Alan Young and Sharon Bob Young, Ph.D. Robert & Antonette Zeiss

BRITTEN LEVEL MEMBERS ($500-$999) Anonymous Donald Baker Leonard and Gabriela Bebchick Ms. Cynthia L. Bowman-Gholston Ms. Judith A. Braham Mr. Richard H. Broun and Ms. Karen E. Daly Barbara and John Clary Mr. Steven Coe Mr. Harvey A. Cohen and Mr. Michael R. Tardif Mr. Andrew Colquitt Mr. and Mrs. Jim Cooper

Mr. Joseph Fainberg Dr. Edward Finn Mr. and Mrs. Arthur P. Floor Ms. Alisa Goldstein Dr. Richard D. Guerin and Dr. Linda Kohn Ms. Haesoon Hahn Mr. E. Marshall Hansen Keith and Linda Hartman Dr. Liana Harvath Mr. Jeff D. Harvell & Mr. Ken Montgomery Carol and Terry Ireland Ms. Susan Irwin Mr. William Isaacson and Ms. Sophia McCrocklin Mr. R. Tenney Johnson Ms. Cheryl Jukes Ms. Daryl Kaufman Ms. Delia Lang Philip A. Levine and Frederica S. Douglas LTC David Lindauer, U.S. Army (Ret’d) Drs. David and Sharon Lockwood Mr. Jon M. Louthian Edwin H. Moot W. David Mann David and Kay McGoff Mr. William Morgan Delmon Curtis Morrison Eugene and Dorothy Mulligan Ms. Mary Padgett Mr. and Mrs. Peter Philipps Herb and Rita Posner Mr. and Ms. Donald Regnell Mr. Richard D. Reichard Mr. Thomas Reichmann Mr. James Risser Ms. Leann Rock and Mr. Brian Anderson Mr. Harold Rosen Ms. Ellen Rye Ms. Andi Sacks Dr. & Mrs. Jerome Sandler Mr. Allen Shaw Ms. Terry Shuch and Mr. Neal Meiselman Gregory C. Simon and Margo L. Reid Mr. and Mrs. Charles Steinecke III Timothy Stranges and Rosanna Coffey Mr. Peter Thomson Ms. Ann Tognetti John A. and Julia W. Tossell Dr. and Mrs. Jack Weil Linda and Irving Weinberg

BRAHMS LEVEL MEMBERS

($250-$499) Anonymous (4) Ms. Kathryn Abell Rhoda and Herman Alderman Sharon Allender and John Trezise Ms. Marie Anderson Dr. Joel C. Ang Mr. Bill Apter Pearl and Maurice Axelrad Thomas and Mary Aylward Ms. Katie Bagley and Mr. John K. Glenn III Mr. Richard Baker Mr. Robert Barash Phebe W. Bauer Mr. and Mrs. John W. Beckwith Melvin Bell Alan H. Bergstein and Carol A. Joffe Mr. Neal Bien Mr. Lawrence Blank Nancy and Don Bliss Mr. and Mrs. John Blodgett Mr. & Mrs. Ronald Brotman Mr. Ashby Bryson Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Burka

Ms. Lynn Butler Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Calure Mr. and Mrs. Serefino Cambareri Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Carrera Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Carty Sandra and Thomas Champion Ms. Patsy Clark Mr. James Cole Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Cooper Ms. Marion Connell Mr. Leonard Covello Ms. Louise Crane Dr. and Mrs. Brian Crowley Dr. & Mrs. James R. David Rev. George Dellinger Ms. Suzanne Delsack and Mr. Alan White Mr. Richard Dixon Mr. John C. Driscoll Mr. Ahmed El-Hoshy Lionel and Sandra Epstein Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fauver Ms. Claudia Feldman Mr. Michael Finkelstein Dr. & Mrs. David Firestone Ms. Dottie Fitzgerald Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Flaherty Robert and Carole Fontenrose Estelle Diane Franklin Ms. Cathy Friedman Mr. and Mrs. Michael Scott Friedman Dr. Joel and Rhoda Ganz Roberta Geier Irwin Gerduk Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Giddings Mr. Harry Glass and Ms. Judy Canahuati Frank and Susan Grefsheim Ms. Melanie Grishman & Dr. Herman Flay, M.D. Rev. Therisia Hall Ms. Mary Haub Mr. Lloyd Haugh Mrs. Jean N. Hayes Ms. Marilyn Henderson and Mr. Paul Henderson Joel and Linda Hertz Mr. and Mrs. William L. Hickman Mr. Myron L. Hoffmann Mr. John Howes Mr. & Mrs. John K. Hurley Mr. and Mrs. Paul Hyman Mr. and Mrs. Howard Iams David Ihrie & Catherine Houston Mr. Peter Kaplan Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Karp Dr. Evelyn Karson & Mr. Donald Kaplan Lawrence and Jean Katz Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Keller Mr. & Mrs. James Kempf Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Kern Dr. and Mrs. Robert Koehl Mr. William & Ms. Ellen D. Kominers Ms. Nancy Kopp Dr. Arlin J. Krueger Michael Lazar & Sharon Fischman Mr. Darrel H. Lemke and Ms. Maryellen Trautman Mr. Harry LeVine Harry and Carolyn Lincoln Judie and Harry Linowes Dr. Richard E. and Susan Papp Lippman Mr. Gene Lodge Lucinda Low and Daniel Magraw Mr. Craig Ludwig and Ms. Minna Davidson Mr. James Magno Mr. David Marcos Mr. David Marlowe Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Matterson

BENEFITS OF MEMBERSHIP WITH THE BSO Make a donation today and become a Member of the BSO! There is a gift level that is right for everyone, and with that comes an insider’s perspective of your world-class orchestra.

For a complete list of benefits, please call our Membership Office at 301.581.5215 or contact via e-mail at membership@BSOmusic.org. You may also visit our Web site at BSOmusic.org/benefits.

Mr. Mark Mattucci Mr. and Mrs. Ian McDonald Patrick and Roberta McKeever Dr. Richard Melanson and Ms. Mary Matthews Mr. Steve Metalitz Ms. Ellen Miles Dr. & Mrs. Mortimer and Barbara Mishkin Ms. Marlene C. Mitchell Mr. and Mrs. William Mooney Mr. William Neches Ms. Caren Novick Dr. and Mrs. John R. Nuckols Amanda and Robert Ogren Mrs. Judy Oliver Mrs. Patricia Olson Mr. Jerome Ostov Mr. Kevin Parker Mrs. Jane Papish Ms. Frances L. Pflieger Dr. Jeffrey Phillips Marie Pogozelski and Richard Belle Ms. Carol Poland Mr. and Mrs. Edward Portner Thomas Plotz and Catherine Klion Mr. Andrew Polott Ms. Marjorie Pray Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Rabin Dr. & Mrs. Bernard Reich Dr. Sean Michael Roark

Ms. Trini Rodriquez and Mr. Eric Toumayan Mr. and Mrs. Barry Rogstad Mr. Elliot Rosen Dr. Pedro N. Saenz Mr. Pat Sandall Mr. and Mrs. William Schaefer Mr. and Mrs. David Scott Mr. Paul Seidman Anatole Senkevitch, Jr. Neil and Bonnie Sherman Donna and Steven Shriver Mr. and Mrs. Larry Shulman Mr. and Mrs. Micheal D. Slack Ms. Deborah Smith Richard Sniffin Gloria and David Solomon Mr. and Mrs. Duane Straub Mr. John Townsley Ms. Marie Van Wyk Mr. Mallory Walker Ms. Shirley Waxman and Mr. Joel Bressler Mr. & Mrs. Robert Wein Mr. David M. Wilson Ms. Carole Wolfe Dr. and Mrs. Richard N. Wright Mr. Daniel Zaharevitz Mrs. MaryAnn Zamula Mr. Warren Zwicky

The Legato Circle The Legato Circle honors those individuals who have included the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in their long-term estate plans, including a gift by bequest in their will, life income gift, IRA or retirement plan, trust, life insurance or real estate. As in a legato musical line, these special designations ensure the smooth transfer of musical values from this generation to the many following.

