2023/24 Concert Season Magazine

BOZEMAN SYMPHONY

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Letter from the Executive Director

Hello everyone,

I am delighted to extend a warm welcome to all of you as we embark on the 56th season of your Bozeman Symphony Orchestra. The power of music to engage, unite, and uplift the human experience is at the heart of what we do, and it's an honor to have you join us on this journey.

With our talented Music Director Norman Huynh at the podium, we are set to explore new musical heights and experience a captivating blend of timeless classics and contemporary compositions that will stir our souls. Rather than mere events; we strive for shared experiences that create connections, bridge divides, and cultivate a sense of unity.

I am humbled to be part of this remarkable organization. The commitment to live symphonic music I've witnessed is truly awe-inspiring and fills me with admiration. What sets our performances apart is the dedication and artistry of our orchestra members and the symphonic chorus who breathe life into the music, lifting our spirits and touching our hearts.

It cannot be stressed enough that we simply could not do this without the support and dedication of the entire Bozeman Symphony Family, including our orchestra, choir, staff, countless volunteers, and, especially, you, our patrons, sponsors, and partners who steadfastly support us in our pursuit of musical excellence. It takes all of us to bring this timeless art form to life and ensures that audiences of all ages can experience its beauty. Together, we are stewards of a cultural legacy that enriches lives and shapes futures. Thank you for being integral to our orchestra's journey.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Jacob Blaser Executive Director

Our Mission

The Bozeman Symphony engages, unites, and uplifts the human experience through music and the arts in Montana.

2022/23 STATISTICS

5

BACK-TO-BACK RECORD-BREAKING CONCERTS

7

SOLD OUT PERFORMANCES

16,964 TICKETS ISSUED

2 WORLD PREMIERES

11 GUEST ARTISTS

149 ORCHESTRA MUSICIANS

80

CHOIR MEMBERS

Seat Map

Willson Auditorium

404 West Main Street

Bozeman, MT 59715

PLATINUM

SILVER BRONZE

WS: Wheelchair Space

WC: Wheelchair Companion

Orchestra Map

This is a stage plot of the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra. As you listen, familiarize yourself with the sounds coming from each instrument and notice how we work together to bring the music to life.

STRINGS

BRASS PERCUSSION WOODWINDS

Music Director Norman Huynh

American conductor Norman Huynh has attracted significant acclaim not just for his natural musicality and technical command, but for his dynamic presence, creative programming, and highly soughtafter abilities in connecting with new audiences. The Music Director of the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra since 2020, Huynh regularly appears with distinguished orchestras and ensembles across North America, Europe, and Asia. His past and

future guest appearances include engagements with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Rochester Symphony Orchestra, Mobile Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Britt Music & Arts Festival, Orchestra Sinfónica del Vallés (Spain), and the Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra of Thailand. He also previously served as the Associate Conductor of the Oregon Symphony and Assistant Conductor of the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra.

With a range of repertoire from the Baroque to the contemporary, Huynh’s prowess as an insightful collaborative conductor includes concerts conducting not only renowned, multi-award- winning stars throughout the world of classical music, but throughout the genres of R&B, hip-hop, and pop, as well. These include violinists Itzhak Perlman and Augustin Hadelich; bassist Edgar Meyer; guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas; composers Kevin Puts, Andy Akiho, and Phillip Glass; singer/songwriters Smokey Robinson and Gladys Knight; rappers, musicians, and actors Wyclef Jean and Nas; indie and folk artist Gregory Alan Isakov; and pop groups such as Pink Martini and Boyz II Men. In addition, Huynh has received considerable acclaim for his work conducting orchestral performances of live film soundtracks, ranging from An American in Paris to Harry Potter films.

A proud first generation AsianAmerican, Huynh’s passion for engaging new audiences reflects his own entry point to classical music as a 12-year-old “band geek” trombonist in Alabama. The euphonium player turned maestro is deeply committed to creating similar opportunities for others to discover the arts and is passionate about creating innovative opportunities for community engagement. These include creating the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s popular evenings of “Symphony and Spirits,” a concert series for under-40

audiences featuring signature cocktails and live performances which continues to be a regularly sold-out event to this day, as well as implementing the Orchestra’s award winning PSO Explorers Program. In 2015, Huynh and the PSO earned the 2015 Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award, awarded “in recognition of innovative approaches to music education.”

In 2012, Huynh co-founded and served as the first Music Director of the Occasional Symphony, a chamber orchestra that creates experiences of live music curated for nontraditional spaces, such as Halloween in a half-restored gothic church or Cinco de Mayo in the basement bar of a Mexican restaurant. Based in Baltimore, the Occasional Symphony continues to perform to critical acclaim, presenting diverse musical voices of the past and present through Huynh’s approach of commissioning world premieres along with reimagined concerts of traditional orchestral works.

Huynh was one of only six conductors to receive a coveted invitation to conduct the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the 2022 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, hosted by the League of American Orchestras and widely considered one of the orchestra field’s most prestigious events for young conductors. Huynh is an alumnus of the Aspen Music Festival Conducting Academy and has studied with such acclaimed conductors as Robert Spano, Gustav Meier, Marin Alsop, Markand Thakar, Demondrae Thurman, John Ratledge, and Adrian Gnam. He was also selected for private mentorship by the late maestro Kurt Masur as a prestigious Felix MendelssohnBartholdy Scholarship recipient.

Norman Huynh resides in Bozeman, Montana, where he enjoys stargazing, board games, and riding his motorcycle.

Orchestra Roster

VIOLIN

Carrie Krause

Concertmaster

Rebekah Desta Associate Concertmaster

Victor Luvsangenden Principal Violin II

Claudia Albrecht

John Allen

Jason Baide

Noah Certalic

Sarah Church

Richard Ferguson

Jose Flores

Cherí Ladd LeCain

Megan McFadden

Jill McJunkin

Kaitlin Shaw

Amy Wright

VIOLA

Anna Jesaitis Principal

Nathan Hallauer

Kristina Otfinoski

Ashleigh Snider

CELLO

Chandra Lind Principal

Morgan Araujo

Cayley Hunt

Charlie Martin

Bärbel Pafford

Julia Slovarp

Lisa Woidtke

BASS

Justin Morgan Principal

April Cooper

Tristyn Fleming

Max Johnson

Cortney Peres

William Scott Stebbins

Samantha Vetter

HARP

Angela Espinosa Principal

FLUTE

Sue Makeever Principal

Megan Makeever

OBOE

Sandy Stimson Principal

Justine Myers

ENGLISH HORN

Mateo Mendez

CLARINET

Wendy Bickford Principal

Gregory Young

BASSOON

Nicholas Ober Principal

Sam Macken

HORN

Madeleine Folkerts Principal

Elizabeth Schmidt Associate Principal

Maria D’Ambrosio

Michael Sgrecci

TRUMPET

Sarah Stoneback Principal

Daniel Wood

Jerry Makeever

TROMBONE

Jeannie Little Principal

Andrew Carrillo

BASS TROMBONE

Lisa Stoneham

TUBA

Donald Kronenberger Principal

TIMPANI

Jeffrey H. Vick Principal

PERCUSSION

Dana Dominguez Principal

Mark Brown

Micah Jastram

Kristofer Olsen

Stephen Versaevel

KEYBOARD

Laurel Yost Principal

Choir Roster

SOPRANO

Suzy VanderVos Section Leader

Shayna Armer

Amy Carlson

Katie Catlett

Lila Cebulla

Melanie Cutietta

Kate Gardner

Maria Griffing

Heidi Hester

Beth Hilles

Melody Jackson

Katlin Marsh

Michelle Maurer

Carole McClean

Hannah McMaster

Julie Nygren

Sandy Osborne

Mary Ruebush

Deborah Schuerr

Hadley Stonecipher

Faith Suhre

Abigail Tidlow-Tranel

ALTO

Nicole Rosenleaf Ritter Section Leader

Sharon Beehler

Janice Benham

Laura Bennett

Eliese Besemer

Ann Brucks

McKayla Calson

Becky Catlett

Vicki DeBoer

Diane Dwyer

Ashley George

Nadine Grayl

Katherine Hezel

Kayte Kaminski

Michelina Kazeminejad

Christa Merzdorf

Nancy Ojala

Kippy Sands

Elly Schwarzkopf

Rebecca Stanton

Ellen Stephenson

Carolyn “Rusty” Swingle

Jackie Thomas

Sara Williams

Melinda Yager

TENOR

Jeff Abelin Section Leader

Joseph Barrett

Peter Brown

Jarek Carlson

Lane Colombic

Webster Crist

John Derr

Justin Horak

Reggie Mead

Pedro Angel Pinardo

Jake Reisig

Wesley Rolle

John W. Sheppard

Matthew S. Sonnichsen

Carlton Williams

BASS

Chip Ritter Section Leader

Michael Beehler

Richard Bennett

Brady Cool

Tim Doerges

Riley Evans

Charles Franklin

Mitchell Larsson

Jeff Marker

Rick Ojala

Marcus Pearson

James A. Pritchard

Jesse Sheppard

Quinn Sigler

Michael Thomson

Brian Viall

Richard Wilbur

Adam Williams

Jason Yager

Judith Diana Rehearsal Accompanist

Board and Staff

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ben Phinney Chair

Gary Kachadurian Treasurer

Tamara Havenhill-Jacobs Vice-Chair

Kenneth May Vice-Chair

Tom Bray Secretary

Don B. Gimbel

Gary Kunis

Skye Raiser

Charles Rinker

Robert Ritchie

Stephen Schachman

Lee Selby

CONDUCTORS

Norman Huynh Music Director

Maren Haynes Marchesini Interim Symphonic Choir Conductor

ADMINISTRATION

Jacob Blaser Executive Director

Jennah Applebaum Marketing and Communications Manager

Eliese Besemer Patron Services Manager

Cherí Ladd LeCain Executive Assistant

Matthew Makeever Concert Manager

Megan McFadden Box Office Manager

Amelia Murnane Front of House Manager

Daniel Omer Orchestra Personnel Manager

Ellie Phillips Orchestra and Choir Librarian

Cierra Wallace Education and Community Engagement Coordinator

Amy Wright Bookkeeper

MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Bellinger Art Director/Designer

Elizabeth Schwartz Editor/Writer

Orchestra Musician Spotlight

"The musicians that make up our orchestra are unique because they bring a variety of skills and background to the stage. It’s the collective experience of each musician that creates the spark for an explosive and magical performance."

—Norman Huynh, Music Director

Victor Avila-Luvsangenden Principal 2nd Violin

Born in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Victor Avila-Luvsangenden is an Australian violinist of Venezuelan and Mongolian heritage. He recently earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado – Boulder, studying with Harumi Rhodes and Edward Dusinberre of the Takács Quartet. Victor has additional interests in music theory; he obtained a graduate certificate in music theory during his doctoral studies, and he recently presented music theory workshops for the SPHINX organization’s SPA summer camp.

"I’m really looking forward to the Classical Series 3 concert. The second movement of the Ravel piano concerto is one of the first pieces I fell in love with as a teenager! The outer movements are great fun to play, both for the orchestra and piano soloist!

"I’m very excited to be joining the Bozeman Symphony, and I look forward to connecting with a new community of musicians and music lovers. I’ve only been to Bozeman once, but I already love the International Coffee Traders café just off of MSU’s campus. Montana’s mountains are hard to beat…not surprising…it’s in the name!"

Born and raised in Bozeman, Tristyn Fleming grew up watching the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra and the Opera. She started playing double bass in 5th grade under the direction of Bärbel Pafford and received private instruction from former BSO Principal Bassist, Jon Ford. Fleming joined the BSO in 2019 when she was 17 years old and she is now studying at MSU to become a music teacher to share her love for music to the next generation.

"The piece I am most excited for is the New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák. I performed the spectacular last movement in the 2016 Montana All-State Orchestra when I was a freshman in high school. It was the piece that cemented my fate to becoming a lifelong musician, so the piece has great sentimental value to me.

One of my favorite things about growing up in Bozeman is the community. We have always had such a love for music, and the music teachers are the best in the state. Their love and dedication inspired me to follow their footsteps.

"One of my favorite establishments in Bozeman is an ice cream place connected to the Pickle Barrel. I attended Irving Elementary School, which is close to MSU campus, and after school my dad would always take me there for a freshly made waffle cone of ice cream."

Jose Flores Section Violin

Jose is a Peruvian violinist who began his musical studies at the Conservatory of Music in Lima. Since his arrival to the United States, he attended the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He holds a master’s degree in Violin Pedagogy & Performance from the University of Utah and was the former Concertmaster for the Utah Philharmonia. His musical career has given him the opportunity to perform in countries including Peru, Spain, Mexico, Italy, and Germany.

"This season, I’m looking forward to the opening weekend performance. It will not only be my first performance with the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra, which I am super excited for, but I am also a huge Dvorak fan, and the New World Symphony is one of my favorite symphonies of all time. Can’t wait!

"Ever since I arrived, I fell in love with all the nature. I’m an active hiker, so I’m really looking forward to getting my hiking shoes on and go on some hiking adventures, see some wildlife, and explore a few trails."

Tristyn Fleming Section Bass

Sam J. Macken is an active performer, educator, and community advocate based in Boulder, Colorado. He is the 2nd bassoonist of the Bozeman Symphony, Associate Principal bassoon of the Helena Symphony, and has played with orchestras in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Montana. He has been a Cherokee Nation Scholar since 2016, and is passionate about representing his Cherokee heritage in his performance practice. He holds degrees from the University of Tulsa and the University of Oklahoma, and is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in bassoon and Native American and Indigenous studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. His principal instructors have been Douglas Huff, Jim Fellows, Rodney Ackmann, and Yoshiyuki Ishikawa. He enjoys hiking near his home in Boulder and is a passionate amateur photographer.

"I’m most looking forward to playing Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony next season. The piece has always been a favorite of mine, and I haven’t

ever had the opportunity to play it! I’m also incredibly excited about the concert featuring Hailstork’s An American Port of Call and Westlake’s Spirit of the Wild featuring our principal oboist, Sandy Stimson. What an amazing program!"

"I love Bozeman because even though I don’t live here, I always feel at home when I’m here to play with the orchestra. The sense of community that Bozeman has is unlike any place I’ve ever experienced. The support that this community shows for its people, its businesses, and its orchestra is absolutely incredible. I also love Wednesday night trivia at Shine!"

Vadim Repin, and many more. As the Interim Executive Director at Gifted Music School, he is committed to making exceptional educational and artistic experiences accessible to all.

"Truthfully, I am excited about the entire season! But if I had to choose one program, I’m particularly excited to play Joan Tower’s Made in America. As Joan’s former tenant during my time at Bard College, this piece has personal significance. It’s a unique privilege to share her work with the Bozeman community."

"Why Bozeman? Bozeman has won my heart! The community's passion and support for the Bozeman Symphony is inspiring and uplifting in a way I have not seen before. Beyond looking forward to making music with such supportive and talented colleagues, I am excited to experience all of the local cuisine and natural beauty this city has to offer!"

Meet our new Principal Bass, Justin Morgan! Justin’s varied experiences span performing at world-renowned stages such as Carnegie Hall and Jazz at Lincoln Center; participating in tours across North America, Europe, and Asia; and collaborating with a diverse array of acclaimed artists, composers, and conductors like Tan Dun, Valery Gergiev, Hans Graf, Xian Zhang, Lera Auerbach,

Gregory Young joined the music faculty at Montana State University in 1988 and was the founding

Gregory Young Section Clarinet

Justin Morgan Principal Bass

Sam J . Macken Section Bassoon

director of the Undergraduate Scholars Program. In 2009 he got a U.S. Department of Education grant to start the MSU McNair Scholars Program. He has served as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Assistant Dean of the College of Arts & Architecture, and Director of the School of Music. The United States Information Agency sponsored his concert tour of Brazil with the Kreutzer Trio and soprano Elizabeth Croy, and he has toured as soloist and conductor of the MSU Cello Ensemble throughout Europe and China. As clarinet soloist and composer, he toured Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand with the MSU Symphony in 2009. In 2017 Routledge Press released Shanahan and Young’s textbook, Undergraduate Research in Music and the MSU Wind Symphony performed his “Rocky Mountain Elk Suite” at the Kennedy Insights into Music Composition published by Routledge

"I am looking forward own Sandy Stimson Bozeman Symphony. player and a joy

"The things I love Bozeman are the outdoor opportunities hassles of living favorite activities and being in the tremendous audience loyalty that the enjoys, especially have a decades-long going to every concert."

PHOTO BY JASON SAVAGE

Classical Concert

Basic Etiquette and FAQs

by Elizabeth Schwartz

Last season we published a guide to basic concert etiquette in our program book. This year we are expanding our guide to include a few more helpful and informative tips to make yours and other patrons’ experiences as congenial as possible.

I Arrived Five Minutes late; Why Can’t I Go Into The Hall?

If you arrive late, or leave during the performance, you will need to wait for a pause between works or movements before you reenter the hall. Everyone at our concerts come to the symphony to experience the shared experience of live performances. To ensure that everyone can focus on this experience, we try to the minimize visual and aural distractions, like people moving around the hall after the concert starts. Also, the dim lighting makes it more difficult to find your seat without disturbing others, or even accidentally stepping on someone’s feet.

