THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA, 2022-2023
Teddy Abrams, Music Director
Bob Bernhardt, Principal Pops Conductor
Graham Parker, Chief Executive
FIRST VIOLIN
Gabriel Lefkowitz, Concertmaster
Julia Noone, Associate Concertmaster
James McFaddenTalbot, Assistant Concertmaster
Mrs. John H. Clay Chair
Katheryn S. Ohkubo
Stephen Taylor
Scott Staidle
Nancy Staidle
Heather Thomas
Patricia Fong-Edwards
Dillon Welch
SECOND VIOLIN
Natsuko Takashima, Interim Principal
LG&E-KU Foundation Chair
Kimberly Tichenor, Assistant Principal
Christopher Robinson, Interim
Mary Catherine Klan Chair
Andrea Daigle
Cynthia Burton
Charles Brestel
Open
Judy Pease Wilson
Blaise Poth
VIOLA
Jack Griffin, Principal
Evan Vicic, Assistant Principal
Jacqueline R. and Theodore S. Rosky Chair
Clara Markham
Mr.† and Mrs. Charles
W. Hebel Jr. Chair
Jennifer Shackleton
Jonathan Mueller
Virginia Kershner
Schneider Viola Chair, Endowed in Honor of Emilie Strong Smith by an Anonymous Donor
Meghan Casper
CELLO
Nicholas Finch, Principal
Jim and Marianne Welch Chair
Lillian Pettitt, Assistant Principal
Carole C. Birkhead Chair, Endowed by Dr. Ben M. Birkhead
Cecilia Huerta-Lauf, Interim
Christina Hinton*
James B. Smith Chair
Endowed by Susannah S. Onwood
Allison Olsen
Lindy Tsai
Alan Ohkubo, Interim
BASS
Vincent Luciano, Principal
Brian Thacker, Interim Assistant Principal
Robert Docs
Karl Olsen
Jarrett Fankhauser Chair, Endowed by the Paul Ogle Foundation
Michael Chmilewski
FLUTE
Kathleen Karr, Principal Elaine Klein Chair
Jake Chabot
Jessica Chancey
PICCOLO
Jessica Chancey
Alvis R. Hambrick Chair
OBOE
Alexandr Vvedenskiy, Principal
Betty Arrasmith Chair, Endowed by the Association of the Louisville Orchestra
Trevor Johnson*, Assistant Principal
Jennifer Potochnic ‡
ENGLISH HORN
Trevor Johnson*
Philip M. Lanier Chair
CLARINET
Andrea Levine, Principal Brown-Forman Corp. Chair
Robert Walker
Kate H. and Julian P.
Van Winkle Jr. Chair
Ernest Gross
BASS CLARINET
Ernest Gross
BASSOON
Matthew Karr, Principal
Paul D. McDowell Chair
Francisco Joubert
Bernard
HORN
Jon Gustely, Principal
Edith S. & Barry Bingham Jr. Chair
Diana Wade Morgen
Gary † and Sue Russell Chair
Scott Schiffer Leger
Assistant Principal/ Third Horn
Stephen Causey
TRUMPET
Alexander Schwarz, Principal
Leon Rapier Chair, Endowed by the Musicians of the Louisville Orchestra
Noah Dugan
James Recktenwald
TROMBONE
James Seymour, Interim Principal
Brett Shuster ‡
BASS TROMBONE
J. Bryan Heath
TUBA
Andrew Doub, Principal
TIMPANI
Open, Principal
Mr. and Mrs.† Warwick
Dudley Musson Principal Timpani Chair
Michael Launius ‡
PERCUSSION
John Pedroja, Principal
HARP
Rachel Miller, Interim Principal
* On leave
‡ Denotes Auxiliary Musician
† Deceased
A U D I E N C E 6
Teddy Abrams, Music Director
Bob Bernhardt, Principal Pops Conductor
Graham Parker, Chief Executive
FRANK AND PAULA HARSHAW
LO GALA CONCERT
Thursday, April 27, 2023 • 8PM
The Kentucky Center, Whitney Hall
Teddy Abrams, conductor • Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
Henk BADINGS Symphony No. 7, “Louisville Symphony”
IV. Allegro vivace
Angélica NEGRÓN Fractal Isles
THE REAL YOUNG PRODIGYS arr. Globus-Hoenich Crown
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 107
I. Allegretto
II. Moderato
III. Cadenza
IV. Allegro con moto
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Teddy ABRAMS Aria: Lacrimosa from Mammoth
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
IV. Allegro
Yo-Yo Ma is represented exclusively by Opus 3 Artists
Please silence all electronic devices before the concert begins. The use of cameras and recording devices is prohibited. Please be mindful of your fellow concert attenders if you choose to access the extended program notes during the performance.