Over the years, these legacy gifts, both large and small, have played a significant role in the financial stability of the BSO, supporting the BSO’s commitment to perform the highest quality symphonic music of all eras that nurtures the human spirit. Legacy gifts enable artistic excellence, innovative programming, education and community outreach and expanded partnerships. Legacy donors may honor a loved one or family member by establishing a named fund, and can also establish a permanent endowment.

LEONARD TOPPER, a member of the Legato Circle, became a subscriber to the BSO concerts under conductor Yuri Temirkanov, traveling to Baltimore from his home in Bethesda. He was thrilled when the BSO established its presence at the Music Center at Strathmore.

“I grew up listening to great music on the radio stations of my hometown of New York City.

While still in New York, I was fortunate to work occasionally as an extra at the old Metropolitan Opera House on 36th Street. I believe in giving back to my favorite cultural organizations, and the BSO is among the most important.” Topper is also an opera fan, and has a large collection of opera DVDs. We are very grateful that he has included the BSO in his estate plans so that future generations can enjoy the highest quality symphonic music.

What would you like your legacy to be?

We welcome the opportunity to discuss your philanthropic goals in concert with your family needs and today’s financial challenges. For further information, or to let us know you have included the BSO in your plans, please contact Katharine H. Caldwell, director of philanthropic services, at 410-783-8087 or kcaldwell@BSOmusic.org.

Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 87

IBM Lashof Violins The Potter Violin Company The Stempler Family Foundation Violin House of Weaver Washington Music Center Contributor Bank of America The Italian Cultural Society Inc. Stewart’s Stellar Strings

National Philharmonic Board of directors Board of Directors

Board Officers

Ruth Berman Rabbi Leonard Cahan *Nancy Coleman Paul Dudek Ann M. Eskelsen Ruth Faison Dr. Bill Gadzuk Joan Levenson Kent Mikkelsen Dr. Wayne Meyer Dr. Roscoe M. Moore, Jr. Dr. Kenneth Moritsugu *Robin C. Perito JaLynn Prince *Mark C. Williams

*Todd R. Eskelsen, Chair *Albert Lampert, First Vice Chair *Dieneke Johnson, Second Vice Chair *Peter Ryan, Treasurer *Carol Evans, Secretary * Joel Alper, Chair Emeritus

Board of Advisors William D. English Joseph A. Hunt Albert Lampert Chuck Lyons Roger Titus Jerry D. Weast As of September 2011 *Executive Committee

As of December 1, 2011

SUPPORTERS OF THE NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC The National Philharmonic takes this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge the following businesses, foundations and individuals which have made the Philharmonic’s ambitious plans possible through their generous contributions.

Maestro Circle Concertmaster Circle Principal Circle Philharmonic Circle Benefactor Circle Sustainer Circle Patron Contributor Member

$10,000+ $7,500 to $9,999 $5,000 to $7,499 $3,500 to $4,999 $2,500 to $3,499 $1,000 to $2,499 $500 to $999 $250 to $499 $125 to $249

ORGANIZATIONS

Maestro Circle Ameriprise Financial Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Clark-Winchcole Foundation The Gazette Ingleside at King Farm Maryland State Arts Council Montgomery County, MD Montgomery County Public Schools NOVA Research Company Schiff Hardin, LLP The State of Maryland Concertmaster Circle Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation, Inc. Principal Circle Harris Family Foundation Johnson & Johnson

Philharmonic Circle National Philharmonic/ MCYO Educational Partnership The Washington Post Company Benefactor Circle Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Corina Higginson Trust Dimick Foundation Henry B. & Jessie W. Keiser Foundation, Inc. Rockville Christian Church, for donation of rehearsal space TD Charitable Foundation Sustainer Circle American Federation of Musicians, DC Local 161-170 Bettina Baruch Foundation Cardinal Bank Embassy of Poland Executive Ball for the Arts KPMG Foundation Logan Foundation Lucas-Spindletop Foundation The Rebecca Pollard Guggenheim United Way of National Capital Area Patron American String Teachers’ AssociationDC/MD Chapter Bob’s House of Bass Boeing Eastman Strings Gailes Violin Shop, Inc. GE Foundation

88 Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

INDIVIDUALS Maestro Circle Robert & Margaret Hazen Dr. & Mrs. Val G. Hemming Mrs. Margaret Makris Dr. Kenneth P. Moritsugu, Emily Moritsugu & Ms. Lisa R. Kory includes match by Johnson & Johnson Paul A. & Peggy L. Young, NOVA Research Company Concertmaster Circle Mr. & Mrs. Joel Alper Ms. Anne Claysmith Mr. and Mrs. Paul Dudek Dr. Ryszard Gajewski Mr. & Mrs. Albert Lampert Principal Circle Mr. & Mrs. Todd R. Eskelsen Mr. & Mrs. Joseph A. Hunt Ms. Dieneke Johnson includes match by Washington Post Mr. & Mrs. Richard McMillan, Jr. Paul & Robin Perito Dr. Gregory A. & JaLynn R. Prince Philharmonic Circle Mr. & Mrs. William F. Baker, Jr. * Dr. & Mrs. John V. Evans J. William & Anita Gadzuk * Dr. Robert Gerard & Ms. Carol Goldberg * Mr. & Mrs. Leslie Levine Dr. Roscoe M. Moore & Mrs. Patricia Haywood Moore Mr. & Mrs. Peter Ryan Mr. & Mrs. Mark Williams includes match by Ameriprise Financial Benefactor Circle Mrs. Ruth Berman Mr. Edward Brinker & Ms. Jane Liu Ms. Nancy Coleman * Mr. Dale Collinson * Mr. Steven C. Decker & Ms. Deborah W. Davis Mr. & Mrs. John L. Donaldson Dr. Joseph Gootenberg & Dr. Susan Leibenhaut Mr. William A. Lascelle & Ms. Blanche Johnson Mr. Larry Maloney * Nancy and J. Parker Michael & Janet Rowan Ms. Aida Sanchez * Mr. & Mrs. David Shapiro Sustainer Circle Anonymous (3) Mrs. Rachel Abraham Mrs. Helen Altman * Ms. Sybil Amitay * Mr. & Mrs. Gilbert Bloom Mr. & Mrs. Leonard Cahan Dr. Ronald Cappelletti * Dr. Mark Cinnamon & Ms. Doreen Kelly Dr. Lawrence Deyton & Dr. Jeffrey Levi * Dr. Stan Engebretson * Mr. William E. Fogle & Ms. Marilyn Wun-Fogle