Once You Have Found Your Seat…

Please refrain from shifting to new seats; it’s very likely another patron

has purchased the empty seat you are eyeing, and they might be arriving late.

Respect the boundaries of your seat space. Use only one arm of the seat, leaving the other for your neighbor. Bumping or kicking the back of the seat in front of you, tapping on seats, or crowding the floor space can ruin the experience of other patrons around you.

Cell Phones: Turn ’em Off and Leave ’em Off

We talked about this last year, but it bears repeating: Turn off your cell phone. Even if you are only texting or reading, the light from the screen distracts other patrons and even the musicians if you are sitting close enough. Live music should be experienced in real time, and deserves your full attention. You can text about it or take pictures afterwards. Also

For legal reasons, patrons are not allowed to record live performances on their cell phones . The BSO does not have the rights to allow patrons to record and/or post videos of performances and/or soloists without their permission.

The musicians of the BSO and guest soloists make most if not all of their income as working performers. Solo artists also rely on recordings as an important percentage of their income. Recording and posting audio and/or video of a performance without authorization from the performer is akin to stealing. If you enjoyed a particular performance and want to hear it again, you can support musicians by legally purchasing a recording, either as a digital download or CD.

What About Taking Pictures on My Cell Phone?

You are welcome to take a picture either before the concert begins or after it ends. DO NOT take pictures in the middle of a performance. The light from your cell phone disturbs the patrons around you, and flash photos can also disturb the musicians on stage.

Thank you for helping to create an enjoyable concert experience for everyone.

2023/24 Classical Series Timeline

This infographic displays years on a timeline that each piece of music was composed. You will discover the breadth of repertoire that we cover throughout our season as well as each individual concert. Use this as a tool to listen for how western orchestral music has evolved throughout history.

Classical Concert 1

Classical Concert 2

Classical Concert 3

Classical Concert 4

Classical Concert 5

Classical Concert 6

1899

SIR EDWARD ELGAR Variations for Orchestra on an Original Theme, “Enigma”

1893 ANTONIN DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”

1876 JOHANNES BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor

1878 PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major

1804

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, “Eroica”

1931

1938

1984

2016

2019

1936

2023

AARON COPLAND Billy the Kid Suite

ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK An American Port of Call

NIGEL WESTLAKE Spirit of the Wild

2005 JOAN TOWER Made in America

MAURICE RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major

SCOTT LEE Bozeman Symphony Commission (World Premiere)

ANNA CLYNE

DANCE for Cello and Orchestra

KEVIN PUTS

Virelai (after Guillaume de Machaut)

CARL ORFF Carmina Burana

Opening Weekend: Dvořák’s New World Symphony

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2023 | 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2023 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors:

Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Gary Kunis & Connie Wong, Concertmaster's Circle

Ritva Porter & Stephen Schachman, Concertmaster's Circle

Skye Raiser & David Perlin, Presenter's Circle

Norman Huynh, Conductor

Inbal Segev, Cello

Puts Virelai (after Guillaume de Machaut)

Clyne DANCE for Cello and Orchestra

I. when you’re broken open

II. if you’ve torn the bandage off

III. in the middle of the fighting

IV. in your blood

V. when you're perfectly free

Inbal Segev

INTERMISSION

Dvořák Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”

I. Adagio – allegro molto

II. Largo

III. Scherzo molto vivace

` IV. Allegro con fuoco

Biographies

Segev premiered and performed throughout the 2022–23 season. Her previous discography includes acclaimed recordings of the Elgar Cello Concerto, Romantic cello works and Bach’s Cello Suites, while her popular YouTube masterclass series, Musings with Inbal Segev, has inspired a generation of cellists.

world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Opera Philadelphia, Minnesota Opera, and many more.

Inbal Segev is “a cellist with something to say” (Gramophone). Combining rich tone and technical mastery with rare dedication and intelligence, she has appeared with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, St. Louis Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony, collaborating with such prominent conductors as Marin Alsop, Stéphane Denève, Lorin Maazel, Cristian Macelaru and Zubin Mehta. Committed to reinvigorating the cello repertoire, she has commissioned and premiered new cello concertos from Timo Andres, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman, Fernando Otero, Dan Visconti and Victoria Poleva, whose concerto Segev looks forward to premiering with the Dallas Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestras in the 2023-24 season. Recorded with Alsop and the London Philharmonic for Avie Records, Segev’s 2020 premiere recording of Clyne’s new cello concerto, DANCE, was an instant success, topping the Amazon Classical Concertos chart; its opening movement was chosen as one of NPR Music’s “Favorite Songs of 2020,” receiving nine million listens on Spotify, and Segev has continued to tour extensively with the piece. At the start of the pandemic, she launched “20 for 2020,” a commissioning, recording and video project featuring 20 cutting-edge composers, including John Luther Adams, Viet Cuong and Vijay Iyer, whose new concerto

A native of Israel, at 16 Segev was invited by Isaac Stern to continue her cello studies in the U.S., where she earned degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School, before cofounding the Amerigo Trio with former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and violist Karen Dreyfus. Segev’s cello was made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1673.

Program Notes

KEVIN PUTS

Virelai (after Guillaume de Machaut)

Composer: Born January 3, 1975, St. Louis, MO

Work Composed: 2019. Commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

World Premiere: Stéphane Denève led the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra on September 21, 2019, in St. Louis

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, chimes, claves, crotales, glockenspiel, marimba, suspended cymbal, tam tam, triangle, wood block, xylophone, harp, piano, and strings

Estimated Duration: 4 minutes

Pulitzer Prize and Grammy®-winning composer Kevin Puts has established himself as one of America’s leading composers, gaining international acclaim for his “plush, propulsive” music (The New York Times), and described by Opera News as “a master polystylist.” He has been commissioned and performed by leading organizations around the

In March 2022 Puts’ fourth opera, The Hours had its world premiere on the concert stage by the Philadelphia Orchestra and was hailed as a “historic event with a lush orchestration that hits you in the solar plexus." (The Philadelphia Inquirer). A recording of his triple concerto Contact was released on the Deutsche Grammophon album "Letters for the Future" and was awarded "Best Contemporary Classical Composition" at the 2023 Grammy® Awards.

Virelais, medieval French verses often set to music, were very popular from the 13th through the 15th century. Composer Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) set more than 30 virelais, including some with verses he wrote himself. Puts’ Virelai borrows the melody from Machaut’s “Dame, a vous sans retollir,” a virelai that opens with the words, “Lady, I give you my whole heart, thought, and desire. Your worth surpasses goodness, your beauty dries up all others, and your glance cures every ill.”

Machaut’s virelai had no harmony, in keeping with the musical conventions of his time. Puts explains, “Machaut would not have imagined accompanying chords or harmonies because harmony as we know it did not exist yet.” Puts’ Virelai features both harmony and a rhythm suggestive of strummed instruments. In a nod to another French composer, Maurice Ravel, Puts also incorporates the gradual increase of volume and laser-like intensity of Ravel’s Boléro into Virelai.

ANNA CLYNE

DANCE for Cello and Orchestra

Composer: Born March 9, 1980, London Work Composed: 2019, as a cocommission of cellist Inbal Segev and the Baltimore Symphony; the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music; the

Inbal Segev

OPENING WEEKEND: DVO Ř Á K’S NEW WORLD SYMPHONY

Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra; and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. “Dedicated with much love to my father Leslie Clyne.”

World Premiere: August 3, 2019.

Christian Macelaru led the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra with cellist Inbal Segev at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, CA

Instrumentation: solo cello, 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 2 clarinets (1 doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons (1 doubling contrabassoon), 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, tuba, timpani, bowed vibraphone, crotales, suspended cymbal, marimba, tam-tam, wind machine, and strings

Estimated Duration: 21 minutes

Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” in a New York Times profile, Grammy-nominated composer Anna Clyne is one of the most acclaimed and in-demand composers of her generation, often embarking on collaborations with innovative choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians. Clyne’s music also reflects her eclectic influences from nonmusical art, including poetry, dance, visual arts, and film.

DANCE evolved from a short poem by Rumi. Its five movements are titled for each line:

Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you’re perfectly free.

Each movement is both singular and fundamentally connected to the others. The stillness of “When you’re broken open” captures the quiet exhaustion of deep grief, while “If you’ve torn the bandage off” has a spiky dissonant quality full of painful energy. “In the middle of the fighting” features a quasi-Renaissance melody. Its

mood suggests not agitation, but the eerie calm found in the eye of a hurricane. The power of the orchestra “In your blood” holds the listener captive, while the soloist executes a series of improvisatory runs over and around it. The final section, “When you’re perfectly free” reprises the agitation of the second movement. The themes oscillate between two melodies. One, as in the third movement, harkens back to the Renaissance or early Baroque period, while the other has a bluesy modern sound.

ANTONÍN DVO Ř ÁK

Symphony No 9 in E minor, Op . 95, “From the New World”

Composer: born September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves, near Kralupy in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic); died May 1, 1904, Prague

Work Composed: 1892–1893 in New York City

World Premiere: Anton Seidl led the New York Philharmonic on December 16, 1893, at Carnegie Hall.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, and strings.

Estimated Duration: 40 minutes

Antonín Dvořák began his Ninth Symphony in December 1892, shortly after he arrived in America, and completed it the following May. During his three-year sojourn in New York, Dvořák explored the city, watched trains and large ships arrive and depart, fed pigeons in Central Park, and met all kinds of people. Late in 1892, Dvořák wrote to a friend back home, “The Americans expect great things of me. I am to show them the way into the Promised Land, the realm of a new, independent art, in short, a national style of music! This will certainly be a great and lofty task, and I hope that with God’s help I shall succeed in it. I have plenty of encouragement to do so.”

Dvořák was also introduced to a great deal of American folk music, including Native American melodies and Negro spirituals. However, he did not quote any of them in the Ninth Symphony. Dvořák explained, “The influence of America can be readily felt by anyone with ‘a nose.’” That is, hints of the uniquely American flavor of this music are discernable throughout, as Dvořák made use of the syncopated rhythms, repeated patterns, and particular scales common to much of America’s indigenous music. But the Ninth Symphony is not a patchwork of previously existing materials, and all the melodies in the Ninth Symphony are Dvořák’s own (including the famous English horn solo in the Largo, which was later given the title “Goin’ Home,” with accompanying text, by one of Dvořák’s New York composition students, a young Black composer and baritone named Harry Burleigh).

“I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, harmony, counterpoint, and orchestral color,” Dvořák explained. As for the title, “From the New World,” Dvořák intended it as an aural picture postcard to be mailed back to friends and family in Europe and meant simply “Impressions and Greetings from the New World.”

At the premiere, the audience applauded every movement with great enthusiasm, especially the Largo, which they cheered without pause until Dvořák rose from his seat and took a bow. A critic writing for the New York Evening Post spoke for most when he wrote, “Anyone who heard it could not deny that it is the greatest symphonic work ever composed in this country A masterwork has been added to the symphonic literature.”

© Elizabeth Schwartz

Billy The Kid & Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2023 | 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2023 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors:

Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Amb . Max Baucus & Mrs . Melodee Hanes, Presenter's Circle

Lynn & Chip Rinehart, Presenter's Circle

Robert & Donna Ritchie, Presenter's Circle

Drs Dennis & Anne Wentz, Impact Circle

Caleb Young, Guest Conductor

Jennifer Frautschi, Violin

Tower Made in America

Copland Billy the Kid Suite

1. The Open Prairie

2. Street in a Frontier Town

3. Card Game at Night

4. Gun Battle

5. Celebration After Billy's Capture

6. Billy's Demise

7. The Open Prairie (epilogue)

INTERMISSION

Tchaikovsky Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, Op. 35

I. Allegro moderato

II. Andante

III. Finale. Allegro vivacissimo

Jennifer Frautschi

Biographies

has served the Cincinnati Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Atlanta Opera, Portland Symphony, and the National Music Festival.

Caleb Young

Known for his outstanding interpretations of American music, Berlin-based conductor Caleb Young has gained international renown as one of the most exciting emerging American artists of today.

Mentored by legendary Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Young connects his rigorous training in the European classical tradition with a passion for the viscerality of American music, resulting in daring and fresh renditions of both. He commands a breadth of repertoire, able to tap into the full spectrum of American composers. Indeed, under Young’s baton, the works of Copland, Bernstein, Jennifer Higdon, and Jessie Montgomery receive artistic treatment equal to those of Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Mahler, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich.

Young’s conducting resumé includes a number of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Finnish Chamber Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Russian National Orchestra, Toledo Symphony, Columbus Symphony, and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra; as cover conductor, he works regularly with John Williams and orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and

Having made a strong impression in Finland, in the season 2022/23, Young made his debut with the Tapiola Sinfonietta. In the US this season Young will return to the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and to the Cleveland Ballet to conduct Balanchine’s Serenade. Later this summer, Young will make his Hollywood Bowl debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

“ A natural talent ... ”

—JUKKA-PEKKA SARASTE

Several of Europe’s hallowed institutions have recognized Young’s sensitivity, dynamism, and exemplary technique. In summer 2021, Finland’s Fiskars Summer Festival named Young part of “the next generation of leaders in classical music”, awarding him mentorship under renowned conductors Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Hannu Lintu, Sakari Oramo and others at the LEAD! Foundation Academy’s conductors’ masterclass. To close the Festival, Young was further awarded the honor of conducting the Finnish Chamber Orchestra alongside Saraste and Salonen, a performance which received glowing reviews. Previously, he was awarded the 2016 Ansbacher Fellowship for Young Conductors Prize, given by the Salzburg Festival and members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

“Young took the orchestra to a dreamlike and lyrical trip in a glittering pianissimo... the conductor was a experienced leader whom the orchestra could rely on”

—HUFVUDSTADSBLADET

Alongside his developing career in Europe, Young’s engagements

frequently take him to the United States, where he has been appointed as Guest Conductor for Engagement for the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, since 2021/22. The appointment enables him to build upon his recent award-winning five year tenure as the Philharmonic’s Associate Conductor, a formidable legacy that includes more than 200 performances conducted as well as founding the “Music and Mixology” series which continues to engage young professionals with orchestral music. In 2018, he earned an Emerging Artist Award, an honour bestowed to the region’s “arts and cultural leaders” by Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne—one of the oldest nonprofit artistic funding initiatives in the United States.

“Guest conductor Caleb Young was water on stage, conducting with great fluidity and incredible deftness.”

—BERKS WEEKLY

He holds a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University; his former pedagogues include David Effron, Arthur Fagen, Demondrae Thurman, and John Ratledge. As founder of the KammerMahler chamber ensemble, he recently led the group in a world premiere recording of Klaus Simon’s arrangement of Mahler Symphony No. 9 for 16 instruments.

As society faced the isolation wrought by the COVID pandemic, Young took to the airwaves, beginning Classically Versed with Caleb Young which now airs on National Public Radio across the United States. A weekly show devoted to classical music, Classically Versed listeners often hear fresh experiences, as Young’s radio programming matches his conducting selections: great, yet often overlooked works and composers alongside traditional repertoire.

Two-time GRAMMY nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient, violinist Jennifer Frautschi has appeared as soloist with innumerable orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and St Paul Chamber Orchestra. As chamber musician she has performed with the Boston Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and appeared at Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla Summerfest, Music@Menlo, Tippet Rise Art Center, Toronto Summer Music, and the Bridgehampton, Charlottesville, Lake Champlain, Moab, Ojai, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Spoleto Music Festivals.

Her extensive discography includes several discs for Naxos: the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and two GRAMMY-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet. Her most recent releases are with pianist John Blacklow on Albany Records: the first devoted to the three sonatas of Robert Schumann; the second, American Duos, an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, Elena Ruehr, Dan Coleman, and Stephen Hartke. She also recorded three

widely praised CDs for Artek: an orchestral recording of the Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony; the violin music of Ravel and Stravinsky; and 20th-century works for solo violin. Other recordings include a disc of Romantic Horn Trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with pianist Jeremy Denk.

Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi attended the Colburn School, Harvard, the New England Conservatory, and the Juilliard School. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the “ex-Cadiz,” on generous loan from a private American foundation with support from Rare Violins In Consortium. She currently teaches in the graduate program at Stony Brook University.

