BRAVO Donor Newsletter August 2017

BRAVO Quarterly donor newsletter of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic

August 2017

maestro in motion W

ith Summer coming to a close,

who received the Leaders in Business

in Bogatรก, Columbia [not to worry, he's

season tickets are officially off

Award; a remembrance of a longtime

not leaving the Philharmonic]. Plus,

to subscribers, and exciting concerts

friend, Margot Lane; and Josep's big

gear up before the first concert and

are just around the corner. In this issue,

announcement about being named the

learn about Chopin's Piano Concerto

read about the Red Noland Auto Group,

new Artistic Director of the orchestra

No. 2 and guest artist, Lise de la Salle.

leaders in business

legacy giving

meet lise de la salle

The Philharmonic was honored to award Red Noland Auto Group with the Annual Leaders in Business award. (page 2)

Members of the Encore Society have ensured their legacy by naming the Philharmonic in their estate plans. (page 3)

Lise de la Salle may be young, but her piano skills are fierce. She's sure to exceed expectations on opening night. (page 6)

Ph: 719-575-9632

csphilharmonic.org

1

LEADERS IN BUSINESS

red noland auto group

Thom Buckley, Mike Jorgensen, Frank Caris, and Nathan Newbrough.

The Red Noland Auto Group has been supporting the Colorado Springs Philharmonic for years—so long that Co-owner Mike Jorgensen can't recall exactly when they started.

T

he timing might be blurry, but earlier this year, Jorgensen was reminded of the reason they give.

The group, which includes Cadillac, Infiniti, Jaguar, and Land Rover dealerships, as well as centers for pre-owned vehicles and collision repair, had long supplied vehicles to the Philharmonic for visiting VIPs. In February, Red Noland also sponsored the orchestra’s 90th-anniversary gala, which was punctuated by a performance by legendary cellist Yo Yo Ma. “We were blown away by the level of talent,” says Jorgensen, who describes himself as a casual classical listener (“Sunday mornings we have classical music going like most people do”). “It’s fun to bring that level of accomplishment to Colorado Springs. Without a symphony orchestra that would never have happened, right?”

To honor the group’s contribution, the Philharmonic Board Chair Bob Street and Business Partners Chair Frank Caris presented the annual Business Leaders of the Year Award to Red Noland co-owners Jorgensen and Thom Buckley in May. The program is designed to inspire corporate and small business support of the orchestra with memberships starting at $500, which can include benefits such as marketing exposure, private receptions, VIP hospitality,

2

and concert recognition. Penrose-St. Francis Health Services, Wells Fargo, The Mining Exchange, and G.E. Johnson have been honored since 2013.

“We’re proud to have this opportunity to credit our friends at Red Noland Auto Group,” says Nathan Newbrough, Philharmonic president and CEO. “They’ve been supportive of our community in so many ways, including the good work of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. We are extremely grateful to Mike, Thom, and the rest of the Red Noland team.”

The award was a complete surprise — and a humbling one, Jorgensen says. “When we do these things, we never anticipate or seek recognition. We’re satisfied when they mention our name and we see our product out there.”

Promotion may play a role in their support, but more importantly, it nurtures a thriving arts community.

“That is important to us and important to our customers,” he says. “It speaks to the quality of life here. It’s also an economic driver. People want to associate with a community that has a cultural life. There has to be a soul to the community and to me, the arts is the soul of this community.”

BRAVO August 2017

remembering margot lane

by Nathan Newbrough

This summer in Colorado Springs has been positively radiant. Outdoors, we’ve enjoyed peaceful showers to feed our gardens and a bounty of wildflowers on the hillsides. Looking to the skies, the much-anticipated solar eclipse was a highlight of the season. Meanwhile, the musicians of the Philharmonic have enjoyed a little rest, or taken flight for some of the many music festivals around the country.

John Francis and Margot Lane Francis at the 90th Gala Dinner

Yet the summer fun has belied a heaviness in our hearts after the loss of a beloved friend. Margot Lane Francis

was, of herself, a thing of beauty. An ally for the underdog. A generous and relentlessly positive advocate. A shrewd business owner. The warmest of hosts. And a visionary champion for a community as verdant as her garden.