Dr. Maria A. Friedman * Mr. & Mrs. Piotr Gajewski Ms. Rebecca Gatwood Ms. Sarah Gilchrist * Mr. Barry Goldberg Mr. Michael Hansen Mr. and Mrs. David Henderson * Dr. Stacey Henning * Ms. Annie Hou Ms. Kathryn Johnson, in honor of Dieneke Johnson Mr. Robert Justice & Mrs. Marie Fujimura-Justice Mrs. Joan M. Levenson Mr. & Mrs. Charles A. Lyons Mr. Winton Matthews Ms. Eleanor D. McIntire * Dr. Wayne Meyer * Mr. & Mrs. Kent Mikkelsen * Susan & Jim Murray * Mr. & Mrs. Charles Naftalin Mr. Thomas Nessinger * Ms. Martha Newman * Dr. & Mrs. Goetz Oertel Mr. & Mrs. Jerome Pinson, includes match

by GE Foundation Mrs. Jan Schiavone * Ms. Carol A. Stern * Sternbach Family Fund Mr. John I. Stewart & Ms. Sharon S. Stoliaroff Dr. & Mrs. Robert Temple * Drs. Charles and Cecile Toner Mr. & Mrs. Scott Ullery Ms. Ellen van Valkenburgh * Mr. & Mrs. Robert Vocke * Mr. & Mrs. William W. Walls, Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Royce Watson Mr. & Mrs. Bernard J. Young Patron Ms. Lori Barnet Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bechert Mary Bentley & David Kleiner * Elizabeth Bishop & Darren Gemoets * Mr. & Mrs. James R. Carlin Mr. & Mrs. Paul DeMarco* Ms. Linda Edwards Ms. Kimberly Elliott Ms. Ruth Faison * David & Berdie Firestone Mr. Steven Gerber Mr. David Hofstad Mr. & Mrs. William W. Josey* Ms. Jane Lyle * Ms. Alison Matuskey Mr. & Mrs. Raymond Mountain Dr. & Mrs. Joe Parr, III Drs. Dena & Jerome Puskin Mr. & Mrs. Willis Ritter Mr. & Mrs. Steven Seelig Dr. John Sherman Ms. Lori J. Sommerfield * Mr. Robert Stewart Mr. & Mrs. Jack Yanovski Contributor Anonymous (2) Mr. Ronald Abeles Ms. Ann Albertson Mr. Robert B. Anderson Mike & Cecilia Ballentine Ms. Michelle Benecke Ms. Patricia Bulhack Mr. & Mrs. Stephen K. Cook * Ms. Irene Cooperman Mr. Dean Culler Mr.& Mrs. J. Steed Edwards Mr. John Eklund Mr. & Mrs. William English Mr. & Mrs. Elliott Fein includes match by IBM

National Philharmonic chorale member Ronald Cappelletti with board & chorale member Kent Mikkelsen.

Dr. & Mrs. John H. Ferguson Mr. & Mrs. Mayo Friedlis Mr. Dean Gatwood Mr. Carolyn Guthrie Mr. & Mrs. William Gibb Dr. Karl Habermeier Dr. William Hatcher Frances Hanckel Mrs. Rue Helsel Dr. Roger Herdman Mr. & Mrs. William Hickman Mr. & Mrs. James Hochron Ms. Katharine C. Jones Dr. Elke Jordan Ms. Anne Kanter Dr. & Mrs. Charles Kelber Ms. Martha Jacoby Krieger * Mr. & Mrs. Paul Legendre Mr. & Mrs. Herbert J. Lerner Ms. May Lesar Mr. & Mrs. Eliot Lieberman * Mr. David E. Malloy & Mr. John P. Crockett * Mr. David McGoff * Jim & Marge McMann Dr. & Mrs. Oliver Moles Jr. * Mr. Stamatios Mylonakis Ms. Katherine Nelson-Tracey * Mrs. Jeanne Noel Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth A. Oldham, Jr. Mr. Larz Pearson & Mr. Rick Trevino Mr. & Mrs. Alan Peterkofsky Ms. Cindy Pikul Dr. & Mrs. Manuel Porres Mrs. Dorothy Prats Mr. & Mrs. Clark Rheinstein * Ms. Joyce Sauvager Mr. & Ms. Kevin Shannon Mr. Charles Sturrock Dr. & Mrs. Szymon Suckewer Mr. & Mrs. John F. Wing Dr. & Mrs. Richard Wright Mr. & Mrs. Philip Yaffee Member Anonymous Mr. & Mrs. Donald Abbott Mrs. Fran Abrams Ms. Marietta Balaan * Mr. Mikhail Balachov Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Baldwin Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Bechert Mr. & Mrs. Richard Bender Mr. & Mrs. Jerome Breslow Dr. Rosalind Breslow * Mr. Allan Bozorth Mr. & Mrs. Frederick Brown

National Philharmonic board members Joel Alper and Dr. Roscoe M. Moore in the Comcast Lounge.

Mrs. Dolores J. Bryan Mr. & Mrs. Stan Bryla Mr. Bill Charrier Dr. & Mrs. Chuck Chatlynne Dr. F. Lawrence Clare Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Clark Mrs. Patsy Clark Dr. & Mrs. Gordon M. Cragg Ms. Louise Crane Mr. Alan T. Crane Dr. & Mrs. James B. D’Albora Mr. and Mrs. David Dancer * Mr. Jian Ding Mr. Paul Dragoumis Ms. Sandra Doren Mr. Charles Eisenhauer Mr. Robert Fehrenbach Mr. Harold Freeman Mr. & Mrs. Elliott Fein Mr. Joseph Hamer Ms. Nina Helmsen Dr. & Mrs. Donald Henson Mr. & Mrs. Donald Jansky * Ms. Elizabeth Janthey Ms. Carol S. Jordan Ms. Elizabeth King Dr. Elke Jordon Mrs. Rosalie King Ms. Cherie Krug Ms. S. Victoria Krusiewski Mr. & Mrs. John R. Larue Mr. William R. Lee Dr. David Lockwood Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth MacPherson Ms. Sharon F. Majchrzak* Mr. & Mrs. Forbes Maner Mr. and Mrs. James Mason Mr. & Mrs. Robert McGuire Mr. & Mrs. Duncan McHale Mr. & Mrs. David Miller Mr. & Mrs. T. Lindsay Moore Ms. Stephanie Murphy National Philharmonic Chorale In honor of Kenneth Oldham, Jr. Mrs. Gillian Nave Dr. Ruth S. Newhouse Mr. Lawrence Novak Ms. Anita O’Leary* Mr. Thomas Pappas Dr. & Mrs. David Pawel Dolly Perkins & Larry Novak Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth Oldham Evelyn & Peter Philipps Mr. Charles A. O’Connor & Ms. Susan F. Plaeger Mr. & Mrs. Robert Rizzi

Ms. Lisa Rovin * Mr. Sydney Schneider Ms. Katherine Schnorrenberg * Dr. & Mrs. Paul Silverman Mr. Robert Stewart Ms. Sarah Thomas Ms. Virginia W. Van Brunt * Mr. Sid Verner Chorale Sustainers Circle Mr. and Mrs. Fred Altman Mr. and Mrs. William F. Baker, Jr. Dr. Ronald Cappelletti Ms. Nancy Coleman Mr. Dale Collinson Dr. Lawrence Deyton & Dr. Jeffrey Levi Dr. Maria A. Friedman Dr. and Mrs. Bill Gadzuk Dr. Robert Gerard and Ms. Carol Goldberg Ms. Sarah Gilchrist Dr. Stacey Henning

Mr. Gerald Vogel Mr. David B. Ward Mr. Raymond Watts Mr. Robert E. Williams Ms. Joan Wikstrom Ms. Lynne Woods * Dr. Nicholas Zill * Chorale members

Mr. Larry Maloney Mr. and Mrs. Carl McIntire Dr. Wayne Meyer Mr. and Mrs. Kent Mikkelsen Mr. and Mrs. James E. Murray Mr. Thomas Nessinger Ms. Martha Newman Ms. Aida Sanchez Mrs. Jan Schiavone Mr. Carol Stern Dr. and Mrs. Robert Temple Ms. Ellen van Valkenburgh Mr. and Mrs. Robert Vocke

Heritage Society The Heritage Society at the National Philharmonic gratefully recognizes those dedicated individuals who strive to perpetuate the National Philharmonic through the provision of a bequest in their wills or through other estate gifts.

For more information about the National Philharmonic’s Heritage Society, please call Ken Oldham at 301-493-9283, ext. 112.

