Marin Alsop, Music Director
MAY –June 2015
A magazine for the patrons of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
MArkus Stenz
The BSO’s newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor brings a talent for making old things new again.
100 Candles: The BSO ’ s all abuzz about its centennial
The Music of John Williams Comes to the BSO
All the details on a terrific autumn of music at the BSO
contents Departments 2 ) Letter from the President & CEO 4 ) In Tempo: News Of Note 6 ) BSO Live: Calendar of Events 7) Orchestra Roster
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38) Honor Roll
44) Impromptu: Aaron LaVere, Principal Trombone
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Markus Stenz The ability to make every performance feel like a premiere is one reason Marin Alsop and the BSO have invited Maestro Stenz to become its principal guest conductor.
8 Program Notes 12) Tchaikovsky’s
First Piano Concerto May 8 & 9
16) Debussy & Don Juan
5
May 15 & 17
22) Strauss’ Four Last Songs May 21 & 22
26 ) A Tribute to John Williams
Features
28 ) Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
Centennial Season Preview
32 ) Bernstein’s Candide
Next season will bring homecomings, debuts and blockbuster repertoire.
May 29, 30 & 31 June 5 & 7
June 12, 13 &14
8) The
by Christianna McCausland
10) Stenz
& Stenz Ability
by Martha Thomas
The BSO’s newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor brings a talent for making old things new again. On the Cover
Markus Stenz, Photography by Molina Visuals
Be Green: Recycle Your Program! Please return your gently used program to the Overture racks in the lobby. Want to keep reading at home? Please do! Just remember to recycle it when you’re through.
May– June 2015 |
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overture The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 2014–2015 Season 410.783.8000 BSOmusic.org The Baltimore SyMphony ORchestra Marin Alsop Music Director Barbara M. Bozzuto Chair Paul Meecham President & CEO Martha Thomas Publications Editor Janet E. Bedell Program Annotator
Baltimore magazine Design and Print Division Director Ken Iglehart iken@baltimoremagazine.net 443.873.3916 Art Director Vicki Dodson Senior Graphic Artist Michael Tranquillo Contributing Writers Laura Farmer Christianna McCausland Martha Thomas
{ from the president
Welcome
Here at the BSO, we’re all abuzz about our Centennial Season. The lineup of local and international talent is, well, mind-blowing. Pardon the colloquialism, but honestly, that is the best way I know to describe it. While the festivities begin with the launch of our new season in September, the signal performance will be on February 11, 2016, the actual 100th anniversary of our founding. Marin Alsop will be conducting a special program Here at the BSO, featuring the celebrated violinist Joshua Bell, Ravel’s we’re all abuzz Boléro and much, much more. It will be a unique one-night only event, surely not to be missed. about our During the Centennial Season, we’ll celebrate a Centennial Season. canon of classical music from Beethoven to Brahms, and we will also pack a few surprises into the repertoire. Look for 10 short Centennial Celebration commissions by a mix of American male and female composers; in October, a creative rendition of Prokofiev’s sumptuous ballet music for Romeo and Juliet, interspersed with actors performing lines from Shakespeare’s original play; and a new semi-staging of George Gershwin’s seminal American opera, Porgy and Bess, with guest director Kwame Kwei-Armah in April. More immediately this summer, join us for a wonderful program of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in July, with our own talented Jonathan Carney leading from the front as soloist. And, finally, in March, our music director, Marin Alsop, visited Harvard University to accept the Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award, which honors a nationally recognized music educator. In accepting this prestigious award, Marin joins an impressive group of recipients, including Robert Mann, founder of the Juilliard String Quartet; the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock; and one of her own mentors and the Director of the Peabody Institute Graduate Conducting program, Gustav Meier. Congratulations, Marin! If you haven’t yet subscribed for the centennial season, don’t delay! We look forward to seeing you at the BSO.
Advertising Account Representatives Lynn Talbert lynn@overturemagazine.org 443.974.6892 Baltimore magazine Design and Print Division 1000 Lancaster Street, Suite 400 Baltimore, MD 21202 410. 873. 3900
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Paul Meecham President and CEO, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Follow your favorite Symphony orchestra beyond the stage visit the all-new BSOmusic.org
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D e an Ale x an d er
Research Rebecca Kirkman
“ Strolling the streets of Venice after dark is nice, but family jam sessions in quirky Lauraville can be just as charming! ”
Marcia Kämper, Flute Read Marcia’s story at BSOmusic.org/MarciaKamper
{ IN tempo The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
NEWS OF NOTE
{ S ta n d I n}
Trial by Firebird
Nicholas Hersh will next perform with the BSO at the Oregon Ridge Star-Spangled Spectacular concerts July 3 and 4.
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When Nicholas Hersh, the BSO’s young assistant conductor, learned that he would be stepping up to conduct works by Ravel and Stravinsky, he was both thrilled and nervous. “Conducting (Stravinsky’s) Firebird Suite with a professional orchestra is a dream come true,” he says. The Ravel was more of a challenge. He would be standing in for BSO guest conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, who had fallen ill. And the orchestra was scheduled to play Maestro Tortelier’s own arrangement of Ravel’s Piano Trio. “Technically and stylistically, it’s hard to conduct,” says Hersh. “In the couple of days advance warning I had,” before stepping up the podium, “that was where I spent the majority of my time.” Hersh got the call when he was in Indianapolis and rehearsed the music on the plane ride home. “I had headphones on and the score spread out—it was way too big to fit on the tray table,” he says. “I had a pencil in one hand writing cues, while I conducted with the other.” Hersh pulled off what The Washington Post described as “a successful trial by fire.” For his part, Hersh thought the performance went well. “There was lots of energy on stage and a good deal of positive reaction from the orchestra and audiences,” he says.
{ I n F or m at ion}
New logo tells the BSO story The BSO’s new logo, introduced at the season launch in March, was designed by Senior Graphic Designer Erin Ouslander. Typeface helps to tell the story of the Orchestra’s mission, she explains. “The ‘b’ is a modern and bold sans-serif type to represent innovation and forward thinking,” says Ouslander, while the traditional script of the “s,” reminiscent of the BSO’s previous look, is a nod to “keeping classics and tradition alive.” Finally, the “o,” a font typically found in textbooks for its legibility, says Ouslander “represents our focus on educational programming and making music accessible to the community.” And in the logo at left, the 100 fashioned as an exclamation point captures the excitement of the BSO’s upcoming anniversary season. www. bsomusic .org
{I n H istory}
On June 3, 1875, Georges Bizet died—essentially of a broken heart — at the
age of 36, after the failure of his opera Carmen in Paris. Carmen eventually became one of the most beloved of all operas, inspiring films (including Carmen: A Hip Hopera starring Beyoncé Knowles), and is a popular visitor to symphonic concert halls.
Beyoncé
{ I n S c hool}
{ I n Q u e ry}
Jonathan Carney BSO Concertmaster
Q
How do you conduct while at the same time playing?
E ver e t t Co llecti o n / Sh ut tersto ck .co m (B e yo n cé ); Ch r is Lee (Car n e y )
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A: “I use my whole being to communicate with the ensemble. Physical cues are common— from the slightest smile and faintest breath to grunts, groans and foot stomps. Music is an extension of our souls, therefore we must never be embarrassed to be ourselves and to use everything in our arsenal to communicate the composer’s intent. People have commented that I move too much on stage; to me that is tantamount to saying Einstein thought too much about stuff!” BSO Concertmaster Jonathan Carney will be playing and leading the orchestra in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons July 23 and 24.
Fantasy Camp
BSO Academy week in June Adult musicians from across the country will rehearse and perform alongside BSO musicians under the direction of Music Director Marin Alsop in June. The 2015 BSO Academy has spots for musicians on orchestral, chamber music, music educator and arts administrator tracks. The Academy, described by The New York Times as a “fantasy camp for amateur musicians,” allows attendees to experience life as a member of the orchestra. The BSO Academy will take place June 20–27, 2015, with the final concert Saturday, June 27 at 7:30 p.m. For more information, BSOacademy.org. The BSO Academy is supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
BSO Academy
Maestra Alsop is teacher for a day On her trip to Massachusetts to receive the prestigious Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award from Harvard (see President’s Welcome, page 2), Marin Alsop also visited Boston University. Alsop has joined such notables as Martin Luther King, Jr., Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Robin Williams, Robert Merrill, Deborah Voigt and James McCracken by donating her archive to the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center there. The Center hosted a reception and talk with Alsop, as part of its Friends Speaker Series, where Alsop reflected on her life and career with an audience of B.U. students and faculty. Earlier that day, Alsop met with conducting students and stepped in as a guest conductor for the B.U. Orchestra. “It was a tour de force,” said Benjamin Marin Alsop Juarez, Dean of BU’s College of Fine Arts. Gotlieb Center Director Vita Paladino noted, “Her remarks and her narrative were inspiring to music students and faculty and to the entire audience. Her intrepid spirit and contagious enthusiasm were just what we needed here in Boston.”
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{ BSOlive July
upcoming key events
All concerts are held at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall unless otherwise noted.
The Four Seasons
Dvorˇák’s New World Symphony Fri, July 31, 2015, 7:30 pm Tito Muñoz, conductor Ariel Horowitz, violin
Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons Fri, July 24, 2015, 7:30 pm Jonathan Carney, leader and violin Vivaldi: The Four Seasons Handel: Selections from Water Music Vivaldi’s vivid depiction of the seasons comes to life as BSO Concertmaster Jonathan Carney expertly weaves his sound through the varied textures of this perennial favorite. This all-Baroque program ends with selections from Handel’s revered Water Music, a work that premiered on the River Thames at the request of King George I.
Oregon Ridge Park
Star-Spangled Spectacular Fri, July 3, 2015, 8 pm Oregon Ridge Park Sat, July 4, 2015, 8 pm Oregon Ridge Park
Barber: Overture to The School for Scandal Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto Dvorˇák: Symphony No. 9, “From the New World” Bold, thrilling and moving all at once. Premiered 120 years ago upon Dvorˇák’s arrival in the U.S., his Ninth Symphony is emblematic of a foreigner’s portrayal of the life and times of early America. Experience a perfect collision of folk tunes and gypsy flavor from Dvorˇák’s native Bohemia and his impressions of an exciting turn of-the-century life in the “New World.” Maestro Muñoz is a protégé of former BSO Music Director David Zinman. Eighteenyear-old violinist and winner of the Silver Medal and Audience Choice Award at the Stulberg International String Competition (2013) Ariel Horowitz performs Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
Join the BSO for its annual holiday celebration featuring Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever and many more while watching a dazzling display of fireworks. Plus, hear the BSO’s “Oh, Say, Can You Sing?” contest winner perform “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Gates open at 5p.m. and concertgoers can enjoy delicious eats from local food trucks. Free parking is available at the Verizon lot on Shawan Road with shuttle to the park. As always, concertgoers are invited to bring lawn chairs, blankets and picnics for a full evening of entertainment with the BSO. Supporting Sponsors: The Hartford and TelephoNET.
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Seth MacFarlane
An Evening with Seth MacFarlane Thurs, July 16, 2015, 8 pm In a special, one-night-only concert, “Family Guy” funny man Seth MacFarlane brings his smooth singing talents and irreverent humor to Baltimore. The performance will showcase the Grammy-nominated artist’s love of Big Band and American Songbook standards. Ariel Horowitz
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Ch r is Lee ( Th e FO u r Se a so ns); Ri char d Li ppen h o l z (O r eg o n R i dge ).
Nicholas Hersh, conductor
{ orchestra roster
2014–2015 Season
Marin Alsop — Music Director, Harvey M. and Lyn P. Meyerhoff Chair
Jack Everly: Principal Pops Conductor, Yuri Temirkanov: Music Director Emeritus
First Violins
Jonathan Carney ∫ Concertmaster, Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Chair Madeline Adkins † Associate Concertmaster, Wilhelmina Hahn Waidner Chair Rui Du Acting Assistant Concertmaster James Boehm Kenneth Goldstein Wonju Kim Gregory Kuperstein Mari Matsumoto Gregory Mulligan Rebecca Nichols E. Craig Richmond Ellen Pendleton Troyer Andrew Wasyluszko
Second Violins
Qing Li Principal, E. Kirkbride and Ann H. Miller Chair Ivan Stefanovic † Associate Principal Angela Lee ∫ Assistant Principal Leonid Berkovich Leonid Briskin Julie Parcells Christina Scroggins Wayne C. Taylor* James Umber Charles Underwood Minsun Choi**
Violas
Lisa Steltenpohl Principal, Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Chair Noah Chaves Associate Principal Karin Brown Assistant Principal Rebekah Newman Richard Field Viola Principal Emeritus Peter Minkler Sharon Pineo Myer Delmar Stewart Jeffrey Stewart Mary Woehr
D e an Ale x an d er (Al so p); Ch r istian Co lb erg (Lo cke ).
∫
Cellos
Dariusz Skoraczewski Principal, Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Chair
†∫
Chang Woo Lee Associate Principal Bo Li ∫ Acting Assistant Principal Seth Low Susan Evans
E-flat Clarinet Christopher Wolfe
Bassoons
Fei Xie Principal Julie Green Gregorian Assistant Principal Schuyler Jackson**
Contrabassoon David P. Coombs Esther Mellon Kristin Ostling Paula Skolnick-Childress Pei Lu**
Horns
Philip Munds Principal, USF&G Foundation Chair
Basses
Robert Barney Principal, Willard and Lillian Hackerman Chair Hampton Childress Associate Principal Owen Cummings Mark Huang Jonathan Jensen David Sheets Eric Stahl
Flutes
Emily Skala Principal, Dr. Clyde Alvin Clapp Chair Marcia Kämper
Gabrielle Finck Associate Principal Lisa Bergman Mary C. Bisson Bruce Moore* Jeanne Getz**
Trumpets
Laurie Sokoloff
Oboes
Trombones
Katherine Needleman Principal, Robert H. and Ryda H. Levi Chair Melissa Hooper Assistant Principal Michael Lisicky
Aaron LaVere Principal, Alex Brown & Sons Chair James Olin* Co-Principal John Vance
English Horn
Bass Trombone
Jane Marvine Kenneth S. Battye and Legg Mason Chair
Clarinets
Steven Barta Principal, Anne Adalman Goodwin Chair Christopher Wolfe Assistant Principal William Jenken
Christopher Williams Principal, Lucille Schwilck Chair
John Locke Brian Prechtl
{ M usic D i r e c tor}
Marin Alsop
Harp
Sarah Fuller**
Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene, a music director of vision and distinction who passionately believes that “music has the power to change lives.” She is recognized across the world for her innovative approach to programming and for her deep commitment to education and to the development of audiences of all ages. 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. Her success as the BSO’s music director has garnered national and international attention for her innovative programming and artistry. Her success was recognized when, in 2013, her tenure was extended to the 2020 –21 season. Alsop took up the post of principal conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in 2012, and became its music director in July 2013. There she steers the orchestra in its artistic and creative programming, recording ventures and its education and outreach activities. In the summer of 2014 Maestra Alsop served her 23rd season as music director of the acclaimed Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California. In September 2013 she made history as the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms in London. When Musical America named Maestra Alsop the 2009 Conductor of the Year, they commented, “[Marin Alsop] connects to the public as few conductors today can.”
Piano
Lura Johnson** Sidney M. and Miriam Friedberg Chair
Andrew Balio Principal, Harvey M. and Lyn P. Meyerhoff Chair René Hernandez Assistant Principal Nathaniel Hepler
Piccolo
Percussion
Randall S. Campora
TUBA
Seth Horner**
Timpani
James Wyman Principal Christopher Williams Assistant Principal
DIRECTOR OF ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL Nishi Badhwar
ASSISTANT PERSONNEL MANAGER Jinny Kim
Librarians
Mary Carroll Plaine Principal, Constance A. and Ramon F. Getzov Chair Raymond Kreuger Associate
Stage Personnel Ennis Seibert Stage Manager Todd Price Assistant Stage Manager Charles Lamar Audio Engineer Mario Serruto Electrician * On leave ** Guest Musician Performing with an instrument (†) or a bow (∫) on loan to the BSO from the private collection of the family of Marin Alsop. The musicians who perform for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra do so under the terms of an agreement between the BSO and Local 40-543, AFM.
Ken Lam: Artistic Director of BSYO & Associate Conductor for Education Nicholas Hersh: Assistant Conductor Michael Repper: BSO-Peabody Conducting Fellow
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Yuri Temirkanov
Hilary Hahn
Next season will bring homecomings, debuts and blockbuster repertoire Christianna M c Causland
I
n 1916, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was formed as a branch of Baltimore’s municipal government. To be formed as a city partnership was unique, and the BSO has been a force for music innovation ever since. Though it was reorganized as a private institution in 1942, the BSO retains a deeply rooted kinship with its hometown. As the orchestra marks its 100th anniversary, it is fitting that the season will honor Baltimore-based musicians and debut new works with thematic and artistic ties to the city.
New Century, New Innovations Watch for these new initiatives: ore theatrical M collaborations with Center Stage and Folger Theatre
T he launch of Pulse, a late-night concert series with independent artists
New performance clothing for musicians designed in collaboration with Parsons The New School For Design
T he story of the Baltimore Symphony’s legacy in a specially commissioned book by Michael Lisicky, BSO oboist and acclaimed author and historian, available for sale in Fall 2015
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www. bsomusic .org
“This is a watershed moment and a time to celebrate,” says BSO Vice President of Artistic Operations Matthew Spivey. “The celebration includes a lot of return appearances by artists who have had a close association with us over the years, like our former Music Director Yuri Temirkanov; André Watts, who has a long history with the BSO; Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who had her debut at an Oregon Ridge concert when she was very young; and Leon Fleisher, who has adopted Baltimore as his home. ‘We’re trying to build on the quality of the music-making we’ve become associated with,” he continues, “but it’s much broader than that. We’re celebrating Baltimore.” According to Music Director Marin Alsop, it will be a season of world-class artists, major premieres, Baltimore homecomings, signature projects, and community partnerships. There will also be an emphasis on the works of living composers such as John Adams, Clarice Assad, Anna Clyne and Tan Dun, to name a few. “Baltimore is an adventurous city filled with extraordinarily talented and unique individuals and artists who are willing to take chances and think outside the traditional boxes,” she says. “It’s a city of rich diversity that we want to highlight and celebrate.” A greatly anticipated performance in the upcoming season is the debut of a new multimedia work by Peabody Institute Professor of Composition Kevin Puts in collaboration with Baltimore-based video artist James Bartolomeo. The work celebrates the vibrancy of cities. In addition to its debut in Baltimore, the work will be performed at Carnegie Hall. This will be a season of debuts, including 10 new encores that will be performed at the conclusion of Maestra Alsop’s concerts. The Centennial Encores are divided equally between male and female composers of world renown, and are made possible through a partnership with Classical Movements, Inc. The compositions are three to five minutes in length and are inspired by themes contributed by BSO audience members. The encores will be performed this season and next. “The element of surprise is something I hope people enjoy,” says Spivey. “The Centennial Celebration Commissions, for example, won’t be in the season brochure. Marin will come back on stage, turn around, and conduct something the audience has never heard before.” Multidisciplinary productions have become a hallmark of the BSO and Alsop says she’s looking forward to the October performances of Romeo and Juliet in collaboration with the Folger
Clo ck wise fro m To p- R i ght: Gr ant Lei ghto n (Al so p); Ch r is Lee (BSO); Pe ter M i ller (Hah n); Sa sha Gusov ( Ter m i r k an ov ), Ch r is Lee (B ell); fu lya atal ay / Sh ut tersto ck .co m (Ma); Ste ve J . Sh er man ( WATTS); Lloyd Fox(K WEI -ARMAH); S te ve J . Sh er man (M cGegan); b u kle y / Sh ut tersto ck .co m ( WaTERS); Ch r istian Stei n er (Saler n o -So n n en b erg).