A U D I E N C E 7
GALA CONCERT SPONSOR
The Residency with Yo-Yo Ma, Teddy Abrams, and the Louisville Orchestra is made possible by a gift from:
The Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation
With Valued Appreciation of our Gala Concert Sponsor: Frank and Paula Harshaw
A Special Thanks to our Sponsors:
Stephen Reily and Emily Bingham
Vivian Ruth Sawyer
And Appreciation for Support from:
Associates in Dermatology
Eleanor Bingham-Miller
Owsley and Victoire Brown
Donald and Linda Finney
Mariah and Eric Gratz
Kaplan Johnson Abate & Bird LLP
Jim and Irene Karp
Kentucky Fertility Institute
Lee and Rosemary Kirkwood
Owsley Brown II Family Foundation
Jeff and Paula Roberts
Jim and Marianne Welch
Mary Ellen Wiederwohl & Joel W. Morris, Jr.
With Gracious Recognition of:
The Buttrick Family
Cary Brown & Steven Epstein
Ciliberti Interior Design
Louise and Dan Burke
Maggie and Mike Faurest
Dr. Jeffrey Glazer and Dr. Karen Abrams
Joseph Glerum
Doug and Ann Grissom
Gill and Augusta Holland
Dr. Nathaniel Liu and Dr. Sarah Kane
Kelly and Justin Maxwell
Mint Julep Experiences
Bruce and Marcia Roth
Sadie and Matt Schabdach
Denise Schiller
Orme and Mary Wilson
Thank you for your contribution and support in bringing innovative symphonic experiences to the Commonwealth.
Benefit activation as of 4/14/23
A U D I E N C E 8
YO-YO MA, cellist
Yo-Yo Ma’s multifaceted career is testament to his enduring belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works from the cello repertoire, collaborating with communities and institutions to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.
In 2018, Yo-Yo set out to perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s six suites for solo cello in one sitting in 36 locations around the world that encompass our cultural heritage, our current creativity, and the challenges of peace and understanding that will shape our future. And last year, he began a new journey to explore the many ways in which culture connects us to the natural world. Over the next several years, Yo-Yo will visit places that epitomize nature’s potential to move the human soul, creating collaborative works of art and convening conversations that seek to strengthen our relationship to our planet and to each other.
Both endeavors continue Yo-Yo’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to explore how music not only expresses and creates meaning, but also helps us to imagine and build a stronger society and a better future.
It was this belief that inspired Yo-Yo to establish Silkroad, a collective of artists from around the world who create music that engages their many traditions.
Through his work with Silkroad, as well as throughout his career, Yo-Yo Ma has sought to expand the classical cello repertoire, premiering works by composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Leon Kirchner, Zhao Lin, Christopher Rouse, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Giovanni Sollima, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, and John Williams.
In addition to his work as a performing artist, Yo-Yo has partnered with communities and institutions from Chicago to Guangzhou to develop programs that advocate for a more human-centered world. Among his many roles, Yo-Yo is a UN Messenger of Peace, the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, and a member of the board of Nia Tero, the US-based nonprofit working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements worldwide.
Yo-Yo’s discography of more than 100 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. In addition to his many iconic renditions of the Western classical canon, he has made recordings that defy categorization, among them “Appalachia Waltz” and “Appalachian Journey” with Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer and two Grammy-winning tributes to the music of Brazil. Yo-Yo’s recent recordings include: “Sing Me Home,” with the Silkroad Ensemble, which won the 2016 Grammy for Best World Music Album; “Six Evolutions — Bach: Cello Suites;” and “Songs of Comfort and Hope,” created and recorded with pianist Kathryn Stott in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yo-Yo’s latest album is “Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5,” with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos.
A U D I E N C E 9
BIOGRAPHY
ARTIST
Yo-Yo was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010), Kennedy Center Honors (2011), the Polar Music Prize (2012), and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022). He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.