Mr. David Abraham* Mrs. Rachel Abraham Mr. Joel Alper Ms. Ruth Berman Ms. Anne Claysmith Mr. Todd Eskelsen Ms. Dieneke Johnson

Mr. and Mrs. Albert Lampert Mrs. Margaret Makris Kenneth A. Oldham Jr. Mr. W. Larz Pearson Mr. Mark Williams *Deceased

National Philharmonic Staff Piotr Gajewski, Music Director & Conductor Stan Engebretson, Artistic Director, National Philharmonic Chorale Victoria Gau, Associate Conductor Kenneth A. Oldham, Jr., President Filbert Hong, Director of Artistic Operations Deborah Birnbaum, Director of Marketing & PR Leanne Ferfolia, Director of Development Dan Abbott, Manager of Development Operations Auxiliary Staff Amy Salsbury, Graphic Designer

Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 89

Board of directors Reginald Van Lee, Chairman* (c) James J. Sandman, Vice Chair* (c) Christina Co Mather, Secretary* Steven Kaplan, Esq. Treasurer* (c) Burton J. Fishman, Esq., General Counsel* + Neale Perl, President and CEO* Douglas H. Wheeler, President Emeritus Patrick Hayes, Founder † Gina F. Adams* Alison Arnold-Simmons Arturo E. Brillembourg* Hans Bruland (c) Beverly Burke Rima Calderon Karen I. Campbell* Josephine S. Cooper Debbie Dingell Robert Feinberg* Norma Lee Funger Bruce Gates* Olivier Goudet Jay M. Hammer* Brian Hardie Grace Hobelman (c) Jake Jones Elizabeth Baker Keffer David Kamenetzky* Jerome B. Libin, Esq. (c) Charlotte Cameron Marshall* (c) Jeffrey Norris Rachel Tinsley Pearson* Joseph M. Rigby Yvonne Sabine Charlotte Schlosberg Samuel A. Schreiber John Sedmak

Irene F. Simpkins Orville A. Smith Ruth Sorenson* Wendy Thompson-Marquez Mary Jo Veverka* Gladys Watkins* Carol W. Wilner

Honorary Directors Nancy G. Barnum Roselyn Payne Epps, M.D. Michelle Cross Fenty Sophie P. Fleming Eric R. Fox Peter Ladd Gilsey † Barbara W. Gordon France K. Graage James M. Harkless, Esq. ViCurtis G. Hinton † Sherman E. Katz Marvin C. Korengold, M.D. Peter L. Kreeger Robert G. Liberatore Dennis G. Lyons Gilbert D. Mead † Gerson Nordlinger † John F. Olson, Esq. (c) Susan Porter Frank H. Rich Albert H. Small Shirley Small The Honorable James W. Symington Stefan F. Tucker, Esq. (c) Paul Martin Wolff

PAST CHAIRS

Todd Duncan †, Past Chairman Laureate William N. Cafritz Aldus H. Chapin † Kenneth M. Crosby † Jean Head Sisco † Kent T. Cushenberry † Harry M. Linowes Edward A. Fox

Hugh H. Smith Alexine Clement Jackson Lydia Micheaux Marshall Stephen W. Porter, Esq. Elliott S. Hall Lena Ingegerd Scott (c) James F. Lafond Bruce E. Rosenblum Daniel L. Korengold Susan B. Hepner Jay M. Hammer

WOMEN’S COMMITTEE OFFICERS

Gladys Watkins, President Annette Morchower, First Vice President Lorraine Adams, Second Vice President Cynthea Warman, Recording Secretary Ruth Hodges, Assistant Recording Secretary Ernestine Arnold, Corresponding Secretary Anna Faith Jones, Treasurer Glendonia McKinney, Assistant Treasurer Charlotte Cameron Marshall, Immediate Past President Barbara Mackenzie Gordon, Founder

LAWYERS’ COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS Jerome B. Libin, Esq. James J. Sandman, Esq.

* Executive Committee + Ex Officio † Deceased (c) Committee Chair As of December 14, 2011

WPAS Annual Fund WPAS gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following individuals, corporations, foundations, and government sources whose generosity supports our artistic and education programming throughout the National Capital area. Friends who contribute $500 or more annually are listed below with our thanks. (As of December 14, 2011)

$100,000+

Altria Group, Inc. Booz Allen Hamilton Ms. Christina Co Mather and Dr. Gary Mather Betsy and Robert Feinberg Mars, Incorporated Ms. Jacqueline Badger Mars The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation National Arts and Cultural Affairs Program/The Commission of Fine Arts Mr. Reginald Van Lee

$50,000-$99,999

Daimler Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts DyalCompass FedEx Corporation

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph F. Horning The Horning Family Fund Susan and Jim Miller Park Foundation, Inc. Mr. Bruce Rosenblum and Ms. Lori Laitman Mr. and Mrs. Sanford Slavin Dr. Paul G. Stern

$35,000-$49,999

DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Carl D.# and Grace P. Hobelman NoraLee and Jon Sedmak

$25,000-$34,999

Abramson Family Foundation Billy Rose Foundation Mark and Terry McLeod National Endowment for the Arts PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP The Rocksprings Foundation

90 Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Ruth and Arne Sorenson Mr. and Mrs. Stefan F. Tucker (L)

$15,000-$24,999

Anonymous Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Adams Diane and Norman Bernstein Mr. and Mrs. Arturo E. Brillembourg Mrs. Ryna Cohen Mr. and Mrs. Art Collins Mr. and Mrs. Morton Funger Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Gates Mr. and Mrs. Jay M. Hammer The Hay-Adams Hotel David and Anna-Lena Kamenetzky Mr. and Mrs. Steven Kaplan Mrs. Elizabeth Keffer Kiplinger Foundation Inc. KPMG LLP

Judith A. Lee, Esq. (L) LightSquared Mr. and Mrs. John Marshall, Dan Cameron Family Foundation, Inc. Nancie G. Marzulla, Esq. (L) MVM, Inc. Nancy Peery Marriott Foundation, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Frank H. Pearl Ms. Rachel Tinsley Pearson PEPCO Mr. and Mrs. Neale Perl Mr. James J. Sandman and Ms. Elizabeth D. Mullin (L) Mr. and Mrs. Hubert M. Schlosberg (L) (W) Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Simpkins Verizon Washington, DC Ms. Mary Jo Veverka Washington Gas Light Company Wells Fargo Bank

$10,000-$14,999

Avid Partners, LLC Mr. and Mrs. Eliezer H. Benbassat BET Networks Chevron DCI Group The Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco Ernst and Young Mr. and Mrs. Jose Figueroa George Wasserman Family Foundation, Inc. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. Robert P. and Arlene R. Kogod Family Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Peter L. Kreeger Mr. and Mrs. Steve Lans Macy’s Marriott International The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, Inc. The Honorable Bonnie McElveen-Hunter Carol and Douglas Melamed Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Milstein Ms. Janice J. Kim and Mr. Anthony L. Otten Prince Charitable Trusts Southern Company Sid Stolz and David Hatfield Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Young

$7,500-$9,999

AT&T Foundation Capitol Tax Partners Dr. and Mrs. Louis Levitt June and Jerry Libin (L) The Meredith Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Glenn A. Mitchell The Hon. Mary V. Mochary and Dr. Philip E. Wine John F. Olson, Esq. (L) Ourisman Automotive of VA Ms. Aileen Richards and Mr. Russell Jones Mr. Claude Schoch Sutherland Asbill & Brennan

$5,000-$7,499

Dr. and Mrs. Clement C. Alpert Ms. Susan Angell Mrs. Dolly Chapin DIOR Ms. Pamela Farr Bob and Jennifer Feinstein Geico Mr. Olivier Goudet and Mrs. Valerie Liquard Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Graham Ms. Carolyn Guthrie Mr. and Mrs. Brian J. Hardie Ms. Annette Kerlin Mr. and Mrs. David O. Maxwell Dr. Robert Misbin Mr. Theodore Segal and Ms. Joyce Wasserstein Target The George Preston Marshall Foundation Mr. and Mrs. John V. Thomas Venable Foundation

