Mahler & Mozart

Friday, June 4, 2021 at 1:00 PM Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 7:30 PM Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 7:00 PM

BPO Classics Series MAHLER & MOZART

JoAnn Falletta, conductor Nikki Chooi, violin Antoine Lefebvre, violin Caroline Gilbert, viola

Roman Mekinulov, cello Daniel Pendley, double bass Kyle van Schoonhoven, tenor AARON JAY KERNIS Elegy for those we lost (2020) MICHAEL ABELS Delights & Dances for string quartet and string orchestra Nikki Chooi, violin Antoine Lefebvre, violin Caroline Gilbert, viola Roman Mekinulov, cello

MAHLER / Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen arr. Schoenberg (Songs of the Wayfarer) I. Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht (“When My Sweetheart is Married”) II. Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld (“I Went This Morning Over the Field”) III. Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer (“I Have a Gleaming Knife”) IV. Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz (“The Two Blue Eyes of My Beloved”) Kyle van Schoonhoven, tenor

MOZART Serenade No. 6 for orchestra in D major, K. 239, “Serenata notturna” I. Marcia maestoso II. Minuetto III. Rondo: allegretto Nikki Chooi, violin Antoine Lefebvre, violin Caroline Gilbert, viola Daniel Pendley, double bass

This concert graciously supported by the

Constance Shepard Walsh Memorial Endowment Fund You can learn more about this program from JoAnn Falletta’s introduction at bpo.org/musically-speaking Program and performers subject to change.

KYLE VAN SCHOONHOVEN, TENOR

American tenor Kyle van Schoonhoven, a recent graduate of the prestigious Adler Fellowship Program at San Francisco Opera, made his SFO company debut as the Young Servant in Strauss’ Elektra, and has since covered such leading roles as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Aegisth in Elektra, Froh in Das Rheingold, and Siegmund in DieWalküre.

Mr. van Schoonhoven’s most recent engagements include performances of Tchekalinsky (while covering Ghermann) in The Queen of Spades with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Lensky in Eugene Onegin with Livermore Valley Opera, the role of Hades in Julian Wachner’s Rev. 23 with the Prototype Festival, and the title role in Act III of Siegfried with the New York Repertory Orchestra. He was scheduled to make his Metropolitan Opera debut in Tristan und Isolde, sing his first performances of Erik in The Flying Dutchman for Opera Maine and the Lakes Area Music Festival, and return to Lyric Opera of Chicago in Samson et Dalila, but unfortunately all of these engagements were cancelled or postponed due to Covid-19. Future seasons see his debut with Opera de Rouen and a return to Livermore Valley Opera. Additional highlights of recent seasons include Mr. van Schoonhoven’s role debut as Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos with Cincinnati Opera, his debut as Don Jose in Carmen with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and Rodolfo in La bohème with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. With the San Francisco Opera, he has covered Cavaradossi in Tosca and Uncle Billy/Billy Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. Mr. van Schoonhoven is the recipient of a 2019 George London award, was a 2017 Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, has received the Nicolai Gedda Memorial Award, and was a finalist in the 2016 Jensen Foundation Voice Competition. Additional repertory includes the title role in Chandler Carter’s Bobby, Don José in Carmen, Alfredo in La Traviata, Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, Hoffmann in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oronte in Alcina, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Peter Fallow in Stefania de Kenessey’s Bonfire of the Vanities, and Genaro in the US Russian language premiere cast of Prokofiev’s Maddalena. In the summer of 2016, Mr. van Schoonhoven participated in the Merola Opera Program. His performance of the Prayer from Wagner’s Rienzi was praised as “gleaming” and “potent” by the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition to participating in numerous young artist programs, van Schoonhoven holds a Master of Music degree from Westminster Choir College as well as a Bachelor of Music from Fredonia School of Music.