Program Notes

JOAN TOWER

Made in America

Composer: born September 6, 1938, New Rochelle, NY

Work Composed: Co-commissioned by the League of American Orchestras and Meet the Composer

World Premiere: October 2005 by the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra in Glens Falls, NY

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (both doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, timpani, xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone, large suspended cymbal, medium cymbal, low cymbal, wood block, medium maraca, egg maraca, tambourine, sleigh bells, bass drum, and strings

Estimated Duration: 13 minutes

Multi-award-winning composer Joan Tower is considered one of America’s most important living composers. During her 60+year career, Tower has combined her compositional work with an active career as a performer,

conductor, and music educator, and her works have been commissioned by numerous major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras. In 2020 Chamber Music America honored Tower with its Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, and Musical America chose her to be its 2020 Composer of the Year. The League of American Orchestras gave Tower its highest honor, the Gold Baton, in 2019. In the published score for Made In America, Tower includes the following comments: “I crossed a fairly big bridge at the age of nine when my family moved to South America (La Paz, Bolivia), where we stayed for nine years. I had to learn a new language, a new culture, and how to live at 13,000 feet! It was a lively culture with many saints’ days celebrated through music and dance, but the large Inca population in Bolivia was generally poor and there was little chance of moving up in class or work position. When I returned to the United States, I was proud to have free choices, upward mobility, and the chance to try to become who I wanted to be. I also enjoyed the basic luxuries of an American citizen that we so often take for granted: hot running water, blankets for the cold winters, floors that are not made of dirt, and easy modes of transportation, among many other things. So when I started composing this piece, the song “America the Beautiful” kept coming into my consciousness and eventually became the main theme for the work. The beauty of the song is undeniable and I loved working with it as a musical idea. One can never take for granted, however, the strength of a musical idea – as Beethoven (one of my strongest influences) knew so well. This theme is challenged by other more aggressive and dissonant ideas that keep interrupting, unsettling it, but “America the Beautiful” keeps resurfacing in different guises (some small and tender, others big and magnanimous), as if to say, “I'm still

Jennifer Frautschi

here, ever changing, but holding my own.” A musical struggle is heard throughout the work. Perhaps it was my unconscious reacting to the challenge of how do we keep America beautiful.”

In 2005 and 2006, Made In America was performed in all 50 states by some 65 different orchestras. In an interview just after the premiere, Tower remarked, “If my piece has some impact, and draws the players in a little bit, or a lot, and draws the audience in a little bit or a lot, then it has some reverberation. I’m putting the entire burden of this thing on me, because the music is the center of everything no matter what anybody’s telling you.”

AARON COPLAND

Billy the Kid Suite

Composer: born November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, NY; died December 2, 1990, North Tarrytown, NY.

Work Composed: Copland composed the ballet in 1938 on a commission from Lincoln Kirstein, director of the Ballet Caravan Company; the composer arranged the orchestral suite the same year.

Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, guiro, orchestra bells, slapstick, sleigh bells, snare drum, tin whistle, triangle, wood block, xylophone, piano, harp and strings.

Estimated Duration: 20 minutes

“Every American has a feeling of what the West is like – you absorb it,” Aaron Copland observed in 1976. For a Jewish boy from Brooklyn, composing a ballet about the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid was “just a feat of the imagination.” Billy the Kid is quintessential Copland: spare, open harmonies with colorful writing for individual instruments, particularly brasses. In this ballet, Copland also paints musical portraits of the Wild West, using quotations from cowboy songs.

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EXPERIENCE A

brasses, stark, angular snippets of melody in the strings, pounding timpani and the rat-a-tat of the snare drum. The settlers celebrate Billy’s capture with a lively but crude dance (in the ballet the macabre humor of this scene is more apparent, as the dancers hop nimbly among the bodies of the dead outlaws). Billy’s death is represented by a gentle statement in the strings that conveys nostalgia for the slain outlaw. The suite closes with a reprise of the noble prairie pageant.

holds an undisputed place as one of the greatest concertos in the violin repertoire.

Although Brodsky and Auer are most closely associated with the Violin Concerto, Tchaikovsky wrote it with another violinist in mind. While teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky met Yosif Yosifovich Kotek a young violinist of extraordinary ability. The two quickly struck up an intimate friendship, which may have become a love affair. Kotek lifted Tchaikovsky’s spirits, sorely damaged after his ill-advised marriage in 1877 to his former student Antonina Ivanova Miliukova. (Within weeks of this impulsive and unwise union, Tchaikovsky suffered a nervous breakdown. When he recovered, he severed all ties to his wife, although the two were never officially divorced).

In the spring of 1878, Kotek and Tchaikovsky met in Clarens, a small

Swiss village near Montreux, where Tchaikovsky wrote the Violin Concerto in just three weeks. Tchaikovsky loved Kotek and wanted to dedicate the concerto to him, but told his publisher, “In order to avoid gossip of various kinds, I shall probably decide to dedicate it to Auer.” Tchaikovsky also relied on Kotek’s insights into the solo part, hoping Kotek would premiere the concerto. However, Kotek expressed reservations about his own abilities, and Tchaikovsky thereupon offered the concerto to Auer (and later Brodsky).

Tchaikovsky’s “concerto curse” continued when the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick vilified both the music and its composer. After describing Tchaikovsky as having no “discrimination or taste,” Hanslick wrote, “For a while it [the Violin Concerto] moves soberly, musically, and not without spirit. But soon

vulgarity gains the upper hand and asserts itself to the end of the first movement Friedrich Visser once observed, speaking of obscene pictures, that they stink to the eye. Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.” This scathing review wounded Tchaikovsky deeply; according to biographer David Brown, “to the end of his days Tchaikovsky could recite Hanslick’s diatribe by heart.”

It is hard to imagine what aspects of the concerto so upset Hanslick, as the music abounds with graceful, lyrical melodies and plenty of virtuoso pyrotechnics for the soloist. Hanslick’s harsh criticism notwithstanding, today Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is regarded as one of the jewels of the violin repertoire.

© Elizabeth Schwartz

Holiday Spectacular

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2023 | 7:30 PM

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2023 | 2:30 & 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2023 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors:

Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Paul & Jillian Bertelli, Presenter's Circle

Delaney & Co ., Corporate Impact Circle

Donald B . Gimbel, Presenter's Circle

Sheehy Family Foundation, Presenter's Circle

Zsa-Zsa's, Corporate Impact Circle

Norman Huynh, Conductor

Jimmie Herrod, Voice

Maren Hayes Marchesini, Interim Symphonic Choir Conductor Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Anderson A Christmas Festival

Rimsky-Korsakov Polonaise from Christmas Eve Suite

Bach/arr Tyzik Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring

Berens A Winter Miracle

Styne/arr . Krogstad The Christmas Waltz Jimmie Herrod

Grainger Blithe Bells

Bizet Farandole from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2

INTERMISSION

R .V. Williams Hodie – A Christmas Cantata I. Prologue: Nowell! Nowell! Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Berlioz L’enfance du Christ Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Foster/arr Krogstad My Grown Up Christmas List Jimmie Herrod

TBD All I Want for Christmas is You Jimmie Herrod

Williams Call of the Champions Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Anderson Sleigh Ride

Finnegan Christmas Carol Sing-a-Long Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Biographies

singular style and unique voice is poised to make an ever larger impact in the world of music and entertainment. Herrod is thrilled to make his Bozeman Symphony debut with these performances. He is an alum of the Cornish College of the Arts and Portland State University.

Dr. Kedmon Mapana (Tanzania), Kevin Burke (Ireland), Heri Purwato (Indonesia), Dr. Pablo Lúiz Rivera (Puerto Rico), and Dr. Mudzunga Davhula (South Africa). While at UW, she studied choral conducting under Dr. Geoffrey Boers and Dr. Giselle Wyers, also singing with the UW Chamber Singers. Prior, she earned a BA in Cello Performance from Whitworth University.

With “a voice like a beacon of hope” (Seattle Times), vocalist Jimmie Herrod brings singular power and expressivity to his globe-trotting career as a singer, songwriter, and entertainer. Herrod first came to worldwide prominence as a finalist on the NBC nationally broadcast television show, “America’s Got Talent,” earning the rare “Golden Buzzer” recognition from actress Sofia Vergara and returning the following year on the AGT All-Stars series. As a solo artist, Herrod has appeared to critical and audience acclaim with the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and with the San Francisco Symphony and Oregon Symphony, including as a featured soloist for the globally televised PBS “Joni Mitchell Songbook” concert at The Kennedy Center, where he shared the stage with musical luminaries like Renee Fleming, Lalah Hathaway, Raul Midon, and Aoife O’Donovan. Traversing many musical styles and genres in many languages, including jazz, pop, funk, and his own original songs, Herrod has headlined concerts at the The Luxor Theater (Las Vegas), New Jersey’s South Orange Performing Arts Center, and Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, and has since 2017 toured with world-pop band Pink Martini as a featured vocalist. With two EP’s under his belt – his debut “Falling in Love and Learning” and 2022’s “Elated” – Herrod’s

Maren Haynes Marchesini is thrilled to join the Bozeman Symphonic Choir as interim conductor. Maren brings a passion for artistry and interdisciplinary collaboration drawn from experience in diverse musical ensembles and choirs. A choral conductor since 2008, her recent directorships include the Carroll College Choirs, Lady Choir Treble Choir, Ironhorse Youth Choir and Camerata Orchestra, and church music ensembles.

Maren holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington where she studied with advisor Dr. Christina Sunardi and many diverse expert musicians, including

Maren maintains an active scholarly presence, publishing and presenting on music, community, ritual, and identity. She earned the 2017–18 Graduate School Distinguished Dissertation Award nomination for the outstanding doctoral thesis in the UW School of Music. She has served in music and arts at Pacific School of Religion (Berkeley, CA) and on music faculty at Helena College (University of Montana), Montana State University, and Carroll College.

Maren grew up in Bozeman (playing with the Bozeman Symphony from 2000–2002), and returned in 2022 to serve as Director of Music and Worship at Hope Lutheran Church.

Maren serves on the Board of the Kaj Seifert Foundation for Aspiring Young Artists, supporting kids in interdisciplinary arts across Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. She also plays cello with acoustic folk duo Hemispheres, and sings with Roots in the Sky Chamber Choir. She, her spouse Michael, and sons Asa and Kaj are grateful to call the Gallatin Valley home!

Jimmie Herrod

Maren Hayes Marchesini

CHRISTMAS CAROL SING-ALONG

John Finnegan

Jingle, Bells

(Refrain)

Jingle, bells! jingle, bells! Jingle all the way!

Oh! What fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh!

Jingle, bells! Jingle, bells! Jingle all the way! Oh! What fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh!

(Verse)

Dashing thro' the snow, In a one-horse open sleigh; O 'er the fields we go, Laughing all the way; Bells on bobtail ring, Making spirits bright; What fun it is to ride and sing

A sleighing song tonight! (Oh,)

Joy to the World

Joy to the world! the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let ev'ry heart prepare Him room, And heav'n and nature sing, And heav'n and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven and nature sing.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold: "Peace on the earth, good will to men, From heav'n's all gracious King"; The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing.

Hark! the Herald Angels Sing

Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King! Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled! Joyful all ye nations rise, Join the triumph of the skies; With th' angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem! Hark! the herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King.

Silent Night

Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright Round yon Virgin Mother and Child. Holy Infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.

Deck the Hall

Deck the hall with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la la la la la. 'Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la la la la la. Don we now our gay apparel, Fa la la la la la la la la. Troll the ancient Yuletide carol, Fa la la la la la la la la.

O Come, All Ye Faithful

1. O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem; Come and behold Him, Born the King of angels; (Refrain)

O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

2. Sing, choirs of angels, Sing in exultation, Sing, all ye citizens of heav'n above; Glory to God in the highest;

(Repeat refrain)

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We'll drink a cup of kindness yet

For the sake of auld lang syne

Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 2024 | 10:30 AM & 1:00 PM

Sponsors: Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Norman Huynh, Conductor Glenn Close, Narrator

Rossini William Tell Overture

Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf

Williams Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Family Concert

Norman Conducts Beethoven’s Symphony No . 3

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2024 | 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2024 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors:

Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Kimberlie & Bruce Jodar, Concertmaster's Circle

Ken & Mary May, Presenter's Circle

Barbara & Ben Phinney, Presenter's Circle

Norman Huynh, Conductor Rodolfo Leone, Piano

Ravel Piano Concerto in G major

I. Allegramente

II. Adagio assai

III. Presto Rodolfo Leone

INTERMISSION

Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, “Eroica”

I. Allegro con brio

II. Marcia funebre. Adagio assai

III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace – Trio

IV. Finale. Allegro molto

Biographies

and “Piano Jewels” featuring works of Muzio Clementi on Naxos in January 2022.

Artist in Residence, Rodolfo’s live recordings were broadcast nationally throughout the United States.

Described as a “true sound philosopher” (Oberösterreichische Nachrichten), the brilliant young Italian-born pianist Rodolfo Leone, whose career is supported by the Amron-Sutherland Fund for Young Pianists at the Colburn School, was the first-prize winner of the 2017 International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna. Rodolfo released his debut album on the Austrian label Gramola in May 2018

Rodolfo’s recent seasons include a collaboration with James Conlon and LA Opera and debuts with the San Diego Symphony (Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1) conducted by Michael Francis, Pasadena Symphony (Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21) with conductor David Lockington, and Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra (Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5, “Emperor”) with Sascha Goetzel; he also performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Walt Disney Hall under the baton of Xian Zhang.

In May 2019, he gave a recital tour in Austria, culminating in a performance in Vienna at the Brahms-Saal of the Musikverein. He also performed recitals in Los Angeles and Naples, Florida, and appeared on the chamber music series Le Salon de Musiques in Los Angeles. As a 2018-19 Performance Today Young

A native of Turin, Italy, Rodolfo made his orchestral debut in 2013 performing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento (Italy). He toured Italy with that orchestra the following year performing Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Rodolfo made his North American debut in 2014 performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Toronto Concert Orchestra. Since then, he has performed with, among others, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra with Stéphane Denève and the Colburn Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall; and recitals at Festival Napa Valley and the Soka Performing Arts Center. He has also performed chamber music with Lynn Harrell, Fabio Bidini, Andrew Schulmann, and the Viano String Quartet.

Rodolfo Leone

Rodolfo has performed extensively throughout Europe, North America, and China. These performances include debuts in venues such as the Musikverein in Vienna, Steinway Hall in London, the Music Hall of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, the Politeama Theatre in Palermo, the Mozart Concert Hall of Accademia Filarmonica and Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova in Italy, and the BASF Gesellschaftshaus in Germany. A top-prize winner of several major piano competitions, Rodolfo was awarded top prizes at the 2014 Toronto International Piano Competition and the 2013 Busoni International Piano Competition. Pianist magazine described his concerto performance during the 2017 International Beethoven Piano Competition as a “communion with the orchestra” that “was raptly convincing… robust and joyful.”

Rodolfo is currently based in Los Angeles where he previously studied at the Colburn Conservatory of Music. He holds both a Master of Music degree and an Artist Diploma from Colburn, where he studied with Fabio Bidini. He previously studied at the Hans Eisler School of Music in Berlin, Germany and at the G. Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro, Italy.

Program Notes

MAURICE RAVEL

Piano Concerto in G major

Composer: born March 7, 1875, Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, France; died December 28, 1937, Paris

Work composed: 1929–31

World premiere: Ravel conducted the Lamoureux Orchestra at the Salon Pleyel in Paris on January 14, 1932, with pianist Marguerite Long

Instrumentation: solo piano, piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, slapstick, snare drum, triangle, wood block, harp, and strings

Estimated duration: 21 minutes

“[The Concerto in G major] is a concerto in the truest sense of the word: I mean that it is written very much in the same spirit as those of Mozart and Saint-Saëns.”

—Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel had an affinity for musical styles of bygone eras; this is reflected in several works, like his 1917 suite Le tombeau de Couperin, inspired by the music of French Baroque composer François Couperin. For the Piano Concerto in G major, however, Ravel sought to create in his own work something more indefinable: the “absolute beauty” Ravel found in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s music. “What Mozart created for the enjoyment of the ear is perfect,” said Ravel. “I believe that a concerto can be light-hearted and brilliant, and that there is no necessity for it to aim at profundity or big dramatic effects.”

Listeners might conclude from this remark that Ravel’s G major concerto is a superficial product, but it delivers in every sense, despite its author’s claims to the contrary. As biographer Madeleine Goss notes, “In none of his compositions is Ravel more completely master of his art than in this Concerto. It has been said to embrace all the essentials of his music: brilliance, clarity, elegance, originality; tenderness and simplicity in the middle part, and, in the last movement, daring vigor and brittle perfection.”

In 1928, after Ravel’s successful travels in the United States, he decided to write a concerto he could take on an upcoming European tour. Ravel intended to perform the solo part himself, but soon realized his failing health would keep him off the piano bench. “The concerto is nearly finished and I am not far from being so myself,” Ravel acknowledged. To perform the solo part, Ravel recruited his friend, Marguerite Long, who was thrilled at the opportunity to premiere Ravel’s concerto.

The Allegramente begins with a slapstick snap and a jaunty piccolo,

followed by an equally bright, bouncy trumpet. Although present in the background from the opening bars, the piano makes its first solo declaration with a languid, bluesy melody. Throughout the first movement, Ravel alternates these rapid-fire bursts of energy with rhapsodic, jazz-inflected episodes.

The exquisite serenity of the Adagio assai belies the tremendous effort it required from both composer and pianist. Long wrote, “I told Ravel one day how anxious I was, after all the fantasy and brilliant orchestration of the first part, to be able to maintain the cantabile of the melody on the piano alone during such a long slow flowing phrase… ‘That flowing phrase!’ Ravel responded. ‘How I worked over it bar by bar! It nearly killed me!’”

A snappy snare drum roll announces the Presto, a return to the jazzy energy of the Allegramente. At just under four minutes, the soloist drives the music forward with a modo perpetuo full of vivacious power, and the music’s effect on the ear is as crisp and effervescent as a sip of dry champagne on the tongue.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Symphony No . 3 in E-flat major, Op 55, “Eroica”

Composer: born December 16, 1770, Bonn; died March 26, 1827, Vienna Work composed: 1802–04. Dedicated to Beethoven’s patron, Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian Lobkowitz.