The Washington Post Company Mr. Marvin F. Weissberg and Ms. Judith Morris

$2,500-$4,999

Anonymous (4) Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Abel Smith Mr. and Mrs. Robert Alvord Ambassador and Mrs. Tom Anderson Robert and Arlene Bein Jane C. Bergner, Esq. (L) Mr. and Mrs. Boris Brevnov Mr. and Mrs. William N. Cafritz The Charles Delmar Foundation Dr. and Mrs. Purnell W. Choppin Ms. Nadine Cohodas Mr. and Mrs. John Kent Cooke Mr. and Mrs. J. Bradley Davis Dr. Morgan Delaney and Mr. Osborne P. Mackie Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Eagle (L) Linda R. Fannin, Esq. (L) Dr. and Mrs. Gerald Fischer Mr. and Mrs. Burton J. Fishman Mrs. Dielle Fleischmann Friday Morning Music Club, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Gibbens Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Giles Dr. and Mrs. Michael S. Gold James R. Golden Mr. and Mrs. Rolf Graage Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Graham Debra Harrison and Diana Hossack Alexine and Aaron Jackson (W) Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Jacobs Mr. and Mrs. Merritt Jones Mr. and Mrs. David T. Kenney Mr. and Mrs. Edward Kessler (W) Kinexum Services LLC Mrs. Stephen K. Kwass Dr. and Mrs. Lee V. Leak (W) Ms. Laurie Lemley Ms. Sandy Lerner The Honorable and Mrs. Jan Lodal Dorothy P. Loeb, Esq. (L) Mr. and Mrs. Christoph E. Mahle (W) Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Manaker Ms. Doris H. McClory (W) Mr. Robert Meyerhoff and Ms. Rheda Becker Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Dr. Robert Misbin Mr. and Mrs. Robert Monk Mrs. Muriel Miller Pear Mr. and Mrs. Timothy F. Pegler Jerry and Carol Perone Mr. and Mrs. Charles Perret Mr. Trevor Potter and Mr. Dana Westring Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Pritchard Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ramsay Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Rathbun Renah Blair Rietzke Family and Community Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Peter Rich Ms. Aileen Richards and Mr. Russell Jones Ms. Christine C. Ryan and Mr. Tom Graham Lena Ingegerd Scott and Lennart Lundh Peter and Jennifer Seka Mr. and Mrs. Stanton Sloane Mr. and Mrs. Albert H. Small Mr. Eric Steiner Ms. Mary Sturtevant Mr. and Mrs. George R. Thompson Jr. Mr. and Mrs. R. Moses Thompson Mr. and Mrs. Brian Tommer Mr. and Mrs. Mark Weinberger Dr. and Mrs. Herbert D. Weintraub Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Weiss Dr. Sidney Werkman and Ms. Nancy Folger Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wilkins Mr. and Mrs. James J. Wilson Mr. Bruce Wolff and Ms. Linda Miller Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Young, NOVA Research Company

$1,500-$2,499

Anonymous (3) Ms. Lisa Abeel Mrs. Rachel Abraham AllianceBernstein Dr. and Mrs. James Baugh BB&T Private Financial Services Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Bennett Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Brodecki Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Bunting Mr. Peter Buscemi and Ms. Judith Miller Dr. C. Wayne Callaway and Ms. Jackie Chalkley Ms. Karen I. Campbell Drs. Judith and Thomas Chused Dr. Mark Cinnamon and Ms. Doreen Kelly Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Cook Mr. Paul D. Cronin Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Dickstein Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Eagle (L) Mrs. Gay S. Estin Marietta Ethier, Esq. (L) Mrs. Sophie P. Fleming Ms. Wendy Frieman and Dr. David E. Johnson Mr. Gary Gasper Mrs. Paula Seigle Goldman (W) Mrs. Barbara Goldmuntz Mrs. Barbara W. Gordon (W) James McConnell Harkless, Esq. Ms. Gail Harmon Dr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Harris (W) Ms. Leslie Hazel Ms. Gertraud Hechl Mr. and Mrs. Carl F. Hicks, Jr. Mrs. Enid T. Johnson (W) Dr. and Mrs. Elliott Kagan Mr. E. Scott Kasprowicz Mr. and Mrs. Sherman E. Katz (L) Stephen and Mary Kitchen (L) Mr. and Mrs. James Kleeblatt Mr. and Mrs. Steven Lamb Mr. Francois Lang Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Larkin James M. Loots, Esq. and Barbara Dougherty, Esq. (L) Rear Adm. and Mrs. Daniel P. March Howard T. and Linda R. Martin Mr. Scott Martin Mrs. Gail Matheson Ms. Katherine G. McLeod Mr. Larry L. Mitchell Mr. and Mrs. Scott Mitchell Ms. Kristine Morris Lt. Gen. and Mrs. Michael A. Nelson Ms. Michelle Newberry Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Norris Dr. Michael Olding Mr. and Mrs. Jack H. Olender Mr. and Mrs. Gerald W. Padwe Ms. Jean Perin Mr. J. A. Pierce and Ms. Lola Reinsch Mr. Sydney M. Polakoff Adam Clayton Powell III Ms. Lucy Rhame Mr. and Mrs. Martin Ritter Mr. and Mrs. David Roux Mr. and Mrs. Dory Saad Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Schreiber Ms. Mary B. Schwab Dr. Deborah J. Sherrill Ms. Bernice Simmons Virginia Sloss (W) Mrs. Nadia Stanfield Cita and Irwin Stelzer Mr. Richard Strother Ms. Loki van Roijen Ms. Viviane Warren Christopher Wolf, Esq. (L) CDR and Mrs. Otto A. Zipf

$1,000-$1,499

Anonymous Ruth and Henry Aaron Mr. John B. Adams Mr. and Mrs. James B. Adler Dr. and Mrs. Syed S. Ahmed Mr. Donald R. Allen Ms. Carolyn S. Alper Jeff Antoniuk and The Jazz Update Hon. and Mrs. Donald Bliss

Mr. A Scott Bolden Bonnie and Jere Broh-Kahn S. Kann Sons Company Fdn. Inc. Amelie and Bernei Burgunder, Directors Ms. Peggy Cooper Cafritz Mr. and Mrs. Jordan Casteel Dr. and Mrs. Abe Cherrick Mr. Jules Cohen Mr. Tom Colella and Ms. Blair Bennett Ms. Benita Coleman Ms. Josephine S. Cooper Dr. Ronald M. Costell and Ms. Marsha E. Swiss Mr. David D’Alessio Dr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Danks Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Davis Edison W. Dick, Esq. (L) Mr. Anthony E. DiResta (L) Ms. Nancy Ruyle Dodge Dynamic Concepts, Inc. Mr. Stanley Ebner and Ms. Toni Sidley Ms. Lisa Egbuonu-Davis Mrs. John G. Esswein Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, LLC Mr. and Mrs. David Frederick Mr. Donald and Mrs. Irene Gavin The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ms. Marianna Gray Dr. Samuel Guillory Dr. Maria J. Hankerson, Systems Assessment & Research, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. James Harris, Jr. Mr. Charles E. Hoyt and Ms. Deborah Weinberger (L) Drs. Frederick Jacobsen and Lillian Comas-Diaz Mr. and Mrs. Broderick Johnson Ms. Anna F. Jones (W) Ms. Margaret M. Jones Mr. and Mrs. Terry Jones Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Kamerick Mrs. Carol Kaplan Mr. and Mrs. John E. Kilcarr Ms. Elizabeth L. Klee Mr. Daniel L. Korengold and Ms. Martha Dippell Dr. and Mrs. Marvin C. Korengold Mr. Simeon M. Kriesberg and Ms. Martha L. Kahn Sandra and James Lafond Mr. and Mrs. Eugene I. Lambert (L) Mr. and Mrs. Gene Lange (L) Dr. and Mrs. Lee V. Leak (W) Mr. Robert G. Liberatore Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Loughlin Gary and Susan Lytle Mr. Lance Mangum Miss Shirley Marcus Allen Ms. Sandra Masur John C. McCoy, Esq. (L) Vanda B. and Maria E. McMurtry, Davis & Harmon LLP Dr. Jeanne-Marie A. Miller Ms. Dee Dodson Morris Mr. Richard Moxley Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Mulcahy Dr. William Mullins and Dr. Patricia Petrick Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Muscarella Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Nettles Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence C. Nussdorf Mr. and Mrs. John Oberdorfer Dr. Gerald Perman W. Stephen and Diane E. Piper Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Polinger The Honorable and Mrs. Stephen Porter Mr. and Mrs. Greg Prince Mr. and Mrs. David Reznick Dr. Irene Roth Mr. and Mrs. Michael Rowan Mr. and Mrs. Horacio Rozanski Dr. and Mrs. Hans Schneider Steven and Gretchen Seiler Mr. and Mrs. Albert H. Small, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Ronald Spooner Ms. Carolyn Stennett Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Strong