The Centennial Season Preview
Yo-Yo Ma
André Watts
Joshua Bell
“ The element of surprise is something I hope people enjoy” — Matt Spivey
Kwame Kwei-Armah Theatre and Edward Berkeley (who brought the 2014 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to life). She’s also looking forward to Porgy and Bess in April, which will partner the BSO with Center Stage Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah. “The concert version of Gershwin’s music offers humor, romance, and tragedy in timeless songs,” says Alsop. “We will also explore racial issues surrounding this piece.” Alsop notes that other highlights from the season will be the performance of Verdi’s Requiem and a concert juxtaposing Vivaldi with the contemporary composer Philip Glass. “This season we continue our popular Off the Cuff series,” Alsop says, “another hallmark initiative of the BSO to reach out to audiences in new ways and share our passion for and knowledge of the music.” The coming season will feature conversational performances of Rachmaninoff and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. For his part, Spivey is looking forward to the return of the worldfamous Yo-Yo Ma, the BSO’s performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor under the baton of baroque expert Nicholas McGegan, and, of course, the one-night celebration of the BSO’s birth date on February 11. “Marin is planning something quite special,” he says. The evening will include a performance by violinist Joshua Bell. “I think that concert will convey the significance of 100 years and it will be fun, full of surprises, and a musical party.” The BSO is extending the celebratory vibe to the reaches of the symphony hall, with special exhibits in the hall itself and a forthcoming book on the history of the orchestra that will be available for sale in the Fall. Concertgoers will even get an anniversary gift: as part of its ongoing efforts to improve the concert-going experience, the box office has opted to remove all handling fees from ticket purchases. During the centennial year, the BSO intends to press its commitment to outreach with young musical ambassadors across Maryland spreading the BSO mission, with its OrchKids and Youth Orchestras programs. “Through our educational outreach, we hope to change the demographics of our orchestra makeup over the next few decades,” says Alsop. Whether you look forward to John Waters’ reprise of Hairspray, A Gospel Christmas with the Morgan State University Choir, or a night of all Beethoven featuring three of the master’s works led by new BSO Principal Guest Conductor Markus Stenz, the 100th season at the BSO promises to honor the organization’s history while looking to a very bright future.
Nicholas McGegan
Kevin Puts
John Waters DHMH RSA # R24924
Edward Berkeley
WWW.ELIZABETHCOONEYAGENCY.COM
TRUST, INTEGRITY & EXCELLENCE SINCE 1957
Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg
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Stenz & S tenz Ability
The BSO’s newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor brings a talent for making old things new again.
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By Martha Thomas
When Markus Stenz stepped up to the podium to conduct Beethoven’s classic “Eroica” with the BSO in 2012, he took some by surprise. Tim Smith, music critic for The Baltimore Sun, says Stenz “made a thrice-familiar score newly gripping.” Smith also described the players’ “edge-of-their-seats look” under Stenz’s baton, noticing that the conductor “clearly bonded with the BSO.”
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Left: M o li na Visual s ; R i ght: Hans van d er Wo er d.
I
For many in the audience and on the stage, Stenz turned an old chestnut into a revelation
ndeed, says BSO President and CEO Paul Meecham, during that visit, Stenz seemed to establish chemistry with the Baltimore musicians, who applauded enthusiastically after the piece. Stenz, a native of the Rhineland, didn’t deliver “a big-boned, typically German ‘Eroica,’” Meecham remembers. Instead, his rendition was “imaginative, while definitely influenced by the historically informed performance movement”—also known as the Early Music movement, which calls for smaller ensembles, brisker tempos and less This May, Stenz helps to wind down vibrato. For many in the audience and on the stage, Stenz turned the current season with Strauss’ Four Last an old chestnut into a revelation. Songs, written just before the composer’s The maestro’s ability to make every performance feel like death. The piece, based on three poems a premiere, says Meecham, is one reason Marin Alsop and the by Hermann Hesse and one by Joseph BSO have invited Maestro Stenz to become its principal guest von Eichendorff, “displays the essence of conductor beginning with the 2015 –2016 season. “He’s got a Strauss’s abilities,” says the conductor. The very fresh approach to things,” Meecham says. “His interpretaprogram also includes Schumann’s Second Symphony, which tion of the classics is as if you are hearing them for the first time. Stenz describes as “legendary” with its frenetic energy and pacing You sit up in your seat.” in the second movement, and refinement of the third movement The appointment means that Stenz will be in Baltimore for to exhibit, says Stenz, “the profundity you can only find in the a total of three weeks each season, divided in the coming season greatest composers.” into two visits. He’ll be here for a week in October to conduct an After Tanglewood, Markus Stenz served as the artistic direcall-Mozart program, and return in March 2016, for two weeks— tor of the Montepulciano Festival before taking the job with the one program includes Brahms’ German Requiem, the other is an London Sinfonietta. From there, he went to Australia to head all-Beethoven evening. the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as artistic director and chief Stenz has a connection with the BSO that predates his 2012 conductor. Since leaving that post in 2004, Stenz has worked gig. In 1989, the 23-year-old Stenz, straight out of the School of with some of the world’s most renowned orchestras, including Music in Cologne, was chosen—along with the young Marin the Munich Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Alsop–to be a conducting fellow at Tanglewood, the summer the London Philharmonic. home of the Boston Symphony. The two young conductors He continues to serve as chief conducworked with Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier tor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein. “It was a summer On October 3, Markus Stenz will and toured with that orchestra through like paradise,” Stenz recalls. conduct an Off the Cuff performance Germany and Austria late last year. Alsop also has fond memories of that of excerpts from Mozart’s Don One of Stenz’s great loves is opera. time, and describes Stenz as “a longtime Giovanni. We asked him about the He’s conducted at La Scala in Milan and friend and colleague.” upcoming BSO production as well La Monnaie in Brussels, as well as with as past experiences with the Not long after, in 1994, Stenz was Mozart opera. the English National Opera and the San appointed principal conductor of the Francisco Opera. London Sinfonietta, a group described How do you feel about Stenz says he’s looking forward to as a “terrific new music ensemble” by its presenting what is essentially spending time in Baltimore, where he director at the time. That director was an annotated concert? finds “the energy very exciting.” While the Paul Meecham. “When he was conducting Don Giovanni is ideal for this format, as it BSO at 100 years old is a stalwart in the at the Sinfonietta, he brought a sense of involves an exciting, sensuous and gripping story line and correspondingly powerful community, Stenz perceives that his old drama to the music,” Meecham recalls. music. Mozart at his best. friends Alsop and Meecham “do a beau“Not melodrama. He knew what to bring tiful job tapping into” the energetic arts out to heighten the emotional impact.” Do you have any memorable scene here. “That’s what drives classical Stenz finds the reunion with Alsop experiences with the opera? music forward,” he says, “creating nights and Meecham a happy coincidence, The one the Cologne Opera took to China stands out. It had lots of food for thought for where there is some sort of spark between but not unprecedented in the world the Chinese audience and officials, musicians and audience.” of classical music. “You never know particularly when it comes to VIVA la liberta: Good chemistry between conductor whether some successful period in the Long live freedom! There were a lot of and players happens when players embrace past will have another different life pre-performance discussions about how far spontaneity—when “everyone has the feelsomewhere else,” he says. “In this case, we could go and ensure that the Chinese ing that anything can happen at any time.” it’s absolutely wonderful.” officials would let the curtain rise.
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{
{ program notes Jo seph M eyer ho f f Sy m pho n y Hall
Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto Friday, May 8, 2015 — 8 p.m. Saturday, May 9, 2015 — 8p.m. Marin Alsop, Conductor Lukáš Vondrácˇek, Piano
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Russian Easter Overture, opus 36 Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, opus 23 Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso Andantino semplice Allegro con fuoco Lukáš Vondrácˇek
INTERMISSION Sergei Prokofiev Symphony No. 7 in C-sharp minor, opus 131 Moderato Allegretto Andante espressivo Vivace The concert will end at approximately 9:55 p.m.
Marin Alsop
For Marin Alsop’s bio., please see pg. 7.
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Lukáš Vondrácˇek
Lukáš Vondráček’s natural and assured musicality and www. bsomusic .org
remarkable technical ability have long marked him out as a gifted and mature musician. He has worked with conductors including Paavo Järvi, Gianandrea Noseda, Zdeněk Mácal, Vasily Petrenko, Jakub Hrůša and Anu Tali. Highlights of the 2014 –2015 season include concerts with the Trondheim Symfoniorkester and Krzysztof Urbański
and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and Marin Alsop. Vondráček performs a recital at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London as a part of the International Piano Series where, in 2007, he made his UK recital debut as the youngest pianist to have ever been featured in this series. He works regularly with ensembles such as the London, St. Petersburg and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras; the Philharmonia and Gulbenkian orchestras, Wiener Symphoniker, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Washington’s National orchestras. Recent highlights include a tour of Spain with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi and Michal Nesterowicz and a highly successful tour of Australia. Lukáš Vondráček last appeared with the BSO in March 2011 playing Rachmaninonff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Pagagnini with Marin Alsop conducting.
About the concert: Russian Easter Overture, opus 36
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Born in Tikhvin, Russia, March 18, 1844; died in Liubensk, Russia, June 21, 1908
During the summers of 1887 and 1888, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the three brilliantly scored and sensuously melodic orchestral pieces by which he is most often represented on symphonic programs today: the Capriccio espagnol, Scheherazade and the Russian Easter Overture. Coming immediately after Scheherazade, the overture was the last of this trio to be composed; Rimsky-Korsakov introduced it in St. Petersburg the following December. At this point in his career, he had established himself as one of the finest orchestrators of the 19th century, one who by his teaching and artistic example would influence
20th-century composers as diverse as Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. The composer originally titled this overture “The Bright Holiday,” the name by which it was familiarly known in Orthodox Russia. He selected various chant melodies of the Orthodox Obikhod, a collection of the most important canticles of the Orthodox liturgy, to trace the progression from the mood of solemn expectation on Easter eve (the slow introduction) to the joyous, almost pagan celebration of the Resurrection on Easter morning (the Allegro main section). The work opens with the chant theme “Let God Arise!” (heard first in the woodwind choir). This theme dominates the slow introduction, but we also hear, in the solo cello and later solo clarinet, a second Orthodox chant melody, “An Angel Wailed.” RimskyKorsakov: “The beginning of the Allegro, ‘Let them also that hate Him flee before Him’ [yet another Orthodox chant] led to the holiday mood of the Greek Orthodox church service … The solemn trumpet voice of the Archangel was replaced by a tonal reproduction of the joyous, almost dancelike bell-tolling. … This legendary and heathen side of the holiday, this transition from the gloomy and mysterious evening of Passion Saturday to the unbridled paganreligious merry-making on the morn of Easter Sunday, is what I was eager to reproduce in my overture” Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings.
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Life Lived Forward
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, opus 23
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born in Votkinsk, Russia, May 7, 1840; died in St. Petersburg, November 6, 1893
If one had to pick one work that epitomizes the Romantic piano concerto, it would have to be Tchaikovsky’s First. Written in 1874–75, it was the first Russian piano concerto to enter the standard concert
866.230.0279 | WillowValleyCommunities.org | LifeLivedForward.org Lancaster, PA
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{ program notes repertoire, and it has remained perhaps the most popular concerto ever written. Even Rachmaninoff’s celebrated piano concertos were closely modeled on it. But the first person to hear it pronounced it a failure. This was Nikolai Rubinstein, renowned pianist and conductor, founder of the Moscow Conservatory, and usually Tchaikovsky’s staunch friend and supporter. Not being a concert pianist himself, Tchaikovsky had brought the concerto to Rubinstein on Christmas Eve 1874 for advice as to how to make the solo part most effective. This is how the composer remembered the occasion: “I played the first movement. Not a single word, not a single comment! … I summoned all my patience and played through to the end. Still silence. I stood up and asked, ‘Well?’ ” “Then a torrent poured forth from Nikolai Gregorievich’s mouth. … My concerto, it turned out, was worthless and unplayable — passages so fragmented, so clumsy, so badly written as to be beyond rescue — the music itself was bad, vulgar — here and there I had stolen from other composers — only two or three pages were worth preserving — the rest must be thrown out or completely rewritten. … This was censure, indiscriminate, and deliberately designed to hurt me to the quick. … ‘I shall not alter a single note,’ I replied. ‘I shall publish the work exactly as it stands!’ And this I did.” Although this episode threw Tchaikovsky into a deep depression, he still had energy and faith enough in his work to submit the concerto to Hans von Bülow, a German pianist-conductor as famous as Rubinstein, who was looking for a new showpiece for his upcoming American tour. Von Bülow took on the work with enthusiasm and played its world premiere on October 25, 1875 in Boston. The Bostonians gave it a tumultuous reception, and the First Piano Concerto never looked back. This is a concerto in which gorgeous, inventive orchestral writing meets one of the great virtuoso piano parts of the repertoire. And it is enriched by a
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Tchaikovsky
This is a concerto in which gorgeous, inventive orchestral writing meets one of the great virtuoso piano parts of the repertoire. cornucopia of marvelous Tchaikovskian melodies, the first of which forms the introduction to movement one. Launched by Tchaikovsky’s beloved horns, it sweeps grandly through the orchestra. The pianist serves at first as the orchestra’s accompanist, but he makes his presence strongly felt with massive chords ringing from bottom to top of the keyboard. This big Romantic opening eventually fades, and a melody that most composers would kill for is gone, never to return. In the first of several dramatic mood shifts, the pianist now attacks a quick, skittish tune, based on a Ukrainian folksong, which is the movement’s true principal theme. The tempo eventually eases, and in another shift, clarinets introduce a new melody, lovely and rather melancholy, which gives the pianist opportunity to show his poetic side. After the middle development section, this melancholy theme appears again, now soaring rhapsodically. Movement two rocks gently on a poignant, lullaby-like theme, introduced by the flute. Sparkling, high-speed music fills the movement’s middle section.
Its rollicking tune, introduced by the violins, is from a French song popular in Russia at the time, “Il faut s’amuser, danser et rire” (“One should enjoy oneself, dance and laugh”). This was a favorite of the Belgian singer Désirée Artôt, the only woman Tchaikovsky ever fell in love with. The spirited rondo finale features a dashing refrain theme whose emphatic rhythms stress the second beat of each measure. It alternates with a rapturous waltz melody, introduced by the violins. A broad concluding coda energetically combines these themes, with the waltz ultimately dominating. And now comes one of the most famous of all virtuoso piano passages: a stupendous flight of fast double-fisted octaves, sweeping up and down the keyboard. This leads to a grand apotheosis of the waltz, before the pianist and orchestra urge each other on to a blazing finish. Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.
Symphony No. 7 in C-sharp minor, opus 131
Sergei Prokofiev
Born in Sontsovka, Ukraine, April 27, 1891; died in Moscow, March 5, 1953
The final years of Prokofiev’s life were filled with tragedy. Wooed by the Soviets, in 1936, he had given up his successful career in the West to return to his homeland. Once there, the door was firmly shut: he could no longer travel outside the U.S.S.R., and the government’s attitude toward his music gradually turned from admiration to censure. At Stalin’s behest, in the opening months of 1948, the Soviet commissar Andrei Zhadanov launched a vicious campaign against composers who prized their own creative independence above service to the state. Along with Shostakovich’s, Prokofiev’s name was at the top of the list of subversive artists. Performances of his music dried up, and
his income suffered. His Spanish-born first wife, Lena, was sent to the Gulag, a clear warning of what could happen if he didn’t watch his step. The terrible strain took its toll, and Prokofiev’s health declined rapidly. By 1951 when he began composing his seventh and last symphony, his heart condition kept him in hospital much of the time. Nevertheless, composing was the only thing that made life worth living, and Prokofiev continued his work even in his hospital bed. In his last public appearance on October 11, 1952, he attended the Seventh Symphony’s world premiere in Moscow. Less than five months later, he was dead, leaving behind a long list of works he wanted to compose or revise. In the words of Prokofiev biographer Harlow Robinson, “The Seventh is an old man’s symphony, beyond strife and conflict.” The man who had enchanted children with his Peter and the Wolf originally thought this music would be a smaller score created for young people. Thus he emphasized what he called “simplicity” and lyrical melody — an approach calculated to keep him in the good graces of the Soviet authorities as well. There is a quality of gentle reminiscence throughout this music, especially in the poignant third movement. And there is almost nothing to be heard of the biting sarcasm and brutal virtuosity that characterized the music of the wild young Prokofiev. Illness and adversity had made him a tamed lion. The Symphony’s first movement opens with a wistful, lonely theme winding high in the violins; Prokofiev lingers over this melody for quite a while, surrounding it with delicate, tremulous instrumental colors. The movement’s other major theme then wells up from low strings and winds: a more confident and deeply romantic melody which will return late in the Symphony. Notice also the whimsical chiming music featuring high woodwinds and triangle that closes this opening exposition section; it too will play a significant role in the work’s conclusion. A subtle development of these ideas and
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{ program notes a straightforward recapitulation lead to a fine, gently melancholy close. Rather than the savage scherzos he’d enjoyed writing earlier in his career, Prokofiev takes a leaf out of Tchaikovsky’s book with a lusciously melodious waltz for the second movement — music that is reminiscent of his ballet Cinderella. Some mildly spiced seasonings from brass, woodwinds, and pizzicato strings as well as a fast, vivacious coda add a little heat to this beautifully scored music. From the first rich-toned sweep of the cellos, movement three is music of tender nostalgia for a bygone time: perhaps the Czarist Russia of Prokofiev’s youth. In fact, it is built on a beautifully expressive theme from the incidental music he composed earlier for a production of Pushkin’s romantic 19th-century story Eugene Onegin. The finale opens with the kind of optimistic, folkish music that was almost a requirement for last movements at this time in Soviet history. Some of Prokofiev’s old tongue-in-cheek sassiness inflects a wry march theme, the most notable of several bright-spirited tunes. But midway through, the sweeping romantic melody from movement one suddenly returns in a grand full-orchestra treatment. And it is followed by that movement’s whimsical chiming music, its ticking-clock accompaniment (a Prokofiev trademark, particularly in his later music) now strengthened by xylophone, bells, and piano. The Party’s musical watchdogs prevailed on the composer to tack on a big, upbeat conclusion for the Seventh’s 1952 premiere. But Prokofiev’s original ending simply fades away with the ticking clock. By the most ironic of coincidences, on March 5, 1953 Prokofiev died within the same hour as the man who was his nemesis during his Soviet career: Joseph Stalin. Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2015
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Jo s e ph Meye rho ff Sym pho ny Hall
Debussy & Don Juan Friday, May 15, 2015 — 8p.m. Sunday, May 17, 2015 — 3p.m. Mario Venzago, Conductor Oliver Schnyder, Piano
Franz Schubert Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759, “Unfinished” Allegro moderato Andante con moto Franz Joseph Haydn Keyboard Concerto No. 11 in D Major, H. XVIII/11 Vivace Un poco adagio Rondo all’Ungherese: Allegro assai OLIVER SCHNYDER
INTERMISSION
Richard Strauss
Don Juan, opus 20
Claude Debussy La mer De l’aube à midi sur la mer [From Dawn to Noon on the Sea] Jeux des vagues [Play of the Waves] Dialogue du vent et de la mer [Dialogue of Wind and Sea]
The concert will end at approximately 9:45 p.m. on Friday, and 4:45 p.m. on Sunday.