I’ll never forget first meeting Margot at her home. The thing you need to understand about visiting her home is that a) it’s simply the most beautiful place, and b) there’s no doorbell. Or, if there is, I’ve never found it. So imagine me nervous, hat in hand, trying to figure out how and where to knock. When through a side door bursts Margot, nothing but smiles and vigor, taking my hand and showing me every inch of the place. We’ve been friends ever since.

Margot loved fun. She treasured music and the arts. But beneath all that she was a true-blue crusader for the very best that Colorado Springs can be. She will be missed, but her legacy lives on in the rest of us.

Nathan Newbrough is the President and CEO of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic

easy ways to leave a legacy Create a Legacy Today. A strong endowment provides much needed on-going income in perpetuity to create a lasting financial foundation for the Philharmonic. Your one-time cash gift, designated to the Colorado Springs Philharmonic Endowment, ensures the orchestra's future for generations to come.

Plan Your Estate. Estate planning is a way for people who care about the Philharmonic to leave a legacy. An estate gift is arranged now and fulfilled later, and frequently provides tax and financial benefits to the donor.

These special gifts include bequests, insurance policies, and charitable gift annuities, among others.

To request a personal visit or for more information please call Catherine Creppon at (719) 344-2455.

Patrons who choose to leave a legacy to the Colorado Springs Philharmonic are eligible to become members of the Encore Society.

Benefits of the Encore Society Include: • Special Encore Society pin • Invitation to the annual luncheon • BRAVO, the quarterly newsletter • Invitations to special Philharmonic events • Concert dedication for donors of $100,000 or more at gift realization to include free tickets to family members and donor hospitality access

BRAVO August 2017

3

SPECIAL FEATURE

josep becomes artistic director in bogotá

by Tracy Mobley-Martinez ago. His mastery of the music, his communication with the players, and his unforgettable charisma are an asset for any orchestra.”

Caballé-Domenech first experienced Bogotá’s thirst for classical music in 2015. That year, he brought the Staatskapelle Halle (he’s been general music director of that German orchestra since 2013), to the city’s Mozart Festival. This sprawling event hosted 57 concerts in four days that year, with more than 50,000 in attendance.

Springs is a great thing, Newbrough says. “Josep and his family are a treasure, and not a treasure that we keep to ourselves,” he says. “Bogotá and Colorado Springs will only grow and benefit from this cross-cultural connection that we now share.”

“Bogotá and Colorado Springs will only grow and benefit from this cross-cultural connection that we now share.”

G

ranted, his softly accented voice sounds tired at first. It may be 2:30 p.m. in Colorado Springs, but in Barcelona, Spain, where Josep Caballé-Domenech and his family have alit before heading to the Moritzburg Festival in Dresden, Germany, it’s 10:30 at night.

But as the Spanish conductor talks about his recent appointment as artistic director of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, Colombia, he seems to warm to the topic. This orchestra has a real chance to change lives, he says.

“We’re beyond excited for our friend Josep,” says Nathan Newbrough, president and CEO of the Springs orchestra. Caballé-Domenech recently renewed his contract as music director of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, which he calls his “American home.”

“I can only imagine how the musicians and leaders in Bogotá felt when they first worked with Josep several years

4

At the end of the festival, he was invited to lead what promised to be the musical event of 2016: For the first time ever a Richard Strauss opera, “Salomé,” would be performed in Colombia. This year he made his symphonic debut with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá and in June, he became artistic director, officially beginning in 2018.

“The only problem, if you call it that, is that from January until the end of July I’m officially leading three orchestras,” he says, adding that he’s stepping down from the Staatskapelle Halle in July after five years. “From August 2018, it will be just Bogotá and Colorado Springs.”

He sounds a little relieved.

That tie between Bogotá and Colorado

Six orchestras exist under the umbrella of the Orquesta Filarmónica: a full-time professional orchestra of more than 100 musicians and five youth orchestras.

In a typical season, he says, the professional orchestra will host around 25-30 guest conductors, as well as 30-35 world-class soloists.

The diverse orchestras, which often share the stage, also tour widely, performing 1,235 concerts last year.