Yo-Yo and his wife have two children. He plays three instruments: a 2003 instrument made by Moes & Moes, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice, and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.
Yo-Yo Ma is represented exclusively by Opus 3 Artists.
THE REAL YOUNG PRODIGYS, hip hop ensemble
Since the pandemic, urban students of color are still suffering
from the racial trauma due to the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and repeated images of violence. African American students feel they do not have a voice or believe their lives matter.
To combat this narrative HHN2L’s TRYP (The Real Young Prodigys) Program will partner with the Louisville Orchestra to offer students the opportunity to “RAP” with the orchestra. This program partners youth with the Louisville Orchestra in the fight for racial equity through performance and advocacy. It also allows youth to reimagine artistic performance!
COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY
HENK BADINGS (1907-1987)
Henk Badings is certainly one of the most musically innovative of Dutch 20th-century composer / conductors.
Born on Jan. 17, 1907, in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies [now in Indonesia], he was orphaned at the age of 7 and subsequently moved to the Netherlands in 1915 under the care of a guardian. He majored in mining technology at the
University of Technology in Delft and received his degree cum laude in 1931. He always had an interest in music and began composing in his twenties without formal training. From 1930 – 1931 he studied orchestration with Willem Pijper and in his graduation year from Delft his Cello Concerto was premiered by the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Badings was partial to using unusual musical scales and harmonies, such as the 31-tone scale and an octatonic scale alternating whole and half steps. He is perhaps best known for his pioneering work in electronic music. Compositions from this part of his oeuvre date from
A U D I E N C E 10
BIOGRAPHY
ARTIST
1952 onward. In 1956 he founded the electronic music studio of Philips in Eindhoven and from 1961 to 1972 Badings was a professor of composition at the conservatory in Stuttgart. He taught acoustics and computing science at the Institute of Sonology of the University of Utrecht until 1977. At the time of his death in Maarheeze in 1987, Badings had composed over 1000 pieces of music, including 15 symphonies. Renewed interest in his music in the 21st century has prompted the German recording label CPO to undertake to record all of his compositions for orchestra.
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN (b. 1981)
Puerto Ricanborn composer and multiinstrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choirs, and film. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2) while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise.” Negrón has been commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kronos Quartet, loadbang, MATA Festival, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Sō Percussion, the American Composers Orchestra, and the New York Botanical Garden, among others. She has composed numerous film scores, including Landfall (2020) and Memories of a Penitent Heart (2016), in collaboration with filmmaker Cecilia
Aldarondo. She was the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize. Recent premieres include works for the Seattle Symphony, LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic Project 19 initiative, and multiple performances at Big Ears Festival 2022. Negrón continues to perform and compose for film.
TEDDY ABRAMS (b. 1987)
An unusually versatile musician, Teddy Abrams is the widely acclaimed Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra and Music Director and Conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra. A tireless advocate for the power of music, Abrams has fostered interdisciplinary collaborations with organizations including the Louisville Ballet, the Center for Interfaith Relations, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Speed Art Museum, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Abrams’ work with the Louisville Orchestra has been profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, and in The Wall Street Journal.
Abrams was a protégé of Michael Tilson Thomas from the age of eleven, and studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller and Ford Lallerstedt at the Curtis Institute of Music, and with David Zinman at the Aspen Music Festival; he was the youngest conducting student ever accepted at both institutions. A highlight of his 2019 –2020 season was participating as the lead role in the Kennedy Center Honors celebration of his mentor Michael Tilson Thomas.
A U D I E N C E 11
COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY
PHOTO BY FRANKIE STEELE
Abrams is also an award-winning composer and a passionate educator with a variety of compositions for orchestra, jazz, chamber ensembles and voice in his oeuvre. His 2009 Education Concerts with the New World Symphony (featuring the world premiere of one of Abrams’ own orchestral works) were webcast to hundreds of schools throughout South Florida. His rap-opera, The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, premiered in 2017, celebrating Louisville’s hometown hero with an all-star cast that included Rhiannon Giddens and Jubilant Sykes.
