Christensen Performance Hall on The Madeline Janis Courter Stage
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Graciously Sponsored by BIG ARTS Classical Series Circle: Nancy Dehmlow, David Huggin & Ken Nees
FANDANGO
One of the most exciting groups on Chicago’s musical scene, FANDANGO! is a toe-tappingly spicy mix of Latin, Spanish, Sephardic, Balkan, and classical sounds founded by four multi-award-winning, globe-trotting virtuosi who hail from Spain, France, Bosnia, and Taiwan, and who have played, separately and together, on the world’s most prestigious stages. The group made their Washington DC début on the illustrious Dumbarton Oaks series, has appeared at Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall in Chicago, the Bermuda International Festival, and has toured Hawaii, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Colorado, and nearly every region of the USA.
L to R:
Founding members, Spanish flutist Eugenia Moliner and Bosnian guitarist Denis Azabagic, are a husband-and-wife team acclaimed worldwide as the Cavatina Duo. Eugenia Moliner was praised as “brilliant” by the British Flute Society magazine. She has performed with principal musicians from the Chicago Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony orchestras and appeared with many renowned ensembles including the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
A prize-winner in twenty-four international competitions, Denis Azabagic has been described as a “virtuoso with flawless technique” by Soundboard Magazine. He has appeared as soloist with orchestras such as the Chicago and Madrid Symphonies, among many others.
Denis Azabagic, guitar; Cheng-Hou Lee, cello; Eugenia Moliner, flute; Blaise Magnière, violin
French violinist Blaise Magnière and Taiwanese cellist Cheng-Hou Lee are the first violinist and cellist, respectively, of the Avalon Quartet, which captured the top prize at the ARD Competition in Munich and 1st Prize at the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York City.
Blaise Magnière has been praised for his “virtuosic skill” (Stage and Cinema) and “poised expression” (Chicago Classical Review). He has appeared at festivals such as Caramoor, Mostly Mozart, La Jolla, and Ravinia in the USA, and Bath and Aldeburgh in the UK.
Cheng-Hou Lee won the Manhattan School of Music Concerto Competition, the Tuesday Musical Club Competition in Houston, and Taiwan’s National Cello Competition. He has performed throughout the USA, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
PROGRAM
“Winter” from The Four Seasons..................................................Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) Op. 8, No. 4 (R. 297) (ca. 1720)
Arr. Fandango!
I. Allegro non molto
II. Largo
III. Allegro
Duration: 8 minutes
Finale (Grave assai — Fandango) from Quintet..................Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) for Guitar and Strings in D major, G. 448 (1788)
Arr. Fandango!
Duration: 7 minutes
Three Balkan Pieces (2009)................................................................Miroslav Tadić (b. 1959)
Arr. Fandango!
I. Pajdushko
II. Zajdi, Zajdi
III. Gajdarsko Oro
Duration: 13 minutes
-INTERMISSION-
“Danza Española” from La vida breve (1905).........................Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
Arr. Fandango!
Duration: 4 minutes
“Winter” from The Four Seasons , Op. 8, No. 4 (R. 297)
Antonio Vivaldi
Born March 4, 1678 in Venice. Died July 28, 1741 in Vienna.
Composed around 1720 .
The Gazette d’Amsterdam of December 14, 1725 announced the issuance by the local publisher Michele Carlo Le Cène of a collection of twelve concertos for solo violin and orchestra by Antonio Vivaldi Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione , or “ The Contest between Harmony and Invention,” Op. 8. The works were printed with a flowery dedication typical of the time to the Bohemian Count Wenzel von Morzin, a distant cousin of Haydn’s patron before he came into the employ of the Esterházy family in 1761. On the title page, Vivaldi described himself as the “ maestro in Italy” to the Count, though there is no record of his having held a formal position with him. Vivaldi probably met Morzin when he worked in Mantua from 1718 to 1720 for the Habsburg governor of that city, Prince Philipp of Hessen- Darmstadt, and apparently provided the Bohemian Count with an occasional composition on demand. (A bassoon concerto, RV 496, is headed with Morzin’s name.)
