11 minute read
New World Symphony
Friday, January 14, 2022 at 10:30 AM Saturday, January 15, 2022 at 7:30 PM
Classic Series NEW WORLD SYMPHONY
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MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS
DVOŘÁK From the Diary of Anne Frank
Part I: Allegro con brio
Part 2: Lento e lugubre
Part 3: Allegretto con movimento Penny Myers, narrator
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, "From the New World"
I. Adagio - Allegro molto
II. Largo
III. Molto vivace – Poco sostenuto
IV. Allegro con fuoco
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Patrons are asked to turn off all electronic devices. The use of cameras and recording devices is strictly prohibited.
TEDDY ABRAMS, CONDUCTOR
An unusually versatile musician, Teddy Abrams is the widelyacclaimed Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra. Now in his eighth season as Music Director, Teddy has fostered interdisciplinary collaborations with the Louisville Ballet and Speed Art Museum, and led Louisville’s cultural response to the pandemic with the Lift Up Lou initiative. Among other works, the 2021-22 season includes the world premieres of Teddy’s new piano concerto written for Yuja Wang and a concerto for timba band and orchestra composed by GRAMMY winner Dafnis Prieto. His rap-opera, The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, premiered in 2017, celebrating photo by Chris Witzke Louisville’s hometown hero with an all-star cast that included Rhiannon Giddens and Jubilant Sykes, as well as Jecorey “1200” Arthur, with whom he started the Louisville Orchestra Rap School. Abrams’ work with the Louisville Orchestra has been profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, PBS’ Articulate, and the PBS NewsHour. In recognition of his groundbreaking work, Teddy Abrams was named Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year. Teddy Abrams has been Music Director and Conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra since 2013, where, in addition to an annual three-week festival of concerts, he has taken the orchestra across the region in the creation of new work—including Michael Gordon’s Natural History, which was premiered on the edge of Crater Lake National Park in partnership with the National Parks Service, and was the subject of the PBS documentary Symphony for Nature; and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw’s Brush, an experiential work written to be performed in Summer 2021 on the Jacksonville Woodlands Trail system. Abrams recently collaborated with Jim James, vocalist and guitarist for My Morning Jacket, on the song cycle The Order of Nature, which they premiered with the Louisville Orchestra in 2018 and recorded on Decca Gold. They performed the work with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 2019. Teddy Abrams records on Universal Music Group’s Decca Gold Label. In addition to The Order of Nature, Teddy and the Louisville Orchestra recorded All In in 2017 with vocalist Storm Large. Teddy’s most recent recording was an original track, “Fourth Mode,” as part of UMG’s World Sleep Day. As a guest conductor, Teddy has worked with such distinguished ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Chicago, San Francisco, National, Houston, Pacific, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Vancouver, Colorado, Utah, and Phoenix Symphonies; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the Sarasota and Florida Orchestras. Internationally, he has worked with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and the Malaysian Philharmonic. He served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2012-2014. From 2008 to 2011, Abrams was the Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony.
CANTOR PENNY MYERS, NARRATOR
Versatile, well-respected, engaging, and gifted are a few of the many qualities attributed to Cantor Penny Myers. Cantor Myers’ love of Judaism and her passion for engaging congregants of all ages have been central to her Cantorate since 1998. Cantor Myers earned her BA in Voice from SUNY Buffalo in 1996 and a Master’s in Music Education from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1999. Cantor Myers returned to Buffalo, her hometown, with her husband in 1999 where she served as Cantor at Temple Beth Zion, the largest synagogue in Western New York, for over 14 years. She also was accredited by the Cantor’s Assembly and invested as a Cantor after completing their program in 2013. Cantor Myers is also a soughtafter lecturer, leading sessions on pedagogical practices within worship as well as in Hebrew School education. Cantor Myers’ lyric soprano has been heard all over North America, Europe and Israel. Cantor Myers has been the recipient of many awards and the subject of articles about the changing nature of the Cantorate. Cantor Myers is married to neurologist Dr. Bennett Myers. They reside in Amherst, NY with their three children, Hunter, Saul, and Corrinne. She also has an outstanding collection of RUSH albums and paraphernalia.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Conductor Teddy Abrams makes his debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic with a superb program! The concert opens with a work composed by BPO former music director Michael Tilson Thomas, "From The Diary of Anne Frank." This moving memorial based on the words of the young holocaust victim will be narrated by Penny Myers, and marks the commemoration of International Memorial Day this month. Maestro Abrams closes the program with Antonin Dvořák's cherished gift to his adopted country, written during the time he was living and teaching in New York City. His New World Symphony has become one of the most beloved pieces in our repertoire - a not to be missed concert! The BPO and I are happy to welcome Teddy Abrams and Penny Myers to Kleinhans Music Hall.