Mario Venzago
Mario Venzago is Chief Conductor of the Bern Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of Royal Northern Sinfonia, Artist in Association with the Finnish Tapiola Sinfonietta and Schumann Guest Conductor of the
Düsseldorfer Symphoniker. Maestro Venzago has led the Winterthur Symphony Orchestra, the Heidelberg Opera House, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Graz Opera House and Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Basque National Orchestra San Sebastian, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and
the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra as Chief Conductor/Music Director. Mario Venzago’s distinguished career has included engagements with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the orchestras of Philadelphia and Boston, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Filarmonica della Scala and the NHK Symphony Orchestra, as well as other prestigious orchestras. At present he is working on a complete recording of all ten Bruckner symphonies for CPO, a project entitled The Other Bruckner, already highly acclaimed by the international critics.
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Mario Venzago last appeared with the BSO in November/December 2012, conducting a program of Liszt, Elgar and Franck.
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Oliver Schnyder
Before Oliver Schnyder’s highly successful international debut with the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zürich under David Zinman, the Swiss-born pianist studied with Switzerland’s Homero Francesch and American pianist Leon Fleisher. Recent and future engagements include performing with major orchestras such as the Philharmonia Orchestra, WDR Cologne Symphony, the Danish National Symphony, the Lucerne Symphony, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and as “Artiste Étoile” with the Bern Symphony. He will perform alongside conductors such as James Gaffigan, Mario Venzago, Phillippe Jordan, and Semyon Bychkov. His festival schedule includes Lucerne, Lugano, Ruhr Piano, Gstaad, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, SWR Schwetzingen and Garmisch. As a soloist and member of the Oliver Schnyder Trio, he has numerous recordings with the RCA Red Seal and Sony Classical labels. Oliver Schnyder is making his debut with the BSO.
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{ program notes About the concert: Symphony No. 8 in B minor, “Unfinished”
Franz Schubert
Born in Vienna, January 31, 1797; died in Vienna, November 19, 1828
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Since Schubert died at the tragically young age of 31, many listeners may assume that death cut off his magnificent B-Minor Symphony known as the “Unfinished.” But the two movements and a partial sketch of a third were actually written in October–November 1822, when the composer was 25. After his first six symphonies, written between ages 16 and 21, Schubert seems to have had trouble achieving the next stage of his symphonic expression. The B minor was the third symphony he tossed away without completing, most likely because he did not know where to take his revolutionary new conception. Because this work is so well loved today, it is difficult for us to appreciate how radical it was for 1822. Its tone and emotional content were altogether new, and both movements share a bittersweet pathos juxtaposed against violent outbursts. And Schubert’s sound world here is utterly distinctive: predominantly dark and colored by the plaintive sounds of the woodwinds,
The BSO
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particularly clarinet and oboe, which are given much important thematic material. First movement: Nothing could be more distinctive than the symphony’s opening. Deep and barely audible in the cellos and basses, a brooding theme emerges that Schubert will make much use of later. Then a mysterious rushing figure in the violins leads to the principal theme, intoned by solo oboe and clarinet. Soon the cellos announce the famous second theme, this symphony’s trademark. But before that lovely melody can complete itself, the orchestra interrupts with a fortissimo explosion; this battle between gentle lyricism and fierce outbursts will characterize the entire movement. The development section is built entirely around that deep introductory theme; now Schubert explores its potential with a passion and power worthy of Beethoven. At movement’s end, we hear this theme again, now broken and dying away. The interplay between the lyrical and the dramatic continues in the Andante con moto second movement in E major. A stealthy pizzicato descending figure in the bass leads immediately into another yearning melody in the strings. A new section is introduced by an arching theme for violin, followed by haunting solos for clarinet and oboe. These lyrical interludes are again smashed by a fortissimo passage
of grandeur and harmonic searching. After reprises of both sections comes an ethereal coda with a twist of pain; it is built from the violins’ arching theme and fragments of the main theme wandering in strange harmonic territory. So beautiful, so complete is this ending that we feel this work is well and truly “finished.” Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.
Keyboard Concerto No. 11 in D Major
Joseph Haydn
Born in Rohrau, Austria, March 31, 1732; died in Vienna, May 31, 1809
Although Haydn was an Austrian by nationality, he was born very near the Hungarian border. And one of the Esterházy residences, the castle of Esterháza where he spent much of his time, was actually in Hungary. Not surprisingly, Haydn developed a fondness for Hungarian culture, especially the folk melodies of Hungarian gypsies and the spicy local cuisine. He became quite an authority on Hungarian folksong and was one of the first composers to use it in his works, such as the engaging Piano Concerto in D Major we’ll hear today. Unlike Mozart, Haydn seems not to have been strongly attracted to the concerto form. Partly this may have been due to his modest performing skills; he was not a brilliant virtuoso like Mozart and so had little need for music to display his abilities before the public. He was more anxious to create pieces that would showcase the highly skilled instrumentalists in the Esterházy orchestra, then one of Europe’s greatest ensembles. However, we do have a small number of outstanding concertos from his pen: most notably his well-loved Trumpet Concerto, the Cello Concerto in D Major, and tonight’s concerto, written about the same time as the Cello Concerto around 1780. The concerto’s opening movement, marked “Vivace,” is built from just one impishly sparkling theme, as was Haydn’s
ANN, 55 common practice. Haydn spins a long and suspenseful development section from this material, which keeps fooling us as to when the recapitulation of the opening music will finally appear. With its gorgeously ornamental piano part, the second movement has a poised and stately beauty that brings Mozart’s marvelous concerto slow movements to mind. In its middle section, Haydn introduces a bit of pathos with sensitive dissonances and harmonic excursions into the minor mode. This concerto is most famous for its finale, an infectiously high-spirited Rondo all’Ungherese based on authentic Hungarian folk tunes. Very much in the Hungarian gypsy spirit is its D-minor second episode where chains of descending trills vividly evoke gypsy playing techniques.
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Instrumentation: Two oboes, Two horns, strings and solo piano.
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Don Juan’s impetuous spirit is immediately introduced by the bold explosion that opens the work
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Richard Strauss Born in Munich, Bavaria, June 11, 1864; died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany, September 8, 1949
On November 11, 1888, Richard Strauss, age 24, premiered his tone poem Don Juan with the Weimar court orchestra. With its opening upward vault by the strings, Strauss catapulted himself into world fame. And as the Don finally gasped his last breath over shuddering violas, the astonished audience realized it had never heard an orchestra sound like this before or been so swept up in a musical drama without benefit of costumes or sets. The legend of this insatiable lover had inspired many other significant works,
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including Mozart’s immortal Don Giovanni. As an attractive young man about town, Strauss had cut his own Juanian capers, but, just before writing Don Juan, he had fallen hard for the soprano Pauline de Ahna, who eventually became his wife. With love coursing through his veins, he turned to Nikolaus von Lehnau’s unfinished verse drama (published posthumously in 1851), which explored the psychological roots of the erotic life force that drove the Don. Strauss prefaced his score with quotations from Lenau’s poem. Describing his passion for living each moment to the fullest, the Don says (in Donald Francis Tovey’s somewhat antiquated prose translation): “Fain would I run the circle, immeasurably wide, of beautiful women’s manifold charms, in full tempest of enjoyment, to die of a kiss at the mouth of the last one.” Late in the poem, when his appetite for life has changed into disgust and a longing for death: “Beautiful was the storm that urged me on; it has spent its rage, and silence now remains. … Perhaps
The BSO
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a thunderbolt from the heights … struck fatally at my power of love, and suddenly my world became a desert and darkened. And perhaps not — the fuel is all consumed and the hearth is cold and dark.” The trajectory outlined by these two quotations is the substance of Strauss’ tone poem. Don Juan’s impetuous spirit is immediately introduced by the bold explosion that opens the work and the virile leaping theme for the violins that follows. After this subsides, the solo violin ushers in the first of two love episodes. This boasts an ardent, luxuriant theme for the strings: music of a sensuous passion inspired by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. After another burst of his opening theme, the Don takes off to seek new loves. Cellos and violas introduce the second love episode, in which the solo oboe sings a haunting love song of genuine tenderness. But even this cannot detain the Don for long. The horns call out a heroic new theme, as he rushes off to a masked ball, glittering with glockenspiel. At the height of the festivities, the orchestra
suddenly plunges into a dark abyss. Don Juan’s zest for life has vanished. With a huge effort, he summons his energies again in a recapitulation of his violin and horn themes. But as he fights a duel, the will to live expires in a great musical pause. Over shuddering strings, his opponent runs him through. Only “silence now remains.” Instrumentation: Three flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings.
L a mer (“The sea”)
Claude Debussy Born in St. Germain-en-laye, France, August 22, 1862; died in Paris, March 25, 1918
On September 12, 1903, Claude Debussy wrote from his in-laws’ home in landlocked Burgundy to his friend André Messager to tell him that he had begun a new piece, La mer. “You may not know that I was destined for a sailor’s life and that it was only quite by chance that fate led me in another direction. But I have always retained a passionate love for her [the sea]. You will say that the Ocean does not exactly wash the Burgundian hillsides … but I have an endless store of memories and, to my mind, they are worth more than the reality, whose beauty often deadens thought.” By the time La mer was finished in March 1905, Debussy’s whole life had been turned upside down. In July 1904, he left his wife Lilly for the alluring and wealthy Emma Bardac, herself another man’s wife; the two eloped to the Channel island of Jersey. Although Emma and Debussy eventually contracted a happy remarriage, Debussy’s marital mess made him briefly the scandal of Paris. Lilly attempted suicide, both she and Bardac brought court actions against the composer, and many of his friends shunned him. Thus, La mer — perhaps Debussy’s most passionate and personal work — can be heard as not only a musical portrait of the sea, but
also an expression of a turbulent period in the composer’s life. When the work was premiered in Paris on October 15, 1905, many of the critics and even Debussy’s friends did not like it. After the delicate colors and veiled emotions of his recent opera Pélléas et Mélisande, they found La mer’s intense drama and loud, blazing climaxes unworthy of the composer. But Debussy had aimed for something new in this work. If he had already shown the sea as gentle and mysterious in Sirènes, the last movement of his Nocturnes, now he was going to describe its raw elemental power, corresponding to the deepest turmoil in the human soul. Neither symphony nor tone poem (Debussy hated Richard Strauss’ graphic musical descriptions), La mer was subtitled “Three Symphonic Sketches.” The first, “From Dawn to Noon on the Sea,” begins with a slow, misty introduction out of which important motives rise as the day breaks. Gradually, the roll of the sea emerges: a fair-weather sea of sparkling waves and steady breezes. A brass chorale appears at the end, portraying the midday sun blazing overhead. “Play of the Waves” is lighter in mood and orchestration. In the work’s scherzo section the waves frolic “in a capricious sport of wind and spray.” (Oscar Thompson). The finale, “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,” begins ominously with the rumble of timpani and gong and a stormy cello/bass motive. A passionate melody, introduced by woodwinds and eventually treated in grand Romantic fashion by the strings, seems as much inspired by Debussy’s tumultuous love affair as by the storm-tossed waters. Motives from the first movement as well as the brass chorale return for a frenzied conclusion: Debussy finally tearing away his habitual self-protective veil.
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Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2015
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You enjoy a first class
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Jo s e ph Meye rho ff Sym pho ny Hall
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Strauss’ Four Last Songs Thursday, May 21, 2015 — 8p.m. Friday, May 22, 2015 — 8p.m.
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Markus Stenz, Conductor Heidi Melton, Soprano
Carl Maria von Weber Overture to Der Freischütz
Richard Strauss Four Last Songs Frühling September Beim Schlafengehen Im Abendrot HEIDI MELTON
Alexa F. Faraday, MD Board Certified in Internal Medicine
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Robert Schumann Symphony No. 2 in C Major, opus 61 Sostenuto assai — Allegro ma non troppo Scherzo: Allegro vivace Adagio espressivo Allegro molto vivace
Greater Baltimore Medical Center 6701 N. Charles Street, Suite 4106 Baltimore, MD 21204 Phone: 855-372-5392
The concert will end at approximately 9:50 p.m.
M o li na Visual s
Markus Stenz
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Markus Stenz is Principal Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Markus Stenz has appeared at many of the world’s major opera houses and international festivals including
La Scala Milan, La Monnaie in Brussels, English National Opera, San Francisco Opera, Stuttgart Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera and Edinburgh International Festival. Future engagements, apart from his regular concerts with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, include concerts with Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the
program notes { Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Helsinki Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the 2014 BBC Proms. He will continue a regular relationship with the Hallé. His extensive discography, which was recently enlarged by the addition of the Dutch première of K. A. Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus (Challenge Classics), includes many award-winning productions. Markus Stenz made his debut with the BSO in October, 2012, conducting a program of Rebel, Schumann and Beethoven.
Heidi Melton
The young dramatic soprano Heidi Melton has been called “the Wagnerian voice we have been waiting for since Flagstad and Nilsseon,” a voice that is “big, gleaming and tonally resplendent” (San Francisco Chronicle). In the 2014–2015 season, Heidi Melton will debut at Oper Frankfurt in two new productions: first as Gertrude in Hänsel und Gretel, then as Eglantine in Weber’s Euryanthe. She also debuts at the Canadian Opera Company as Sieglinde in Die Walküre under Johannes Debus, with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in Die Walküre under Kent Nagano, and with Real Filharmonía de Galicia in Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder under Paul Daniel. She will return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Elsa in Lohengrin under Donald Runnicles and to North Carolina Opera for concert performances of Act 2 of Tristan und Isolde as Isolde and make her New York City recital debut in Pace University’s series, “Voce at Pace.” Heidi Melton last appeared with the BSO and Music Director Marin Alsop in February 2013, performing on an all-Wagner program.
About the concert: Overture to Der Freischütz
Carl Maria von Weber
Born in Eutin, Germany, November 18, 1786; died in London, June 5, 1826
No one admired Carl Maria von Weber’s music more than Richard Wagner, who rightly considered him to be the father of German Romantic opera. Weber, who was incidentally Mozart’s cousin by marriage, wrote ten operas, the greatest of which is Der Freischütz, premiered in Berlin on June 18, 1821. Though it is rarely performed today in America, it remains in the standard repertoire of opera houses in Europe. Its title translates literally as “The Free-Shooter” or someone who shoots outside the rules, in this case with magic bullets made with the aid of the devil. In this intensely Romantic plot inspired by the forests of Germany, the hunter Max must win a shooting contest in order to win the hand of his beloved, Agathe. However, Max, usually an expert marksman, seems to have lost his touch lately. Worried that he will lose, he succumbs to the temptations of the sinister hunter Caspar, who in fact is in league with Samiel, the devil. Caspar urges him to go deep into the forest with him and cast magic bullets that will be sure to win the contest. Fortunately, matters turn out so that Max does not lose his soul to the devil and does in the end win Agathe. But much spooky business transpires before the happy ending. Der Freischütz’s overture was one of the first in which actual themes from the opera are used, although this is a far more complex piece than a simple potpourri of greatest hits. In fact, it is a true sonata form with an exposition of themes, a dramatic development of them, and an exhilarating recapitulation. Full of splendid melodies, it also uses a mixture of dark and unusual instrumental colors to represent the eerie world of the demonic Samiel. Its slow introductory theme features the horns, which were a favorite early-Romantic orchestral sound and closely associated with the forest (from their hunting-horn origins). The
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Dave Har p
{ program notes
The BSO
great sweeping theme, first heard in the violins and returning in triumph at the conclusion, is sung by Agathe as she greets her lover, Max. Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.
Four L ast Songs
Richard Strauss Born in Munich, Bavaria, June 11, 1864; died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, September 8, 1949
Rarely are we privileged to hear what a composer of very advanced age but still at the height of his creative powers has to say to us. Most composers if they are lucky enough to live past seventy have long since put their pens and score paper into retirement. But Richard Strauss never laid down his pen and produced some of his most remarkable works after 75. His last messages to the world were the sublime Four Last Songs of 1948, written when he was 84. They combine consummate musical craft with the serene, otherworldly vision of a very old man who still loves life but sees approaching death as a blessing. And they weave together the two forms of musical expression for which he was most renowned: music for large orchestra and music for the voice. At the end of World War II, Strauss and his wife of more than 50 years, Pauline, found themselves in limbo.
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In 1933, Strauss had incautiously accepted an official musical post under the newly installed Nazi government, and although he was fired a year and a half later for insubordination and spent the war years on Hitler’s persona non grata list, he was charged by the Allies as a suspected Nazi collaborator. In 1948 while composing the Four Last Songs, he was finally absolved by the De-Nazification Board. But in the meantime, he was not allowed to work in Germany or collect any royalties. However, since he and Pauline were in frail health, they were permitted to go into exile in Switzerland while his case was being considered.