The Manny & Ruthy Cohen Foundation, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Tomares Mr. and Mrs. Jim Trawick G. Duane Vieth, Esq. (L) Drs. Anthony and Gladys Watkins (W) A. Duncan Whitaker, Esq. (L) Drs. Irene and John White Ms. Sensimone Williams Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Winter Mr. and Mrs. Dennis R. Wraase

$500-$999

Anonymous (2) Mr. Andrew Adair Ms. and Mrs. Edward Adams (W) Mr. Jerome Andersen Ms. Ernestine Arnold (W) Hon. and Mrs. John W. Barnum Miss Lucile E. Beaver Dr. and Mrs. Devaughn Belton (W) Ms. Mary Ann Best Ms. Carol A. Bogash Ms. Patricia N. Bonds (W) Mr. and Mrs. Charles Both Mr. and Mrs. Russell Brown Mrs. Elsie Bryant (W) Mrs. Gloria Butland (W) Dr. Warren Coats, Jr. Compass Point Research and Trading, LLC Mr. and Mrs. F. Robert Cook Mr. John W. Cook Mr. John Dassoulas Dr. and Mrs. Chester W. De Long Mr. and Mrs. James B. Deerin (W) Mrs. Rita Donaldson Economic Analysis Group, Ltd. Mrs. Yoko Eguchi Mr. Chip Ellis Dr. Irene Farkas-Conn Mr. and Mrs. Harold Finger Ms. Maura Fox Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Freeman Dr. Melvin Gaskins Mr. and Mrs. William L. Goldman (W) Jack E. Hairston Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Harry Handelsman (W) Jack and Janis Hanson Mrs. Flora Harper Ms. Barbara Harris Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hartwell Mr. Lloyd Haugh Mr. and Mrs. Louis Hering Mr. and Mrs. James K. Holman Dr. and Mrs. John Howell Dr. Josephine S. Huang Mr. and Mrs. Larry Huggins Ralph N. Johanson, Jr., Esq. (L) Mr. and Mrs. Charles Jones Mrs. Edna R. Jones (W) Mr. and Mrs. William Jones (W) Ms. Janet Kaufman (W) Dr. Rebecca Klemm, Ph.D. Mr. and Mrs. Howard Kolodny Mr. and Mrs. John Koskinen Mr. and Mrs. Nick Kotz LA Executive Services Mr. William Lascelle and Blanche Johnson Dr. J. Martin Lebowitz Ms. May Lesar Jack L. Lipson, Esq. (L) Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey A. Lipson The Honorable Cheryl M. Long (W) Mr. and Mrs. Theodore C. Lutz Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Lynch Mr. Bill Maddox and Ms. Pamela Hazen Mr. and Mrs. David Maginnes (W) Mr. Winton E. Matthews, Jr. Ms. Hope McGowan Mr. and Mrs. Keith McIntosh Mr. Kevin Joseph McIntyre Mr. and Mrs. Rufus W. McKinney (W) Ms. Cheryl C. McQueen (W) Mr. Jeffrey M. Menick Mrs. G. William Miller Ms. Robin Miller and Ms. Lila Blinder Mr. and Mrs. Adrian L. Morchower (W) Mr. Charles Naftalin Mr. and Mrs. David Neal

Mr. and Mrs. David Nicholson Mr. and Mrs. Henry Obering Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Papoian Ms. Beverly Perry Ms. Robin Phillips and Mr. Andrew Finn (W) Ms. Susan Rao and Mr. Firoze Rao (W) Mrs. Lynn Rhomberg Ms. Carolyn Roberts Mr. Lincoln Ross and Changamire (W) Mr. Burton Rothleder Dr. and Mrs. Jerome Sandler Mr. and Mrs. Michael Schultz, In memory of Mr. H. Marc Moyens Mrs. Zelda Segal (W) Dr. Deborah Sewell (W) Mr. and Mrs. Daniel B. Silver Mr. Birendar Singh Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sonneborn (W) Mr. and Mrs. George H. Spencer (L) Dana B. Stebbins Dr. and Mrs. Moises N. Steren Mr. David Stern Sternbach Family Fund Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Strickland Dr. and Mrs. Dana Twible Ms. Julie Vass (W) Mr. and Mrs. John Veilleux (W) Mr. John Warren McGarry (L) Mr. and Mrs. Douglas H. Wheeler Mr. and Mrs. John Wilner Mr. and Mrs. James D. Wilson (W) Ms. Linda Winslow Ms. Christina Witsberger Mr. Alexander Yaffe Dr. Saul Yanovich Mr. James Yap Paul Yarowsky and Kathryn Grumbach

IN-KIND DONORS

Arnold & Porter LLP The Beacon Hotel Booz Allen Hamilton Ms. Ossie Borosh Mr. and Mrs. Charles Both The Capital Grille Chevy Chase Embassy of Spain JamalFelder Music Productions LLC The Hay-Adams Hotel Mr. Daniel L. Korengold and Ms. Martha Dippell Dr. and Mrs. Marc E. Leland Ms. Sandy Lerner The Honorable and Mrs. Jan Lodal Lord & Taylor Mars, Incorporated Ms. Jacqueline Badger Mars Mr. Neale Perl Ms. Carol Ridker Mr. Claude Schoch St. Gregory Luxury Hotels & Suites Vermont Avenue Baptist Church Mr. Anthony Williams Mr. John C. Wohlstetter Elizabeth and Bill Wolf Key: (W) Women’s Committee (L) Lawyers’ Committee # Deceased

Washington Performing Arts Society Staff Neale Perl President Debra Harrison Chief Operating Officer Douglas H. Wheeler President Emeritus Development Carolyn Burke Director of Strategic Philanthropy Daren Thomas Director of Leadership and Institutional Gifts Meiyu Tsung Director of Major Gifts Roger Whyte, II Director of Special Events Michael Syphax Foundation Relations Manager Lauren Behling Donor Records Coordinator Helen Aberger Membership Gifts Associate Education Katheryn R. Brewington Assistant Director of Education/ Director of Gospel Programs Megan Merchant Education Program Coordinator Koto Maesaka Education Associate Amy Hunter Interim Education Associate Njambi Embassy Adoption Consultant Michelle Ebert Friere CIS Consultant Finance and Administration Allen Lassinger Director of Finance Belinda Miller Assistant Director of Finance Robert Ferguson Database Administrator

Marketing and Communications Jonathan Kerr Director of Marketing and Communications Hannah Grove-DeJarnett Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications Scott Thureen Audience Development Manager Keith A. Kuzmovich Website and Media Manager Celia Anderson Graphic Designer Brenda Kean Tabor Publicist Mike Rowan Marketing and Group Sales Coordinator Corinne Baker Advertising and Marketing Coordinator Programming Samantha Pollack Director of Programming Torrey Butler Production Manager Wynson Taylor Programming and Production Coordinator Stanley J. Thurston Artistic Director, WPAS Gospel Choirs Ticket Services Office Folashade Oyegbola Ticket Services Manager Christian Simmelink Ticket Services Coordinator Michelle Shelby Ticket Services Assistant Karen McCullough Ticket Services Assistant

Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 91

Audra McDonald with WPAS board member Beverly Burke and guests

WPAS Legacy Society Legacy Society members appreciate the vital role the performing arts play in the community, as well as in their own lives. By remembering WPAS in their will or estate plans, members enhance our endowment fund and help make it possible for the next generations to enjoy the same quality and diversity of presentations both on stages and in our schools.