PROGRAM NOTES
Michael Tilson Thomas
(American; 1944)
From the Diary of Anne Frank
(1990) I. Allegro con brio II. Lento e lugubre III. Allegretto con movimento
Anne Frank’s writings are perhaps the most universally reflected-upon words to emerge following the Holocaust. German by birth (1929), her Jewish family fled for Amsterdam as the Nazi Party came to power. As the Germans occupied the Netherlands, the family hid for two years, during which time Anne kept her famous diary. The family was arrested in 1944 and transported to concentration camps, with Frank and her sister going to Auschwitz, then Bergen-Belsen where they both died. Her father was the family’s only survivor, and upon return home he discovered Anne’s diary was preserved. Her dream of becoming a writer was realized when he published the diary in 1947. In 1952 an English translation from the original Dutch was published as The Diary of a Young Girl. Praised for her mature literary talents and humanistic insight, Anne Frank and her work have been embraced as a broadly representative voice of the victims of the Holocaust. great musical voices. Born in California to a family with a history in the theater—his grandfather was a star in Manhattan’s Yiddish Theater District—he was a musical prodigy at a young age and would study at the University of California. His career as a conductor is impressive and varied, notably serving as the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Symphony for more than two decades, and founding and directing the New World Symphony, an ensemble comprised of talented young musicians. His musical portfolio also boasts a number of beloved compositions. The inception of one such composition, From the Diaries of Anne Frank, began as a dream for the beloved actress Audrey Hepburn. Born in occupied Holland, Hepburn was the same age as Anne Frank and felt deeply committed to her work. As an ambassador to UNICEF, she engaged the organization to commission Tilson Thomas for an orchestral work that featured narration with text from Anne Frank’s writings. The collaborative work premiered in 1990 with Tilson Thomas conducting the New World Symphony, with Hepburn performing the narration.
Constructed as a four-section series of variations, the opening figure is a reference to the Jewish hymn of life, the Kaddish. A dancing theme leads to the narrator’s first words, an introductory text pulled from the first page of the Diary. Frank’s imaginative reflections are both bright and melancholic, and moods are
shaped by Tilson Thomas’ melodies and orchestrations. The section comes to a close with dreamy conversations, but the second part introduces a grim mood as Anne describes her dark and uncertain situation. A third section exuberantly investigates her love of nature and youthful explorations of love. The work’s conclusion is a poignant epilogue in which Anne ponders her future, and that of her writings and the fate of the world embroiled in war. Tilson Thomas captures Anne’s dire situation, and uses a musical landscape to portray the starkly contrasting moods, musings, and reflections of the Holocaust’s most impactful writer.
Antonín Dvořák (Czech; 1841-1904)
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95,
B. 178 (1893) I. Adagio – Allegro molto II. Largo III. Scherzo: Molto vivace – Poco sostenuto IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco
From the Napoleonic Wars to Poland’s struggles with Russia, the nineteenth century saw the development of politically motivated musical identities associated with national character, distinctly different from the music associated with traditional artistic strongholds or a general continental universality. Bedřich Smetana was the first such Czech composer, focusing his energies on incorporating Czech dramatic and musical themes in his music. Following in his footsteps was a struggling Antonín Dvořák, whose music caught the eye of Brahms, helping to launch his international career.