The first song, “Frühling”, stands a little apart from the others in its youthful ecstasy. When the composer’s son, Franz, visited his parents in Montreux, he found Strauss homesick and deeply depressed. Reportedly, Franz told his father: “Papa, stop writing letters and brooding, it does no good. Write a few nice songs instead.” The suggestion struck a spark. Strauss had already been musing over a poem Im Abendrot (“At Sunset”) by Joseph Eichendorff, who had inspired many lieder by Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf; its description of an old couple who have shared years of “Not und Freude” (need and joy) together and now contemplate
death in a strange land mirrored exactly his and Pauline’s situation. And an admirer had sent him a book of poems by Hermann Hesse, winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature; he selected five of these poems for musical setting, but ultimately completed only three: “Frühling” (“Spring”), “September”, and “Beim schlafengehen” (“Going to sleep”). So special were these poems that Strauss decided to give them a full orchestral scoring and set them for the voice he loved best: soprano. In her youth, Pauline had been a fine professional soprano, and it is a remembrance of her voice we hear in the Four Last Songs. The best way to appreciate these indescribably beautiful songs is to read along with the text translations provided; words and music fuse into a mood of glowing serenity, without regret or pain. The first song, “Frühling”, stands a little apart from the others in its youthful ecstasy: a remembrance of the glories of springs past, with soaring melismas for the soprano. “September” was actually the last song Strauss composed (he was to die in that month one year later). It shows the old master of ingenious orchestration in top form, with glistening rain drops at the beginning conjured by high divided strings and an autumnal horn solo at the end (the horn was Strauss’ favorite instrument since his father was a great horn virtuoso). A deepening sense of weariness pervades the third song: a longing for sleep, for death the ultimate sleep. The solo violin sings a wordless third verse introducing the soaring theme the soprano will use to describe the soul’s yearning to fly into the starry skies. “Im Abendrot” was actually the first song Strauss composed, but it makes a fitting valedictory. The text is set with great simplicity as if Strauss were speaking quietly to his wife. Magical flute trills describe two larks flying overhead. At the end they return, higher still in two piccolos: voices from beyond this world. Instrumentation: Three flutes, two piccolos, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, harp, celeste and strings.
program notes { Symphony No. 2 in C Major
Robert Schumann
Born in Zwickau, Saxony, Germany, June 8, 1810; died in Endenich, near Bonn, July 29, 1856
In February 1854, after decades of mental suffering, Schumann attempted suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Rhine River; he spent the last two and a half years of his life in an asylum, where he died of self-starvation at age 46. In 1844, a decade before the suicide attempt, he endured the worst breakdown of his life subsequent to that catastrophic final one. Every effort exhausted him, and composing became a torment. Writing to a physician friend, he recalled: “For a while I could not stand listening to music. It cut into my nerves like knives.” Schumann was tormented by phobias — “melancholy bats,” he called them — including fears of high places, sharp objects, and medicines, which he was convinced contained poisons. Worse still for a musician were auditory hallucinations, described by Clara Schumann as a “constant singing and rushing in his ears, every noise would turn into a tone.” Eventually, the symptoms lessened, Schumann began to grow stronger, and his creativity revived. First he completed his popular Piano Concerto. By December, he had entered one of his manic creative phases and in just three weeks sketched the Second Symphony, regarded by many as his greatest. It is easy to hear Schumann’s struggle against his illness in this symphony, as well as the joyous return of health and strength in the finale. Through the alchemy of art, the composer managed to transform suffering into great music, especially in the extraordinary slow movement that is the emotional heart of this work. The sonata-form first movement opens with a long and mysterious slow introduction that contains the seeds from which the symphony will grow. First we hear a solemn fanfare in the brass, distant and dreamlike, above strings wandering in a dark maze. The woodwinds offer a four-note dotted-rhythm idea. When the tempo finally accelerates to Allegro, this motive launches the movement’s main
theme, full of nervous struggle. Periodically, the violins arc upward on a tormented wailing idea, which eventually grows into a full-fledged new lyrical episode for woodwinds and violins.
It is easy to hear Schumann’s struggle against his illness in this symphony, as well as the joyous return of health. More agitated still is the secondmovement scherzo with its fast, frenetic music for the violins. So difficult is this to play that it is customarily included in auditions for violinists seeking an orchestral position. Momentary relief from this obsessive music comes in two trio sections: the first a dialogue between woodwinds and strings; the second a lovely, flowing episode, rich in fugal imitation, opened by the strings. A loud return of movement one’s brass fanfare closes the movement. For the slow movement in C Minor, Schumann created one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful melodies in the symphonic repertoire. Moving from one
solo woodwind instrument to another, it seems to grow lovelier and more painful with each repetition. When the violins sing the melody, they twice add a chain of shimmering trills — a sublime stroke. With an upward-rushing scale and a joyous wake-up-call of a theme in the woodwinds, Schumann seems to bound from his sickbed. The finale is the musical expression of the composer’s recovery, with no lingering dark shadows. Listen for the reappearance of the slow movement’s poignant theme in the low strings, now dancing along in quick tempo. Schumann eventually turns it upside down, creating a buoyant new tune that drives the music forward for several moments. Yet another melody is introduced by the woodwinds: a soaring and uncomplicated hymn of thanksgiving. So infectious is this melody that Schumann forgets all the others and builds the symphony’s conclusion around this uplifting music. At the end, the opening brass fanfare reappears, transformed into triumph. Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2015
Schumann
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{ program notes In perfect harmony.
Jo s e ph Meye rho ff Sym pho ny Hall
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Jack Everly | Principal Pops Conductor
A Tribute to John Williams
Friday, May 29, 2015 — 8p.m. Saturday, May 30, 2015 —3 and 8p.m. Sunday, May 31, 2015 — 3p.m. Presenting Sponsor:
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Jack Everly, Conductor Baltimore Choral Arts Society —Tom Hall, Director Call of the Champions, the Official Theme of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games “March” from Superman “The Flight to Neverland” from Hook Selection from A.I Artificial Intelligence Overture from The Cowboys “Somewhere in My Memory” from Home Alone “Gloria” from Monsignor “March” from Raiders of the Lost Ark
INTERMISSION Olympic Fanfare and Theme “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone The Mission Theme
MAY 17, JUNE 14, JULY 19
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“Theme” from Schindler’s List JONATHAN CARNEY “Hymn to the Fallen” from Saving Private Ryan “Adventures on Earth” from E.T (The Extra-Terrestrial) “Duel of the Fates” from The Phantom Menace “Main Title” from Star Wars The concert will end at approximately 10:10p.m. on Friday, 5:10 and 10:10p.m. on Saturday, and 5:10p.m. on Sunday.
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M i chael Tam maro
program notes { Jack Everly
Jack Everly is the principal pops conductor of the Indianapolis and Baltimore Symphony orchestras, Naples Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa). He has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall and appears regularly with the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center. This season, Maestro Everly will conduct over 90 performances in more than 20 North American cities. As music director of the National Memorial Day Concert and “A Capitol Fourth” on PBS, Everly proudly leads the National Symphony Orchestra in these patriotic celebrations on the National Mall. These concerts attract hundreds of thousands of attendees on the lawn and the broadcasts reach millions of viewers and are some of the highest rated programming on PBS television. Originally appointed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mr. Everly was music director of the American Ballet Theatre for 14 years. In addition to his ABT tenure, he teamed with Marvin Hamlisch on Broadway shows that Mr. Hamlisch scored. He conducted Carol Channing hundreds of times in Hello, Dolly! in two separate Broadway productions. Maestro Everly, a graduate of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, holds an honorary doctorate of arts from Franklin College in his home state of Indiana. He is a proud resident of the Indianapolis community for over 12 years, and when not on the podium, Maestro Everly can be found at home with his family which includes Max the wonder dog. Jack Everly last appeared with the BSO in March 2015 conducting the orchestra with the film Singin’ in the Rain.
Baltimore Choral Arts Society
The Baltimore Choral Arts Society, now in its 49th season, is one of Maryland’s premier cultural institutions. The Symphonic Chorus, Full Chorus, Orchestra and Chamber Chorus perform throughout the mid-Atlantic region, as well as in Washington, D.C., New York and Europe. For the past 18 years, WMAR Television has featured Choral Arts in an hour-long special, Christmas with Choral Arts, which won an Emmy Award in 2006. Music Director Tom Hall and the chorus were also featured in a PBS documentary called Jews and Christians: A Journey of Faith, broadcast nationwide and on National Public Radio in 2001. On local radio, Mr. Hall is the host of “Choral Arts Classics,” a monthly program on WYPR that features the Choral Arts Chorus and Orchestra, and he is the culture editor on WYPR’s “Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast.” Choral Arts has appeared with the National Symphony, and has made regular appearances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Acclaimed artists collaborating with Choral Arts have included Chanticleer, Dave Brubeck, the King’s Singers, Peter Schickele, Sweet Honey in the Rock and Anonymous 4.
BORN IN BALTIMORE •
2015-2016 SEASON
JOIN US!
Sundays at 5:30 pm for our 2015–2016 Concert Season YEFIM BRONFMAN, PIANO
September 20, 2015 MONTROSE TRIO
October 25, 2015 TAKÁCS QUARTET
November 15, 2015 MISCHA MAISKY, CELLO LILY MAISKY, PIANO
December 6, 2015
EUROPA GALANTE WITH FABIO BIONDI, VIOLIN
The BCAS’s last appearances with the Baltimore Symphony were in January 2015 performing Haydn and Beethoven under Nicholas McGegan’s baton, and the women’s chorus sang Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with Marin Alsop conducting.
AND LEADER
January 17, 2016 GIL SHAHAM, VIOLIN WITH THE KNIGHTS
February 14, 2016 NICOLE CABELL, SOPRANO
SUSAN TANG, PIANO
March 6, 2016
NELSON FREIRE, PIANO
May 8, 2016 Baltimore Choral Arts Society
8-CONCERT SUBSCRIPTION Regular $249 | Students $129 FOR MORE INFORMATION 410. 516.7 164 » WWW.SHRIVERCONCERTS.ORG
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{ program notes Jo seph M eyer ho f f Sy m pho n y Hall
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony Friday, June 5, 2015 — 8p.m. Sunday, June 7, 2015 — 3p.m.
Presenting Sponsor:
Christoph König, Conductor Alban Gerhardt, Cello
Mozarteum Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Netherlands Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Tonkünstler Orchestra/Vienna, to name a few. Among his numerous recordings are a disc including Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 with the BBC Scottish Symphony (featured on the front cover of BBC Music Magazine), Beethoven symphonies with the Malmö Symphony, and Prokofiev and Mozart with the Solistes Européens Luxembourg. Christoph König previously conducted the BSO in March 2013 in the repertoire of Debussy, Strauss and Beethoven.
Alban Gerhardt
Jean Sibelius Symphony No. 7 in C Major, opus 105 Adagio—Vivacissimo—Adagio—Allegro moderato—Adagio Dmitri Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, opus 107 Allegretto Moderato Cadenza Allegro con moto ALBAN GERHARDT
INTERMISSION Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, opus 67 Allegro con brio Andante con moto Allegro Allegro
The concert will end at approximately 9:55 p.m. on Friday, and 4:55 p.m. on Sunday.
Christoph König
Known for his energy, charisma and creative interpretations, Christoph König is currently Principal Conductor of the Orquestra Sinfónica in Porto and Music Director of the Solistes Européens Luxembourg. Following a string of recent successes with
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symphonies such as Baltimore, Houston and Toronto, Mr. König’s debuts this season include the North Carolina Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic, as well as re-invitations to the symphonies of Indianapolis, New Jersey and Pittsburgh. Worldwide, Mr. König has directed the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Danish National Symphony,
Over the past decade, Alban Gerhardt has established himself among the greatest cellists of our time. His sound is unmistakable and his interpretations of the repertoire are distinguished in their originality. Gerhardt fascinates audiences with the combination of an unerring musical instinct, intense emotionality and a natural, arresting stage presence. Gerhardt has performed with over 250 orchestras worldwide, his repertoire includes more than 70 different cello concertos and he relishes rescuing lesserknown works from undeserved obscurity. In 2009, he gave the world premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto which was composed for him. He has since performed the concerto, which was commissioned by the BBC and premiered at the Proms, in the Netherlands, Germany, Far East, Scandinavia and the U.S. He has won three ECHO Classic Awards and his double CD of the complete works for cello by Benjamin Britten was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2013. Alban Gerhardt last appeared with the Baltimore Symphony in May 2002, playing Brahms' Double Concerto with violinist Elisabeth Batiashvili and conductor Sir Neville Marriner.
program notes { About the concert: Symphony No. 7 in C Major
Jean Sibelius
Born December 8, 1865 in Hämeenlinna, Finland; died September 20, 1957 in Järvenpää, Finland
As Jean Sibelius grew older and his symphonic craft more sophisticated, composing actually became more difficult for him. As he struggled to complete his seventh and last symphony in the winter of 1924, he wrote, “I am on the wrong rails. Alcohol to calm my nerves and state of mind. How dreadful old age is for a composer! Things don’t go as quickly as they used to, and self-criticism grows to impossible proportions.” He composed through the night, and his wife, Aino, would find him in the morning slumped over the score at the dining-room table with a bottle of liquor beside him. Sibelius suffered from black depressions throughout his life, and heavy alcoholic consumption only compounded the problem. Just two years after he completed the Seventh Symphony, these demons plus nagging self-criticism of everything he wrote would prematurely silence him, even though he lived on for another 31 years to the venerable age of 91. Despite the struggle, the Seventh Symphony turned out to be one of his most extraordinary works, taking his unique approach to constructing a symphony to its ultimate level. Sibelius had long since rejected the traditional symphonic structure of four movements following conventional forms such as sonata, scherzo, and rondo. Instead he believed the symphony was like a river and that each river created its own shape. “The movement of the river water is the flow of the musical ideas and the river-bed that they form is the symphonic structure.” Thus the Seventh Symphony emerged as one great movement moving in waves of accelerating and decelerating tempos. It grew organically through the evolution of the most elemental musical ideas. In fact, there is only one true theme here, proclaimed three times by solo trombone and other brass and serving as mighty pillars
supporting and shaping the symphony’s structure. And Sibelius uses the brass section only for this theme; otherwise he concentrates on strings and woodwinds, setting their very different colors in opposition rather than blending them. Like many of Sibelius’ greatest works, there is an underlying feeling of the human being standing in wonder before a big, powerful, and unknowable natural world. The symphony begins with very basic musical ingredients: a rumble of the timpani and a slow scale in the strings (scale patterns will underlie most of the melodic material) ascending to a fateful, mysterious harmony. A fluttering-birds motive appears in the woodwinds. Rising and falling scales crisscross, and the woodwind birds cry out with forlorn power. Now a magnificent, warm-toned passage for divided strings expands the scales of the opening into rich counterpoint. This culminates in the first appearance of the epic trombone-brass theme in the home key of C Major.
JOIN US FOR THESE EXCITING CONCERTS! THE COLORS OF SOUND Saturday, May 9, 2015: 8pm Pack your bags for this musical journey, using a map of soundscapes in the atmospheric experience of Bolcom’s Symphony No. 3. Ravel’s dazzling Piano Concerto provides a vibrant conclusion to this colorful program.
FAMILY FUN CONCERT Sunday, May 10, 2015: 3pm
A Wizard is magically transported onto the stage. Unsure of how he got there, the conductor and orchestra try to find a way to send him home. Concerts at Gordon Center For Performing Arts, 3506 Gwynnbrook Avenue, Owings Mills
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Despite the struggle, the Seventh Symphony turned out to be one of his most extraordinary works. The tempo gradually accelerates and the musical texture becomes lighter as woodwinds and strings alternate in an airy dance. Eventually, strong, whirling winds begin to blow in the strings, and the tempo decelerates back to Adagio for the second appearance of the brass theme, now dramatically extended and in darker C Minor. After this heroic music fades, strings and woodwinds begin a dancing acceleration to music of summer-day joy and lyricism built from the swirling-birds woodwind motive of the symphony’s opening. The tempo gradually builds to a throbbing Presto and then imperceptibly slides back to Adagio for the final and grandest appearance of the epic brass theme, now back in C Major. In the radiantly expectant closing measures of
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{ program notes this utterly unique symphony, the home chord of C Major is only reached at the very last moment. Instrumentation: Two flutes, two piccolos, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.
Cello Concerto No. 1
Dmitri Shostakovich Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, September 25, 1906; died in Moscow, August 9, 1975
When Shostakovich composed his First Cello Concerto in July 1959, Stalin had already been dead for six years and Khrushchev was beginning to chip away at the old dictator’s image in a process known as “de-Stalinization.” Twice, in 1936 and in 1948, Shostakovich had been denounced by Stalin’s culture police and had nervously awaited exile to Siberia or worse. But under Khrushchev, he was acknowledged as the U.S.S.R.’s greatest composer and showered with honors. Nevertheless, Shostakovich always remained on the defensive and wrote his most personal works for a handful of trusted artists. Mstislav Rostropovich had long hoped for a concerto from the composer, and so when Shostakovich surprised him with the First Cello Concerto in the summer of 1959, he was so exhilarated he memorized it in just four days. The composer knew he could rely on Rostropovich not only to fulfill the concerto’s formidable technical challenges, but even more importantly to understand and interpret its dark emotions and the political subtext they seem to imply. For as Michael Steinberg has written, this is “a work that feeds on grim memories.” Rather disingenuously, however, Shostakovich said he only “took a simple little theme and tried to develop it.” We hear that little theme — just four nervously twisting notes — in the cello as the first movement opens, and we will hear it again and again throughout the concerto. It is answered by a military ra-ta-tat, ra-ta-tat rhythm, which will also pervade
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the movement, in the woodwinds’ most acid, mechanical tones. Soon the cello introduces the other major theme, which clings obsessively to the note G. In frantic efforts to escape, the cello pushes higher and higher until it fastens onto a G at the top of its treble range. Later when this theme recapitulates, it is dramatically re-conceived: a solo horn carries the theme while the cello executes a tortured dance below. Throughout, the four-note theme yammers away; originally tentative and questioning, it becomes mocking, even menacing. The second is one of Shostakovich’s great tragic slow movements. After a gentle introduction in the strings, the cello sings a mournful melody in the minor mode based on Jewish folk song, with violins wearily weaving in the background. (Though not himself Jewish, Shostakovich was fascinated by Jewish
folk music and incorporated it in several of his works.) The music moves through two more melodic sections, the second of these a little more hopeful in character and in the major mode. This rises to a climax with the melody high in the violins, the cello sobbing, too, at the top of its range. The minor-mode first melody now returns in a setting of heartbreaking poignancy: the cello singing in its highest soprano register, echoed by a celesta over the drooping violins. What follows is an extraordinary unaccompanied cadenza for the cello that provides further commentary on the second movement’s tragedy. It is one of the greatest passages in the cello literature and an extreme test of the cellist’s ability to express and sustain emotion using every technical weapon in his arsenal. Toward the end, we hear hints of the little fournote theme again.