World premiere: Beethoven conducted the premiere on April 7, 1805 in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Estimated duration: 47 minutes

Ludwig van Beethoven was an admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose early exploits as First Consul of France reaffirmed the motto of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” It had been

Beethoven’s intention to dedicate his third symphony to Napoleon, but when Beethoven heard that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor in May 1804, he was outraged. So vehement was Beethoven’s desire to rid his third symphony of any association with the French general that he erased the words “intitulata Bonaparte” from the title page with a knife, leaving a hole in the paper. When the score was first printed in 1806, the title page read only, “A heroic symphony… composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.”

Today, the Eroica is considered one of the groundbreaking musical events of the 19th century, but in Beethoven’s time it received a great deal of criticism. Its length alone challenged the audience (depending on the conductor’s tempos and observations of marked repetitions in the score, the Eroica runs 45–60 minutes). Beethoven acknowledged this, noting in the 1806 edition of the score, “This symphony being purposely written much longer than is usual, should be performed nearer the beginning rather than at the end of a concert… if it is heard too late it will lose for the listener, already tired by previous performances, its own proposed effect… ”

One reviewer, using words that today we would consider praiseworthy, criticized Beethoven’s “undesirable originality.” The critic went on to say, “Genius proclaims itself not in the unusual and fantastic but in the beautiful and sublime” and further, that the symphony as a whole was “unendurable to the mere musiclover.” From our vantage point at the beginning of the 21st century, we can recognize Eroica’s importance. Similar in its impact to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the influence of Eroica reverberated through all the symphonic music of the century that followed it.

Beginning with the one-two punch of Eroica’s opening chords, Beethoven obliterated the concept of the Classical-style symphony and

earned for himself the adjective “revolutionary.” Everything about this lengthy first movement confounds expectation: its unexpected and continuous development of melodic fragments, its “wrong key” tonalities, and Beethoven’s idiosyncratic use of rhythm, which at times verges on the eccentric. Certainly this was shocking to audiences accustomed to the more predictable pace of Mozart and Haydn. Of particular note is the notoriously “early” entrance of the horn towards the end of the first movement. Beethoven’s student and biographer Ferdinand Ries recalled, “At the first rehearsal of the Symphony, which was terrible –but at which the horn player made his entry correctly – I stood beside Beethoven and, thinking that a blunder had been made I said: ‘Can’t the damned hornist count? – it sounds horribly false!’ I think I came pretty close to getting a box on the ear. Beethoven did not forgive that little slip for a long time.”

The solemn, majestic Marcia funebre (funeral march) can be heard as Beethoven mourning his disappointment in Napoleon, and his vanished dreams of heroism.

The buoyant Scherzo departs from the intensity of the previous two movements. Here is Beethoven’s mocking sense of humor at play, as when the strings return with their signature theme and stomp all over their previously playful rhythm. The insistent pulse of the strings and the incessant bounce of this movement suggest a puppy chasing its own tail.

The final movement, a set of themes and variations, uses music from Beethoven’s own Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus from 1801 and an 1802 solo piano work, known today as the Eroica Variations. A virtuoso blast from the horn section signals the symphony’s conclusion, a glorious reaffirmation of Beethoven’s heroic ideals.

© Elizabeth Schwartz

Classical Concert 4

Brahms Symphony No . 1 & A Scott Lee World Premiere

SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2024 | 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2024 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors:

Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Prof . Rob Maher & Mrs . Lynn Peterson-Maher, Presenter's Circle

Norman Huynh, Conductor

Scott Lee Bozeman Symphony Commission (World Premiere)

INTERMISSION

Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro

II. Andante sostenuto

III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso

IV. Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo ma con brio

Biographies

Teachers Association, loadbang, and the Raleigh Civic Symphony.

Notable performances include the world premiere of Lee’s Vicious Circles by Symphony in C and a reading and performance of Anadyr by the American Composers Orchestra, conducted by George Manahan, as part of the 27th Annual Underwood New Music Readings

Composer Awards, winner of the Symphony In C Young Composer’s Competition, the Grand Prize in the PARMA Student Composer Competition, and the Gustav Klemm Award in Composition from the Peabody Institute. Lee has received fellowships from the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Copland House’s CULTIVATE program, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Aspen Music Festival.

Scott Lee

Praised as “colorful” and “engaging” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Scott Lee’s music often takes inspiration from popular genres, exploring odd-meter grooves and interlocking hockets while featuring pointillistic orchestration and extended performance techniques. He marries the traditional intricacy of classical form with the more body-centered and visceral language of popular music, crafting compositions that are both “rigorously contemporary and fully accessible” (AllMusic). The Berkshire Edge described the world premiere of his Slack Tide, commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center, as having “moments both of calm and maximum tension... we’ve never heard anything like it.”

Lee has worked with leading orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Bozeman Symphony, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Symphony in C, the Moravian Philharmonic, Raleigh Civic Symphony, the Occasional Symphony, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Winston-Salem Symphony, as well as chamber groups such as the JACK Quartet, yMusic, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Icarus Quartet, Deviant Septet, chatterbird, ShoutHouse, Verdant Vibes, and pop artist Ben Folds. Recent commissioners include the Bozeman Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, Florida State Music

In New York City. Three pieces by Lee – Drip Study, Tourbillion, and Car Alarm Strut – were premiered at a Tanglewood Music Center concert led by Michael Gandolfi with coaching by composer Osvaldo Golijov.

Lee currently serves as the Bozeman Symphony’s first-ever Composerin-Residence, a three-year role that began in 2021. The residency involves three commissions for new orchestral compositions and co-curation of the Current Commotion contemporary music series with Music Director Norman Huynh. The first commission, a concert-opener inspired by the city of Bozeman entitled The Last Best Place, was premiered on the Bozeman Symphony’s 2021–22 season-opening weekend. The second commission, premiered in February of 2023, was written in honor of Yellowstone National Park's 150th anniversary.

A native Floridian, Lee has often found inspiration in the natural landscape and history of his home state. In November 2020, New Focus Recordings released a recording of Lee’s 45-minute work Through the Mangrove Tunnels to international acclaim, with positive reviews in The Wire, BBC Music Magazine, and AllMusic among others. Performed by the JACK Quartet, pianist Steven Beck, and drummer Russell Lacy, the piece is inspired by the history and Lee’s personal memories of Weedon Island, a nature preserve Lee grew up exploring in Florida.

Notable honors include a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young

Active as a music educator, Lee is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Florida School of Music, and has previously worked as a Lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an Instructor at Duke University. Lee earned a PhD in Composition at Duke University, and also holds degrees from the Peabody Institute and Vanderbilt University. Learn more at scottleemusic.net.

Program Notes

SCOTT LEE

Bozeman Symphony Comission

Composer: born December 1, 1988, St. Petersburg, FL

Work Composed: 2023

World Premiere: Norman Huynh will lead the Bozeman Symphony on March 23, 2024, in Bozeman, MT

Estimated Duration: 20 minutes

"As I write this note, I’m in the early stages of composing the piece you are about to hear. Since the piece won’t be finished until a few months before the premiere, and the booklet you’re holding must be printed well in advance of the current season, these notes consist of my preliminary thoughts. While many details about the piece are unknown (including its title), there are a few things I do know. This will be the third and final piece that I will have written for the Bozeman Symphony as part of my three-year role as the orchestra’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence, and it will differ in some significant ways from the first two pieces.

While the two pieces I previously wrote each had an explicit subject –The Last Best Place is about Bozeman itself and The Fire Beneath was written in honor of Yellowstone’s 150th Anniversary – this piece is currently wide open in terms of subject matter. I’m starting with completely abstract musical ideas–motives, rhythms, gestures, chords, etc. – rather than ideas that attempt to depict a specific image or place. Although a lack of constraints presents its own challenges, I’m grateful for this opportunity to allow my musical imagination to run wild. In this process I can choose to develop any musical ideas that I find exciting and effective, and allow the meaning of the piece to hopefully reveal itself to me over time as I write it.

This piece will also be significantly larger in scope than those first two pieces, lasting somewhere around four times as long as either of them. As it is sure to be my longest orchestral work to date, I hope to take full advantage of this broader canvas. Unlike shorter pieces where I often have to quickly alternate between musical ideas, this extended duration will grant my ideas ample space to breathe and develop patiently over time. The considerable length will also require me to draw upon my entire repertoire of musical ideas just to fill the time. I’ve been thinking about Gustav Mahler’s famous quote: “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.” Although I’m not going to pretend to try and fit the entire world into a piece of music, nor do I intend for this piece to be a symphony, I do hope that this piece will contain everything in my compositional world. I aim to collect the tropes, textures, and techniques that recur throughout my works and put them in dialogue with each other in one self-contained composition.

As I work to slowly convert this piece’s unknowns into knowns, I will be keeping in mind all of the

generous people that make up the Bozeman Symphony and its audience. As someone who hadn’t set foot in Bozeman until a few years ago, I am grateful for the openness with which you all have treated me and my music throughout my time as Composer in Residence. I’m honored to have this final chance to create something of significance and to share it with you. It is my hope that this composition will resonate deeply and ultimately offer you a glimpse into my musical world."

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Symphony No . 1 in C minor, Op 68

Composer: born May 7, 1833, Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, Vienna Work Composed: Brahms began working on his first symphony in 1856 and returned to it periodically over the next 19 years. He wrote the bulk of the music between 1874 and 1876.

World Premiere: Otto Dessoff led the Badische Staatskapelle in Karlsruhe, on November 4, 1876.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani and strings.

Estimated Duration: 42 minutes

“There are fewer things heavier than the burden of a great potential.”

—Linus van Pelt, Peanuts

In 1853, Robert Schumann wrote a laudatory article about an unknown 20-year-old composer from Hamburg named Johannes Brahms, whom, Schumann declared, was the heir to Beethoven’s musical legacy. Schumann wrote, “If [Brahms] directs his magic wand where the massed power in chorus and orchestra might lend him their strength, we can look forward to even more wondrous glimpses into the secret world of the spirits.” At the time Schumann’s piece was published, Brahms had composed several chamber pieces

and works for piano, but nothing for orchestra. The article brought Brahms to the attention of the musical world, but it also dropped a crushing weight of expectation onto his young shoulders. “I shall never write a symphony! You have no idea how it feels to hear behind you the tramp of a giant like Beethoven,” Brahms grumbled.

Because Brahms took almost 20 years to complete what became his Op. 68, one might suppose its long gestation stemmed from Brahms’ possible trepidation about producing a symphony worthy of the Beethovenian ideal. This assumption, on its own, does Brahms a disservice. Daunting though the task might have been, Brahms also wanted to take his time. This measured approach reflects the high regard Brahms had for the symphony as a genre. “Writing a symphony is no laughing matter,” he remarked.

Brahms began sketching the first movement when he was 23, but soon realized he was handicapped by his lack of experience composing for an orchestra. Over the next 19 years, as he continued working on Op. 68, Brahms wrote several other orchestral works, including the 1868 German Requiem and the popular 1873 Variations on a Theme by Haydn (aka the St. Anthony Variations). The enthusiastic response that greeted both works bolstered Brahms’ confidence in his ability to handle orchestral writing. In 1872, Brahms was offered the conductor’s post at Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music). This opportunity to work directly with an orchestra gave Brahms the invaluable first-hand experience he needed. 23 years after Schumann’s article first appeared, Brahms premiered his Symphony No. 1 in C minor. It was worth the wait.

Brahms’ friend, the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick, summed up the feelings of many: “Seldom, if ever,

has the entire musical world awaited a composer’s first symphony with such tense anticipation The new symphony is so earnest and complex, so utterly unconcerned with common effects, that it hardly lends itself to quick understanding… [but] even the layman will immediately recognize it as one of the most distinctive and magnificent works of the symphonic literature.”

Hanslick’s reference to the symphony’s complexity was a polite way of saying the music was too serious to appeal to the average listener, but Brahms was unconcerned; he was not trying to woo the public with pretty sounds. “My symphony is long and not exactly lovable,” he acknowledged. The symphony is carefully crafted; one can hear Brahms’ compositional thought processes throughout,

especially his decision to incorporate several overt references to Beethoven. The moody, portentous atmosphere of the first movement, and the short thematic fragments from which Brahms spins out seemingly endless developments, are all hallmarks of Beethoven’s style. Brahms also references Beethoven by choosing the key of C minor, which is closely associated with several of Beethoven’s major works, including the Fifth Symphony, Egmont Overture, and Piano Concerto No. 3. And yet, despite all these deliberate nods to Beethoven, this symphony is not, as conductor Hans von Bülow dubbed it, “Beethoven’s Tenth.” The voice is distinctly Brahms’, especially in the inner movements.

The tender, wistful Andante sostenuto contrasts the brooding power of the first movement. Brahms

weaves a series of dialogues among different sections of the orchestra, and concludes with a duet for solo violin and horn. In the Allegretto, Brahms slows down Beethoven’s frantic scherzo tempos. The pace is relaxed, easy, featuring lilting themes for strings and woodwinds. The finale’s strong, confident horn solo proclaims Brahms’ victory over the doubts that beset him during Op. 68’s long incubation. Here Brahms also pays his most direct homage to Beethoven, with a majestic theme, first heard in the strings, that closely resembles the “Ode to Joy” melody from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. When a listener remarked on this similarity, Brahms snapped irritably, “Any jackass could see that!”

© Elizabeth Schwartz

Inside the Score with Scott Lee

Bozeman Symphony

Composer-in-Residence

by Elizabeth Schwartz

It’s a busy time for Scott Lee, as he enters the third and final year as Composer-in-Residence with the Bozeman Symphony. He and Music Director Norman Huynh have planned another ambitious schedule of in-person activities, which will culminate in the world premiere of Scott’s third commissioned work for the orchestra.

After last season’s world premiere of The Fire Within, which marked the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park, Scott is now sketching out the preliminary ideas for his longest and most ambitious orchestral work to date. But this piece, as yet untitled, poses new and unique challenges. “The first two works I wrote for the orchestra had very clear directives,” he explains. “In the first year, I was asked to write a piece about Bozeman [The Last Best Place]. Last year, I was invited to write a piece in honor of Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary. When I talked with Norman and Executive Director Jacob Blaser about this year, we all agreed this piece would be much more openended. They’re really encouraging me to write something that expresses my own artistic voice, whatever form that may take.”

As he begins his third season with the Bozeman Symphony, Scott reflects on the unique nature of his partnership with the orchestra, and how he has grown as a composer. “It’s an incredible opportunity to get to write three pieces for an orchestra over three years. I’ve learned so much. Often you don’t get the instantaneous feedback I’ve gotten over the past two seasons. I got to try out different ideas, then I got to hear them, and then I got to try something else the next year and hear that. I feel like my abilities for writing for orchestra – my chops, to say it in a way – have really improved. I feel much more confident in translating my musical ideas into the orchestra.”

Before his residency, Scott had little experience writing for a large orchestra, and was more comfortable composing for chamber ensembles.

“I never felt that as composer I could express my compositional voice in an orchestra with the same kind of authenticity,” he explains. “There are things I can do in chamber music that I haven’t yet figured out to do with an orchestra. I think [up to this point], the orchestra pieces I’ve written sound more like how a conventional orchestra piece should sound. My goal is always to make the orchestra sound good, and the way that I knew how to do that has been influenced by what other composers have done previously.”

When musicians study composition, the tried and true instructional method, going back to the time of J. S. Bach, involves studying music of the past to learn and master what techniques composers used to create their work. Scott acknowledges the usefulness of this approach, but now he feels ready to flex his creative wings. “I’ve been wrestling with this over the years, and just recently, with this new piece, I’m feeling confident enough to write a piece that is more me than I’ve ever written before,” he says. “I think this work will express the things I want to try artistically and aesthetically in an orchestral medium, that previously I’ve only been successful doing in chamber music. With this work, I don’t have to worry if my ideas fit any preexisting concepts. I’m treating this composition as a blank canvas: instead of starting from an extramusical association, as with the other pieces, I’m gathering abstract musical ideas and seeing what they might communicate.”

Sometimes creative parameters –“write a work about Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary,” for example –are useful because, as Scott puts

it, “they leave some choices off the table. I mean, you can’t have a piece celebrating Yellowstone that’s all dark and gloomy.” Or in the case of The Last Best Place, which is about Bozeman, certain sounds or moods need to be evoked, while others don’t belong. “Now my canvas is wide open, which can be both liberating and paralyzing, because my choices are infinite,” says Scott.

The three-year residency also gives Scott valuable perspective on his evolution as a composer. “In the first piece I wrote for Bozeman, The Last Best Place, there are a lot of things I really like about it, but there are things that I would do differently now,” he explains. “I think The Fire Beneath was, for my money, a more successful orchestral work. I’ve gained better knowledge of my own abilities, and I’m learning how to write for orchestra, and I’ve also really gotten to know the musicians of the Bozeman Symphony: who they are, how they play, what the acoustics of the concert hall sound like. All of that will inform this next piece. So I’m coming into this year feeling confident that I will really be able to really go for it. I think I also feel more comfortable taking creative risks now.”