“I’m overseeing all basically,” he says, only possible when fantastic team that that happen.”

the programs laughing. “That’s you have a is willing to make

While he worked on plans for the 2018 season, the orchestra tackled Anton Bruckner’s challenging 8th Symphony, its first performance in a packed church in the middle of Bogotá, the country’s capital and home to more than 8 million people.

BRAVO August 2017

“Obviously, some knew what it was about, but there were some that probably never heard an orchestra before. People came to me crying after, saying it was the most beautiful thing they’d ever heard.”

“In the Bruckner concert, we reached another level of communication. Who knows, some kids in that Bruckner concert may want to study an instrument now,” he says. “And if that happens, our mission is accomplished.”

Maybe, he says, he can help the Orquesta Filarmónica to make a difference in people’s lives.

“It’s a project that looks into the future. It’s something that in three, four, five years, we can really impact Bogotá, Colombia and South America, in general. “What a challenge and great opportunity!”

BOGOTÁ A trip is in the works!

Josep's big announcement begs a special Maestro's Circle trip to see him in action in this exciting South American country. Maestro's Circle members will be the first to know when an announcement is made.

Members of the Maestro's Circle make three-year commitments of support starting at $1,000 annually. Benefits include priority invitation to travel with the Philharmonic, VIP access to the hospitality center and membersonly events. To join call (719) 344-2455.

BRAVO August 2017

why we give: sally conover

by Tracy Mobley-Martinez

Ask Maestro’s Circle Member Sally Conover what the Colorado Springs Philharmonic contributes to her life and she’ll give you one word.

“Joy,” she says simply. “It brings so much joy to our lives that I can’t even tell you. It starts with the music and blossoms from there.”

Although Conover was never a formally trained musician, she grew up in a home filled with music — from Sinatra (her dad’s favorite) to country music (her mom’s). Conover sang in the church choir, and often played guitar for masses and piano for friends.

As she got older, though, music came to mean listening, more than playing, and the Philharmonic became ground zero for plugging into the power of music.

Take the orchestra’s concert on Sept. 11, 2001. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma just happened to be the soloist that night.

“It was such a sad and tragic day that I almost didn’t go to the concert. Like the rest of the world,

I really just wanted to grieve,” Conover says. “I remember YoYo Ma not only performed as scheduled, but you could just feel the emotion in his performance — through not saying a word, just playing the music. I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget as long as I live.”

Not long ago, Conover decided to join the Encore Society by including the Philharmonic in her estate plans.

“I knew I wanted a part of me to live on when I’m not here. A little legacy,” says Conover, who attends nearly every concert of the Masterworks, Vanguard and Pops series with her husband Gary (“We love the variety”).

“So, if you didn’t know me, you’d think, she really loved music so much. I really wanted to support this organization that made such an impact in my life.

“We are so lucky to have that level of talent in the Springs,” she goes on. “I think I would have to move if it ever disappeared. I give to the Philharmonic for that very reason.

I want it to be here for years and years to come.”

5

BEHIND the CONCERTO CHOPIN'S SECOND

lise de la salle plays chopin

by Herbert Glass

Opening Night - Sept. 16

We customarily view Chopin in terms of the final years of his short life, as Chopin the Frenchman, the hyper-sensitive, physically fragile superstar, engaged in a stormy, often demeaning (to the composer) liaison with the cigar-smoking novelist Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, better known as George Sand. Chopin, the man with the haunted eyes staring at us from that often-reproduced, mesmerizing daguerreotype photo made only months before his death.

Yet the Chopin who wrote the two piano concertos a few months apart in 1829 and 1830, between the ages of 19 and 20, was a vivacious Polish composer (his French ancestry, on his father’s side, notwithstanding): the precocious Fryderyk Franciszek, as he was christened, not as yet the hyper-sensitive Frédéric François.

He had been playing the piano since the age of four, was writing “heroic verses” at age six, and dubbed “the second Mozart” before he was ten.

It may be because Chopin was largely self-taught as a pianist that he was able to compose music of such striking originality for his instrument from the start. Once subjected to formal education and being told what was correct, he had already long mastered technique and dedicated himself now to redefining and extending the expressive, harmonic, coloristic potential of the piano. He would continue to do so with ever-increasing inventiveness.