America in the 1890s was growing fast. Immigration, expansion, and industry were changing the American landscape quickly, but it would not be until the 20th century that the United States would realize its potential as a super power, both politically and artistically. Music education was beginning to take shape in America, and now in his 50s, Dvořák was paid handsomely to serve as Director of New York City’s National Conservatory. Having built a career around imbuing his music with folk idioms, he was deeply interested in helping America discover its own musical identity. At the time, emulating Continental European musical thought was a sign of intellectual maturity, but Dvořák encouraged composers to look inward for inspiration, and cited Native American and African American musical resources as a starting place. His travels took him as far as Iowa, where he was deeply affected by vast landscapes and his musical encounters, and he would compose several works celebrating his time in the States. In 1893 the New York Philharmonic commissioned Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, From the New World. The entire international community seized on the work and it was an immediate hit. There was finally a work from America, about America. Perhaps Europe needed a European to validate America’s artistic credentials, but America needed it too. The opening captures the listener with the subtlety of a whispering melody, first in the strings, then a small cadre of woodwinds, but the Allegro comes out of a thunderous transition. The action is on with a demanding melody that moves like a violent river. A contrasting melody carries the intrigue of discovery, and one can imagine the Bohemian composer shocked by the energy of the American plains draped by night. The movement is structured in sonata form, which allows the melodies to pass through a kaleidoscope of moods. Storming brass trade passages with nocturnal woodwinds, and the ensemble coalesces for a harrowing conclusion. The conclusion of the opening movement is balanced by the serenity of the second. Cinematic brass chords evocatively welcome an English horn solo, an original melody since repurposed as “Going Home,” which has instilled it with an Americana charm, in no small part for its likeness to many other hymns and spirituals that influenced Dvořák. For a change of mood, the melody is replaced by a central section, wandering and mysterious at first, then springy and lilting with a revisiting of a melody from the opening. The English horn makes a return with the familiar and comforting hymn-like tune. The movement is bookended by the same brass chords heard at the opening.
For the Symphony’s Scherzo, Dvořák’s Beethovenian opening launches an agile triple meter dance in a focused E minor. A call and response melody in the woodwinds leads to a rousing barrage of rhythms in strings. The brass join in for a broadly syncopated countermelody. In stark contrast, we have two diverting sections, the first with a pleasant, folksy melody, and the second a rousing country dance. A return to the movement’s opening energy is inevitable, but rather than concluding the Scherzo here, Dvořák creates an operatic transition, repeating motivic melodies in a dramatic coda that sets the table for the feast to come.
If the opening notes of Dvořák’s New World Symphony were subdued, the opening of the finale is far flung. The strings establish a fiery energy with a half-step fragment in massive unison that accelerates until it crashes into the orchestra. Trumpets and horns blast a frightful fanfare, and the theme is repeated until the ensemble breaks into tremendous dance. Dvořák again relies on the colors of solo woodwinds to create bucolic contrast. Themes from throughout the Symphony return in surprising and refreshing reconfigurations, and layer as the music builds toward a defiant and triumphant conclusion.
Dvořák‘s music here is colored by the American landscape, both geographical and musical. Uniquely American musical resources were explicit influences both melodically and rhythmically as he created his Ninth Symphony, but he was not trying to be American. Rather, he aimed to provide for America a musical blueprint, a roadmap to be followed for the discovery of identity. America had not realized that its reliance on purely European musical traditions was a denial of the country’s diverse reality, and Dvořák acted as a sort of consultant, catalyzing the acknowledgement of multiculturalism and the necessity to look inward for a unique musical voice. Not yet a super power, the United States was on the verge of an artistically bountiful twentieth century, owed in no small part to Dvořák and his New World Symphony.
Chaz Stuart, 2021