Often, the most daunting obstacle to creating a new work is the familiar problem of self-editing. Scott sometimes wrestles with the judgmental editor in his head who censors his ideas even before they fully emerge. On the one hand, he explains, “I want the best musical ideas I come up with to be in the piece, and I’ve repeatedly had to remind myself that it’s not the initial conception of those ideas that matters, but the work that I do

to make them into something that ultimately works.”

The final composition will run 20–25 minutes. “The beauty of this piece is that it’s long, and there’s room for a lot of ideas,” says Scott. “That’s liberating, because I don’t have to worry about throwing something away for lack of space. There’s room for a lot of material.

“You know, there’s a famous quote by Gustav Mahler that a symphony must be like the world,” he continues. “It must contain everything. I think that’s beautiful. It’s not that I’m writing a symphony here, but I think you could replace ‘symphony’ with ‘large-scale orchestral piece.’ I’m approaching this piece as if it’s my world; it’s a chance to include a little bit of all the ideas I have and fuse them together somehow.”

One crucial thing Scott will take with him from his Bozeman experiences are the reactions he got from audiences to The Fire Within.

“After it premiered. I got a lot of really positive feedback from the audience,” he remembers with a smile. “People came up to me after the concert and sent emails to the orchestra office afterwards saying how moved they were by the music. It surprised me that I can write music that can affect people so profoundly. When you’re in the thick of things, you can sometimes forget that you’re making this art to connect with people. It’s gratifying to know I can write something that has power and immediacy and a real impact.”

Scott Lee will premiere his new work with the Bozeman Symphony on March 23 and 24, 2024. For more information, go to bozemansymphony.org.

Classical Concert 5

Elgar’s Enigma Variations

SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2024 | 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2024 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors:

Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Rick Sanders & Janice Hand, Presenter's Circle

Robyn L Erlenbush – ERA Landmark Real Estate, Corporate Impact Circle

Chelsea Gallo, Conductor

Sandy Stimson, Oboe

Hailstork An American Port of Call

Westlake Spirit of the Wild

I. Crotchet=96 – Cadenza

II. Crotchet=96

III. Tranquillo (Crotchet=48) - Liberamente - Crotchet=96

IV. Agitato (Crotchet=96)

Sandy Stimson

INTERMISSION

Elgar Variations for Orchestra on an Original Theme, Op. 36 “Enigma”

Theme

Variation I: C.A.E.

Variation II: H.D.S-P.

Variation III: R.B.T.

Variation IV: W.M.B.

Variation V: R.P.A.

Variation VI: Ysobel

Variation VII: Troyte

Variation VIII: W.N.

Variation IX: Nimrod

Variation X: Dorabella

Variation XI: G.R.S.

Variation XII: B.G.N.

Variation XIII: Romanza

Variation XIV: E.D.U.

Biographies

Persons concert, and Detroit community Leadership events.

Chelsea Gallo

Labeled a “rising star” within the conducting world (Anwar Nasir to the Associated Press), Conductor Chelsea Gallo has been praised for her ability to “lead the orchestra with grace and fiery command” (Schubring, Michigan Daily). For the 2022–2023 season, Gallo was Assistant Conductor to The Florida Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, a Cover Conductor for the New York Philharmonic, and will be a regular Guest Conductor with Virginia Symphony and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a 2022 Award Recipient of the prestigious George Solti Foundation USA career fellowship. Additionally, Gallo is also a finalist for the Music Director positions of the Missouri, Lancaster, Youngstown, and Bridgeport Symphony Orchestras.

During the 2021–2022 season, Gallo was the Assistant Conductor of the Louisiana Philharmonic, Conducting Fellow with the Dallas Opera, Cover Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and served on the Conducting Staff for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In those positions, Gallo regularly assisted some of the world’s most prominent conductors including Leonard Slatkin, James Gaffigan, Eun Sun Kim, and Carlos Miguel Prieto. Engagements on behalf of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra included recording the music for Lincoln Motor Company (TM) Aviator commercials, Young

As a guest conductor, Gallo has conducted the Jackson Symphony, Hartford Opera, Toledo Symphony, Slovak Sinfonietta, amongst others. Gallo has described her conducting pursuits as “a devotion to sharing the relevancy and humanity within Classical Music.” With her affection for science and music, Gallo has collaborated on projects aimed towards uniting both worlds. She has worked with organizations such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Lockheed Martin, the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). She led recording projects for the Orion ETF–1 Launch Mission. The ensemble became the official Artistic Ensemble for the Hubble Space Telescope 25th Anniversary Celebrations. She was recently invited on behalf of the Nuclear Engineering department at the University of Michigan to partner on a project geared towards encouraging creativity within the hard sciences by drawing parallels between running a nuclear reactor and leading a symphony orchestra.

An advocate of music by living composers, Gallo gave the Michigan premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s piece “Helix” and the American premiere of Michael Gordon’s “Bassoon Concerto.” She has also conducted works by Adolphus Hailstork, Carlos Simon, Courtney Bryant, Jessie Montgomery, Jennifer Higdon, Clarice Assad, and more. As an opera conductor, she has conducted productions of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” and “Don Giovanni,” Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and Shuying Li’s “Who Married Star Husbands.” Gallo’s operatic conducting style has been described as “stylish, skillful and attentive” (Scott Cantrell, Dallas News).

Gallo studied conducting in Vienna, Prague, and Banska Stiavnica with the late Maksimilijian Cencic and Leos Svarovsky. In Vienna, she studied piano with Giorgi

Latsobidze and violin with Barbara Gorzynska. Gallo holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan where she was awarded the Helen Wu Graduate Fellowship in Conducting. At Michigan she studied with conductor and educator Kenneth Kiesler and assisted Martin Katz and Kathleen Kelly on opera productions. Furthering her conducting education, she has attended festivals and masterclasses with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle and Daniel Barenboim.

Sandy Stimson

Sandy Stimson is Principal oboe of the Bozeman Symphony and performs on English horn with the Billings Symphony. She also performs with the Montana Ballet Company orchestra and the Intermountain Opera company in Bozeman. As a member of the Bridger Winds woodwind quintet, she performs with the Montana Chamber Music Society and around Montana. Sandy earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College and Master of Music from Yale University. At the Eastman School of Music, Sandy was invited to study privately with Richard Killmer for two years where she participated not only in private lessons but also studio master classes. At the Tanglewood Summer Music Festival in Lenox, MA, she was invited to return for a second summer as a music fellow. Previous orchestral engagements include Principal oboe of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal oboe of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra,

ELGAR’S ENIGMA VARIATIONS

Principal oboe of the Billings Symphony Orchestra and Associate

Principal oboe of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra. For 15 seasons she performed as Principal oboe of the Breckenridge Music Festival Chamber Orchestra in Colorado.

Sandy is thrilled to live in Montana and when not performing, making reeds or teaching oboe, she is outside enjoying skate skiing, riding a bike or hiking. Sandy owns her own business “Sandy’s Reeds" (sandysreeds.com). manufacturing and selling oboe and English horn reeds nationwide. Along with reed-making, Sandy also maintains a private oboe studio. A native of New York, Sandy married Bozeman born Ken Decker, an oboe specialist and woodwind repairman. Sandy performs on a Rosewood Decker oboe made by her husband Ken Decker.

Program Notes

ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK

An American Port of Call

Composer: Born April 17, 1941, Rochester, NY

Work Composed: 1984

World Premiere: 1985 by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon.

4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, crash cymbals, glockenspiel, 2 gongs, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, tenor drum, triangle, whip, wood block, xylophone, piano, and strings

Estimated Duration: 10 minutes

By his own admission, Adolphus Hailstork has spent much of his life bridging two distinct musical cultures. Born and raised in Rochester, NY, Hailstork first heard European classical music at home on the radio. In an interview, Hailstork talked about being drawn to the music’s exciting sound, and his

childhood desire to write such music himself. Young Hailstork’s other primary musical influence came from the years he spent in the choir of the Anglican church he and his family attended in Rochester (Hailstork affectionately describes the ritual style of this church as “exceedingly High, with all the bells and smells”).

Hailstork completed conservatory and doctoral degrees in music before he immersed himself in Black musical styles such as spirituals, the Motown Sound, soul music, and the crossover appeal of Aretha Franklin’s gospelinflected hits. A prolific writer, with over 300 compositions in his catalog, Hailstork writes in virtually every genre; some of his works reflect his classical European training, others employ African-American idioms, and some compositions combine the two.

“An American Port of Call was written in 1985 for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra,” Hailstork writes. “The concert overture in sonata-allegro form captures the strident (and occasionally tender and even mysterious) energy of a busy American port city. The great port of Norfolk, Virginia, where I live, was the direct inspiration.”

NIGEL WESTLAKE

Spirit of the Wild

Composer: Born September 6, 1958, Perth, Western Australia

Work Composed: 2016, rev. 2019

World Premiere: David Robertson led the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with oboist Diana Doherty at the Sydney Opera House on February 22, 2017

Instrumentation: Solo oboe, 4 horns, timpani, bass drum, chimes, crotales, cymbals, glockenspiel, marimba, splash cymbal, snare drum, suspended cymbal, tam tam, 5 temple blocks, Thai gong, triangle, wind gong, xylophone, piano, harp, and strings

Estimated Duration: 22 minutes

Composer, conductor, and clarinetist Nigel Westlake’s career spans more than five decades and reflects his versatile, eclectic interests. He has written a number of film scores, including Babe, Babe: Pig in the City, Miss Potter, Blueback, and the IMAX films Antarctica, Solar Max, and The Edge, among others. Westlake also writes for the concert stage, and has twice won Australia’s prestigious Paul Lowin Orchestral Prize, including a 2019 win for Spirit of the Wild. This oboe concerto, composed for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and its principal oboist, Diana Doherty, was also nominated for “Best Classical Album” at the 2019 ARIA Awards.

Spirit of the Wild expresses Westlake’s enduring passion for the natural world, and was inspired by a 2016 visit to Bathurst Harbour, a remote and pristine waterway on the South West Coast of Tasmania contained within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

Westlake writes, “Almost completely devoid of modern human intrusion, the area was the home of the Needwonnee people for many thousands of years, and is accessible only by boat, plane, or on foot. It is a magical patchwork of buttongrass moorlands, heathlands, and estuaries, bordered by jagged peaks, wild rivers, and rugged coastlines… My introduction to this place of exquisite beauty became the backdrop to my next project, an oboe concerto commission for the Sydney Symphony, and as I pondered the ensuing collaboration with soloist Diana Doherty, the memories and significance of my expedition… continued to infuse my consciousness, leaving their fingerprints on the concerto score in subtle and mysterious ways… reminding me of the preciousness of the wilderness, and of mankind’s propensity to become subsumed by materialism, neglecting our connection to country and the wonders of the natural world… Such

ELGAR’S ENIGMA VARIATIONS

wild places are truly priceless and we exploit and destroy them at our peril.”

Westlake was also inspired by recordings he made of Doherty improvising extensively. “[It was] the best possible way for me to infiltrate Diana’s highly unique, dynamic, and virtuosic approach to the instrument,” Westlake observed. These improvisations informed his own approach to writing Spirit of the Wild. The first two sections feature dazzling riffs full of cascading spirals for the soloist, and highly coloristic accompaniments from the orchestra. The third section unwinds slowly as the oboe sounds lyrical, sustained phrases and what Westlake describes as “a detailed filigree of repeated patterns that ebb and flow in dynamic waves.” This leads without pause into the closing movement which, as Westlake explains, “is perhaps the most playful and extroverted in manner, building as it does to a traditional-style big finish.”

SIR EDWARD ELGAR

Variations for Orchestra on an Original Theme, Op . 36 “Enigma”

Composer: Born June 2, 1857, Broadheath, near Worcester, England; died February 23, 1934, Worcester

Work Composed: Oct. 21, 1898–Spring of 1899 and dedicated “to my friends pictured within.”

World Premiere: June 19, 1899, under the direction of Hans Richter at St. James’ Hall, London. At Richter’s suggestion (along with that of Elgar’s publisher, August Johann Jaeger), Elgar later wrote an extended finale, which he himself conducted at the Worcester Festival on Sept. 13.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, organ, and strings.

Estimated Duration: 29 minutes

Edward Elgar’s Variations for Orchestra on an Original Theme, Op. 36, better known simply as the Enigma Variations, poses an intriguing mystery, which has never been solved. There are two enigmas in the Variations: one opens the piece; the other is silent but present throughout. Much has been written about the Variations, including lengthy discussions of their actual title. Elgar called them simply Variations for Orchestra on an Original Theme, and later added the word “Enigma” in the manuscript, although he never referred to them as the “Enigma Variations” in his conversations and correspondence.

Regarding the theme of the enigma itself, Elgar wrote in the notes for the first performance: “The enigma I will not explain its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest

E . Caroline Alice Elgar, Elgar’s wife.

S-P . Hew David SteuartPowell, an amateur pianist with whom Elgar played in chamber ensembles.

Richard Baxter Townshend, eccentric scholar/author whose caricature of an old man is the subject of the variation.

B . William Meath Baker, the squire of Hasfield Court, whose of slamming doors upon exiting rooms is heard in this variation.

A . Richard Penrose Arnold, of poet Matthew Arnold, known as a daydreamer.

Ysobel Isabel Fitton, an amateur violist.

Troyte Arthur Troyte Griffith, artist and architect and a pianist of limited skill, hence the bombastic quality of his variation.

Winifred Norbury, secretary of the Worcestershire Philharmonic Society (this variation is actually a portrait of stately house, the scene of numerous musical gatherings; it captures her ready laugh).

Nimrod August Johannes Jaeger, good friend and one of Elgar’s publishers at Novello (Nimrod the biblical “mighty hunter,” pun on “Jaeger,” German for “hunter.”) Elgar described the variation as an evocation of a conversation between the two about Beethoven’s difficulties his deafness. Jaeger’s mention of Beethoven was meant encourage Elgar, despondent

over his own struggles to gain recognition, to continue composing. Elgar wrote, “It will be noticed that the opening bars are made to suggest the slow movement of [Beethoven’s] Eighth Sonata (Pathétique).”

10. Dorabella Dora Penney (later the wife of Richard Powell) nicknamed “Dorabella” by Elgar, who borrowed the name from Mozart’s opera, Così fan tutte. She was a close friend of the Elgars’ and often sat at the piano turning pages for Elgar during performances.

11. G .R .S . George Robertson Sinclair, organist of Hereford and owner of a bulldog named Dan. The variation actually portrays Dan fetching and retrieving sticks from the Wye River.

12. B .G .N . Basil Nevinson, an amateur cellist who played with Elgar and Steuart-Powell.

13. *** Possibly Lady Mary Lygon, who traveled to Australia around the time Elgar composed her variation. In it he quotes from Mendelssohn’s Calm Seas and Prosperous Voyage. This variation may also refer to Elgar’s former fiancée, Helen Jessie Weaver, who, by all accounts, broke his heart when she ended their engagement and emigrated to New Zealand.

14. E .D .U . Elgar. “Edoo” was Alice’s pet name for her husband, a variation of the French “Edouard.” His variation quotes from hers and from Jaeger’s, the two people who always believed in and supported him.

© Elizabeth Schwartz

Sandy Stimson Principal Oboe

by Elizabeth Schwartz

ES: Tell me your oboe origin story. How did you and the oboe first meet?

SS: When I was in fourth grade, I was very, very shy and didn’t think I wanted to play any instruments. When I met the band director at school, he asked me what instrument I wanted to play, and I don’t think I said a word. He looked at me and said, “You know, I need an oboe player, and you’d be perfect.” So that’s how I came to the oboe. In the beginning, I really didn’t know anything about it, but my band director was wonderful and I just took to it. The oboe actually brought me out of my natural shyness because I had to play solos – I was the only oboe player – and I discovered it was really fun.

ES: Where did you grow up?

SS: I grew up in western New York, in a small town called Wilson, on Lake Ontario. After I started playing in the school band, I got oboe lessons from the English horn player of the Buffalo Philharmonic. My folks and I had to drive an hour to Grand Island each way for lessons. Later, my teacher got me into a youth orchestra in Canada, and that was another hour-long drive each way to get to rehearsals.

ES: That is a major time commitment for both you and your parents. When did it become clear to you that music – and oboe specifically – was something you wanted to pursue as a career?

SS: I think it was probably high school. I was doing competitions and I was just loving it. My teacher also influenced me, given her job with the Buffalo Philharmonic. It made me interested in pursuing a career like that for myself.

ES: What brought you to Montana?

SS: I first came to Montana through a job with the Billings Symphony, where I met my husband. Fast forward a few years and a few orchestra jobs in New Orleans and Fort Wayne, but I really missed Montana. I love mountains and natural beauty. I kept auditioning, and finally a position with the Bozeman Symphony opened up in 2014, and I went for it; I’ve never wanted a position more in my life. It took a while, but we finally made our way back, and I couldn’t be happier. I love it here.

ES: Next season marks your ten year anniversary with the Bozeman Symphony. How would you characterize your time here?