Vivaldi claimed that Morzin had been enjoying the concertos of the 1725 Op. 8 set “for some years,” implying earlier composition dates and a certain circulation of this music in manuscript copies, and hoped that their appearance in print would please his patron. The first four concertos, those depicting the seasons of the year, seem to have especially excited Morzin’s admiration, so Vivaldi made specific the programmatic implications of the works by heading each of them with a sonnet . The concerto titled Winter closes the set:
Freezing and shivering in the icy darkness, In the severe gusts of a terrible wind, Running and stamping one’s feet constantly, So chilled that one’s teeth chatter.
Spending quiet and happy days by the fire While outside the rain pours everywhere.
Walking on the ice with slow steps, Walking carefully for fear of falling, Then stepping out boldly, and falling down. Going out once again onto the ice, and running boldly Until the ice cracks and breaks, Hearing the Scirocco, The North Wind, and all the winds battling. This is winter, but such joy it brings.
Finale (Grave assai Fandango) from the Quintet for Guitar and Strings in D major, G. 448
Luigi Boccherini
Born February 19, 1743 in Lucca. Died May 28, 1805 in Madrid.
Composed in 1798.
Luigi Boccherini was the foremost Italian composer of instrumental music of the late 18th century. The son of a cellist, he learned his father’s instrument early and well, and made his public debut in his native Lucca at the age of thirteen. The following year, 1757, he and his father took up appointments in the orchestra of the court theater in Vienna, where Luigi’s reputation as a performer began to be matched by that of his compositions. In April 1764, he returned to Lucca as composer and cellist at the church of St. Maria Corteorlandini, and two years later embarked on a concert tour that ended in Paris, where his playing and compositions were much admired. In 1768, he moved to Madrid at the urging of the Spanish ambassador to Paris, and t he following year he was appointed to serve the Infante as virtuoso di camera [“ chamber virtuoso ”] e compositor de musica. The next fifteen years were a time of security and steady activity for Boccherini, but that happy period came to an end in 1785, when both his wife and Don Luis died. The following year Boccherini won an appointment as chamber music composer to Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia.
The records of Boccherini’s activities for the decade following 1786 are scarce, but he seems to have remained in Madrid, where he filled Friedrich’s commissions as well as those from several Portuguese, Spanish and French patrons. Following Friedrich’s death in 1796, and the refusal of his successor to continue Boccherini’s employment, Boccherini’s income became undependable. Occasional commissions came his way, as did a small pension granted to him by Don Luis, but the pianist and composer Sophie Gail reported finding him in distress during her visit to Madrid in 1803. His condition had been exacerbated by the deaths the preceding year of two daughters; his second wife and another daughter passed away in 1804. Boccherini died in Madrid on May 28, 1805, from respiratory failure; in 1927, his remains were returned to Lucca.
During the late 1790s, Boccherini arranged about a dozen of his existing quintets for the combination of guitar and string quartet, mostly on commission from the Spanish nobleman Marquis de Benavente. (Eight are extant.) In 1798, Boccherini cobbled the Guitar Quintet No. 4 in D major (G[érard] 448) from the first two movements of his Quintet, Op. 12, No. 6 and the Grave and Fandango from the Quintet, Op. 40, No. 2, composed in 1788. The Fandango was traditionally performed by couples with castanets accompanied by guitars, and here Boccherini distilled the essence of the dance in both the musical content and in calling for a sistrum (a rattle of ancient origin whose jangling sound resembles that of a modern tambourine) and castanets.
Three Balkan Pieces
Miroslav Tadić
Born 1959 in Tuzla, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia - Herzegovina).
Published in 2009.
Guitarist, composer and educator Miroslav Tadić was born in 1959 in Yugoslavia (now BosniaHerzegovina) and studied in his homeland and Italy before completing his education at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles; he has been on the faculty of CIA since 1985. Tadić is widely known for his versatility, invention and individuality in many styles, from classical and folk music of Europe and North India to flamenco, blues, jazz, rock and improvisation. He tours regularly throughout America, Europe and Japan, collaborates internationally with leading orchestras, composers and soloists, and has recorded more than thirty albums. Tadić has composed solo and chamber pieces for his own instrument, as well as music for feature and documentary films, theater and dance.