Abrams collaborated with Jim James, vocalist and guitarist for My Morning Jacket, on the song cycle The Order of Nature, which they premiered with the Louisville Orchestra in 2018 and recorded on Decca Gold. On March 10, 2023 the Piano Concerto he composed for his friend, celebrated pianist Yuja Wang was released on her album The American Project for Deutsche Grammophon. Of it, Classical Source says:
(Abrams’ Piano Concerto) proves to be consistently diverting and engaging in its invention – foot-tapping pumping rhythms, lyrical asides, colourfully orchestrated (saxes, drum-kit, big-band brass to the fore), proceeding energetically through its Americana course with a sense of a filmic narrative – all episodes belonging in a musically organic way. Wang’s virtuosity can be taken for granted (she has four cadenzas that prove to be more than staging posts) and with the composer conducting the up-for-it Louisville Orchestra (Abrams is music director) then this is a pretty definitive account of an ambitious and impressive work that ends like Gershwin.
An accomplished pianist and clarinetist, Abrams has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras—including playconducting the Ravel Piano Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony in 2017 and the Jacksonville Symphony in 2013 — and has performed chamber music with the St. Petersburg String Quartet, Menahem Pressler, Gilbert Kalish, Time for Three, and John Adams, in addition to annual appearances at the Olympic Music Festival. Dedicated to exploring new and engaging ways to communicate with a diverse range of audiences, Abrams co-founded the Sixth Floor Trio in 2008. Together, they founded and direct GardenMusic, the music festival of the world-renowned Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami; they continue to tour regularly throughout the U.S.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia to Dmitri Boleslavovich, an engineer who worked with Dmitri Mendeleev, and his wife Sofiya. Young Shostakovich began studying piano with his mother at age nine, and at thirteen began studying at the Petrograd Conservatory under Alexander Glazunov. He wrote his First Symphony as his graduation piece but struggled to meet the political ideology of the Soviet era (a problem that would plague much of his career). His First Symphony was championed by Bruno Walter and Leopold Stokowski such that Shostakovich spent most of his time
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COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY
composing (rather than performing unless it was his own work). During the 1920s and early 1930s, Shostakovich composed three more symphonies as well as two operas and it would be his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, based on the novel by Nikolai Leskov, which would prove to be his undoing with Joseph Stalin. Though initially hailed as written in the best tradition of the Soviet culture, after Stalin and his Politburo attended a Lady Macbeth production in 1936, an article appeared in Pravda condemning the opera as being vulgar. Stalin’s Great Terror or Purge began in 1936 and many of Shostakovich’s friends and family were either killed or imprisoned. Even though Shostakovich was well on his way to completing his Fourth Symphony when the first of the Pravda articles came out, he opted to lay low and not release the Fourth but rather composed more film music. In 1937, Shostakovich premiered his Fifth Symphony in Leningrad to great acclaim. The success of this symphony seemed to redeem him in the eyes of the Soviet authority.
During World War II, Shostakovich tried to remain in Leningrad but was forced to evacuate with his family to Kuybyshev (now Samara) and eventually to Moscow. During this time, Shostakovich completed his Seventh Symphony; a piece that was hailed as true Soviet art and perhaps inspired by the siege of Leningrad. His Eighth and Ninth Symphonies did not fare as well and in 1948 was again denounced (along with many other composers) by the Soviet authorities. Shostakovich lost his position at the conservatory and his works were banned. The following year he was sent to
New York as an emissary of Soviet culture but was publically humiliated by having to tow the party line. The death of Stalin in 1953 was a turning point for Shostakovich and his Tenth Symphony reflected the change in his life. In 1957, Shostakovich composed his Eleventh Symphony, nicknamed “1905” in reference to the Bloody Sunday massacre (January 1905) and the Russian Revolution. Shostakovich completed another four symphonies in his lifetime (for a grand total of 15) as well as numerous chamber works and film scores including Russian adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1964) and King Lear (1971).
Shostakovich’s music continues to generate discussion about whether or not it solely espoused the party line or if Shostakovich was able to convey hidden meaning and emotion through his compositions. His large body of work spanning multiple genres gives us a window into this remarkable composer’s journey from the early excitement and innovation of revolution to the hard truths of life under Stalin.
But there is one thing about his music that we can accurately decipher — the use of his “musical motto” DSCH, representing the German transliteration of his name: Dmitri SCHostakovich. In German musical notation, S is E flat and H is B natural, resulting in the sometimes unnerving and disquieting four-note sequence: D-E flat-C-B.
Shostakovich was to use this motif in his intensely personal and autobiographical compositions such as the String Quartet No. 8, Symphony No. 10, and Cello Concerto No. 1 which we will hear performed this evening.