SS: What I love is that every time we have a concert here, it’s a major event, and it’s something everybody is excited about. And I knew, since I had played in Billings, that there was a lot of talent out here, which is something lots of musicians are finding out nowadays. There are great musicians everywhere. This orchestra is a very positive group. Everyone’s really friendly, so it’s fun to come to work. The ensemble is growing, so it’s a really exciting time to be here, especially with [Music Director] Norman Huynh. I was on the search committee for the conductor auditions, and he was my top choice. In my career, I’ve worked with a lot of conductors, so I had a lot of past experience to draw upon. As Norman stood at the

podium rehearsing us, I looked at my colleagues to see how they were feeling, and everyone was smiling. And then he would say something funny and everyone was laughing. I also was looking for someone who knows how to rehearse an orchestra. Also, Norman is great at inspiring players, no matter their level of playing. He makes everybody feel part of the group and gives them confidence to know they can give him what he wants. I think that’s kind of a unique trait, and I saw it in him right away. The way he rehearses, the way he has worked on the balance of sound in the orchestra, has just blown my mind. I can't tell you how many times I'll go up to him after rehearsal and say, “Wow, I have never been asked to play in just that way,” or “I’ve never even thought about that before,” and of course, he immediately gets a big smile on his face, because he loves to help us discover something new in the music.

And he challenges us too, because he likes to try out different ideas, different repertoire. And when it works you think, “That's incredible!”

ES: What else has Norman brought to the orchestra?

SS: He’s got a lot of big dreams that I think are really exciting. He’s adding more concerts and his programming is terrific. When he asked me to play an oboe concerto, that was like a dream come true for me.

ES: I’m glad you brought that up. Tell me about this concerto, Spirit of the Wild, by Nigel Westlake. How did you come to decide on this piece?

SS: Norman asked whether I would do an oboe concerto, and of course I said yes, I would love to. He told me to find a couple of works I liked, and then he’d listen to them and decide which would work best for the orchestra. Believe it or not, I found the Westlake on YouTube, of

all places. I was immediately taken with the recording I found of Spirit of the Wild, written for and performed by Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Principal Oboe Diana Doherty. I just love her playing, and I was absolutely taken with the music. I sent it to Norman and asked, “What do you think?” and he said yes.

I wanted to play something epic and this piece is that. It’s also hauntingly beautiful. And it’s also got the flare of the fast notes as well. The composer, Nigel Westlake, was invited by one of Australia’s leading environmentalists, Bob Brown, to visit a remote area of the Southwest Tasmanian wilderness. In his comments on the music, Westlake talks about the environment, the wonders of our natural world and how we need to protect it. And I really relate to that idea as well. This is music about the precious fragile beauty of the natural world. Anyone who loves the

outdoors, particularly the remote places – and there are a lot of those in Montana – I think we can all relate to the idea of preserving wilderness.

ES: Spirit of the Wild is written in one large movement containing several different episodes. Are there particular places in the music that stand out for you?

SS: In the second movement, the solo oboe soars up to the high register and just stays there. It’s so incredibly beautiful. There’s also a section after a slower interval that shifts into driving rhythms for the strings and percussion. Another thing that drew me to this piece is the fact that people don’t get to hear oboe concertos very often. There are plenty of violin concertos and piano concertos and cello concertos, but not oboe. Westlake writes a few passages of very fast notes for the oboe, and I wanted an audience to hear that the oboe can

be very flashy and virtuosic. Often, in orchestral music, the oboe solos are very sad and slow and melancholy, and I wanted to show how fast we can play.

When my husband first heard the concerto, he had tears rolling down his cheeks because he thought it was so beautiful. That’s how I feel too; I listen to this piece and it just lifts my spirits, even the haunting passages. It’s all so incredibly beautiful.

For me, another thing that makes this concerto special is that I’ll be playing an oboe made by my husband, Ken Decker. He has a woodwind repair business, but also makes double reed instruments. I wanted to play on Ken’s oboe because it’s got incredible high notes, which you’re going to hear in Spirit of the Wild. On Ken’s oboe, they absolutely ring, and they’re so pure. The sound of it is just glorious.

“O, Fortuna!” Orff’s Carmina Burana

FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2024 | 7:30 PM

SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2024 | 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2024 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors:

Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle

Michael & Sharon Beehler, Presenter's Circle

Mike & Cyndi Huempfner – Five Points Foundation, Presenter's Circle

David & Kippy Sands, Presenter's Circle

Norman Huynh, conductor

Ashley Fabian, soprano

Andrew Owens, tenor

Christòpheren Nomura, baritone

Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Orff Carmina Burana

FORTUNA IMPERATRIX MUNDI

(Fortune, Empress of the World)

O Fortuna –

Fortune plango vulnera

I. PRIMO VERE (In Springtime)

Veris leta facies –

Omnia Sol temperat –

Ecce gratum

UF DEM ANGER (On the Green)

Tanz –

Floret silva –

Chramer, gip die varwe mir

Reie –

Were diu werlt alle min

II. IN TABERNA (In the Tavern)

Estuans interius –

Olim lacus colueram –

Ego sum abbas –

In taberna quando sumus

III. COUR D’AMOURS (The Court of Love)

Amor volat undique –

Dies, nox et omnia –

Stetit puella –

Circa mea pectora –

Si puer com puellula –

Veni, veni, venias –

In trutina –

Tempus est iocundum –

Dulcissime –

BLANZIFLOR ET HELENA (Blanziflor and Helena)

Ave formosissima –

FORTUNA IMPERATRIX MUNDI

(Fortune, Empress of the World)

O Fortuna

Biographies

sharing personal finance content on several social media platforms. As the founder of Fab on a Dime, her focus is to promote financial wellness in the self-employed community, especially to creatives and musicians. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and appears on podcasts, masterclasses, and webinars.

In the 2020–2021 season, Mr. Owens made his house debut at Opernhaus Zürich as Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and returned to Theater an der Wien for role debuts as Jakob Glock in Prokofiev’s Der Feurige Engel as well as Basilio. The previous season, he made his house debut at Irish National Opera as Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola, returned to Theater an der Wien as First Jew in Salome, and in concert, sang Handel’s Messiah with the North Carolina Symphony.

Acclaimed by the New York Classical Review as “a vision of sunshine and joy,” possessing a “lovely lyric soprano,” Ashley Fabian is quickly garnering recognition for her artistry in both comedic and dramatic roles. She is celebrated for her “voice of immense warmth and scintillating spin” (parterre), and her command of the stage has been praised by critics and audiences across the nation.

Ms. Fabian has been the recipient of awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council, the Orpheus Vocal Competition, the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition, Central City Opera, and the Grand Concours Franco-American Competition. In addition, she was a finalist in the Tenor Viñas Competition, Mildred Miller Competition, Cooper-Bing Competition, and Piccola Opera Competition. She holds a M.M. from The University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music, and a B.A. and Artist Diploma from The College of Charleston.

In addition to her work as a soprano, Ms. Fabian works as an actor based in Los Angeles. She has appeared in various projects including several films, most recently featured on the Lifetime Movie Network. An avid game show enthusiast, she has appeared as an undefeated contestant on Wheel of Fortune and Game Show Network’s Chain Reaction. She also works as a content creator

American tenor Andrew Owens, whom the Irish Times described as having a “ringing top register, and easy fluidity to bel-canto writing,” has quickly built a reputation as a promising singer of his generation, exhibiting a beautiful Italianate timbre, soaring top notes, and effortless agility. In the 2021–2022 season, he joins Opernhaus Zürich as a member of their ensemble, performing Itulbo in Bellini’s Il pirata, Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Beppe in I Pagliacci, and Telémachos in Evers’ Die Odyssee, among other roles. As a guest artist, Mr. Owens performs Aménophis in Moïse et Pharaon with the Rossini Opera Festival, Rodolfo in a semi-staged production of La bohème with the Jacksonville Symphony, Handel’s Messiah with the Kansas City Symphony, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Arizona Music Festival.

Cancellations due to the Covid-19 pandemic include performances as Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro on tour with the New Generation Festival in Andermatt, Switzerland, as well as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra in Greece.

In the 2018–2019 season, Mr. Owens made his house debut at Opera Philadelphia as Arturo and joined Manitoba Opera as Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, a role he subsequently covered with the Glyndebourne Festival. He also returned to the Kammeroper Wien and performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

On the operatic stage, Andrew Owens has performed Count Almaviva at Seattle Opera, Opera San Antonio, North Carolina Opera, Virginia Opera, Greensboro Opera, and Florida Grand Opera, as well as Don Ramiro at Arizona Opera, Opera Saratoga, and Greensboro Opera. He is a frequent guest at Theater an der Wien, where he has performed Snout in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Mads in Werner Egk’s Peer Gynt, among other roles. At Theater Magdeburg, he performed Tamino in Die Zauberflöte and Camille de Rosillon in Léhar’s Die lustige Witwe. He made his company and role debut at Seattle Opera as the Earl of Leicester in Maria Stuarda, and later returned as Bénédict in Béatrice et Bénédict. Other role and house debuts have included the title role in Rossini’s rarely heard Aureliano in Palmira and Jacquino in Fidelio with the Caramoor Festival, as well as Lucano in L’incoronazione di Poppea at Cincinnati Opera.

Concert engagements of past seasons include the tenor solo in

Ashley Fabian

Andrew Owens

FORTUNA!” ORFF’S CARMINA BURANA

The Genius of Mozart at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, with the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra; Handel’s Messiah with both the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the Eugene Symphony in Oregon; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra; Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust with the Cleveland Orchestra; Haydn’s The Seasons and First Japanese Emissary in Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol with the Salzburg Festival; and appearances in a Rossini gala concert at the Munich Opera Festival. He has also performed Don Ottavio in a concert version of Don Giovanni with the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria with the Annapolis Chorale, and made appearances with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and Greensboro Oratorio Society. He made his New York City recital debut with the New York Festival of Song in a program

entitled Spanish Gold: Songs of the Iberian Peninsula at Merkin Hall.

Mr. Owens has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the world’s most prestigious conductors and directors including James Conlon, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Bertrand de Billy, Franz WelserMöst, Ari Pelto, Martin André, Christopher Larkin, George Manahan, Sian Edwards, Moshé Leiser, Patrice Caurier, Peter Konwitschny, Richard Jones, Keith Warner, David Bösch, and Riccardo Frizza.

Mr. Owens is an award recipient from the Marilyn Horne Foundation, won 1st place and honors at the Mario Lanza Competition for Tenors in New York City and Philadelphia, respectively, and is the recipient of the Iris Henwood Richards Apprentice Artist Award at Central City Opera. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Maryland Opera

Studio. Other training programs included the Salzburg Festival Young Singers Project and Music Academy of the West Voice Program. Mr. Owens is a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania and studies with Jack Li Vigni. He is based in Chicago.

Christòpheren Nomura

Baritone Christòpheren Nomura stands at the forefront of his generation of singers. Since making his New York City debut, he has performed

throughout the world, hailed as one of classical music's "rising stars" by the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Nomura has earned a prominent place on the operatic, concert and recital stages, appearing with many of the leading North American orchestras, in wide-ranging repertoire. Known for his deep commitment to

Mass at the Vatican for the "Jubilee Year," in 2000 performing before an audience of 15,000 in the Salla Nervi, simulcast to some 200,000 people in Vatican Square.

Christòpheren Nomura's discography includes recordings on the Sony, Dorian, Teldec, London, Denon, TDK and L'oiseau Lyre labels. His recording of the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 on Telarc was nominated for a Grammy (Best Classical Ensemble Recording). He recorded Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin for Well-Tempered Productions and Never Broken a solo recording of contemporary compositions, for Center Stage Records. All Is Bright with Grant Llewellyn and the Handel and Haydn Society made the Billboard classical charts and was named Musicweb International's "Recording of the Month." Gotham

Siren, music of Stefania de Kenessey: was released by North/South Recordings in 2015. He appears on the original Broadway cast album of Allegiance released in January 2016 and in the hi-definition video broadcasts in movie theaters throughout the world in 2016–2017.

Mr. Nomura has been the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions including a four-year Fulbright Grant to study with Dietrich FischerDieskau, Hermann Prey and Gérard Souzay. He was winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions as well as the Naumburg, United States Information Agency Music Ambassadors and the Marilyn Horne Foundation competitions. He holds a Masters degree and Artists Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music.

"Eagle Mount is an organization that has given the community so much. You cannot go wrong assigning a portion of your will so they can continue their mission."

– Dr. George McClure Jr.

Program Notes

CARL ORFF

Carmina Burana

Composer: Born July 10, 1895, Munich; died March 29, 1982, Munich

Work Composed: 1935–36

World Premiere: Bertil Wetzelsberger led the Oper Frankfurt orchestra and Cäecilienchor Frankfurt on June 8, 1937.

Instrumentation: Soprano, tenor and bass soloists, SATB choir, children’s choir, 3 flutes (2 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (one doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, antique cymbals, bass drum, chimes, castanets, cymbals, glockenspiel, ratchet, snare drum, sleigh bells, tam tam, tambourine, triangle, celesta, 2 pianos, and strings.

Estimated Duration: 60 minutes

If there is such a thing as the one-hitwonder category in classical music, Carmina Burana certainly qualifies. Its composer, Carl Orff, wrote a number of other works, both before and after Carmina Burana, and he is also known for his Schulwerke (School works), a collection of music for children, and its accompanying pedagogical method of music education. However, nothing else Orff accomplished in his 87 years comes close to rivaling the fame and staying power of Carmina Burana.

In 1934, Orff first came across a collection of 13th-century poems compiled at the Benedictine monastery in Benediktbeueren, located in Bavaria, near Munich. Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuren) is an eclectic collection of over 200 poems and songs. Their themes range from religious ecstasy to secular love, lust, drunken debauchery, and bawdy humor. Most of the poems are in Church Latin, although some feature a medieval Bavarian German dialect, and

a few poems are in French. Several poems mix the languages together.

In setting these texts, Orff rejected the prevailing styles of German music that dominated the first third of the 20th century. Gone are the sophisticated harmonies, 12-tone rows, esoteric theoretical underpinnings, and profound philosophical subtexts. Instead, Orff wrote strophic songs (melodies which do not develop or change from verse to verse), using basic harmonies derived from major, minor and modal scales. He also emphasized dynamic rhythms and spotlighted the percussion section. Most central of all, Orff chose texts that celebrate primal human experiences.

The 24 texts Orff selected are arranged in three large sections:

1. Primo vere (Spring) and Uf dem Anger (On the Green); 2. In taberna (In the Tavern); and 3. Cour d’Amours (Court of Love). The first section is preceded by Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World), the best-known section of Carmina Burana. The concept of the implacable goddess of Fortune spinning her wheel to determine one’s fate is the central theme of Carmina Burana, a medieval trope on “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” The authors of these poems, whose focus on earthly pleasures borders on the obsessive, were motivated by belief in the capricious, often malevolent, power of Fortune’s wheel to destroy their lives.

Primo vere begins with a trilling figure in the piccolos, flutes, oboes, and pianos, a musical birdcall signaling spring’s awakening. The first three songs focus on the rejuvenation of the earth. They also link the first stirrings of spring with feelings of love and passion, which are also emerging from winter’s long hibernation. The music is spare; in the first song, Veris leta facies, the chorus sings in unison octaves; the second, Omnia Sol temperat,

features a baritone soloist and the barest wisps of accompaniment. Only when spring fully bursts forth, in Ecce gratum, do we hear vocal harmonies, accompanied by full orchestra. The subsection Uf dem Anger features a number of dances, both earthy (Tanz) and refined (Reie). The songs are full of flirtation and seductive promises.

In Taberna both celebrates and decries the effects of alcohol. Estuans interius is an operatic rant for baritone, who declares, “My soul is dead/So I look after the flesh.” Olim lacus colueram, sung by tenor and accompanied by a plaintive bassoon solo, is told from the viewpoint of a swan being roasted on a spit at a drunken feast. Ego sum abbas parodies Gregorian chant. It tells of the fictional abbot of Cockaigne, who loses both his money and his clothing at the gambling table. The men’s chorus echoes his despairing cry of “Wafna!” In taberna quando sumus venerates, in a series of toasts. The men’s voices are accompanied by alternating bursts of brass and percussion with prosaic oom-pahs.

The songs of Cour d’amours focuses on the two main facets of love in medieval times: courtly love, the yearning for a chaste and usually unattainable lady (as in Dies, nox et omnia), and the frankly erotic (Si puer cum puellula and Veni, veni, venias). The soprano soloist expresses both longing and virginal hesitancy (In trutina mentis dubia and Tempus est iocundum); she later conveys her ecstasy with an orgasmic aria (Dulcissime). This section ends with the chorus’ grand quasi-religious paean to “the most beautiful one.” With language usually reserved for prayers to the Virgin Mary, she is compared to Helen of Troy, Blanchefleur, the heroine of a 12thcentury romance, and Venus herself. Before anyone is allowed to linger in love’s realm, however, Fortune’s ever-spinning wheel returns for a final reminder of life’s unpredictability.