The Balkans have a rich tradition of native music whose exotic scales and intoxicating rhythms have been influenced by European, Gypsy (Roma), Turkish and Middle Eastern sources. In 2009, Tadić published arrangements for flute and guitar of several songs and dances drawn from this distinctive Balkan heritage. Pajdushko is an infectious mixed- meter line dance that may have been brought to Macedonia f rom Turkey in the early days of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century. Zajdi, Zajdi (“ Set,
Set, O Clear Sun”) is a poignant song sung at dusk by a shepherd lamenting the passing of youth. Gajdarsko Oro (“ Bagpiper’s Dance ”) is a richly decorated folk dance traditionally played on bagpipe.
“Danza Española” from La vida breve (“The Brief Life ”) Manuel de Falla
Born November 23, 1876 in Cádiz, Spain. Died November 14, 1946 in Alta Gracia, Argentina.
Composed in 1904 - 1905.
Premiered on April 1, 1913 in Nice.
Between 1900 and 1902, while he was still a student at the Barcelona Conservatory, Falla wrote a series of five zarzuelas, the traditional form of popular Spanish musical theater mixing music and spoken dialogue whose origins trace back to the 17th century, but the works excited little interest, and only Los Amores de la Iñes (” Sweethearts of Iñes ”) was staged (Madrid, April 12, 1902). In 1904, the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid announced a competition for a new “Spanish lyrical drama,” and Falla eagerly applied. Performance of the winning entry was implied by the publicity materials, and Falla hoped that the receipts, should his opera be chosen, would fund his long- standing desire to study in Paris. He chose a successful writer of zarzuela librettos (and a fellow native of Cádiz), Carlos FernándezShaw, to supply the text. As the scores had to be submitted “before sunset” on March 31, 1905, Falla set to work, finishing the new opera, titled La v ida breve (“ The Brief Life ”) , just in time. A few months later he learned that La v ida breve had been chosen as the winning entry, but his elation turned to frustration when he was learned that, owing to some ill- defined administrative problem, the new opera would not be staged. He reluctantly went back to teaching piano lessons and saved enough money during the following months to finance his long- hoped- for trip to study in Paris. In the summer of 1907, he set out for the French capital with the score of La v ida breve tucked into his luggage, planning to stay a week. He did not return to Spain for seven years. La v ida breve was finally premiered on April 1, 1913, when it was successfully staged at the Casino at Nice.
Suzanne Demarquez outlined the stark plot of La vida breve in her biography of Falla: “A Gypsy girl, Salud, lives with her grandmother and her aunt in the Albaïcin quarter of Granada. She has been seduced by Paco, a fashionable young man. Both have sworn eternal love, but Paco has deserted Salud for a rich novia [i.e., fiancée], Carmela, whom he plans to marry. On the day of the wedding, Salud, followed by her relations, appears in the middle of the wedding feast, reproaches her lover for his unscrupulous conduct, and falls dead at his feet.” The Danza Español a not only suggest the opera’s Andalusian setting but also distill the essence of Falla’s Spanish musical nationalism.
Plegaria y Canto (Al Bodre de la mar) [“Prayer and Song (At the Edge of the Sea) ”]
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Born August 18, 1970 in Washington, D.C.
Composed in 2015.
American composer and guitarist Carlos Rafael Rivera was born in 1970 of Cuban – Guatemalan descent in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Virginia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama and Miami. He took his undergraduate degree at Miami’s Florida International University before doing graduate work at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music; he holds a doctorate from USC. Rivera taught at the Thornton School and Pasadena Conservatory of Music before joining the faculty of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. As a guitarist, he was a prize winner in the D’Addario International Guitar Concerto Competition and has performed with Grammy winner Arturo Sandoval
Feb. 27 , 202 5 ( Fandango) , page 4
and singer – songwriter Randy Coleman and on the soundtracks of several feature films, including the 2006 Best Picture Oscar winner, Crash. Rivera’s screen and television credits as composer include the 2014 feature film A Walk Among the Tombstones, starring Liam Neeso, and music for the 2020 Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit , which won an Emmy, Grammy and Hollywood Music in Media Award; he also received two Emmy nominations for the Netflix miniseries Godless (2017). Rivera’s concert works have been performed by many noted artists and ensembles, recorded on the Warner, Sony, Naxos and Cedille labels, and received awards from the Herb Alpert Foundation, Guitar Foundation of America, BMI and ASCAP.