ANTOINE LEFEBVRE, VIOLIN

Canadian violinist Antoine Lefebvre was appointed Principal Second Violin of the BPO in September 2001. He began his violin studies at age 5, and at 13, was admitted into a special Bachelor of Music program at the University of Montreal under the direction of J.F. Rivest and Vladimir Landsman. He obtained a M.M. in Violin Performance at McGill University with Yehonathan Berick, and then completed a music fellowship program under the direction of Richard Roberts and Andre Roy. Summers 1992 to 1996, Antoine studied with Stephen Shipps at the Meadowmount School of Music. Summer of 1999 he worked at Ohio’s Kent Blossom Chamber Music Festival, where he received the Joseph Gingold Award. In 2000 – 2001, he performed in Breckenridge, Colorado as the Principal Second Violin with the National Repertory Orchestra under the directorship of Carl Topilow. Antoine has won several national and international competitions, and has been invited for many concerts broadcasted by CBC Radio-Canada. He has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Montreal Contemporary Orchestra, Orchestre Metropolitan of Montreal, Mount Royal Symphony, and Laval Symphony. In Buffalo, Antoine has been featured by the BPO and Ars Nova.

CAROLINE GILBERT, VIOLA

Born in Bloomington, IN, Caroline played violin in the pre-college program at Indiana University. She doublemajored in music and pre-med at Vanderbilt University for two years before transferring to Indiana University to complete her Bachelor of Music with Atar Arad. While at Indiana, she won the concerto competition and performed Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher as a soloist with the university chamber orchestra, and also represented the school at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., performing in the “Conservatory Project” concert series. For her M.M., she attended The Juilliard School, studying with Samuel Rhodes and Rodger Tapping. Her performance in the Keshet Elion summer mastercourse in Israel was broadcast in New York, and she went on to play with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; worked with Michael Tilson Thomas as a member of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in Sydney, Australia; toured Turkey, Spain, and Germany with the Schleswig-Holstien Festival Orchestra; played alongside the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood Music Festival; and spent three summers in Switzerland playing with the Verbier Festival Orchestra. After completing her degrees, she joined the New World Symphony until winning the BPO Principal Viola position in 2017.

DANIEL PENDLEY, DOUBLE BASS

Daniel Pendley joined the BPO as Principal Bass in September 2007. He moved to New York from Kentucky, where he served as the Assistant Principal Bass with the Louisville Orchestra in 2006-2007. Mr. Pendley was a member of the Lexington Philharmonic for several years, in addition to occasionally playing with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and the Dayton Philharmonic. Mr. Pendley earned his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in bass performance from the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music while studying with Albert Laszlo. He pursued further studies at the Aspen Music Festival and School as a fellowship student with Mr. Laszlo, as well as Eugene Levinson, Bruce Bransby, Chris Hanulik, and Paul Ellison. He lives on Buffalo’s West Side with his wife, Ann, also a bass player.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The Buffalo Philharmonic musicians and I close our 20-21 season with four works of great variety and profound meaning. We begin with a work written by American composer Aaron Kernis during the pandemic as a threnody for those we lost, and we hope that his moving work will express our personal sorrow for all those who suffered during this very difficult year. Gustav Mahler’s poignant Songs of a Wayfarer express the sadness of unrequited love, and we are honored to have tenor Kyle van Schoonhoven back on our stage to sing this sublime work. Mozart’s Serenata Notturna brings beautiful elegance and serenity, and Michael Abels’ Delights and Dances features our solo strings in a piece that will absolutely charm you. The musicians and I send you our heartfelt thanks for sharing this unusual season with us. Knowing that you were watching and listening filled us with hope and optimism for the future.

With gratitude and love,

JoAnn and the BPO

PROGRAM NOTES

Aaron Jay Kernis

(American; b.1960-)

Elegy for those we lost (2020)

In mid-March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic quickly took hold in the United States, American composer Aaron Jay Kernis contracted a mild case of the virus, making him acutely aware of and deeply impacted by the toll it was taking on families dealing with loss, overwhelmed healthcare workers, and students and colleagues dealing with isolation. The Yale School of Music, where Kernis serves as a Faculty Composer, began Postcards from Confinement, a project for students, alumni, and faculty to contribute short musical reactions to the pandemic. Kernis’ contribution came in May 2020

as a work for a solitary pianist titled Elegy (for those we lost), and was a reflective, mournful reaction to the devastation caused by the virus. Kernis expanded the reach of the work through a commission of filmmaker Esther Shubinski, who delicately combined video and imagery supplied by 51 families honoring their loved ones lost to the virus. As ensembles have worked to gather again, Elegy has a wider impact in an orchestral arrangement Kernis first made for the Yale Philharmonia in February 2021.