© Elizabeth Schwartz

At The Movies: The Music of John Williams

FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 2024 | 7:30 PM

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2024 | 2:30 & 7:30 PM

SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2024 | 2:30 PM

Sponsors: Cal & Tricia DeSouza, Conductor's Circle Donald B . Gimbel, Presenter's Circle

Norman Huynh, Conductor Wonki Lee, Saxophone Felix Guggenheim, Violin Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Williams The Cowboys: Overture

Williams Suite from Jaws

Williams Remembrances from Schindler’s List Felix Guggenheim

Williams Hymn to the Fallen from Saving Private Ryan Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Williams Duel of the Fates from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Bozeman Symphonic Choir

Williams Excerpts from Close Encounters of the Third Kind

INTERMISSION

Williams The Olympic Spirit

Williams Escapades for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra from Catch Me if You Can

3. Joy Ride

Wonki Lee

Williams Happy Birthday Variations

Williams Yoda’s Theme

Williams Throne Room and Finale from Star Wars: A New Hope

Biography

Tiberio, and Avner Finberg. He has appeared with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Wind Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra, and Bozeman Symphony. Prior to moving to Bozeman, Lee served as a principal saxophonist of the New York Wind Orchestra.

Described by New York Concert Review as “A knockout performance,” classical saxophonist Wonki Lee has distinguished himself as one of the leading saxophonists of his generation. Feeling equally at home in traditional and contemporary repertoires, Lee’s musical exploration has encompassed fascination with the history of saxophone repertoire and interpreting original works for saxophone with new insights and understandings. He has released four solo albums (American Sonatas, Air-Songs for the Saxophone, French Masterpieces vol.1, and Respectfully Yours). Currently, he is working on a new album American Sonatas vol.2, which features a prodigious work by David Maslanka who lived in Missoula, Montana.

As an advocate of contemporary music written by composers of his generation, Lee has premiered numerous new works ranging from solo to orchestral and contributed to the addition of over 20 works, including three new saxophone concertos by Susan Botti, Thiago

Born to Korean parents living in Tokyo, Lee began to study the saxophone at age thirteen and soon moved to New York City, where he received his training at the Manhattan School of Music. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

Born to Korean parents living in Tokyo, Mr. Lee began to study the saxophone at age thirteen and soon moved to New York City, where he received his training at the Manhattan School of Music. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

often saw his grandfather, Stephen Guggenheim, perform in the viola section with the Bozeman Symphony, which in large part was what inspired him to take violin lessons. He has studied with Bozeman musicians and instructors Anna Jesaitis, Angella Ahn, and Carrie Krause. He has had the opportunity to play in orchestras in public schools under the direction of Chandra Lind and Michael Certalic, who also played instrumental roles in his development as a musician. In addition to serving as concertmaster in his high school’s top orchestra, he was selected to perform in the Montana All-State Orchestra every year of his high school career. He was awarded the principal 2nd violin chair for in 2019 as a freshman, and concertmaster in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, he was also the winner of the High School Division of the Montana Association of Symphony Orchestra's statewide Young Artists Competition. In his later high school years, he frequently performed in the Bozeman Symphony, Intermountain Opera, The Ellen Theatre, Baroque Music Montana, and with other musical organizations around the city. Bozeman has served as a great place to foster his love for music.

Bozeman native Felix Guggenheim developed an interest in music at a young age through a shared passion with his mother and grandfather. He

Guggenheim is currently studying under Danielle Belen at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance in pursuit of a professional career in music. He is endlessly thankful for all of the many opportunities that have been available to him in his upbringing in Bozeman and is excited for what the future holds for him as he takes his experience further into the world.

Wonki Lee

Felix Guggenheim

Ways to Give

Make a Single or Recurring Monthly Gift

Make a one-time donation or monthly pledge to the Bozeman Symphony today! Tickets sales cover just 35% of the Bozeman Symphony’s annual budget, and we rely on gifts of all sizes to sustain and grow our presence in the community . Your gift supports our orchestra and choir musicians, guest artists, performances, music education programs, and community engagement programs.

Join Our New Encore Society (Formerly the Underwriters Program)

Starting this 2023/24 season, the Encore Society takes the legacy of the Underwriters program to new heights. With members making an extraordinary commitment to the Symphony by donating at least $2,500 per season (or $208.33 monthly, or $1,250 semi-annually), the Encore Society provides a strong stable financial base for the Bozeman Symphony and Symphonic Choir. Benefits of pledging to be an Encore Society member include recognition in the Bozeman Symphony Season Magazine, access to the hospitality lounge at Willson Classical Series concerts, and invitations to special private events. Most importantly, Encore Society members have the satisfaction of making a valuable

contribution to the community by supporting live symphonic music.

Sponsor a Concert

Concert Sponsors bring worldclass performances to Bozeman by supporting one or more concerts during the concert season, ensuring that audiences experience the power of music to engage, unite, and uplift. We offer a variety of individual sponsorship packages at a range of giving levels.

Become a Corporate Sponsor

Business and community leaders appreciate and embrace that the performing arts are a vital part of the cultural fabric that makes any region a desirable place to live, work, and play. The Symphony is a proven economic driver that attracts employees and customers alike, and continues to complement and even match the region’s very rapid growth. We would love to work with your business to select a sponsorship in line with your mission, as we seek to deliver on ours: to engage, unite and uplift the human experience in Montana through music and the arts.

Offer a Non-Cash Donation: Prefer a non-cash gift to offer? In-kind contributions can also be made to the Symphony in the form of goods, expertise, and services from your business.

Participate in an Employer Match:. As an employer, consider offering a matching gift for your employees to multiply the impact of their donation and receive acknowledgement for your company. As an employee, ask if your employer matches charitable giving.

Support Us Through Your Foundation

Each year we receive vital support from foundations who help us invest in the future and meet our goals to engage our wider community, build meaningful relationships with new audiences, increase accessibility, and pursue artistic innovation.

Volunteer

We offer a variety of enjoyable and engaging volunteer opportunities all year long. For more information and to sign up, call the Symphony office at 406-585-9774, or go online to bozemansymphony.org/volunteer.

Leave a Legacy

Including the Bozeman Symphony in your estate plans is a meaningful way to leave an enduring legacy that ensures our community’s cultural vibrancy in decades to come. Planned gifts may be allocated to the Bozeman Symphony’s Endowment Fund or directed to the area of programming you most cherish.

Additional planned gift options, such as gifts of stock, IRA rollovers or gifts of tangible assets, ensure the music we treasure today is enjoyed long into the future.

QUESTIONS

Office: 402 E. Main St., Suite 202

Phone: 406-585-9774

Web: bozemansymphony.org/donate

Email: Cheri LeCain, Executive Assistant cheri@bozemansymphony.org.

Bozeman Symphony is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Tax ID#81-6019534.

All gifts receive a tax receipt and are acknowledged in the Bozeman Symphony Season Magazine.

DONOR/BOARD MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Skye Raiser

by Elizabeth Schwartz

“I’m more an enjoyer of music than a player,” says Skye Raiser. When she was a child growing up in Buffalo, NY, Skye’s grandfather was chair of the board of the Buffalo Philharmonic. Skye often encountered conductors and musicians in his home, and in the process heard plenty of music, including regular attendance at Buffalo Philharmonic concerts.

Three years ago, Skye left the hectic pace of life in Washington, D.C., and moved with her family to Bozeman. “My parents owned a house here,” she explains, “and we came out quite often when I was a kid. Bozeman has always had a special place in my heart that’s kept pulling at me over the years. I like a low-key life, you know, something less money and status-focused. And I love everything to do with the outdoors here. Bozeman is friendly and has this smalltown feeling; people are nice to each other and they’re not rushing and racing around, and they take a moment to interact with you.” Skye also appreciates the vibrancy and energy of the university community in Bozeman. “There’s a great mix of really interesting, talented people from all over.”

Not long after relocating, Skye attended her first Bozeman Symphony concert. “I was just so blown away by the quality of the music and the energy at the concert,” she remembers. “Norman [Huynh] is so charismatic and draws people into the musical experience. I was literally hooked then.” A friend on the symphony board asked Skye if she would be interested in joining. “After seeing the symphony and the energy around it, and meeting some of the people, I said yes. My fellow board members are amazing, wonderful human beings, as well as talented, super-smart people. I love being a part of it. Honestly, everybody connected with the symphony – staff, orchestra, choir, board, patrons –it’s just one big love fest.”

It's typical for volunteers to say they benefit as much if not more from their volunteering as do the organizations they work with, and Skye is no exception. “We are growing, so there’s always lots to do, and I feel like I can be really useful in that process,” she explains. “As a board member, I’m trying to promote more interaction between the board and the musicians, because in the past there hasn’t been enough of that. I enjoy it because I like people and I’m curious about hearing the musicians’ point of view. I want to know what can we do as a board to make sure they feel fully appreciated, apart from paying them more money – we know we need to do that! But what else can we do?”

Skye’s donor and board involvement has given her a personal stake in the symphony. “We [as a community] get to consistently hear this amazing music,” she enthuses. “The programs Norman puts together are astonishing; he brings in the most talented musicians from around the country and the world. Bozeman is a relatively small community that really appreciates music and the arts, and as a

donor, what I give helps support those efforts. I want as many people as possible to come hear this music.”

For anyone thinking of becoming a donor, Skye has a simple suggestion: “Come and experience a concert. In person, music is so different from listening on the radio or your stereo. Live music is visceral; you feel the percussion in your chest. It’s a joyous emotional experience that adds to your life. I feel privileged and honored every time I can come to a concert.” As one of the Symphony’s superfans, Skye will sometimes see the same performance twice. “I love it so much on Saturday that I go buy a ticket for Sunday. The performances are really that good.”

Skye also believes local orchestras play a unique role in their respective communities. “It’s such a powerful experience to attend concerts,” she says, “and there are so many community members involved in different ways, both paid and unpaid. We have volunteers that work on concert days, and then we have so many musicians in the orchestra and choir who live in Bozeman. It’s amazing how many random day-to-day encounters I have with people in Bozeman, and I'll mention the symphony, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, my husband plays for the symphony, or my daughter plays for the symphony.’

“The Bozeman Symphony is like a glue that holds the community together,” Skye continues. “A lot of orchestras around the country are seeing their ticket sales fall, while we’re actually selling out concerts. We have sold more season tickets than ever before this year.

“We also live in a time where we’re so focused on our devices that we’ve forgotten how great it feels to come together in real time and have our souls and spirits uplifted. As humans, we need that.”

ENCORE SOCIETY

Hilda & Buck Klein

Season

Thank You to our 2023/24

Sponsors and Donors*

The Bozeman Symphony extends our heartfelt gratitude to those individuals and organizations who have already contributed to the 2023/24 season. Your support and generosity help the Symphony meet our mission to engage, unite and uplift through music and the arts in Montana.

We proudly recognize the following individuals who have already graciously contributed to the 2023/24 concert season.

Individual Sponsors

BEETHOVEN SOCIETY

$100,000+

Make a powerful gift to transform the Symphony.

CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE

$50,000–$99,999

Cal & Tricia DeSouza

CONCERTMASTER’S CIRCLE

$25,000–$49,999

Kimberlie & Bruce Jodar

Gary Kunis & Connie Wong

Ritva Porter & Stephen Schachman

PRESENTER’S CIRCLE

$10,000–$24,999

Ambassador Max Baucus & Mrs. Melodee Hanes

Anonymous

Michael & Sharon Beehler

Paul & Jillian Bertelli

Diane L. Brawner

Mike & Cyndi Huempfner, Five Points Foundation

Donald B. Gimbel

Prof. Rob Maher & Mrs. Lynn Peterson-Maher

Ken & Mary May

Barbara & Ben Phinney

Skye Raiser & David Perlin

Lynn & Chip Rinehart

Robert & Donna Ritchie

Rick Sanders & Janice Hand

David & Kippy Sands

IMPACT CIRCLE

$5,000–$9,999

Sharon Eversman

Lisa & Keith Reed

Karin Utzinger & Family

Drs. Dennis & Anne Wentz

Renée & Stuart Westlake

$2,500–$4,999

Bill & Katie Anderson

Anonymous

Richard & Carol Belgrad

Thomas & Dale Bray

Donald & Beverly Clark

Ron & Judy Clark

Bruce & Christie Copeland

Suzanne Day & Jim Penhale

Donald & Signe Farris

Yves & Sheila Idzerda

Gary & Margaret Kachadurian

Sal & Carol G. Lalani

Michael & Gini Logan

Michael Mahler, in loving memory of Ellie Mahler

Marcia McCrum

Heidi McLoughlin & David Genter

Don & Marilyn Murdock

Kathleen Heitz Myers & George Myers

Valerie Oppenhimer & Michael Hickey

Margaret Orem

Margaret Perryman

Marjorie Ready

Lori & Mark Rosolowsky

Crystal & Chris Sacca

John Sacklin & Mary Hektner

Lee & Diane Selby

Larry Springer

Ric Tieman & Susan Gibb

William A. & Patricia J. Wilson

Richard Wolff & Dr. Janel Cariño

Richard & Melody Zajdel Endowment Fund

Donors

$1,000–$2,400

Anonymous

Kerri & Peter Brown

Kenneth & Mary Danhof

Norman & Susie Fleet

Carl W. Gardiner

Mary Howard

John & Donna Hunt

Donald J. Kauffman

Kozubal Family

Mike & Andrea Manship

Keith & Markie Nathan

Tim & Trish Preheim

Leo Proxell

Elizabeth Rowe

Richard & Melanie Sabo

Erna Smeets & Bill Simkins

Judith Springborn

Raymond & Michele Stinnett

Bea Taylor

David & Debbie Wieggel

$500–$999

Steven & Carolyn Eagle

Grace France

Patrick & Carol Hemingway

Al & Ellen Jesaitis

Beth Kaeding, in honor of the Cello section

Mike & Marsha Montgomery

David & Elizabeth Richards

Jessie Rolfson

$250–$499

Tony & Martha Biel

Marty Daiello

Jack & Karen Day

Jane Hodges

Joyce Kamp

Ralph Williams, in memory of Kris Williams

Janet Young

Gloria Zimmer

$100–$249

Ivan & Judy Albrecht

Anonymous

Sherry Sims Beach

Bob & Jan Beekman

Besemer Family in memory of Anneliese S. Besemer, beloved mother & grandmother

Roger J. & Noreen A. Breeding

Rodger Clingman

Stanley Cook

Bobby Crowe

David & Judy Douglas

Dick & Rita Fish

Shirley A. Gerhardt

John & Mary Griffith

Alison Harmon

Wayne O. & Marilyn R. Hill

Kathleen Hoffman

Katherine Hubbard

Fern Jarmulnek

Elizabeth Jones

Jeremy Lennox

Mary Leonardi

Kathleen Morrison

Gerald Nielsen

Shirley Olinger

June Phillips

Charles & Maureen Poremba

Marilyn Raffensperger

Anne Marie & Jeff Reider

Leslie Reardon & Christopher Crowder

Grace Taylor, in memory of Darleen Ellingson

Donna K. Wallace

Foundations

The Bozeman Symphony extends special thanks to the following foundations whose commitment to the 2023/24 season helps keep the arts flourishing in our community.

Ruth & Vernon Taylor Foundation

Beim Family Foundation, in fond memory of Penny Arnold

Montana Cultural Trust

Sheehy Family Foundation

Sidney E. Frank Foundation

Thank You to our 2022/23 Season

Sponsors and Donors

The Bozeman Symphony expresses sincere gratitude to those whose contributions helped make the 2022/23 concert season such a great success.