Plegaria y Canto (al Bodre de la mar) [“Prayer and Song (at the Edge of the Sea) ”] was commissioned for a 2015 project of the Chicago- based Cavatina Duo for a program reflecting the music and culture of the Sephardim, the Jewish community that lived in Iberia for centuries before being expelled by royal edict in 1492. When Carlos Rafael Rivera was asked to participate in the project, he recalled, “I began to investigate and learned about the troubled history of the Sephardic Jews in Spain. Subsequently, I fell into their poetry and music. From the many works I was able to study, I became infatuated with the two songs that permeate this piece: Ven Kerida (‘ Come, My Love ’) and La Tuya Gracia y Hermosura (‘ Your Grace and Beauty ’).
“The lyrics to Ven Kerida loosely translate to: Come my love to the edge of the sea. I will tell you of the sufferings I have lived through, as they will make you weep. An orphan, without Father or Mother, I have nowhere to rest. Stretch your leg out a little so I may sleep, for in your arms I shall die …
“It was this poem and its gorgeous melody that formed the pillar of my piece, while La Tuya Gracia y Hermosura informed the middle section.
“Throughout the writing process, I had a recurring vision of a proud, yet helpless, soul at the edge of the coastal town of Burriana in eastern Spain, singing her plight to the sea. She gains solace as her song is joined — perhaps by the sea itself. It is a story wrought with sadness, but also hope: a perfect metaphor for the troubled yet inspiring journey of the Sephardic people.”
Fantasy on Themes from Carmen Alan Thomas
Born in 1968 in Atlanta.
Composed in 2022.
Composer and guitarist Alan Thomas was born in Atlanta in 1968 and studied at Indiana University and the University of California at San Diego before winning top prizes at competitions of the Guitar Foundation of America, USA Music Teachers National Association and American Artistic Ambassador competitions. Soon after settling in England in 1997, Thomas won First Prize in the Gaudeamus International Interpreters Competition in Holland (the only guitarist to take the top prize in that competition’s fifty- year history) and quickly thereafter established himself among his generation’s foremost performers. He has since appeared widely in Europe, America and the U.K. as a recitalist, concerto soloist and ensemble musician. Thomas is also highly regarded for his compositions for guitar in both solo and chamber music settings, drawing freely on a broad range of classical and world music styles and techniques.
Thomas wrote, “My Carmen Fantasy is in the tradition of the ‘salon fantasy,’ which combines wellknown opera tunes with instrumental virtuosity in a sort of medley/variation format. Needless to say, Bizet’s incredible music provides the perfect source of material for such a project, and I drew on several of the opera’s most famous themes, including Carmen’s coquettish Près des ramparts de Séville , the beautiful tenor aria La fleur que tu m’avais jetée, the energetic Gypsy Song and, of course, the Habanera , with its chromatic melody that perfectly captures Carmen’s sensuality and passion.
“The piece was commissioned by Fandango!, the four instruments (and their players!) of which provided the ideal combination of colors and instrumental abilities to suit the musical material.”
©2024 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
Great communities create great organizations – not the other way around. In 1979, BIG ARTS was created by, and for, the community, and owes its rich history to a small band of dedicated artists who drew inspiration from each other and from the breathtaking island beauty that infused their work with grace and authenticity. They set out to create a special gathering place where artistic and educational experiences were accessible to all. Today that vision is alive and well. With the help of our loyal donors and supporters, BIG ARTS will carry that vision forward – providing joy, inspiration and a sense of community for generations to come.
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Provide an array of quality entertainment, arts and education programs that enrich and nurture the lives of Sanibel and Captiva residents and visitors through:
• professionally led arts and enrichment classes and workshops for students of all ages
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• dynamic visual and performing arts presentations of the highest caliber