Mrs. Shirley and Mr. Albert H. Small, Honorary Chairs Mr. Stefan F. Tucker, Chair Anonymous (6) Mr. David G.† and Mrs. Rachel Abraham Dr. and Mrs. Clement C. Alpert Mr. and Mrs. George A. Avery Mr. James H. Berkson † Ms. Lorna Bridenstine † Ms. Christina Co Mather Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Cook Mr. and Mrs. F. Robert Cook Ms. Josephine Cooper Mr. and Mrs. James Deerin Mrs. Luna E. Diamond † Mr. Edison W. Dick and Mrs. Sally N. Dick Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Dickstein Ms. Carol M. Dreher

Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Eagle Ms. Eve Epstein † Mr. and Mrs. Burton Fishman Mrs. Charlotte G. Frank † Mr. Ezra Glaser † Dr. and Mrs. Michael L. Gold Ms. Paula Goldman Mrs. Barbara Gordon Mr. James Harkless Ms. Susan B. Hepner Mr. Carl Hobelman † and Mrs. Grace Hobelman Mr. Craig M. Hosmer and Ms. Daryl Reinke Charles E. Hoyt Josephine Huang, Ph.D. Dr. and Mrs. Aaron Jackson Mrs. Enid Tucker Johnson Mr. and Mrs. Charles Jones Mr. Sherman E. Katz Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Kimble

Mr. Daniel L. Korengold Dr. Marvin C. Korengold Mr. and Mrs. James Lafond Ms. Evelyn Lear and Mr. Thomas Stewart† Mrs. Marion Lewis † Mr. Herbert Lindow † Mr. and Mrs. Harry Linowes Mr. and Mrs. David Maginnes Ms. Doris McClory Mrs. Carol Melamed Robert I. Misbin Mr. Glenn A. Mitchell Ms. Viola Musher Mr. Jeffrey T. Neal The Alessandro Niccoli Scholarship Award The Pola Nirenska Memorial Award Mr. Gerson Nordlinger † Mrs. Linda Parisi and Mr. J.J. Finkelstein Mr. and Mrs. Neale Perl Dr. W. Stephen and Mrs. Diane Piper Mrs. Mildred Poretsky † The Hon. and Mrs. Stephen Porter Mrs. Betryce Prosterman † Miriam Rose †

Dentist profiles Dentist Profiles Dentist profiles

Mr. James J. Sandman and Ms. Elizabeth D. Mullin Mrs. Ann Schein Mr. and Mrs. Hubert (Hank) Schlosberg Ms. Lena Ingegerd Scott Mrs. Zelda Segal Mr. Sidney Seidenman Ms. Jean Head Sisco † Mr. and Mrs. Sanford L. Slavin Mr. and Mrs. Albert H. Small Mr. Robert Smith and Mrs. Natalie Moffett Smith Mrs. Isaac Stern Mr. Leonard Topper Mr. Hector Torres Mr. and Mrs. Stefan Tucker Mr. Ulric † and Mrs. Frederica Weil Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Wheeler Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Winter Ms. Margaret S. Wu In memory of Y. H. and T. F. Wu For more information, please contact Douglas H. Wheeler at (202) 533-1874, or e-mail dwheeler@wpas.org.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

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HILARY SCHWAB HILARY SCHWAB

Cheryl Callahan, DDS, & Joyce Thomas, DMD Cheryl Callahan, DDS,Each & morning Joyce Thomas, DMD at the dental office of Drs. Cheryl Callahan and Joyce

92 Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

Thomas, the staff gathers for their morning huddle to exchange informationEach about that day’s procedures andofpatient news.Callahan and Joyce morning at the dental office Drs. Cheryl “Knowing aboutgathers births,for marriages, graduations, andexchange losses helps us Thomas, the staff their morning huddle to informaprovide a compassionate Dr. Callahan. “We show tion aboutcare thatwith day’s procedures andtouch,” patientsays news. patients theyabout are valued allayinggraduations, the anxiety and oftenlosses associated “Knowing births,while marriages, helps with us dental appointments.” provide care with a compassionate touch,” says Dr. Callahan. “We show Callahan are general dentists who build patients they and are Thomas valued while allayingand the cosmetic anxiety often associated with long-term relationships to help patients—from ages 3 to 93—achieve dental appointments.” maximum health, are function andand beauty.

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Dentist profiles

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Dentist Profiles

advertisement

Jay H. Samuels, DDS, PA

HILARY SCHWAB

In a warm, state-of-the-art dental office, Dr. Jay Samuels’ family practice welcomes individuals seeking excellence in cosmetic, implant and general dentistry. New patients and adolescents transitioning to adult care are especially welcomed. “At our family dental practice, we measure our successes one patient at a time,” says Dr. Samuels. “To be able to offer my patients the best options available, I regularly study with top national cosmetic, reconstructive and implant experts.”

Caring is paramount to Dr. Samuels, so much so that at no additional charge to his patients he offers, exclusively in the DC area, a cutting-edge relaxation dental method called NuCalm®. The process is akin to meditation, ensuring a comfortable, anxietyfree experience regardless of the type of treatment. Safe and natural, NuCalm does not conflict or interfere with any medication or medical condition.

Another kind of care that Dr. Samuels concerns himself with is sports safety.

Following recommendations of the American Dental Association and the Academy for Sports Dentistry, Dr. Samuels provides properly-fitted custom mouth guards—at cost—to children ages 4 to 18. He is pursuing grants to extend this protection program to inner-city youth.

Dr. Samuels lives in Potomac with his wife and three children. He has appeared on CBS News/WUSA as an expert in dental health.

In addition, he serves as the president of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of Alpha Omega Dental Fraternity.

Dr. Samuels’ patients, both long-term and new, comment on the relaxing office experience and dynamic dental care. “We balance the art and science of dentistry—always with a smile,” says Dr. Samuels.

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230 January/February 2012 | Bethesda Magazine HEALTH

Jay H. Samuels, DDS, PA 11140 Rockville Pike, Suite 510 N. Bethesda, MD 20852 301-881-4200 www.drjsamuels.com

Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012 93

Music Center at

Strathmore

important information

please contact the Ticket Office for replacements.

patrons. Both main entrances have power- assisted doors.

CHILDREN

GIFT CERTIFICATES Gift certificates may be purchased at the Ticket Office.

GROUP SALES, FUNDRAISERS

For ticketed events, all patrons are required to have a ticket regardless of age. Patrons are urged to use their best judgment when bringing children to a concert that is intended for adults. There are some performances that are more appropriate for children than others.

Some presenters do not allow children under the age of six years to non-family concerts. As always, if any person makes a disruption during a concert, it is appropriate that they step outside to accommodate the comfort and convenience of other concert attendees. Contact the Ticket Office at (301) 581-5100 for additional information.

For information, call (301) 581-5199 or email groups@strathmore.org.

PARKING FACILITIES

5301 Tuckerman Lane North Bethesda, MD 20852-3385 www.strathmore.org Email: tickets@strathmore.org Ticket Office Phone: (301) 581-5100 Ticket Office Fax: (301) 581-5101 Via Maryland Relay Services for MD residents at 711 or out of state at 1(800) 735-2258

TICKET OFFICE HOURS Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Wednesday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.

Saturday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Sixty minutes prior to each performance in the Music Center through intermission.

All tickets are prepaid and non-refundable.