Underwriters

$1,200+

Bill & Katie Anderson

Michael & Sharon Beehler

Richard & Carol Belgrad

Kerri & Peter Brown

Elizabeth R.S. Burnim

Woody Burt

Jerry & Jan Cashman

Donald & Beverly Clark

Ron & Judy Clark

Dawn Collins

Bruce & Christie Copeland

Kenneth & Mary Danhof

Suzanne Day & Jim Penhale

John & Polly Derr

Donald & Signe Farris

Norman & Susie Fleet

Jerry & Barbara Glickman

Monica Guenther & Terry Anderson

Lucian & Jurgita Hand

Mitch & Jan Hobish

Carolyn Hopper, in honor of Nicholas Ober, Bassoon & Jerry Makeever, Trumpet

Michael & Cynthia Huempfner, Five Points Foundation

John & Donna Hunt

Buck & Hilda Klein

Kozubal Family

Carol G. & Sal Lalani

Robert G. Larsen

Larry & Gail Larson

Michael & Gini Logan

Marcia McCrum

Heidi McLoughlin & David Genter

Dori McTigue

James & Bernie Mitchell

Mike & Marsha Montgomery

Keith & Markie Nathan

Pauline Nussbaum

Valerie Oppenhimer & Michael Hickey

Denis & Barbara Prager

Margaret Perryman

Trish & Tim Preheim

Skye Raiser & David Perlin

Marjorie Ready

Lloyd & Joanne Reynolds

Charles & Kathy Rinker

Elizabeth Rowe

Richard & Melanie Sabo

John Sacklin & Mary Hektner, in honor of Greg Young, Clarinet

Rick Sanders & Janice Hand

Thomas J. Scanlin

Diane & Lee Selby

Erna Smeets & Bill Simkins

Jason A. & Karen Smith

Ed Stafman & Beth Lee

Dave & Rusty Swingle

Ric Tieman & Susan Gibb

Timothy Toohey

Ken & Judy Weaver

Heather White & David Diamond

Stuart Whitehair & Lee Stadtlander

William A. & Patricia J. Wilson

Richard Wolff & Dr. Janel Carino

Robert E. Yoblonsky & Anthony J. Waller

Melody & Richard Zajdel Endowment Fund

Sponsors

$50,000+

Stephen Schachman & Ritva Porter

$25,000–$49,999

Diana Blank

Donald B. Gimbel

Kimberlie & Bruce Jodar

Gary & Margaret Kachadurian

Gary Kunis & Connie Wong

$10,000–$24,999

Tim & Mary Barnard

Michael & Sharon Beehler

Diane L. Brawner

Thomas & Dale Bray

Cal & Tricia DeSouza

Donald B. Gimbel, in honor of Emily Paris-Martin

Kate Hansen

Carol G. & Sal Lalani

Morton H. Meyerson

Gianforte Family Foundation

Barbara & Ben Phinney

Skye Raiser & David Perlin

Robert & Donna Ritchie

David Ross & Risi

David & Kippy Sands

Diane & Lee Selby

Arne & Steffi Siegel Endowment of Montana Community Foundation

Karin Utzinger in memory of Robert Utzinger

Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation

Yellowstone Theological Institute

$5,000–$9,999

Anonymous

Clyde Aspevig & Carol Guzman

Joanne & Billy Berghold

Ron & Judy Clark

Brenda & Swep Davis

Sharon Eversman

First Security Bank

Sidney E. Frank Foundation

Karen Gilhousen

Prof. Rob Maher & Lynn Peterson-Maher

Kenneth & Mary May

Iris M. L. Model

Margaret Perryman

Lisa & Keith Reed

Charles & Kathy Rinker

Rick Sanders & Janice Hand

Cliff & Laura Schutter

Drs. Dennis & Anne Wentz

Renée & Stuart Westlake

Zinovo, Peg Rifleman

$2,000–$4,999

Cathy Costakis

Chevron

Suzanne Day & Jim Penhale

ERA Landmark, Robyn Erlenbush

First Interstate Bank Foundation

Gilhousen Family Foundation

Jerome & Barbara Glickman

Tamara Havenhill-Jacobs & Chris Jacobs

Mike Delaney & Ileana Indreland

Jim Kramer & Nancy Smrcka

Barbara Pastine

Carin Phillips

Mark & Amy Ranalli

Thomas & Sheri Riggs

Judy Smith

Larry Springer

E. Wayne Vinje

Richard Wolff & Dr. Janel Cariño

$1,000–$1,999

Jecyn Bremer

American Bank, Tyler Erickson

Steve & Janis Barrett

Diane Beeman

William & Mary Kent Dabney

Jeff & Rona Davison

Michael Ditton LTC, USA Ret.

Pat & Diane Dwyer

Emily Gadd, in memory of Anne S. Barnaby

Virginia Ferré

Carolyn Hopper, in honor of Nick Ober, Principal Bassoon, and Jerry Makeever, Trumpet

Al & Ellen Jesaitis

Larry & Rita Merkel

Montana Cultural Trust

Northwest Energy

Emily Paris-Martin & Charlie Martin

Timothy & Leora Paulick

Leo Proxell

Karen Ransford, in memory of John Ransford

Marjorie Ready

Tim & Carmen Sheehy

Tom Stonecipher

William & Donna Stratton

Sandy Strother

Julie Videon

$500–$999

Anonymous (2)

Nasim Aleagha

David Bybee, M.D. & Polly A. Coombs, M.D., in honor of Greg Young, Clarinet

Jim Chandler

Frances G. & Lewis Allen Davies, Cleveland Foundation

Joshua & Sally Dickinson

Dawn Downey

Steven & Carolyn Eagle

Richard Gillette & Susan Hinkins

Monica Guenther & Terry Anderson

Stephen Guggenheim & Amanda Cater

John Heidke, in memory of Barbara Hays

Mary Howard

John Huleatt

Matt & Hope Kapsner

Brian Keefe

Eileen Kenney

Jack & Tawnie Lehman

Barbara Lloyd

Kathy Malone

Dr. Kenneth May & Angela Chenier

Ronald McAdams & Susan McCune

Mike & Rhoda McCormick

Donna Murphrey

Rick & Nancy Ojala

Marylee Reese

Chip Ritter & Nicole Rosenleaf Ritter

Sandra Roe

Kristina Rodgers

Emily Ryan

Victoria Ryan & Paul Martin

Donna Thompson

John & Ann White

Tracy Williams

Adam Williams

Richard & Janet Young

Steven & Mary Lourdes Young

Gloria Zimmer

$250–$499

Bob & Jan Beekman

Larry Bowman

Christine Bredberg

Evelyn Cranston

Betsy Day

Jack & Karen Day

The Daily Coffee

Ruth Dunn

Douglas Dybvig

Jim Fullan

Jane & Bill Gum

Michael Hannon

Roxanne & Ritt Hoblitt

Linda Hodges

Katherine Hubbard

Lorna Johnson

Beth Kaeding, in honor of the Cello section

Julie Kunen

Mary Leonardi

Stephen McGuire

Gerald & LaVonne Nielsen

Dennis & Marilyn Raffensperger

June Safford

Leslie Spencer

Steep Mountain Tea House

Lisa Trankley

Dan & Beverly Triemstra

Lee Wagner

Donna West

Ralph Williams, in memory of Kris Williams

Richard & Robin Wolcott

Judy Worley

Jeffrey & Lauran Yates

Vicky York

$100–$249

Anonymous (12)

Ivan & Judy Albrecht

Stephanie Alexander

Craig Allen

Ancora Inc.

Alysia Andrikopoulos

Keara Baldwin

Anne Banks

Lisa Barrett

Anthony J. & Melissa R. Barton

Linda Batchelder

Battelle Memorial Institute

Carl Bennett

Pat Booth

Victoria Brailsford

Roger & Noreen Breeding

Charles O. & Sally Broughton

Ken & Janis Bruwelheide

Michael & Lisa Burgard

Paul Butler

Patrick & Susan Byorth

Lila Cebulla

Jirina & Frank Cikan

Rodger Clingman

Patricia & Fred Cornelious

Philip & Joan Cory

Bobby Crowe

Frances Crowley

Terry & Laura Cunningham

Marty Daiello

John Derr

Sharon Ditterline

Patricia Donovan

Patrick & Lyn Dougherty

Kelley Dowdell

Catherine & Richard Dowdell

Paul & Lynne Elder

Carol Elliott

Brooke Erb, in memory of Patti O'Rourke

Barbara & Edward Fenstermacher

Carol & Patrick Flaherty

Helen Flath

Janet & Paul Fox

Gary & Grace France

Jim & Bunny Gaffney

Marcus & Sara Giese

Marianne Gilman

Mildred Goddard

Robin Goddard

Kelsye Gould

Susan Gregory

Marilyn Guggenheim

Connie Hahn

Katie Hart

Nancy J. Hatfield

Bob & Jane Hawks

Wayne O. & Marilyn R. Hill

Kathleen Hoffman

Jamie Hovey

Larry Huang

Norman Huynh, in honor of Sue Makeever

Neil & Debra Jamieson

Doris Janes

Fern Jarmulnek

Ronalee & Edwin Johnson

Stacy & Bob Jovick

Erin Kennedy

Barbara Keremedjiev

Steve & Colette Kirchhoff

Jill Kirk

Marilyn & Richard Klein

Don Kronenberger

Julie Kunen

Kayla Lee

Jeremy Lennox

Bruce Linderman

Lockhorn Cider

Ruth Lott

Nancy MacPherson

Susannah Maiken

Gregory & Robin Mascari

Mary Ellen Mattison

Bruce & Joan T. McNab

Kirk Michels

Sylvia Miller

Thomas Mitro

Stephen S. Mueller

Nancy Newton

Eleanor Nolan

Bernie & Pat Oglietti

Jeanne Olson

Rosalyn Omer

Judy & Fred Opperman

Tina Ovnic

Eva Patten

David & Deborah Peters

Linda Pierce

Karol Pollock

Denis & Barbara Prager

Patricia Purvis

Joyce Putnam

Christina Reynolds

Josee Richard

Dan & Toba Rieder

Linda Rodgers

Kandy Rose

Robert Roush, in memory of Anna Lee and Allan Roush

Michael Ryan

Thomas Ryan

Mary Lou Schreiner

Deborah Schuerr

Theresa Schuster

Ted & Barbara Scofield

John & Evelyn Sheehan

Kelly Shefelbine

Stephen & Renata Shore

Douglas Sievers

Marjorie Smith

Ira Smotherman

Kathy Steele

David & Patti Steinmuller

Randy & Sally Sullivan

Barbara Taylor

Carol Jo Thompson

Mary Tidlow

Carl E. Trinca

James Van Lopik

Jennifer Versaevel

Zhengyan Wang

Linda Ward

E. Gail Weingart & Ed Sedivy

Priscilla Westesen

Kathleen Wetstein

Margaret Wherry

David & Debbie Wieggel

Janalynn Wong

Gretchen Woodhull

Caroline Zimmerman

*Listings for the 2023/24 season reflect gifts and pledges received by June 30, 2023 intended for the 2023/24 season. Listings for the 2022/23 season reflect gifts intended for the 2022/23 season. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy. If your name has been inadvertently omitted or incorrectly listed, please accept our apologies and contact the Bozeman Symphony Development team at 406-585-9774. Thank you for your generosity.

Corporate Sponsors

The Bozeman Symphony extends a special thank you to the following corporations whose generosity and commitment to the arts in our community keep symphonic music alive.

mary.e.howard@morganstanley.com advisor.morganstanley.com/mary.e.howard MT Insurance Lic.#3000567640 NMLS #1842860

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (“Morgan Stanley”), its affiliates and Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. Clients should consult their tax advisor for matters involving taxation and tax planning and their attorney for matters involving trust and estate planning, charitable giving, philanthropic planning and other legal matters.

Volunteers

The Bozeman Symphony wishes to thank the volunteers for their support throughout the season.

Alison Adam-Buskey

Jodi Allison-Bunnell

Susan Anderegg

Loretta Bendz

Laura & Richard Bennett

Irina Bloch

Ashley Boar

Roger Breeding

Tina Buckingham

Jim Buonamici

Bethany Caball

Connie Cade

Kay & Ray Campeau

Melody Cappelletti

Mariana Carrera

Annette Carson

Jake Cherry

Sara Christensen

Kasey Clemens

Fred Cornelious

Patricia Cornelious

Simon Cranston

Woody Cranston

Sarah Creech

Beth De Shazo

Drew Dickey

Walker Dobbs

Marie Doubrava

Joy Dowell

Brooke Dunnagan

Bonnie Eichenberger

Ann Ellsworth

Sara Freedwoman

Mary Ellen Freeman

Ajax Ganje

Blythe Ganje

Jane Genholts

Olivia Gervacio Jakabosky

Hannah Giese

Kayla Gnerer

Ava Graham

Mary Jo Gregory

Sophia Hahner

Larisa Hammond

Ryan Hansen

Eileen Hosking

Arleen “Tiny” Hutchinson

Margie Kankrlik

Michelina Kazeminejad

Temia Keel

Anne Kenney

Amy Kinman

Lynn Kinnaman

Carrie Krause

Janka Kubisova

Annika Lawrence

Martin Lawrence

Verena Lawrence

Phyllis Lewis

Chandra Lind

Susan MacCall

Jake MacDuff

Ann Maroney

Myriah Marsh

Paul Martin

Steve Marty

Ken & Mary May

Colin Mensch

Christa Merdorf Lawrence

Maria Moresca

Sally Moyce

Danielle Nicholas

Christine Nillson

Maggie Oldershaw

Patrick O’Neil

Benjamin & Barbara Phinney

Karol & John Pollock

Neil Poulsen

Pam Poulsen

Jorie & Mark Ready

Gretchen Rupp

Vicki Ryan

Elaine Samuelson

Kippy & David Sands

Elizabeth Schmidt

Gonnie Siebel

Teri Sinopoli

Summer Slevin

Brian Smithers

Durward Sobek

Sarah Sobek

Ellen Stephenson

Demetri Stoumbos

Jessica Swandal

Carolyn “Rusty” Swingle

Claudia Tedesco

Susan Tollefson

Kathy & Lawrence VanDyke

Scarlet van Garderen

Marielle Walker

Donna K. Wallace

Rosanna Watson

Carol Weaver

BB Webb

Austin Whisler

Suzanne Winchester

VOLUNTEER WITH THE BOZEMAN SYMPHONY

Bozeman Symphony volunteers support the activities of the orchestra, symphonic choir, administrative team, and other outreach programs and special events. Our concert season consists of 20-plus events each year that rely on volunteer support for success. The Symphony’s concert performances at Willson Auditorium engage the help of 30–60 volunteers over the course of a weekend! It truly takes a “volunteer village” and the Symphony is tremendously grateful to all of you that have volunteered and continue to volunteer.

"I started volunteering with the Bozeman Symphony in 2008 when I was in 4th grade with my dad. At first it was just me and my dad, then slowly the rest of the family started volunteering as well. We have all developed a deep love for the Symphony and the incredible music they play, and I was inspired to choose to play violin in my 5th grade orchestra. The Bozeman Symphony makes a big impact in our community, and it has been wonderful to see how the Symphony has grown over the years. I am excited to continue to help our community enjoy the incredible music and talent of the Symphony!"

—Verena Lawrence

"Back when my boys were in the lower grade schools I always had three tickets to the community concerts. They would put on their suits and ties, and we would always sit up in the balcony. Now, volunteering and supporting the Bozeman Symphony is just something that I believe in. It's important for our youth to be exposed to it."

—Phyllis Lewis

If you would like to become a volunteer, please visit the Bozeman Symphony website: bozemansymphony .org/volunteer or contact the office at 406 585 9774

VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Arleen “Tiny” Hutchinson, Woody Cranston, and Simon Cranston

by Elizabeth Schwartz

Standing 4’10” and affectionately known to everyone as “Tiny,” Arleen Hutchinson has been volunteering with the Bozeman Symphony for the past half-dozen seasons. “I’m a utility volunteer,” Arleen declares. “I’ll do anything.”

Arleen and her husband moved to Bozeman 22 years ago from Helena. After her husband died, Arleen got involved with RSVP, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, which connected her with various volunteer opportunities around town. Around six years ago, the Bozeman Symphony called. “I knew little about music, except that I like to listen to it,” says Arleen. “As a child, I always listened to the radio; I grew up in a small town and there weren’t a lot of live music opportunities.” Arleen became a symphony usher, helping patrons find their seats and handing out programs. “Once I saw how much I enjoyed

it, I stayed with it. Over the years, I see the same people coming to concerts, and I’ve gotten to know many of them. I like that. The patrons are very courteous.”

The Symphony’s staff have earned Arleen’s respect and praise as well. “Everyone who works for the symphony always remembers to thank us; they are a helpful, considerate, kind crew, and that includes our music director, Norman Huynh. He is so friendly to the volunteers, and he often joins in to help us with whatever we need. That’s why I keep coming back.”

One of the perks of volunteering for a performing arts organization is, of course, the chance to attend concerts for free. “I never even thought about the fact that I got to hear the music for free when I started,” Arleen admits. “At the time, the symphony was out of my comfort zone.” Since then, Arleen has discovered, to her pleasant surprise, that a symphony orchestra can appeal to everyone, no matter their personal experiences or preferences. “The music is for everybody: children, elderly people, people with disabilities, everyone,” Arleen declares. This season, she is especially looking forward to December’s Holiday Spectacular, featuring the Bozeman Symphonic Choir.

Musically, Woody Cranston is a child of the late 1960s-early 1970s. “I’ve been interested in music since I was a kid,” he acknowledges. “My parents used to collect classical LPs.” After a brief stint on cornet in elementary school, Woody switched to guitar, and by high school he was playing regularly. Among his favorites: the Beatles, the Monkees, Joni

Mitchell, Pink Floyd, Carol King, Janis Ian, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. “Today we always have music on – the local college station usually,” says Woody. He and his son Simon began volunteering with the Bozeman Symphony last season. “We got involved with the symphony because Simon is really into music, particularly Pink Floyd,” says Woody. “Anything we can do for free is great, so we volunteer.”

Woody and Simon, who has Down Syndrome, are regulars on the volunteer circuit, but the symphony has become a special activity for both of them. “Simon and I are greeters/ushers,” says Woody. “He loves volunteering. People see how much he enjoys it, and that gives them pleasure.” When Simon was in high school he learned basic conducting skills and conducted “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Bozeman High School spring band concert. “Simon was friends with our previous music director, and always likes to talk to [current Music Director] Norman [Huynh] whenever he sees him,” Woody remarks, adding, “Simon knows more people in Bozeman than I do. Everyone knows his name, while I’m ‘Simon’s dad.’” For Woody, a retired professor of molecular biology at Montana State University, the best thing about volunteering is making new friends and encountering old friends he wouldn’t see otherwise. “I see people I haven’t seen in 20 years at the symphony; and I get to discover different aspects of their interests. I get to see a different side of them. I like the sense of community I get from volunteering, and the symphony is part of that

it binds us together.”

Since its establishment in 1964, Old Main Gallery has been a fixture to Historic Downtown Bozeman, Montana.

Through evocative and engaging exhibitions, workshops & lectures, the gallery’s goal is to provide Gallatin Valley and beyond with a holistic understanding of and appreciation for contemporary locally based fine art.

RED STAR REVENNAUGH HUNTER PEPION WESTPHALEN