A U D I E N C E 13 COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY
During his final years, Shostakovich suffered from ill health and many of his later works show a deep melancholy and even depressive state. He died of lung cancer on August 9, 1975 in Moscow.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
(1770
– 1827)
Along with Mozart and Bach, many consider Ludwig van Beethoven as the other most recognizable classical composer. And that is classical with a small “c”, as he and his music cannot be defined as being indicative solely of the Classical Era of music history. Beethoven is often referred to as the “giant” who straddles the Classical and Romantic periods, as the music he composed later in his life had a great influence on the composers following him in the Romantic Era.
Born in Bonn, Germany in December of 1770, his actual birthdate was not recorded. However, we do know that he was baptized on December 17th, so as the custom and law of the day was to baptize a baby within 24 hours of its birth, December 16, 1770 has been widely accepted as his date of birth. His uncle and namesake was the Kapellmeister of the city and a prominent musician. His father was a court singer and alcoholic who wanted his young son to be a money-generating piano prodigy like Mozart. Stories from neighbors tell of the young boy crying and standing for hours playing the keyboard and his father beating him when he made mistakes. Although
the “prodigy thing” never worked out, Beethoven was undoubtedly a musical genius who, because of his father’s inability to provide income, began at an early age to support his family and two younger brothers – something that became a pattern in his life. His first work was published in 1782 at the age of 12. By that time, a most-likely dyslexic Beethoven had left his failing studies at school to study composition privately and soon after at 14 assumed the post of Assistant Court Organist.
The young Beethoven traveled to Vienna twice, in 1787 and 1792, to seek to study with the “superstars” of the day, particularly Mozart. That he ever studied or even met with Mozart cannot be confirmed, but the older composer was obviously aware of him as we know he publicly predicted a great future for him one day. He did, however, on the second trip study with Franz Joseph Haydn and also Antonio Salieri, after Mozart’s death the two greatest living composers in the city. Beethoven had not yet been recognized as a composer but had gained fame as a pianist. With the help of adoring Viennese patrons, in 1794 he moved permanently to Vienna and made his public debut on March 29, 1795, most likely playing his Piano Concerto No. 1.
Famously deaf, the condition began to affect him as early as 1796. By the turn of the 19th century, it had begun to
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COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY
"His legacy as one of the greatest composers, and indeed geniuses, who ever lived cannot be denied."
have its devastating effect. Famous for his temper, he wrote in what has been named the “Heiligenstadt Testament”:
“(you who) say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you and I would have ended my life — it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me."
A great many of his most famous works were written from 1803 – 1812 called his “Heroic” period, while he was progressively becoming deaf, including his iconic Symphony No. 5.
Beethoven never married but had a mysterious and brief affair with his “Immortal Beloved” believed by most scholars now to be Antonie Brentano, a wealthy married woman and philanthropist originally from Vienna. It was to her he dedicated the “Diabelli Variations” and she most likely was the subject of his song cycle “An die ferne Geleibte” (“To the Distant Beloved”).
Beethoven died on March 26, 1827. His legacy as one of the greatest composers, and indeed geniuses, who ever lived cannot be denied. He excelled in and influenced all forms of music including symphonies, concertos, sonatas, string quartets, art song, and even opera, although he composed only one, Fidelio.
PROGRAM NOTES
SYMPHONY No. 7 IN C MAJOR “LOUISVILLE-SYMPHONY” HENK BADINGS
Commissioned and composed for the Louisville Symphony for its First Edition Records in 1954, Badings’ Seventh Symphony has been called by some a “genuine masterpiece.” It had its first performance for a Louisville audience on February 26, 1955, with the orchestra under the baton of Robert Whitney.
Although written during the period when the composer was mostly concentrating on electronic compositions, this work hearkens back to more conventional fare for Badings. The harmonic language of this orchestral piece is quite original, but still tonal. The symphony is made up of four relatively short movements, with the rather unusual tempo of the movements in a slow-fast-slow-fast
form. The symphony packs a real punch; momentum never flags even in the slower movements and percussion, brass and woodwinds feature prominently in the skillful orchestration.