Shostakovich
program notes { The cello accelerates directly into the finale, the work’s fastest and maddest music. The woodwinds erupt in a chattering, faintly Asian-sounding theme that is actually an elaboration of the four-note motto. Then violins interject a chugging, five-note idea; Shostakovich revealed to Rostropovich that this was a heavily disguised allusion to “Suliko,” one of Stalin’s favorite folk songs—a bit of belated nose thumbing at the man who had so tormented his life and work. The “little theme” now returns with a vengeance, driving the cello into a frenzied version of its ra-ta-tat accompaniment. In the closing moments, all these elements whirl together in an insane dance that only the gunfire of the timpani can bring to a halt. Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, one horn, timpani, celeste and strings.
Symphony No. 5 in C minor
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in Bonn, Germany, December 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827
For many generations, Beethoven’s Fifth has defined the symphonic experience in the popular imagination, just as Hamlet stands for classical drama and Swan Lake for the ballet. It established the dramatic scenario of the symphony as a heroic progression from tragedy to triumph — and musically here from the minor mode to the major — that was imitated by countless later composers from Brahms to Shostakovich. Moreover, it wages its epic battle with a breathtaking swiftness and a concentrated power its imitators could not match. Europe was a troubled place when Beethoven wrote this work between 1806 and 1808. The Napoleonic Wars surged across Europe, and the martial tone of many of the Fifth’s themes and the prominent role for trumpets and timpani reflected a society constantly on military alert. And, until Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, Beethoven lived on the losing side. In July 1807, when he was in his most intense phase of work on the Fifth, the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit brought
Beethoven
The Andante con moto second movement might be called Beethoven’s “War and Peace.” a temporary truce with the capitulation of Prussia and the cession of all lands between the Rhine and Elbe to France. This humiliation stimulated an uprising of patriotic feeling among the Germanspeaking countries, and Beethoven shared in this fervor. Thus, it is not surprising that the triumphant song of the Fifth’s finale seems as much a military victory as a spiritual one. Beethoven himself gave the description of the four-note motive that pervades the Allegro con brio first movement: “Thus Fate knocks at the door!” he told his amanuensis Anton Schindler. This is the most famous of the pithy rhythmic ideas that animated many of Beethoven’s middle-period masterpieces; its dynamism as entrance is piled upon entrance drives this movement on its relentless course. The terseness and compression of this music are astonishing, conveying the maximum of expressive power with the minimum of notes. Beethoven only pauses for breath briefly as the violins introduce a gentler, more feminine second theme, and more tellingly later as the solo oboe interrupts the recapitulation of the Fate theme — brought back with pulverizing power by
the entire orchestra — with a plaintive protest of a mini-cadenza. The Andante con moto second movement might be called Beethoven’s “War and Peace.” In an original treatment of the double-variations form devised by Haydn (two different themes alternating in variations), he mixes variants on a peaceful, pastoral melody with episodes of martial might in C Major that foretell the victory to come. Ultimately, even the pastoral music is trumpeted forth in military splendor. The movement closes with a haunting, visionary coda. E.M. Forster’s novel Howard’s End contains one of the most eloquent passages ever about classical music as it describes the Fifth’s quirkily ominous Scherzo. “The music started with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others followed him. They were not aggressive creatures ... They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world.” Horns respond to the cello goblins with a military fanfare derived from the Fate motive. After the comical trio section in which Beethoven asked double basses to be agile melodists (a feat beyond players’ capacities in his period though not today), the goblins return, even more eerily in bassoons and pizzicato strings. Then ensues one of Beethoven’s greatest passages: a dark, drum-filled journey groping toward the light. The music finally emerges into C Major daylight with the finale’s joyful trumpet theme. This is the grandfather of all symphonic triumphant endings and remains the most exhilarating and convincing. In a masterstroke, Beethoven brings back the Scherzo music to shake us from any complacency. E.M. Forster again: “But the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.” Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2015
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{ program notes Jo seph Meye rho ff Sym pho ny Hall
Bernstein’s Candide
Friday, June 12, 2015 — 8p.m. Saturday, June 13, 2015 — 8p.m. Sunday, June 14, 2015 — 3p.m. Marin Alsop, Conductor Garnett Bruce, Director The Baltimore Choral Arts Society—Tom Hall, Director
musical numbers Music by Leonard Bernstein
Starring
Based on the Scottish Opera Version as adapted by Lonny Price for the New York Philharmonic semi-staged performances in 2004.
Peter Sagal Narrator
Keith Jameson
Lauren Snouffer
Judy Kaye
Joshua Hopkins
Melissa Wimbish
Lewis Shaw
Overture Life Is Happiness Indeed The Best of All Possible Worlds Oh, Happy We It Must Be So Chorale and Battle Dear Boy Auto Da Fé Is This All Then, This the World ? Glitter And Be Gay You Were Dead You Know I Am Easily Assimilated Once Again We Must Be Gone
Sheep, Ensemble
Heresy Agent, Cardinal Archbishop, Slave Driver
INTERMISSION
Cunégonde
Candide
The Old Lady
Dr. Pangloss
Marie Lenormand
Mark Diamond
Patrick Cook
Paquette
Maximillian, Judge
Governor of Montevideo, Vanderdendur, Judge, Señor
Andrew Mclaughlin
Curtis Bannister
Stephanie Sadownik
Captain, Prefect, Judge, Crook
Ragotski, Baron Thunder-tenTronk, Inquisitor, Don Issacar, Señor
Sheep, Baroness, Ensemble
Production Team Eric Southern
Brian Losch
Robert Brubaker
Karma Camp
Gayle Mahn
Lighting Designer
Sound Designer
Video Designer
Choreographer
Prop Master
Mary Kathryn Blazek
Diane Schramke
Jeanne DiBattista
Suzanne Herbert-Forton
Production Stage Manager
Assistant Stage Manager
Wigs & Makeup
Wardrobe Supervisor
Media Sponsor:
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Chorale My Love We Are Women Alleluia Every Sky Is Blue and Sunny The Ballad of Eldorado Bon Voyage What’s the Use Chorale Make Our Garden Grow
There will be one 20-minute intermission. The concert will end at approximately 9:50 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 4:50 p.m. on Sunday.
program notes { Marin Alsop
For Marin Alsop’s bio., please see pg. 7.
Garnett Bruce Dale H eise
Director
Garnett Bruce has directed with opera companies across the country— including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera and Houston Grand Opera. His European opera debut was staging Turandot for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. He was the artistic adviser and principal stage director for Opera Omaha from 2008 to 2011, where he led a cycle of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas. This season he directed Madama Butterfly for the Utah Symphony and Opera, where he will return next season for Aida. He returns to the Lyric Opera of Kansas City for Tosca, and recently returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago for revivals of Tannhäuser and Porgy & Bess. Garnett Bruce is making his debut with the BSO.
Peter Sagal (Narrator)
Before becoming host of the public radio quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me in 1998, Peter Sagal’s varied career included stints as a playwright, screenwriter, stage director, actor, extra in a Michael Jackson video, travel writer, essayist, ghostwriter and staff writer for a motorcycle magazine. Since then, Wait Wait has grown to reach an audience of more than five million listeners, and won the prestigious Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting. Mr. Sagal’s book, The Book of Vice: Naughty Things and How to Do Them, essays about bad behavior, came out in 2007. In 2013, he hosted Constitution USA with Peter Sagal on PBS. A columnist for Runner’s World, he has no musical ability whatsoever, although did once accompany Yo-Yo Ma on the trumpet as he played “Happy Birthday.”
Peter Sagal is making his debut with the BSO.
Keith Jameson (Candide)
Keith Jameson, a native of South Carolina, recently appeared as Bardolfo in Robert Carsen’s new production of Falstaff at the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine and seen “Live from The Met in HD” around the world. He sang the Novice in Britten’s Billy Budd at the Metropolitan Opera, and Osman in Handel’s Almira with NYC’s operamission at the historic Gershwin Hotel. He performed Sancho Panza in Man of La Mancha in his hometown of Greenwood, S.C. in June 2012, and sang Grandpa Joe in The Golden Ticket with Atlanta Opera, released on CD in 2012. He recently made his debut with Arizona Opera as Goro in Madama Butterfly. Last summer he debuted with the New York Philharmonic as the Mosquito and Schoolmaster in the critically acclaimed production of The Cunning Little Vixen. Keith Jameson is making his debut with the BSO.
Lauren Snouffer (Cunégonde)
Lauren Snouffer is a recent graduate of the Houston Grand Opera Studio and winner of a 2013 Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation and a Richard F. Gold Career Grant bestowed by Houston Grand Opera. The 2014–2015 season, Ms. Snouffer debuts with Parnassus Arts Productions as Arasse in Hasse’s Siroe at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, and with the Atlanta Opera as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. On the concert stage, Ms. Snouffer debuts with the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Handel’s Messiah conducted by John Butt, and joins Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra for concert performances of Strauss’ Daphne. Appearances of the season
include Fauré’s Requiem and a New Year’s concert with the Florida Orchestra. Lauren Snouffer last appeared with the BSO in January 2014 with conductor Andrew Grams on a New Year's Day program.
Judy Kaye
(The Old Lady) Judy Kaye recently appeared on Broadway in Cinderella. She also appeared on Broadway in Nice Work If You Can Get It, winning Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards. She won her first Tony for The Phantom of the Opera. Other highlights include Souvenir (Tony nomination, Theatre LA Ovation Award), Mamma Mia (Tony, Drama Desk nominations), Ragtime (Theatre LA Ovation Award) and On the Twentieth Century (Theatre World Award, Drama Desk nomination). Ms. Kaye has played Mrs. Lovett in a number of productions of Sweeney Todd, and has appeared in Annie Get Your Gun, Gypsy, Follies, and Tales of the City. She has performed Souvenir around the country (including in Baltimore). Judy Kaye was part of a cast of vocalists who performed the music of Kurt Weill with the BSO in June 1994 under the baton of David Zinman.
Joshua Hopkins (Dr. Pangloss)
Chosen by Opera News as one of 25 artists poised to become a major force in the coming decade, Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins has been hailed as “ … an outstanding young baritone with a virile, vigorous yet velvety sound and … dramatic authority.” Mr. Hopkins recently made his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Tadeusz in The Passenger conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. His season also includes the title role of Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Canadian Opera Company and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with the Dallas Opera. He can also
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{ program notes
Joshua Hopkins sang on a program with Maestro Jack Everly and the BSO in June 2004.
Marie Lenormand (Paquette)
Praised for her performances on the operatic and concert stage, mezzo-soprano Marie Lenormand recently joined the Saito-Kinen Festival in Japan as the White Cat and Squirrel in L’enfant et les sortileges; she has appeared with Opera de Massy as Meg in Falstaff, New Orleans Opera as Le Prince in Cendrillon, Palazzetto Bru Zane in Le Saphir, and in Les Violons du Roy for concerts in Quebec. During the 2014-2015 season, Ms. Lenormand will appear as Ottone in Boston Baroque’s Agrippina, Marguerite in Le Pré aux clercs with the Opéra-Comique, Berlioz’s Les nuits d’ été with Festival de Laon, France, with Les Nouveaux Caractères and with Orchestre National d’Ile de France.
Patrick Cook Jar ed Sl ater
be heard in Lieder recital programs with the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago and with the Canadian Opera Company.
(Judge/Prefect/ Governor/ Vandedendur)
Patrick Cook’s recent operatic roles include Don Jose, Bacchus, Luigi, Idomeneo and Don Ottavio with companies throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Mr. Cook debuted at Carnegie Hall in Scenes from Dog Days by David T. Little. In 2011, he performed for President Obama’s Town Hall meeting in College Park, Md. He is a 2011 and 2010 D.C. District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and can be heard on the American Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. A graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts, Mr. Cook holds degrees from the University of Maryland, Bard Conservatory and The Juilliard School. Patrick Cook is making his debut with the BSO.
Andrew McLaughlin
(Judge/Captain/ Crook)
A graduate of the Studio of Houston Grand Opera, Mark Diamond made debuts with the French opera theaters of Limoges, Caen and Reims, as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia. During the 2013–2014 season, he returned to Houston Grand Opera as Count Carlo-Magnus in A Little Night Music; his roles in the HGO Studio during the 2012–2013 season included Marcello in La bohème and the Steersman in Tristan und Isolde.
Andrew McLaughlin hails from Washington, D.C., where he has performed with Washington National Opera as Brian Young in An American Soldier (2014), Rex in An American Man (2014), the Doganiere in La bohème (2014) and the Spanish Sailor in Moby Dick (2014). As a champion of new works, Mr. McLaughlin has performed in the premiere of Robert Paterson and Mark Campbell’s The Whole Truth (Urban Arias, 2015). This year’s appearances include solo performances in Faure’s Requiem and Bach’s Johannés Passion with the National Philharmonic Orchestra at Strathmore and as Schaunard in Puccini’s La bohème with Virginia Opera. Mr. McLaughlin holds a master’s degree from the University of Maryland where he was a member of the Maryland Opera Studio.
Mark Diamond is making his debut with the BSO.
Andrew McLaughlin is making his debut with the BSO.
Marie Lenormand is making her debut with the BSO.
Mark Diamond (Maximillian/Judge)
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Curtis Bannister
(Ragotski, Baron Thunder-ten-Tronk, Inquisitor, Don Issacar, Señor) Curtis Bannister debuted in the 2014–2015 season at Lyric Opera of Chicago in the role of Peter/covering the role of Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess. He also performed concerts for the Metropolitan Opera National Council and in the new Broadway-bound musical Amazing Grace. This season’s appearances also include Anthony in Sweeney Todd in New York, a return to the roster of Lyric Opera of Chicago, and his debut with the New World Symphony. A graduate of Towson University and the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Mr. Bannister lives in Chicago, Illinois and is a student of renowned voice teacher Connie Haas. Curtis Bannister is making his debut with the BSO.
Stephanie Sadownik
(Baroness/Sheep) Stephanie Sadownik is known for her complex characterizations and comedic flair. The 2014–2015 season began with Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti with Sin City Opera, where she played Madame Flora in The Medium in 2013. Another 2013 debut was with the Pacific Opera Project as Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro, and that summer she won praise for her portrayals of La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica and Arnalta in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Aspen Music Festival. Ms. Sadownik is a devotee of art song and cabaret. She is an alumna of Indiana University Jacob’s School of Music and a graduate of the Maryland Opera Studio. Stephanie Sadownik is making her debut with the BSO.
Melissa Wimbish
(Sheep/Ensemble) Melissa Wimbish performed the role of the
program notes { History Teacher in the NYC premiere of Paul’s Case by composer Gregory Spears and directed by Kevin Newbury. With Opera AACC, she debuted the role of Micaëla in George Bizet’s Carmen followed by another debut with American Modern Ensemble in Robert Paterson’s Ghost Theater. A winner of the Vocal Arts Society Discovery Recital Series, Ms. Wimbish made her Kennedy Center recital debut in 2011. In 2014, she won the grand prize winner of the NATS Artist Award and the Franco-American Vocal Academy Prize for excellence in the interpretation of French repertoire. Melissa Wimbish is making her debut with the BSO.
Lewis Shaw
(Heresy Agent, Cardinal Archbishop, Slave Driver) Lewis Shaw is well known to Baltimore audiences both on and off stage. He regularly performed Shakespearian roles such as Prospero, Petruchio and Falstaff with the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival and the Shakespeare Project. Mr. Shaw is also an internationally known fight director and master stage combat teacher. His fights have been seen in hundreds of opera and theatre productions such as Nabucco at the Washington Opera, A Skull in Connemara at Center Stage and Deathtrap at Everyman Theatre, where he is a member of the Artistic Company. Mr. Shaw also designs and builds weapons and special effects for the entertainment industry, working extensively on Broadway and in film. Look for his work in the upcoming blockbuster Terminator Genisys. He is a long time resident of Baltimore and has two very talented sons.
About the concert: Candide
Leonard Bernstein Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, August 25, 1918; died in New York City, October 14, 1990
Candide was the problem child of Leonard Bernstein’s creative career, the work he called a stone in his shoe. A failure on Broadway at its first production in the winter of 1956-57, it was also paradoxically the work that meant the most to him; as he said, “There’s more of me in that piece than anything else I have ever done.” The American tenor Jerry Hadley, who sang the title role on Bernstein’s “definitive” 1989 recording of the operetta, elaborated. “I personally think that Candide is the most fitting legacy that Leonard Bernstein could have. It’s so much an extension of everything he was — it’s eclectic, it’s witty, it’s profound, it’s irreverent, it’s tongue-in-cheek one moment and innocent and full of childlike wonder the next.” For the rest of his life, Bernstein kept coming back to Candide, trying to prove to the world its quality and its ability to draw a large audience. The operetta’s book is based on the French philosopher and writer Voltaire’s
slender but incendiary novella, Candide or The Optimist, published in 1759: a savagely satirical attack on the positivist philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz that everything that happens in this world is divinely ordered and for the best. Voltaire was goaded into writing this picaresque story by the horrific events of 1755 in Lisbon, Portugal, when a great earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and subsequent religious persecutions meant to appease God slaughtered thousands more. Candide, a naive and pure-hearted youth, has been taught by his tutor Pangloss that “all is for the best in this world” and clings stubbornly to this faith despite being buffeted by wars, pestilence, crime, and intolerance as he hurtles from country to country in Europe and the New World. Finally, stripped of his illusions, he returns to his native Westphalia and weds his equally battered sweetheart, Cunégonde, determined to cultivate his garden and seek modest pleasures in an imperfect world. Turning Voltaire’s brilliantly caustic novella into a Broadway musical was the idea of the admired playwright Lillian Hellman, who sold Bernstein on the idea in 1954. Hellman initially saw the
Marin Alsop
Ad r ian e-Wh ite
Lewis Shaw is making his debut with the BSO.