Concert parking is located in the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro garage off Tuckerman Lane. At the end of each ticketed event in the Music Center at Strathmore, the exit gates to the garage will be open for 30 minutes to exit the garage. If you leave before, or up to 90 minutes after this 30-minute period, you must show your ticket stub to the Metro attendant to exit at no cost.

For all non-ticketed events, Monday – Friday, parking in the garage is $4.75 and may be paid using a Metro SmarTrip card or major credit card.

Limited short-term parking also is available at specially marked meters along Tuckerman Lane. To access the Music Center from the GrosvenorStrathmore Metro garage, walk across the glass-enclosed sky bridge located on the 4th level.

WILL CALL

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Patrons must present the credit card used to purchase tickets or a valid ID to obtain will call tickets.

Strathmore is located immediately adjacent to the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station on the Red Line and is served by several Metro and Ride-On bus routes. See www.strathmore. org, or the Guide to the Music Center at Strathmore for detailed directions.

TICKET POLICIES Unlike many venues, Strathmore allows tickets to be exchanged.

Tickets may only be exchanged for shows presented by Strathmore or its resident partner organizations at the Music Center. Exchanges must be for the same presenter within the same season. Ticket exchanges are NOT available for independently produced shows. Please contact the Ticket Office at (301) 581-5100 for details on how to exchange tickets.

If a performance is cancelled or postponed a full refund of the ticket price will be available through the Ticket Office for 30 days after the original scheduled performance date.

TICKET DONATION If you are unable to use your tickets, they may be returned for a tax-deductible donation prior to the performance. Donations can be made by mail, fax or in person by 5 p.m. the day of the performance.

MISPLACED TICKETS If you have misplaced your tickets to any performance at Strathmore,

DROP-OFF There is a patron drop-off circle off Tuckerman Lane that brings patrons to the Discovery Channel Grand Foyer via elevator. No parking is allowed in the circle, cars must be moved to the Metro garage after dropping off

94 Applause at Strathmore • january/february 2012

COAT CHECK Located in the Promenade across from the Ticket Office. As weather requires, the coat check will be available as a complimentary service to our patrons. If you would like to keep your coat or other belongings with you, please place them under your seat. Coats may not be placed over seats or railings.

THE PRELUDE CAFÉ The Prelude Café in the Promenade of the Music Center at Strathmore, operated by Restaurant Associates, features a wide variety of snacks, sandwiches, entrees, beverages and desserts. It is open for lunch and dinner and seats up to 134 patrons.

CONCESSIONS The Interlude intermission bars offer beverages and snacks on all levels before the show and during intermission. There are permanent bars on the Orchestra, Promenade and Grand Tier levels.

LOST AND FOUND During a show, please see an usher.

All other times, please call (301) 581-5100.

LOUNGES AND RESTROOMS Located on all seating levels, except in the Upper Tier.

PUBLIC TELEPHONES Courtesy telephones for local calls are located around the corner from the Ticket Office, in the Plaza Level Lobby, and at the Promenade Right Boxes.

ACCESSIBLE SEATING Accessible seating is available on all levels. Elevators, ramps, specially designed and designated seating, designated parking and many other features make the Music Center at Strathmore accessible to patrons with disabilities. For further information or for special seating requests in the Concert Hall, please call the Ticket Office at (301) 581-5100.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING

The Music Center at Strathmore is equipped with a Radio Frequency Assistive Listening System for patrons who are hard of hearing. Patrons can pick up assistive listening devices at no charge on a first-come, firstserved basis prior to the performance at the coatroom when open, or at the ticket taking location as you enter the Concert Hall with a driver’s license or other acceptable photo ID. For other accessibility requests, please call (301) 581-5100.

ELEVATOR SERVICE There is elevator service for all levels of the Music Center at Strathmore.

EMERGENCY CALLS If there is an urgent need to contact a patron attending a Music Center concert, please call (301) 581-5112 and give the patron’s name and exact seating location, and telephone number for a return call. The patron will be contacted by the ushering staff and the message relayed left with Head Usher.

LATECOMER POLICY Latecomers will be seated at the first appropriate break in the performance as not to disturb the performers or audience members. The decision as to when patrons will be seated is set by the presenting organization for that night.

FIRE NOTICE The exit sign nearest to your seat is the shortest route to the street. In the event of fire or other emergency, please WALK to that exit. Do not run.

In the case of fire, use the stairs, not the elevators.

WARNINGS The use of any recording device, either audio or video, and the taking of photographs, either with or without flash, is strictly prohibited by law. Violators are subject to removal from the Music Center without a refund, and must surrender the recording media. Smoking is prohibited in the building.

Please set to silent, or turn off your cell phones, pagers, PDAs, and beeping watches prior to the beginning of the performance.

Awards Bethesda Urban Partnership and Bethesda Magazine have partnered to honor writers at the Bethesda Literary Festival, April 20-22, 2012.

Short Story & Essay Contest

First place: $500 and published in Bethesda Magazine Second place: $250 Third place: $150 Honorable Mention: $75 The first place winners will also receive a gift certificate to The Writer’s Center.

All winners will be published on the Bethesda Magazine and Bethesda Urban Partnership websites and will be honored at a special event during the Bethesda Literary Festival.

Adults (ages 18+) and High School Students (grades 9-12) are eligible.

High School winners receive: $250, first place; $100, second place; $50, third place. Bethesda Magazine will print the first place Essay & Short Story.

Deadline: Feb. 17, 2012 For eligibility and rules, please visit www.bethesdamagazine.com or www.bethesda.org.

For more information, call 301-215-6660, Ext. 142 or 301-718-7787, Ext. 207.

encore

by Sandy Fleishman Q. How does the pace of the BSO compare with your previous symphony/orchestra experience?

It’s more intense and fast-paced here than any place else I’ve ever worked. In Los Angeles [at the Philharmonic], there was an enormous amount of activity but with an army of people. At the Fort Worth Symphony, there were slightly fewer people than here but a more manageable volume of activity. Despite the pace, I really love it here. Under Music Director Marin Alsop, the entire organization is incredibly creative and forward-looking.

Vice President of Artistic Operations Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Matthew Spivey

M

atthew Spivey is always on the go. He manages artistic planning for the classical and pop seasons in Baltimore and at the Music Center at Strathmore. Then there’s the summer season, tours and special events. Not to mention overseeing the orchestra’s personnel and operations departments. Plus, he and wife Denise recently had their third baby—the trio’s all under 5. How does he do it? “The BSO is highly collaborative,” he says. And: “People don’t do a job like this unless they’re also passionate about their work.”

96 applause at Strathmore • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

Q. What happens when someone can’t perform, as when violinist Midori had a sudden back injury a year ago and Russian-Armenian violinist Mikhail Simonyan stepped in?

The important thing is acting quickly and knowing who to call. … [Simonyan’s] repertoire was exactly what we needed for a piece like the Shostakovich Violin Concerto. He knows it cold. In this case, it was clear Simonyan would be perfect. But it’s definitely nerve-wracking.

Q. Have your relationships from other jobs helped you in booking conductors or musicians here?

Absolutely. I’ve had many great opportunities to meet conductors and musicians. In fact, the most valuable part of my job in L.A. was driving all of these world-class artists. . . .And great ideas come from others on staff. So when I’m looking for the world’s best underwater puppeteer, I’m never surprised when someone from the office says, “I just saw a person in New York who’s perfect!”

Vince Lupo

Q. How do you keep up with so many pieces of the puzzle?

In many ways it is 24/7—I’m always attending concerts, listening to recordings and thinking about ways to make something better.

Because there are agents and artists who live on the other side of the world, I may get calls at home in the evenings or on weekends. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get time to spend with the family. … My wife is a flutist and my children love to come to the family concerts.

YOU ALWAYS KNOW A STUART KITCHEN. SINCE 1955,

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1858 REISTERSTOWN RD. 410-486-0500

www.stuartkitchens.com