The finale which we will hear in this evening’s concert is marked Allegro vivace and it is certainly the most playful and optimistic of the four movements. The andante third movement almost melts away in its conclusion and we are jolted by an almost “tribal” drum sequence at the top of the finale which is then joined by a driving rhythmic motif in the strings. Suddenly a melodic ray of sunshine bursts through in the woodwinds, and the music continues as sort of a dialogue between the orchestral sections. The brass section enters with a triumphant and victorious melody and the movement draws to a final joyful close.
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COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY
FRACTAL ISLES ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN
by Laurie Shulman © 2023 First North American Rights Only
Angélica Negrón has carved a unique niche for herself in new music. Classically trained as a violinist, she now performs as a singer and accordionist with Balún, an electro-acoustic pop band. Her latest work, Fractal Isles, is a Louisville Orchestra commission. It combines electronica and bird callers in addition to full orchestra. Collectively, they create a vivid minimalist shimmer reflecting on themes of exoticism, invasion, and the construction of otherness. Her composer’s note states: “Fractal Isles is meant to be seen and heard in saturated colored pieces of glass, enclosed in a tube and through a prismatic lens that repeats its inflection, looking back at itself and inevitably getting lost from the outside in the fantasy of what’s inside.”
Negrón’s atmospheric writing plunges us into the exotic beauty of Puerto Rico’s rainforest. Her interpretive instruction in the music is "...dreamlike, prismatic, etc.” The natural world comes alive with layers of repetitive sound that grow increasingly complex as she introduces pre-recorded tracks; the electronica continues throughout the piece. The effect is hypnotic and magical, somehow achieving a meditative state simultaneously with one of expectancy and apprehension. This is music that draws you in from the start and deepens its hold as it progresses.
CROWN THE REAL YOUNG PRODIGYS
Local hip-hop group The Real Young Prodigys created “CROWN,” a song about the beauty of natural hair. These young
artists perform CROWN to rally support and lobby lawmakers to pass The CROWN Act.
CROWN stands for Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. Once made into law, this act bans employers and public schools from discriminating against a person based on their hair texture or hairstyle.
The CROWN Act passed in the city of Louisville in 2021, but the fight continues at the state and federal level.
ARIA: LACRIMOSA FROM MAMMOTH TEDDY ABRAMS
Tonight, we will hear a portion of the work for cello and orchestra composed by Teddy Abrams for Yo-Yo Ma and members of the Louisville Orchestra in honor of and reverence to Mammoth Cave. The entire composition will have its premiere in Rafinesque Hall of Mammoth Cave on April 29, 2023 to an audience chosen by public lottery by the National Park Service.
In the composition Mammoth, the cello part functions as a soloist, almost in the operatic sense. The “Lacrimosa” is just one of the “arias” that will be played by Yo-Yo Ma throughout the piece. “Lacrimosa” in Latin literally means “tearful” or “sorrowful” and is often associated with the Virgin Mary. It is a part of the “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath depicting the Last Judgment) of the Requiem Mass. As in many historical Requiems, this aria follows some very chaotic music. In Mammoth this turbulent music is meant to examine and depict the destruction above the cave and within it in the years 1811 and 1812 — specifically a series of earthquakes and the War of 1812.
A U D I E N C E 16 PROGRAM NOTES
The “Lacrimosa” begins with a solo cello line built from the main hymn of Mammoth. The cello is joined by text written by Guthrie, KY native Robert Penn Warren (1905 – 1989) entitled "Speleology”(the study or exploration of caves). In this poem, a person turns off his flashlight deep in a cave and knows "darkness and depth and no Time." He imagines himself completely alone in the cave and contemplates the nature of himself in the darkness and quietness of the cave. This contemplation between the musical strands of the cello and the iteration of the poetic text give way to the entrance and accompaniment of the orchestra. The music of the “Lacrimosa” is purposefully tonal and melodic to invoke personal reflection upon the serenity to be found in the environs of the cave.
Text from “Speleology” by Robert Penn Warren:
I have lain in darkness / And hand laid to heart, have once again thought: / This is me / And thought: / Who am I? / And hand on heart, wondered / What would it be like to be, in the end part of all. / And in the darkness have even asked: / Is this all? What is all?