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Co u rte sy o f o f Th e Leo nar d B er ns tei n Offi ce
{ program notes
Leonard Bernstein
project as a vehicle for protesting the infamous activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities and the blacklisting of prominent American intellectuals and artists as suspected Communists; summoned before HUAC, she had refused to incriminate her colleagues with the proud words, “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.” However, Bernstein saw a much broader relevance in the story: “Puritanical snobbery, phony moralism, inquisitorial attacks on the individual, brave-new-world optimism, essential superiority — aren’t these all charges leveled against American society by our best thinkers? And they are also charges made by Voltaire against his own society.” A Troubled Gestation
The creation of Candide took more than two years, from 1954 to 1956, and encountered many roadblocks along the way. A writer of serious dramas with no experience in musical comedy, Hellman struggled with the operetta’s book. For his part, Bernstein kept wandering off to other creative projects or the demands of his burgeoning conducting career. The initial lyricist, John LaTouche, was let go, and Bernstein decided he and Hellman
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Over the next three decades, various revivals were mounted, and each time, both book and music were significantly altered. would write the lyrics. When that proved an impracticable burden on top of composing the music, the gifted young poet Richard Wilbur was hired in 1956; though he, too, had no musical comedy experience, he proved to be an inspired choice. Opening at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theater on December 1, 1956, Candide was perhaps a bit too intellectually weighty to appeal to a broad audience and closed after just 73 performances. It also suffered from a stylistic problem: its music was generally too sophisticated and too operatic for audiences used to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Its cast was devoid of stars, although its first Cunégonde, Barbara Cook, soon became one. Though its critical reviews were mixed, it was well liked by The New York Times, and John Chapman of the New York Daily News called it “a work of genius.” Bernstein was less concerned over the
money lost than the failure of a work he cared about deeply. The huge success of West Side Story only a few months later was only partial solace. But this was far from the end of Candide’s story. Over the next three decades, various revivals were mounted, and each time, both book and music were significantly altered. Bernstein and Hellman had nothing to do with the first genuinely successful revival in 1973, when the director Hal Prince commissioned Hugh Wheeler to rewrite the book (Hellman had stipulated that none of her original dialogue be used) for a stripped-down version with a drastically reduced orchestra for Brooklyn’s Chelsea Theater; it was such a hit it was transferred to Broadway and ran for more than 700 performances. Bernstein was, however, very actively involved with Candide’s 1982 and 1988 productions at the New York City Opera and the Scottish Opera respectively, which restored the work to the operatic dimensions he’d originally envisioned. With his cooperation, the conductor John Mauceri included music left out of the earlier productions, such as the recurring Westphalia Chorale (“Universal Good”) and Candide’s moving final aria, with words by Bernstein, “Nothing More Than This.” Both productions were warmly embraced
program notes {
Candide’s Globe-Trotting Plot
Act I: The story opens in German Westphalia, where the naive young Candide, the illegitimate nephew of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronck, is in love with the Baron’s beautiful daughter, Cunégonde. Candide and Cunégonde are pupils of Dr. Pangloss, who has diligently taught them that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” The Baron opposes their marriage because Candide is a social inferior. The gullible Candide joins the Bulgar Army, which then attacks Westphalia and slays all its inhabitants, including Cunégonde. Now a wandering beggar, Candide tries to hold on to Pangloss’ maxims even though when he meets the philosopher, he finds him ill with syphilis. They arrive in Lisbon as the earthquake strikes and then are seized by the Inquisition and condemned to death. Pangloss is hanged, but Candide escapes. Meanwhile in Paris, Cunégonde is in fact alive and living as a high-class prostitute showered with jewels. The astonished Candide is reunited with her, but after he inadvertently kills her protectors, the two flee along with her companion, the Old Lady, to Spain, and then on to the New World. Act II: The trio arrive in Buenos Aires, where the Governor falls in love with Cunégonde. Candide is forced to flee to the South American jungle, where he discovers the paradise of El Dorado. But without Cunégonde, he finds no happiness there and flees to Surinam, after stealing El Dorado’s golden sheep. There he spends all he has on an unseaworthy vessel to take him back to Europe. In Venice at Carnival time, Candide and the pleasure-loving Cunégonde are again reunited at the vice-ridden casino. Disillusioned at last, Candide returns to Westphalia, where, fully aware of her weaknesses, he marries Cunégonde.
Realizing at last that “Life is neither bad nor good,” they decide to buy a little farm, cultivate their garden, and “do the best we know.” The Music of Candide
Bernstein called the score of Candide a Valentine card to European music. In the words of biographer Humphrey Burton: “European dance forms such as the gavotte, mazurka, polka, schottische, and waltz pop up all over the place. The conventions of European opera are gently mocked: when the lovers are reunited for the surrealistic duet, ‘You Were Dead, You Know,’ they warble in thirds and sixths in the best bel canto style.” Thus, the score is a pastiche of musical styles, both classical and popular, conjured up by Bernstein, the musical magpie who could borrow from the vast store of music he knew and frequently conducted. The incandescent Overture has become a favorite concert opener on its own. Flying at breakneck speed, it pumps of the adrenaline of players and listeners and reatures two of the show’s big tunes. The romantic love duet, “Oh, Happy We,” and the wacky closing music
from Cundgonde’s send-up of coloraturasoprano arias, “Glitter and Be Gay” The most operatic numbers in this production are Candide’s arias—the two Meditations of Act I set to the same music (“It Must Be So” and “It Must Be Me”), “Candide’s Lament” for the supposedly dead Cunégonde with its superb high pianissimo passages. Classical arias are balanced by the irresistible comic songs with their sophisticated word settings, such as Pangloss’ lesson, “The Best of All Possible Worlds;” the Old Lady’s tango, “I Am Easily Assimilated;” and the crazed, cynical waltz, “What’s the Use.” But, Bernstein’s last musical word, “Make Our Garden Grow,” is completely from the heart, voiced in the soaring, utterly personal lyrical style that would blossom again in West Side Story. Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2015
The BSO
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by audiences and critics. As his last word on his beloved but misunderstood work, Bernstein, now fatally ill with cancer, made an acclaimed studio recording of Candide in 1989 with the London Symphony Orchestra and a cast of international operatic stars including Jerry Hadley, June Anderson, and Christa Ludwig.
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T h e B a ltimor e S y mpho n y O rch e str a
Symphony fund Honor Roll December 24, 2013 – February 24, 2015 We are proud to recognize the BSO’s Symphony Fund Members whose generous gifts to the Annual Fund between December 24, 2013 and February 24, 2015 helped the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra further its mission: “To make music of the highest quality, to enhance Baltimore and Maryland as a cultural center of interest, vitality and importance and to become a model of institutional strength.”
The Citizens of Baltimore County
The BSO is funded by an operating grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive.
The Century CLub The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is deeply grateful to the individual, corporate, foundation and governmental donors whose cumulative annual giving of $100,000 or more plays a vital role in sustaining the orchestra’s magnificent tradition of musical excellence. Marin Alsop Donna and Paul Amico The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation The Baltimore Orioles Georgia and Peter Angelos The Baltimore Symphony Associates Sandy Feldman, President Mayor and City Council of Baltimore The Citizens of Baltimore County BGE The Charles T. Bauer Foundation
Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation and the Estate of Ruth Marder* Kenneth W. DeFontes, Jr. and Donna C. DeFontes Hecht-Levi Foundation Ryda H. Levi* and Sandra Levi Gerstung Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development Maryland State Arts Council
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Joseph & Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and Montgomery County Maryland National Endowment for the Arts Linda and Stanley* Panitz PNC
Bruce and Lori Laitman Rosenblum Alena and David M. Schwaber The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company Mr.* and Mrs. Willard Hackerman
Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation Sander & Norma K. Buchman Foundation The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Ruth Carol Fund Mr. and Mrs. Robert Coutts Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation The Goldsmith Family Foundation Adalman-Goodwin Foundation Hilda Perl Goodwin and Douglas* Goodwin, trustees Peggy & Yale Gordon Trust Young Artist Sponsor
Mr. and Mrs. Kingdon Gould, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin H. Griswold, IV Mr.* and Mrs. E. Phillips Hathaway Hoffberger Family Philanthropies Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Jr. Memorial Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Stephen M. Lans Sarellen and Marshall Levine The Huether-McClelland Foundation George and Catherine McClelland Dr. and Mrs.* Thomas Pozefsky Rifkin, Livingston, Levitan and Silver, LLC Mr. and Mrs. Alan M. Rifkin
Lainy LeBow-Sachs and Leonard R. Sachs The Salmon Foundation The Honorable Steven R. Schuh Mr. and Mrs. Stephen D. Shawe The Speedwell Foundation David and Chris Wallace Dr. Ellen Yankellow and Mr. Bill Chapman
Michael G. Hansen and Nancy E. Randa Joel and Liz Helke Dr. and Mrs.* Murray Kappelman Barbara Katz Howard Majev and Janet Brandt Majev Hilary B. Miller and Dr. Katherine N. Bent Mr. and Mrs. H. Hudson Myers, Jr. Judy and Scott Phares Mr.* and Mrs. Michael P. Pinto Arnold and Diane Polinger Alison and Arnold Richman Mr. George A. Roche Esther and Ben Rosenbloom Foundation Michelle G. and Howard Rosenbloom Morris Shapiro Family Foundation Dr. and Mrs. Charles I. Shubin Richard C. and Julie I. Vogt
$10,000–$14,999 Anonymous Erin Becker Dr. Emile A. Bendit and Diane Abeloff Mr. and Mrs. Ed Bernard Mr. and Mrs. A.G.W. Biddle, III Diane and Leland Brendsel Ms. Mary Catherine Bunting Ms. Kathleen A. Chagnon Mr. and Mrs. H. Chace Davis, Jr. Chapin Davis Investments Judith* and Mark D. Coplin Linwood and Ellen Dame Mr. and Mrs. James L. Dunbar Doris T. and Bill Fader Mr. Mark Fetting Joanne Gold and Andrew A. Stern The Sandra and Fred Hittman Philanthropic Fund Drs. Riva and Marc Kahn Mrs. Barbara Kines Dr. and Mrs. Yuan C. Lee
Harriet and Jeffrey Legum In memory of James Gavin Manson Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Sally S. and Decatur* H. Miller Drs. Mark and Virginia Myerson Mr. and Mrs. Bill Nerenberg Dr. Selvin Passen Gar and Migsie Richlin Barry and Susan Rosen John and Dawn Sadler The Honorable and Mrs. James T. Smith, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Gideon N. Stieff, Jr. Ms. Harriet Stulman The Louis B. Thalheimer and Juliet A. Eurich Philanthropic Fund Aaron and Joanie Young The Zamoiski-Barber-Segal Family Foundation
founders circle $50,000 or more William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund Creator of the Baker Artist Award www.bakerartistawards.org The Bozzuto Family Charitable Fund Jessica and Michael Bronfein The Annie E. Casey Foundation Mark and Pat Joseph Dr. and Mrs. Solomon H. Snyder Ellen W.P. Wasserman $25,000–$49,999 The Kenneth S. Battye Charitable Trust in honor of Kenneth S. Battye*
maestra’s circle $15,000–$24,999 Anonymous (2) Herbert Bearman Foundation, Inc. Dr. Sheldon and Arlene Bearman David and Pat Bernstein Robert H. Boublitz “In memory of Harry H. Boublitz” Mr. and Mrs. George L. Bunting, Jr. Charlotte A. Cameron / The Dan Cameron Family Foundation Caswell J. Caplan Charitable Income Trusts Constance R. Caplan The Dopkin-Singer-Dannenberg Foundation, Inc. Mrs. Margery Dannenberg Rosalee C. and Richard Davison Foundation Alan and Carol Edelman Sara and Nelson Fishman Sandra Levi Gerstung Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Hamilton
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* Deceased
S y mpho n y f u n d H o n or R oll
A backstage hall tour of the Meyerhoff is one of our newest member benefits!
Governing Members Gold $5,000 – $9,999 Anonymous (2) Dr. and Mrs. Thomas E. Allen Cameron and Jane Baird Foundation
Sarah and Cameron Baird
Dr. and Mrs. Mandell Bellmore Deborah and Howard M. Berman Linda and Barry Berman Alan and Bunny Bernstein Ms. Carol Bogash John and Bonnie Boland Ms. Mary Catherine Bunting Mr. and Mrs. Robert Butler Mr. John Cahill Nathan and Suzanne Cohen Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Elbert Cole Judith and Mark Coplin Mr. and Mrs. Albert R. Counselman, The RCM&D Foundation and RCM&D, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. William H. Cowie, Jr. Faith and Marvin Dean Dr. and Mrs. Thomas DeKornfeld Ronald E. Dencker Drs. Sonia and Myrna Estruch Ms. Margaret Ann Fallon Andrea and Samuel Fine Susan Fisher Susan W. Flanigan John Gidwitz Sandra and Barry Glass Frances Goelet Charitable Trust Dr. and Mrs. Philip Goelet Betty E. and Leonard H. Golombek Mr. and Mrs. J. Woodford Howard, Jr. Mr.* and Mrs. H. Thomas Howell Susan and David Hutton Susan and Stephen Immelt Mr. and Mrs. Harry Kaplan Mr. William La Cholter Dr. David Leckrone and Marlene Berlin Dr. James and Jill Lipton Susan Liss and Family Howard and Linda Martin Joseph H. and Eileen A. Mason Dan and Agnes Mazur / Norfolk Southern Foundation Mrs. Kenneth A. McCord Margot and Cleaveland Miller Jolie and John Mitchell Dr. and Mrs. C.L. Moravec Elizabeth Moser Mr. and Mrs. Peter Muncie Mrs. Joy Munster David Nickels and Gerri Hall Dr. A. Harry Oleynick Dr. and Mrs. David Paige William and Kathleen Pence Marge Penhallegon Jan S. Peterson & Alison E. Cole
The hall fills up for a morning open rehearsal.
Helene and Bill Pittler The Rabin Family Dr. Scott and Frances Rifkin Mr. and Mrs. William Rogers Mike and Janet Rowan Neil J. and JoAnn N. Ruther Dr.* and Mrs. Marvin M. Sager M. Sigmund and Barbara K. Shapiro Philanthropic Fund Mr. and Mrs. J. Mark Schapiro Jacob S. Shapiro Foundation Jane and Stan Rodbell, and James Shapiro Francesca Siciliano and Mark Green The Sidney Silber Family Foundation Daniel and Sybil Silver Mr. and Mrs. Harris J. Silverstone Melissa and Philip Spevak Ms. Patricia Stephens James Storey and Janice Collins Dr. and Mrs. Carvel Tiekert Mr. Peter Van Dyke and Ms. Judy Van Dyke Ms. Mignon Yvette Velie* Mr. and Mrs. Loren Western Dr. Brian Woolf and Ms. Amy (Webb) Woolf Mr. Edward Wiese Susan Wolman Laurie S. Zabin Danielle and Jeffrey Zoller Governing Members Silver $3,000 – $4,999 Anonymous (6) Dr. and Mrs. Robert J. Adams Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Adkins Julianne and George Alderman Frederick Apfel and Meredith Pattin Mr.* and Mrs. Alexander Armstrong Mr. Paul Araujo Jackie and Eugene Azzam Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H.G. Bailliere, Jr. Susan and David Balderson Ms. Penny Bank Donald L. Bartling Dr. and Mrs. Theodore M. Bayless Eric* and Claire* Beissinger Dr. and Mrs. Mandell Bellmore Donna and Stanley Ber Dr. and Mrs. Mordecai P. Blaustein Mr. and Mrs. John Blodgett Dr. and Mrs. Paul Z. Bodnar Carolyn and John Boitnott Jeffrey and Peggy Boltz Mr. and Mrs. John M. Bond, Jr. Barbara and Ed Brody Dr. Helene Breazeale Dr. Rudiger and Robin Breitenecker Dr. Nancy D. Bridges Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Broadus, III
BSO donors enjoy a Cast Party after the All Mozart performance in March.