Gustav Mahler (German; 1860-1911)

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

(“Songs of a Wayfarer”) (1885) (Arr. 1920, Arnold Schoenberg (Austrian; 1874-1951))

Michael Abels

(American; b.1962-)

Delights and Dancesfor string

quartet and string orchestra (2007)

Broadly known from his cinematic scoring of Jordan Peele’s Oscarwinning film Get Out, Michael Abels’ concert works have been performed by numerous renowned ensembles and orchestras. The Sphinx Organization’s focus on African American composers like Abels led to a 10th anniversary commission for which he created Delights & Dances in 2007. Originally designed to highlight the brilliant talent of each member of the Sphinx Orchestra, it was composed for an ensemble of strings with many of the players acting as soloists throughout the work. Its current format is for a featured string quartet with string orchestra. The calming lines of the work’s opening solos hint at the bluesy developments to come. The quartet engages in emotionally billowing counterpoint, with the themes reframed as singing melodies streaming over pizzicato accompaniment. Throughout the work, the quartet develops dramatic melodic material that morphs into a raucous hoedown, with the orchestra adding accents and singing lines as the soloists dazzle.

I. “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht” (“When My

Sweetheart is Married”) II. “Ging heut’ Morgen über’s

Feld” (“I Went This Morning

Over the Field”) III. “Ich hab’ ein glühend

Messer” (“I Have a Gleaming

Knife”) IV. “Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz” (“The Two

Blue Eyes of My Beloved”)

By 1900, Gustav Mahler was a celebrity opera conductor, also appealing to a new generation of composers as a giant in the world of contemporary symphonic music. Fourteen years his junior, Arnold Schoenberg held a paradoxical rebelliousness toward and reverence for him, and would become something of a protégé of Mahler’s. Schoenberg’s music at the beginning of the decade caught Mahler’s attention for its dramatic emotional thrust, propelled by modern, masterful orchestrations and a challenging harmonic vocabulary. Although worthy of Schoenberg’s 33

admiration, Mahler’s approach to harmony was conservative compared to the young firebrand. As the decade progressed, so too did Schoenberg’s progressive approach toward tonality, eventually crossing the line toward atonality, vexing Mahler. Although the two diverged in aesthetics, Schoenberg formed a modernity for the new century with important ties to the past, and maintained loyalty to Mahler long after his untimely death in 1911. In 1918, Schoenberg and his pupils founded the Society for Private Musical Performances, which for three years presented hundreds of concerts featuring modern composers to a selective, receptive Viennese audience. Economic restraints meant that the performances usually relied on piano reductions or small chamber groups, rather than full orchestral presentations. And while atonality was the flavor of the day, Schoenberg’s decision to include Mahler’s work meant the need for a chamber ensemble reduction, which led to his arrangement of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (“Songs of a Wayfarer”) in 1920. Though best-known today for his nine Symphonies, the origin of Mahler’s compositional interest was in song, or Lieder, and folk subject matter, which often made their way into his symphonies. A lifelong obsession with Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a collection of German folk poetry, much of which would serve as the text for a separate song cycle, led Mahler to compose comparable texts and songs of his own, used for Songs of a Wayfarer, which was composed in the context of a tumultuous romantic situation, roughly from 1884-86. A decade of tampering, rewriting, and arrangements have caused some discrepancies in the score, leaving the 1896 orchestration as the most definitive version, used as the basis for Schoenberg’s arrangement. Songs of a Wayfarer illustrates Mahler’s conflicted sentimentality, harnessing colorful melodies to juxtapose moods, often in ironic and tragic ways. Mahler’s voice in song and symphonic composition are often identical, and much of the music used here was later recycled in several of Mahler’s Symphonies. The opening song, “When My Sweetheart is Married,” has the Wayfarer despairing at the loss of his love to another, while simultaneously observing the beauty of the world around him. The setting is bittersweet, with a mournful, haunting melody punctuated by the sounds of nature, with a brief, sweet central diversion. The second song, “I Went This Morning Over the Field,” is a joyous, folksy reflection on the beauty of nature, but the protagonist cannot help but be affected by his loss. The third movement, “I Have a Gleaming Knife,” is a dramatic contrast, as the Wayfarer despairs as all things remind him of his lost love, and likens the pain to a scorching knife piercing his heart. The energized agony of the music is grim and brooding. The final song, “The Two Blue Eyes of My Beloved,” is set much like a funeral march. As the Wayfarer despairs over his obsession with his loss, harmonies alternate between major and minor, illustrating his conflicting grief. Mahler brings resolution, as if acknowledging the inevitability of grief, leading the Wayfarer to a moment of calming rest under a tree. Although a moment of finality, the text embraces the comforting charm of the natural world.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(Austrian; 1756-1791)