CELLO CONCERTO No. 1 IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 107
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Program notes courtesy of Lindsay Koob for Delos Records © 2013
Dmitri Shostakovich composed both of his cello concertos for Russian cellist and all-around musical icon Mstislav Rostropovich, also the composer’s dear friend. The Cello Concerto No. 1 was completed in 1959, at a time in postStalinist Russia when cultural restrictions had eased somewhat – though they
were by no means a thing of the past. Rostropovich gave both its Russian and American premieres later that same year. Perhaps the most popular twentieth-century cello concerto (and one of the most difficult ever of its kind), it is a deeply personal work, reflecting Shostakovich’s ambivalent emotions and insecurities at having to constantly walk an “artistic tightrope” in Soviet Russia’s often unpredictable and often hostile cultural environment – in which he might well be a ballyhooed hero one day and a reviled scapegoat the next.
Like a number of his other quasiautobiographical works (most notably his eighth string quartet), the central thematic feature here is a series of likesounding variants on Shostakovich’s hallmark four-note “DSCH” sequence (D, E-flat, C, and B in German notation) that corresponds to the “D” of his first name followed by the first three Russian letters of his last name. This recurs in several forms — with different starting points, note sequences and intervals — throughout the work, except in the second movement. The piece is fairly lightly scored — with the only brass instrument being a single French horn, which turns out to play a vital role as the concerto progresses.
The first movement’s main theme is heard in its first four notes from the soloist — seeming to pose an unsettling question. From there, the music unfolds in mostly concentrated and supple fashion, maintaining a persistent aura of animated tension throughout its course. The single horn appears to emphatically reinforce the theme as the music grows in anxious intensity. The slow movement begins with a theme that, oddly, is never taken up by the cello; instead,
A U D I E N C E 17 PROGRAM NOTES
after the horn sets up its entrance, the cello appears with its own theme. The movement proceeds with a sense of uneasy, yet lyrically elegiac reflection — with episodes of typical Russian gloom and intermittent groundswells of bleak and searing desolation.
Ensuing without pause, the unusual third movement is actually an extended solo cadenza that — at first — maintains the preceding movement’s melancholic mood in its pensive soliloquy. But then it gradually rises in tempo and intensity, setting up — again without pause — the compact, rondo-like finale in which its main theme (based loosely on a Georgian folk song that Stalin had been fond of) alternates in a lively, but nervous manner with contrasting material. Then, about halfway through, the first movement’s quasi-autobiographical theme returns with a vengeance — confirmed by a mighty horn call. But the motif is no longer questioning, taking on a more positive quality as the music hurtles to a triumphant finish ... even though Stalin’s Georgian tune still lurks beneath the surface in the coda. Still, the movement is emphatically sealed by final “exclamation points” from the timpani.
SYMPHONY No. 5 IN C MINOR, OP. 67
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Laurie Shulman © 2023 First North American Rights Only
The stormy Fifth Symphony communicates a different spectrum of feelings, generally summarized as a journey from struggle to triumph. After its second performance in Leipzig, on January 23, 1809, the local press reported that the first movement was a very serious, somewhat gloomy yet fiery allegro, noble ... with a lot of originality, strength and consistency — a worthy
movement which offers rich pleasure even to those who cling to the old way of composing a symphony.
Beethoven had clearly seized upon a new way of composing. That reviewer two centuries ago deserves credit for recognizing the revolutionary qualities of Beethoven’s Fifth, which continues to thrill and astound listeners. Two hundred years have not dulled its ability to raise the hair on the back of our necks.
March rhythms figure prominently, sometimes even when the music is in triple time. Beethoven's emphasis on the brass section underscores the martial quality of the symphony. So too does his expansion of the orchestra to include piccolo (redolent of military band flavor), contrabassoon, and trombones. His letter to his patron Count Franz von Oppersdorff in March 1808 shows that he wanted the bigger sound.
“The last movement of the symphony has three trombones and flautino (piccolo) — and not three timpani, but will make more noise than six timpani, and better noise than that.”
Beethoven's allusion to "better noise" makes one wonder whether there is an undertone of glee in his close. He takes a whopping 54 measures to hammer home the final C-major cadence, just to make certain we get his message. This key of C Major was well-known at the time as the Viennese key of sunlight, and it brightens the finale: triumph over adversity! Nearly two centuries later, the rhetoric retains its power undiminished. The resolute, optimistic conclusion is heightened by expanded instrumentation: this was the first symphony in which Beethoven used piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones, all in the finale.
A U D I E N C E 18 PROGRAM NOTES
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A U D I E N C E 20