Steven and Ann Loar Brooks Dr. and Mrs. Donald D. Brown Number Ten Foundation Mr. and Mrs. S. Winfield Cain Brad and Kate Callahan Lt Gen (Ret) Frank B. and Karen Campbell James N. Campbell, M.D. and Regina Anderson, M.D. Michael and Kathy Carducci Ms. Susan Chouinard Geri and David Cohen Mr. Harvey L. Cohen and Ms. Martha Krach Wandaleen and Emried Cole Dr. Elizabeth H. Jones & Steven P. Collier Mr. and Mrs. John W. Conrad, Jr. David and Ellen Cooper Robert A. and Jeanne Cordes Jane C. Corrigan Mrs. Rebecca M. Cowen-Hirsch Alan and Pamela Cressman Mr. and Mrs. Edward A. Dahlka, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Cornelius Darcy Mr. and Mrs. William F. Dausch Dr. Karlotta M. Davis Kari Peterson, Benito R. and Ben De Leon Walter B. Doggett, III and Joanne Doggett Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Drachman Mr. and Mrs. Larry D. Droppa Bill and Louise Duncan Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Dusold Dr. Sylwester J. Dziuba Donna Z. Eden and Henry Goldberg Deborah and Philip English Ms. Marietta Ethier J. Fainberg Michaeline Fedder and Susan Arisman Sherry and Bruce Feldman Mr. and Mrs. Maurice R. Feldman David and Merle Fishman Winnie and Bill Flattery Dr. and Mrs. Jerome L. Fleg Ms. Lois Flowers Mr. and Mrs. John C. Frederick Jo Ann and Jack Fruchtman John Galleazzi and Elizabeth Hennessey Mr. Robert Gillison and Ms. Laura L. Gamble Mrs. Ellen Bruce Gibbs Mr. and Mrs. Joseph S. Gillespie, Jr. Helaine and Louis Gitomer Ms. Jean M. Suda and Mr. Kim Z. Golden Dr. Diana Griffiths Ms. Mary Therese Gyi Carole Hamlin and C. Fraser Smith Mr. Gary C. Harn Melanie and Donald Heacock John P. Healy
Mezzo-soprano Joanne Lund stops by the Cast Party after performing Mozart’s Mass in C minor.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Hearn Mr. and Mrs. Edward Heine Sandra and Thomas Hess Mr. Thomas Hicks Betty Jean and Martin* S. Himeles, Sr. Bruce and Caren Beth Hoffberger Ms. Marilyn J. Hoffman Betsy and Len Homer Donald W. and Yvonne M. Hughes Bill and Ann Hughes Elayne and Benno Hurwitz Mrs. Wendy M. Jachman In memory of John T. Ricketts, III Dr. and Mrs. Richard T. Johnson Richard and Brenda Johnson Susan B. Katzenberg Louise and Richard Kemper Townsend and Bob Kent Suzan Russell Kiepper Richard Kitson and Andrew Pappas Dr. and Mrs. Richard A. Kline Paul Konka and Susan Dugan-Konka Dr. Morton D. Kramer Miss Dorothy B. Krug Marc E. Lackritz and Mary DeOreo Sandy and Mark Laken Dr. and Mrs. Donald Langenberg The Lavagnino Family Anna and George Lazar Burt and Karen Leete Mr. and Mrs. Howard Lehrer Ruth and Jay Lenrow Richard W. Ley Mr. and Mrs. Vernon L. Lidtke Dr. Frances and Mr. Edward Lieberman Darielle and Earl Linehan June Linowitz & Howard Eisner Dr. Diana Locke and Mr. Robert E. Toense Mr. James Lynch Ms. Louise E. Lynch Louise D. and Morton J. Macks Family Foundation, Inc. Diane and Jerome Markman Donald and Lenore Martin Dr. Marilyn Maze and Dr. Holland Ford Drs. Edward and Lucille McCarthy Mr. Charles Miller Mr. and Mrs. Charles R. Miller Mr. and Mrs. Scott A. McWilliams Paul Meecham and Laura Leach John Meyerhoff, M.D. and Lenel Srochi-Meyerhoff Northern Pharmacy and Medical Equipment—Judy and Martin Mintz Mr. and Mrs. Humayun Mirza Ms. Patricia J. Mitchell Drs. Dalia and Alan Mitnick Mr. and Mrs. Charles O. Monk, II Dr. Mellasenah Y. Morris Dr. William W. Mullins
Rex Myers Roy and Gillian Myers Roger Nordquist and Joyce Ward In memory of the Rev Howard G. Norton and Charles O. Norton Dr. Antonella Nota Kevin and Diane O’Connor Anne M. O’Hare Drs. Erol and Julianne Oktay Mrs. Bodil Ottesen Mr. and Mrs. Frank Palulis Beverly and Sam Penn Ms. Diane M. Perin Dr. and Mrs. Anthony Perlman Joan Piven-Cohen and Samuel T. Cohen Martin and Henriette Poretsky David and Lesley Punshon-Smith Peter E. Quint Dr. Jonas Rappeport and Alma Smith Louise Reiner Nathan and Michelle Robertson Mr. and Mrs. Richard Roca Rona and Arthur Rosenbaum Robert and Lelia Russell Ilene and Michael Salcman Ms. Doris Sanders Lois Schenck and Tod Myers Marilyn and Herb* Scher Dr. and Mrs. James L. Scott Ida & Joseph Shapiro Foundation and Diane and Albert Shapiro Mr. Stephen Shepard Dr. and Mrs. Ronald F. Sher Thom Shipley and Chris Taylor Francine and Richard Shure Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Sieber Ronnie and Rachelle Silverstein Drs. Ruth and John Singer Ellwood and Thelma Sinsky Rev. Joseph and Barbara Skillman Ms. Leslie J. Smith Ms. Nancy E. Smith Patricia Smith and Dr. Frances Lussier Cape Foundation, Turner and Judy Smith Mr. and Mrs. Lee M. Snyder Dr. and Mrs. John Sorkin Dr. and Mrs. Charles S. Specht Joan and Thomas Spence Don Spero and Nancy Chasen Anita and Mickey Steinberg Mr. Edward Steinhouse Dale* and Roma* Strait Mr. Alan Strasser & Ms. Patricia Hartge Alan V Asay and Mary K Sturtevant Susan and Brian Sullam Mr. James Sutherlin Mr. and Mrs. Robert Taubman Mr. and Mrs. Terence Taylor Dr. Ronald J. Taylor Sonia and Carl Tendler
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Membership Benefits 2014– 2015 season
A contribution to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra qualifies you for special events and exclusive opportunities to enhance your BSO experience throughout the season: $75– $149 Bach Member Benefits include: • BSO Membership Card—10% discount on music, books, and gifts at the Symphony Store and An die Musik • Admission for two to the Annual Donor Appreciation Concert (R) • Invitation to one Open Rehearsal (R) • Opportunity to purchase tickets prior to public sale* $150 – $249 Beethoven Member All of the above, plus… • Invitation to a second Open Rehearsal (R) • Two complimentary drink vouchers $250 – $499 Brahms Member All of the above, plus… • 10% discounts on tickets to BSO performances* • Admission for two additional guests to the Annual Donor Appreciation Concert (R) $500 – $1,199 Britten Member All of the above, plus… • Invitation to the Premium Evening Open Rehearsal (R) • Donor recognition in one issue of Overture magazine • Two additional complimentary drink vouchers • Four complimentary dessert vouchers • Invitation to the Opening Night Celebration Cast Party (R) $1,200 – $1,999 Symphony Society Silver All of the above, plus… • Private Backstage Hall Tour (R) • Invitation to the Season Opening Gala (R/$) • Priority access to Premium Seating • Year-long recognition in Overture magazine • Invitations to all Cast Parties (R) • Two complimentary passes to the BSA Decorators’ Show House • Two one-time passes to the Georgia and Peter Angelos Governing Members Lounge • Additional admission for two guests to the Annual Donor Appreciation Concert (R) $2,000 – $2,999 Symphony Society Gold All of the above, plus… • Invitation to Allegretto Dinners (R/$) • Trip Invitations (R/$) • An additional pass to the Georgia and Peter Angelos Governing Members Lounge • Exclusive email updates with insider information and news about the BSO $3,000 – $4,999 Governing Member Silver All of the above, plus… • Exclusive season sneak preview • Quarterly edition of the GM Insider newsletter • On-Stage Rehearsals (R) • Complimentary parking (upon request) • VIP Ticket Concierge Service • NEW! Invitation to the Annual State of the Orchestra Address • Invitation to After Hours with the BSO event (R) • Invitation to social events with BSO musicians (R/$) • Special recognition at GM concert sponsorship celebrations • Season-long access to the Georgia and Peter Angelos Governing Members Lounge • Opportunity to serve on Governing Members Steering Committee • Priority box seating at the Annual Donor Appreciation Concert (R) $5,000 –$9,999 Governing Member Gold All of the above, plus… • Signed CD of all BSO recording releases • Musician Concierge program (upon request) • Sponsor a Break with the BSO ($/upon request) $10,000+ Maestra’s Circle All of the above, plus… • Exclusive and intimate events catered to this special group including post-concert receptions with some of the top artists in the world who are performing with the BSO • Formal Salon Dinner- Be our guests at the Springtime Soiree: Chamber Music & Dinner with Maestra Alsop & the BSO. Enjoy an Exclusive Maestra Circle event at a very special location. • One complimentary use of the GM Lounge facilities for hosting personal or business hospitality events ($)
Support the BSO and make a donation today! Email membership@BSO music.org or call 410.783.8124 (R) Reservation required $ Admission Fee * Some concerts excluded
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Mr. and Mrs. Paul G. Tolzman Dr. Jean Townsend and Mr. Larry Townsend In Memory of Jeffrey F. Liss, Dr. & Mrs. Henry Tyrangiel Dr. Frank C. Marino Foundation John & Susan Warshawsky Martha and Stanley Weiman Dr. and Mrs. Matthew R. Weir Mr. and Mrs. David Weisenfreund Ms. Beverly Wendland and Mr. Michael McCaffery Mr. and Mrs. Christopher West Ms. Camille B. Wheeler and Mr. William B. Marshall Dr. Edward Whitman Ms. Louise S. Widdup In Memory of Carole L. Maier, Artist Mr. and Mrs. Sean Wharry Mr. and Mrs. Barry F. Williams Mr. and Mrs. T. Winstead, Jr. Laura and Thomas Witt Mr. and Mrs. Richard Wolven Drs. Yaster and Zeitlin Chris and Carol Yoder Mr. and Mrs. Michael Young Dr. and Mrs. Robert E. Zadek Symphony Society Gold $2,000 – $2,999 Anonymous (4) George and Frances Alderson Robert and Dorothy Bair Chris H. Bartlett Msgnr. Arthur W. Bastress Ms. Shirley Brandman and Mr. Howard Shapiro Leonard and Gabriela Bebchick Dr. Robert P. Burchard Loretta Cain Campbell & Company Marilyn and David Carp Ernie and Linda Czyryca Arthur F. and Isadora Dellheim Foundation, Inc. Mrs. Nancy S. Elson Kenneth R. Feinberg Mr. and Mrs. John Ferrari
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Flach Dr. and Mrs. Donald S. Gann Mr. and Mrs. Sanford Glazer Bruce Yale Goldman John and Meg Hauge Lloyd Helt and Ruth Gray Betsy and George Hess Paula K. and Martin S. Himeles Barbara and Sam Himmelrich Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Hoefler Fran and Bill Holmes Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Hubbard, Jr. Dr. Helmut Jenkner and Ms. Rhea I. Arnot Mr. Max Jordan Dr. Phyllis R. Kaplan Mr. Daniel Klein Marie Lerch and Jeff Kolb Mr. Melvin Lessing Herbert and Mirium Mittenthal Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Neiman Thomas P. Perkins, III Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Petrucci Dr. & Mrs. Jonathan D. Philipson Mr. and Mrs. John Brentnall Powell Dr. Thomas Powell Mrs. Randall S. Robinson Bill and Shirley Rooker Mr.* and Mrs. Nathan G. Rubin Roger and Barbara Schwarz Norman and Leonora Sensinger Ronald and Cathi Shapiro Donald M. Simonds Karen and Richard Soisson Jennifer Kosh Stern and William H. Turner William and Salli Ward Michael White and Rena Gorlin Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Wilcoxson Dr. and Mrs. E.F. Shaw Wilgis Ms. Anne Worthington Symphony Society Silver $1,200 – $1,999 Anonymous (4) Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Abell Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Abrams Charles Alston and Susan Dentzer Mr. & Mrs. W. Michael Andrew
Robert and Martha Armenti Phyllis and Leonard J. Attman Mr. William J. Baer and Ms. Nancy H. Hendry Mrs. Jean Baker Dr. and Mrs. Bruce Barnett Caroline W. and Rick Barnett Ms. Franca B. Barton and Mr. George G. Clark Karl Becker Mr. and Mrs. John W. Beckley Arthur and Carole Bell Mrs. Elaine Belman Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Bergman Mr. and Mrs. Alan and Lynn Berkeley Mr. and Mrs. Charles Berry, Jr. Mr. Edward Bersbach Mr. and Mrs. Albert Biondo Roy Birk Drs. Lawrence and Deborah Blank Stephen F. Bono Mr. and Mrs. Charles R. Booth Honorable and Mrs. Anthony Borwick Elizabeth W. Botzler David E. and Alice R. Brainerd Drs. Joanna and Harry Brandt Dr. and Mrs. Mark J. Brenner Mr. Richard H. Broun & Ms. Karen E. Daly Gordon F. Brown Jean B. Brown Robert and Patricia Brown Ms. Elizabeth J. Bruen Mrs. Edward D. Burger Frances and Leonard Burka Dr. and Mrs. Arthur L. Burnett Charles and Judy Cahn Mr. and Mrs. David Callahan Marla Caplan Mr. and Mrs. John Carey Mr. and Mrs. John Carr Mr. James T. Cavanaugh, III Ms. Jennifer Cawthra David P. and Rosalie Lijinsky Chadwick Cecil Chen & Betsy Haanes
Upcoming Member Events Open Rehearsal
Cast Party
Wednesday, May 27 6:45 pm Light refreshments 7:30 pm Rehearsal
Friday, June 12 Immediately following the performance
Beethoven Level Members and higher ($150+)
Symphony Society Silver Members and higher ($1,200+)
Join the orchestra and your fellow donors for a celebration of iconic contemporary composer John Williams and hear your favorite themes from blockbusters such as Schindler’s List, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Empire of the Sun.
Celebrate the end of the BSO’s season with Leonard Bernstein’s brilliant comedic operetta Candide! Join the Maestra, guest soloists, and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society in the Meyerhoff Lounge for our end-of-season Cast Party.
Allegretto Dinner
Annual Donor Appreciation Concert
Friday, June 12 6pm Cocktails 6:30 pm Dinner in the Second Space Symphony Society Gold Members and higher ($2,000+) Accompany our BSO musicians at the last dinner of the season for an evening of food and wine pairings prior to Bernstein’s Candide.
Saturday, June 27 6:30 pm Doors open 7:30pm Performance All donors are welcome to attend. As a special thank you for your dedication to the BSO, we invite you to the Annual Donor Appreciation concert featuring the BSO Academy! Open Seating (please note, there are no tickets issued for this event). Governing Members may request box seating.
Events subject to change. Please RSVP to MemberEvents@BSOmusic.org or 410.783.8074.
S y mpho n y f u n d H o n or R oll
Dr. Mark Cinnamon & Ms. Doreen Kelly Mary D. Cohen Mr. Harvey A. Cohen and Mr. Michael R. Tardif Jane E. Cohen Mr. and Mrs. Jonas M. L. Cohen Mr. Matthew S. Cole & Dr. Jean Lee Cole John and Donna Cookson Catherine and Charles Counselman, Jr. Ms. Sally Craig Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Crooks James Daily Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Darr Richard A. Davis and Edith Wolpoff-Davis Mr. and Mrs. William C. Dee Rev. and Ms. DeGarmo Nicholas F. Diliello Mr. John C. Driscoll Dr. Jeanne A. Dussault and Mr. Mark A. Woodworth Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Elsberg & The Elsberg Family Foundation Chuck Fax and Michele Weil Dr. Edward Finn Mr. and Mrs. Ray Fischer Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Fitzpatrick Mr. and Mrs. Arthur P. Floor Dr. and Mrs. William Fox Virginia K. Adams and Neal M. Friedlander, M.D. Mr. and Mrs. Roberto B. Friedman Mr. and Mrs. Stanford Gann, Sr. Mary Martin Gant Mr. George Garmer Mr. and Mrs. Austin George Dr. and Mrs. Frank A. Giargiana, Jr. Mary and Bill Gibb Mr. Price and Dr. Andrea Gielen Peter Gil Joan de Pontet George and Joni Gold Dr. and Mrs. Harvey R. Gold Joanne and Alan Goldberg Dr. & Mrs. Morton Goldberg Drs. Joseph Gootenberg and Susan Leibenhaut Mr. Jonathan Gottlieb and Ms. Valerie Omicoili Judith A. Gottlieb Mr. Alexander Graboski Robert Greenfield Donna and Gary Greenwald Mrs. Ann Greif Mr. Charles H. Griesacker David and Anne Grizzle Mark & Lynne Groban Joel and Mary Grossman Mr. and Mrs. Donald Gundlach Mr. and Mrs. Norman M. Gurevich Sandra and Edward J. Gutman Drs. Marlene and Bill Haffner Mary Hambleton John and Linda Hanson Sara and James A. Harris, Jr. Mr. Fred Hart and Ms. Elizabeth Knight Mr. David L. Heckman Ms. Jennifer Heller Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Herman Ellen and Herb Herscowitz David A. and Barbara L. Heywood Gina and Daniel Hirschhorn Annette Hopkins Thelma Horpel Herbert H. Hubbard Alexandra Huff and James BonTempo Jennifer Hulse Nancy Hulse
Madeleine and Joseph Jacobs Mr. and Mrs. Scott Jacobs Betty W. Jensen Honor and John Johnson Elizabeth M. Kameen Mrs. Harry E. Karr Richard M. Kastendieck and Sally J. Miles Dr. and Mrs. Richard Katz Mr & Mrs. Christopher Keller Virginia and Dale Kiesewetter Ms. Kristine Kingery Rev. Elmer J. Klein George and Catherine Klein Marcel and Barbara Klik Ms. Kathleen Knepper Dr. John Boronow & Ms. Adrienne Kols, In Memory of John R. H. & Charlotte Boronow Barbara and David Kornblatt Robert W. Krajek Dr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Kremen Francine and Allan Krumholtz Mr. Charles Kuning Marcia Diehl and Julie Kurland Dr. and Mrs. James LaCalle Andrew Lapayowker and Sarah McCafferty Dr. Edward and Ms. Rebecca Lawson Peter Leffman Darrell Lemke and Maryellen Trautman Mr. Ronald P. Lesser Dr. Harry Letaw, Jr. and Mrs. Joyce W. Letaw Len and Cindy Levering Dr. and Mrs. Bernard Levy Ms. Joanne Linder Drs. David and Sharon Lockwood Dr. and Mrs. Peter C. Luchsinger Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Lynch Michael & Judy Mael Ms. Janet L. Mahaney Susan J. Mathias Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Mathews Mr. Winton Matthews Mr. Mark Mattucci and Ms. Judith A. Furash Mrs. Linda M. McCabe Marie McCormack Jim and Sylvia McGill David and Kay McGoff Mr. and Mrs. David Menotti Mr. Timothy Meredith Benjamin Michaelson, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Stanley R. Milstein Ms. Zareen T. Mirza Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Miyamoto Dr. Carol Morris Mr. Howard Moy Marita K. Murray Michael and Rosemary Noble Douglas and Barbara Norland Ms. Irene E. Norton and Dr. Heather T. Miller Noah* and Carol C. O’Connell Minkin Ms. Margaret O’Rourke and Mr. Rudy Apodaca Mrs. S. Kaufman Ottenheimer Mary Frances Padilla Mr. & Mrs. Ellis Parker Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Parr Dr. and Mrs. Arnall Patz Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Pearson Mrs. J. Stevenson Peck Dr. Sally Pinkstaff Mr. and Mrs. Morton B. Plant Mr. and Mrs. Elias Poe Herb and Rita Posner Ms Deborah Lou Potee Dr. G. Edward Reahl, Jr. Mr. Charles B. Reeves, Jr. Mr. and Ms. Donald Regnell
Corporate SPonsors
$100,000 or more
$50,000 or more
$25,000 or more Richard and Melba Reichard Dorothy Reynolds Mr. and Mrs. B. Preston Rich Carl and Bonnie Richards Mr. & Mrs. Herbert Ridder Dr. and Mrs. Gerald Rogell Mr. and Mrs. Barry Rogstad Stephen Root and Nancy Greene Joellen and Mark Roseman Mr. and Mrs. Frank B. Rosenberg Dr. Jeffrey D. Rothstein and Ms. Lynn A. Bristol Mr. Seymour S. Rubak John B. Sacci and Nancy Dodson Sacci Beryl and Philip Sachs Dr. and Mrs. S. Gerald Sandler Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Schapiro Mrs. Barbara K. Scherlis Estelle D. Schwalb Dr. Deborah Schwengel Mrs. Phyllis Seidelson Laura H. Selby Ms. Terry Shuch and Mr. Neal Meiselman Dr. & Mrs. Edward M. Sills Dr. and Mrs. Jeffrey R. Singer Marshall and Deborah Sluyter Mr. and Mrs. Miles T. Smith Mr. and Mrs. Scott Smith Mr. and Mrs. Richard D. Spero Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey L. Staley Margot & Phil Sunshine Mr. and Mrs. Richard Swerdlow Mr. and Mrs. William J. Tate Mr. & Mrs. Richard Tullos Robert and Sharonlee Vogel Charles & Mary Jo Wagandt
Ms. Joan Wah and Ms. Katherine Wah Charles E. Walker Mr. and Mrs. Kent Walker Dr. Robert F. Ward Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Weiner Drs. Susan and James Weiss David Wellman & Marjorie Coombs Wellman John Hunter Wells Mrs. Margaret Wheeler Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Wickenden Mr. and Mrs. Jack Wilen Dr. Ann M. Willis Dr. and Mrs. Donald E. Wilson Sylvia and Peter Winik Mr. George H. Winslow Mr. Sander L. Wise Marc and Amy Wish Mr. John W. Wood Dr. S. Lee Woods Dr. and Mrs. Howard and Barbara Woolf Dr. Richard Worsham and Ms. Deborah Geisenkotter H. Alan Young and Sharon Bob Young, Ph.D. Drs. Paul and Deborah Young-Hyman
Corporate
$10,000 – $24,999 American Trading & Production Corporation Baltimore Ravens Bank of America Chesapeake Employers’ Insurance Company
DLA Piper US LLP Gordon Feinblatt LLC The Hartford Legg Mason Macy’s Saul Ewing LLP Shugoll Research TelephoNET Total Wine & More Venable $5,000 – $9,999 City Cafe D. F. Dent & Company Georgetown Paper Stock of Rockville Levin and Gann, P.A. SC&H Group, LLC Wells Fargo Zuckerman Spaeder LLP $2,500 – $4,999 Constantine Commercial Construction Federal Parking, Inc. S. Kann Sons Company Foundation Amelie and Bernei Burgunder $1,000 – $2,499 Eagle Coffee Company Ellin & Tucker, Chartered Eyre Bus, Tour & Travel Gailes’ Violin Shop Independent Can Company J.G. Martin Company, Inc. PSA Insurance & Financial Services
May– June 2015 |
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Foundations
Leonard and Gwynne Horwits
“ We are so fortunate to have the BSO here in Baltimore, and are pleased to give our legacy support to help sustain the BSO for generations to come.”