Serenade No. 6 for Orchestra in D major, K. 239, “Serenata Notturna”

(1776) I. Marcia (maestoso) II. Minuetto

III. Rondo (allegretto)

Salzburg’s Archbishop took pride in his city’s foremost musical family, providing funding for Leopold Mozart and his children (Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl) to travel Europe, performing for its grandest courts. Funding for Mozart’s childhood adventures dried up when the Archbishop’s austere successor, Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, called the family back to Salzburg. Stuck in his provincial town with what he considered unworthy work and compensation, Mozart’s late-teenage years were characterized by irreverence to authority, and both he and his father butted heads with the unappreciative Colloredo. With tepid enthusiasm, Mozart skirted his obligations to Colloredo (the royal court and the church), and instead was energized in his approach to music for private patrons with such works as his Serenata Notturna. Generally, Mozart’s Serenades were composed to accompany an evening soirée of hob-knobbing for Salzburg’s well-to-do and social elite. Completed in January of 1776, his new Serenade would have been prepared for a forthcoming springtime event. With the inclusion of a timpanist, Mozart elevated what could have been easy-listening background music to something much more interesting and bold. Perhaps influenced by his recent works for university graduations, the Serenade’s opening carries the appropriate pomp of a Maestoso (majestic) march. The string soloists provide moments of tranquility, yet exciting interruptions persist! The following minuet preserves the bold stateliness of the opening, but a quietly flowing trio is a welcome diversion. The substantial finale is an electric Rondo that features dramatic twists and turns. Playful cadenzas, a warm adagio, and a lively country dance are all heard through Mozart’s creatively rich finale.

Chaz Stuart, 2021

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Join the Buffalo Philharmonic as we celebrate Erie County’s 200th Birthday!

The significant milestone of Erie County’s bicentennial is an opportunity to join together as a community to reflect on the history, stories, and legacies of the many men and women who came before us, and to celebrate the diversity that makes Erie County such a vibrant place to live. New York State officially recognized Erie County on April 2, 1821. After the American Revolution, the Holland Land Company had purchased 3.2 million acres of land from the Seneca Nation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). In 1808, New York organized the westernmost land as Niagara County, but by 1821, the population had increased so much that Niagara County was split. Erie County was created, defined as the land south of Tonawanda Creek, consisting of ten towns and the Buffalo Creek Reservation. Today, Erie County has twenty-five towns, three cities, two tribal reservations, and a population of approximately 920,000. Erie County has ties to several U.S. Presidents. Millard Fillmore practiced law in East Aurora before serving as President. Later, he returned to Erie County and helped establish the University of Buffalo, Buffalo General Hospital, and the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. Grover Cleveland practiced law in Buffalo before becoming Erie County Sheriff and then Mayor of Buffalo. President William McKinley was assassinated at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and on September 14th, Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President at the Wilcox Mansion on Delaware Avenue. 36

Once heavily forested frontier, the Erie Canal brought prosperity and made the region one of the largest shipping and rail centers in the country. Erie County was also the birthplace of numerous inventors or the manufacturing homes of their inventions. Buffalo has a history with the Ball glass fruit jar, the Barcalounger, and Carrier Air Conditioning. Wilson Greatbatch developed the implantable pacemaker in Clarence, and Bell Aircraft, one of the largest suppliers of aircraft during WWII, was first established on Elmwood Avenue. The county boasts major works by both local and national architects: Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, H. H. Richardson, E.B. Green and William Wicks, and Louise Bethune. Famous writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, and Lauren Belfer have called the area “home.” The county has given the world Fisher-Price toys and the chicken wing. Today, we celebrate our heritage and look forward to a bright future. The bio-medical research corridor is at the forefront of international scientific research. Companies from across the county do business internationally and even in outer space! The county has showcased its history, art, and architecture to become a heritage tourism destination. The Buffalo Philharmonic is honored to represent Erie County internationally through our radio and television broadcasts, recordings, and touring. We are grateful to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and the members of the Erie County Legislature for supporting the arts and cultural organizations in our community, and celebrate the bicentennial of our great Erie County!