O
riginally from New York City, Gwynne came to Maryland when she was four, after living in Europe with her family through her father’s work as a physician. He next worked at PAHO (Pan American Health Organization) and the family lived in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties. Gwynne’s parents enjoyed classical music on the Victrola and the radio plus an occasional live concert. At age 8 Gwynne began piano lessons and at 9 she began classes at the Washington School of Ballet. She also developed a keen interest in international folk music, folk dancing, and Broadway musicals. At Oberlin College she was a biology/chemistry major in preparation for medical school and was with the Oberlin College Folk Dancers. In Baltimore Gwynne met Leonard, originally from Philadelphia, during her second year at the University of Maryland Medical School, while Leonard was teaching science. He also had been a pharmacist, became a guidance counselor, and a professional artist of cityscapes and landscapes. He loved jazz and popular music. Together they have enjoyed many years with the BSO and its music directors — Comissiona, Zinman, Temirkanov, and now Marin Alsop — each making their unique mark on the symphony. Gwynne notes “the music talks to me in emotional and physical ways, reaching my whole being. Live music is so powerful: I am overcome by the beauty.” Together they note that “we are so fortunate to have the BSO here in Baltimore and believe that helping to build the endowment through our legacy gift will help sustain the BSO for generations onward, for the community and for the children.” Their gift will establish the Leonard and Gwynne Horwits Endowed Fund, with the income directed to support Artistic Excellence. The BSO is deeply grateful for their support.
Join the Centennial
Challenge!
Make a musical difference in the lives that follow by being one of the 100 new donors to include the BSO in your will, trust, IRA, life income gift, life insurance or donor advised fund. If you have named the BSO in your estate plans, or would like more information, we would like to thank you. To learn more about ways to help sustain the BSO into the next century through tax-wise giving, please contact Kate Caldwell, Director of Philanthropic Planning at 410.783.8087 or kcaldwell@BSOmusic.org For more information, please visit www.baltimoresymphony.plannedgiving.org
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$10,000 – $24,999 Anonymous (1) Clayton Baker Trust Bunting Family Foundation The Getty Education and Community Investment Grant Program Supported by The League of American Orchestras and The Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation LaVerna Hahn Charitable Trust Betty Huse MD Charitable Trust Foundation John J. Leidy Foundation, Inc. The Letaw Family Foundation Macht Philanthropic Fund of the AJC Ronald McDonald House Charities of Baltimore, Inc. Cecilia Young Willard Helping Fund Wright Family Foundation $5,000 – $9,999 Anonymous (1) The Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Family Foundation Cameron and Jane Baird Foundation Clark Winchcole Foundation The Charles Delmar Foundation Rogers-Wilbur Foundation, Inc. Jim and Patty Rouse Charitable Foundation $2,500 – $4,999 ALH Foundation, Inc. The Campbell Foundation, Inc. Edith and Herbert Lehman Foundation, Inc. Israel and Mollie Meyers Foundation, Inc. $1,000 – $2,499 Anonymous (1) ACMP Foundation Charlesmead Foundation Margaret O. Cromwell Family Fund Dimick Foundation The Harry L. Gladding Foundation Ralph and Shirley Klein Foundation, Inc. Ethel M. Looram Foundation, Inc.
Government Grants
Mayor and City Council of Baltimore The Citizens of Baltimore County Carroll County Government & the Carroll County Arts Council Commonwealth Foundation Fund of The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region Howard County Government & the Howard County Arts Council Maryland State Arts Council Maryland State Department of Education Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County National Arts and Humanities Youth Program National Endowment for the Arts
Endowment
The BSO gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the following donors who have given Endowment Gifts to the Sustaining Greatness and /or the Heart of the Community campaigns. Anonymous (6) Diane and Martin* Abeloff
AEGON USA Alex. Brown & Sons Charitable Foundation Dr. and Mrs. Thomas E. Allen Eva and Andy Anderson Anne Arundel County Recreation and Parks Department William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund Mr. H. Furlong Baldwin Baltimore Community Foundation Baltimore County Executive, County Council, and the Commission on Arts and Sciences The Baltimore Orioles Georgia and Peter Angelos The Baltimore Symphony Associates, Marge Penhallegon, President Patricia and Michael J. Batza, Jr. Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation The Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Bruce I. Blum Dr. and Mrs. John E. Bordley* Jessica and Michael Bronfein Mr. and Mrs. George L. Bunting, Jr. Laura Burrows Dr. and Mrs. Oscar B.* Camp Carefirst BlueCross BlueShield CitiFinancial Constellation Mr. and Mrs. William H. Cowie, Jr. Richard A. Davis and Edith Wolpoff-Davis Rosalee C. and Richard Davison Foundation Mr. L. Patrick Deering*, Mr. and Mrs. Albert R. Counselman, The RCM&D Foundation and RCM&D, Inc. DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP Carol and Alan Edelman Dr. and Mrs. Robert Elkins Deborah and Philip English Esther and Ben Rosenbloom Foundation France-Merrick Foundation Ramon F.* and Constance A. Getzov John Gidwitz The Goldsmith Family Foundation, Inc. Joanne Gold and Andrew A. Stern Jody and Martin Grass Louise and Bert Grunwald H&S Bakery Mr. John Paterakis Harford County Hecht-Levi Foundation Ryda H. Levi* and Sandra Levi Gerstung Betty Jean and Martin* S. Himeles, Sr. Hoffberger Foundation Howard County Arts Council Harley W. Howell Charitable Foundation The Huether-McClelland Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Richard E. Hug Independent Can Company Beth J. Kaplan and Bruce P. Sholk Dr. and Mrs. Murray M. Kappelman Susan B. Katzenberg Marion I. and Henry J. Knott Scholarship Fund The Zanvyl and Isabelle Krieger Fund Anne and Paul Lambdin
S y mpho n y f u n d H o n or R oll Th e Baltimore Symphony Orch estr a
Therese* and Richard Lansburgh Sara and Elliot* Levi Bernice and Donald S. Levinson Darielle and Earl Linehan Susan and Jeffrey* Liss Lockheed Martin E. J. Logan Foundation M&T Bank Macht Philanthropic Fund of the AJC Mrs. Clyde T. Marshall Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development The Maryland State Arts Council MD State Department of Education McCarthy Family Foundation McCormick & Company, Inc. Mr. Wilbur McGill, Jr. MIE Properties, Inc. Mr. Edward St. John Mercantile-Safe Deposit & Trust Joseph & Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds Sally and Decatur* Miller Ms. Michelle Moga Louise and Alvin Myerberg* / Wendy and Howard* Jachman National Endowment for the Arts Mr. and Mrs. Bill Nerenberg Mrs. Daniel M. O’Connell Mr. and Mrs. James P. O’Conor Stanley* and Linda Hambleton Panitz Cecile Pickford and John MacColl Dr. Thomas and Mrs.* Margery Pozefsky Mr. and Mrs. T. Michael Preston Alison and Arnold Richman The James G. Robinson Family Mr. and Mrs. Theo C. Rodgers Mr. and Mrs. Randolph S. Rothschild* The Rouse Company Foundation Nathan G.* and Edna J. Rubin The Rymland Foundation S. Kann Sons Company Foundation, Inc. B. Bernei Burgunder, Jr. Dr. Henry Sanborn Saul Ewing LLP Mrs. Alexander J. Schaffer Mr. and Mrs. J. Mark Schapiro Eugene Scheffres and Richard E. Hartt* Mrs. Muriel Schiller Dorothy McIlvain Scott* Mrs. Clair Zamoiski Segal and Mr. Thomas Segal Ida & Joseph Shapiro Foundation and Diane and Albert Shapiro Mr. and Mrs. Earle K. Shawe The Sheridan Foundation Richard H. Shindell and Family Dr. and Mrs. Solomon H. Snyder The St. Paul Companies Barbara and Julian Stanley T. Rowe Price Associates Foundation, Inc. The Alvin and Fanny Blaustein Thalheimer Guest Artist Fund Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Foundation, Inc. TravelersGroup The Aber and Louise Unger Fund Venable LLP Wachovia Robert A. Waidner Foundation The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company Mr. and Mrs. Willard Hackerman Mr. and Mrs. Jay M. Wilson / Mr. and Mrs. Bruce P. Wilson The Zamoiski-Barber-Segal Family Foundation * Deceased
Board of Directors & Staff Board of Directors Officers Chair Barbara M. Bozzuto* Secretary Kathleen A. Chagnon, Esq.*
Board of Trustees— Baltimore Symphony Endowment Trust Benjamin H. Griswold, IV Chairman Terry Meyerhoff Rubenstein Secretary
Richard Spero Community Liaison for BSO at Strathmore Janie Szybist Research & Campaign Associate Sarah Weintraub Executive Assistant and Office Manager
Chris Bartlett
Vice Chair Lainy LeBow-Sachs*
Barbara M. Bozzuto
EDUCATION
President and CEO Paul Meecham*
Kenneth W. DeFontes, Jr. Paul Meecham
Nicholas Cohen General Manager of OrchKids and BSYO
Treasurer The Honorable Steven R. Schuh*
Board Members Rick Bernstein A.G.W. Biddle, III Constance R. Caplan August J. Chiasera Robert B. Coutts Alan S. Edelman* Sandy Feldman† President, Baltimore Symphony Associates Sandra Levi Gerstung Michael G. Hansen* Denise Hargrove † Governing Members Co-Chair Robert C. Knott Stephen M. Lans Ava Lias-Booker, Esq. Howard Majev, Esq. Liddy Manson Hilary B. Miller* E. Albert Reece, M.D. Barry F. Rosen Ann L. Rosenberg Stephen D. Shawe, Esq. The Honorable James T. Smith, Jr.* Solomon H. Snyder, M.D.* Andrew A. Stern* Gregory W. Tucker Amy Webb Jeffrey Zoller † Chair, Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras
Life Directors Peter G. Angelos, Esq. Rheda Becker Yo-Yo Ma Harvey M. Meyerhoff Robert E. Meyerhoff
The Honorable Steven R. Schuh Calman J. Zamoiski, Jr.
Annemarie Guzy Director of Education
* Board Executive Committee † Ex-Officio
Johnnia Stigall Education Program Coordinator
Staff Paul Meecham President and CEO Leilani Uttenreither Executive Assistant John Verdon Vice President and CFO Carol Bogash Vice President of Education and Community Engagement Jack Fishman Vice President of External Affairs, BSO at Strathmore
Michael G. Bronfein Kenneth W. DeFontes, Jr. Calman J. Zamoiski, Jr.
Rafaela Dreisin OrchKids Senior Site Manager, Mary Winterling Elementary School Timothy Mar OrchKids Events and Logistics Coordinator
MARKETING & PUBLIC RELATIONS Derek Chavis Marketing Coordinator Justin Gillies Graphic Designer Derek A. Johnson Senior Marketing Manager Theresa Kopasek Marketing and PR Associate Ricky O'Bannon Writer in Residence Erin Ouslander Senior Graphic Designer Adeline Sutter Group Sales Manager Martha Thomas Publications Editor Rika Dixon White Director of Marketing and Sales Kaila Willard Digital Content Coordinator
ARTISTIC OPERATIONS
Amy Bruce Director of Ticket Services
Kay Sheppard OrchKids Site Manager, Booker T. Washington Middle School for the Arts
Timothy Lidard Manager of VIP Ticketing
Nishi Badhwar Director of Orchestra Personnel Toby Blumenthal Director of Rentals & Presentations Tiffany Bryan Manager of Front of House Patrick Chamberlain Artistic Coordinator Jinny Kim Assistant Personnel Manager Evan Rogers Operations Manager Meg Sippey Artistic Planning Manager and Assistant to the Music Director
Mairin Srygley OrchKids Site Coordinator Nick Skinner Director of Operations Dan Trahey Artistic Director
Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras Alicia Kosack Operations Manager
TICKET SERVICES
Juliana Marin Senior Ticket Agent for Strathmore Peter Murphy Ticket Services Manager Michael Schultz Senior Ticket Agent, Special Events Michael Suit Ticket Services Agent Thomas Treasure Ticket Services Agent
Ken Lam Artistic Director and Conductor of YO
BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ASSOCIATES
DEVELOPMENT
MaryAnn Poling Conductor of CO
Sandy Feldman President
Jessica Abel Associate Director of Institutional Giving
Nana Vaughn Conductor of SO
Florence McLean Secretary
Jordan Allen Institutional Giving Coordinator
FACILITIES OPERATIONS
Barbara Kelly Treasurer
James Brown Housekeeper
Kitty Allen Parliamentarian
Shirley Caudle Housekeeper
Marge Penhallegon Immediate Past President
Alvin Crawley Facilities Technician
Kitty Allen Vice President, Communications
Rose Ferguson Housekeeper
Regina Hartlove Vice President, Education
Curtis Jones Building Services Manager
Carolyn Stadfeld Vice President, Meetings/Programs
Bertha Jones-Dickerson Senior Housekeeper
Barbara Dent Vice President, Recruitment/ Membership
Katie Applefeld Director of External Affairs, OrchKids
Katharine H. Caldwell Director of Philanthropic Planning
Chairman Laureate
Jaclyn Dorr OrchKids Site Coordinator
Jeff Wright Director of Information Technology
Lisa Philip OrchKids Artistic Coordinator
Directors Emeriti M. Sigmund Shapiro
OrchKids
Donna Waring Payroll Accountant
Matthew Spivey Vice President of Artistic Operations
Megan Beck Manager of Donor Engagement and Special Events
Murray M. Kappelman, M.D.
Mollie Westbrook Education Assistant
Evinz Leigh Administration Associate
Camille Delaney-McNeil OrchKids Site Manager, Lockerman-Bundy Elementary School
Linda Hambleton Panitz
Barry D. Berman, Esq.
Larry Townsend Education Assistant
Janice Johnson Senior Accountant
Sara Kissinger Development Operations & Membership Coordinator Mary Maxwell Manager of Annual Giving, BSO at Strathmore Emily Montano Annual Fund Assistant Stephanie Moore Director of the Annual Fund Joanne M. Rosenthal Director of Principal Gifts & Government Relations Alice H. Simons Director of Institutional Giving
Renee Thornton Housekeeper
JoAnn Ruther Vice President, Special Services/Events
Frank Wise Housekeeper
Larry Albrecht Vice President, Symphony Store
FINANCE and INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Louise Reiner Office Manager
Sarah Beckwith Director of Accounting Sophia Jacobs Senior Accountant
Katherine Holter, Receptionist
May– June 2015 |
O v ertur e
43
{ impromptu
44 O v ertur e |
L aura Farmer
Aaron LaVere
Principal Trombone Hooked on more than music. Many film fans will remember one of the careermaking moments of a young Brad Pitt in the Academy Award-winning movie A River Runs Through It. Pitt’s character is standing knee-deep in a sun-dappled river in Montana, gracefully casting his fly-fishing rod in perfect arcs. The forest setting is peaceful and stunning. His movements are fluid, his face serene. This mesmerizing scene portrays the tranquility, art, and beauty of a hobby that has also hooked BSO’s own Principal Trombone Aaron LaVere. LaVere’s fascination with fly fishing was kindled during his 13-year stint performing with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. The region’s abundance of “Blue Ribbon fisheries”—recreational fisheries of extremely high quality—and a family history of fly fishing prompted him to try his hand at the hobby. But it was an uncle that inspired LaVere to evolve from occasional fisherman to fly-fishing aficionado. “One of my uncles was getting too old to tie his own flies, so he sent me his fly-tying library and materials. It took me quite a while to understand the technique. I found mastering fly fishing to be similar to perfecting a musical instrument: It takes a lot of practice and repetition,” he says. “I would spend hours out on the lawn perfecting my casting. Like playing an instrument, the perfect cast requires the same precise, yet gentle, touch to present a fly without a big splash. And just like with music, the hard work is worth it in the end. Eventually, I started to get really good at casting and the pay-off has been some good-sized trout and steelhead.”
“Life has just been too busy! And I’m enjoying spending my free time exploring a new city. A friend in Portland is taking care of my fly materials until we are a little more settled,” he explains. “But I hear there are plenty of great spots in the area. I’m looking forward to checking them out. I’m still getting used to Baltimore’s faster pace and I think fly fishing would be a great way to decompress. When it’s just you out there alone in nature, it’s easy to forget everything else and just enjoy the sound of the river.”
www. bsomusic .org
M itro H o o d
Since moving to Baltimore in the summer of 2014, however, Mr. LaVere has had to put his hobby on hold.
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