If Chopin’s performing style was unique from the start, as a composer he was susceptible to outside influences, the most often cited being the bel canto style of Bellini, which inspired him to reinvent the piano as a “singing” instrument (as differentiated from Beethoven’s thunder machine) – his instrumental melodies imitating the lyric suavity, curvature, and dramatic contrast of operatic arias. Less frequently mentioned is the influence of the keyboard technique of J.S. Bach, which Chopin admired for the clarity of its part-writing, and the virtuoso flourishes of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, which Cho-

6

In just a few years, through her international concert appearances and her award-winning Naïve recordings, 29 year-old Lise de la Salle has established a reputation as one of today's most exciting young artists and as a musician of uncommon sensibility and maturity.

Her playing inspired a Washington Post critic to write, “For much of the concert, the audience had to remember to breathe... the exhilaration didn’t let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard.”

Following triumphs in 2016-17 with Conlon and the National Symphony, Morlot and the Minnesota Orchestra, and stepping in for André Watts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Luisi, de la Salle's coming seasons include appearances with the Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Detroit, and Quebec Symphonies.

She will be heard in recital in Chi-

cago, Montreal, and New Orleans, and will be a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

pin tempered with his own, more refined taste. The Chopin style is finally enriched, completed if you will, by his involvement

needs as their concern. He was asked to be satisfied with the honor of their attention. Nor was this gifted and charming

A native of France, de la Salle first came to international attention in 2005, at the age of 16, with a Bach/ Liszt recording that Gramophone Magazine selected as "Recording of the Month." De la Salle, who records

“The first Allegro of my Concerto unintelligible to most - received the reward of 'bravo' from a few...But the Adagio and Rondo produced a very great effect." with Polish folk music, which first manifested itself in the mazurkas he began writing at age 15 and which particularly endeared him to the aristocracy.

young man regarding as worthy of one of the traveling grants to France, Italy, and Austria his government routinely awarded to writers and painters.

None of which is to say that the wealthy Polish families who heaped him with praise and trotted him out as show horse at their glamorous soirées regarded his financial

Chopin’s failure to receive such a grant intensified his determination to try his luck abroad with funds raised from family and friends, resulting in the momentous

BRAVO August 2017

for the Naïve label, was then similarly recognized in 2008 for her recording of the first concertos of Liszt, Prokofiev and Shostakovich – a remarkable feat for someone only 20 years old.

Recent recordings offered works of Schumann and the Complete Works of Rachmaninoff for Piano and Orchestra with Fabio Luisi and the Philharmonia Zurich.

what we now regard as a barbaric tradition of earlier times, the first movement of the Concerto was separated from the remaining two by a divertissement: an improvisation for solo horn, of all things.

De la Salle began studying the piano at the age of four and gave her first concert at nine in a live broadcast on Radio-France. When she was 11, de la Salle received special permission to enter the Paris Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique to study with Pierre Réach.

At 13, she made her concerto debut with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in Avignon, and her Paris recital debut at the Louvre before going on tour with the Orchestre National d’Ile de France. She graduated in 2001 and subsequently enrolled in the postgraduate cycle with Bruno Rigutto. Since 1997, she has worked closely with Pascal Nemirovski and studied with Genevieve Joy-Dutilleux.

“The first Allegro of my Concerto – unintelligible to most – received the reward of a ‘bravo’ from a few... But the Adagio [i.e., Larghetto] and Rondo produced a very great effect. After these, the applause and the ‘bravos’ seemed really to come from the heart.”

1829 visit to Vienna, where his playing of his own Krakowiak and improvisations on Polish folk tunes was rapturously received.

His most ambitious works to date, the two piano concertos, were taking shape at this time. And with the first performance of the F-minor Concerto in March of 1830 – the earlier of the two, but second published, therefore its higher opus number – the youthful pianist-composer became the darling of the concert halls and fashionable salons of Warsaw. It was lack of similar response to the hardly dissimilar E-minor Concerto in October of the same year that prompted him to make his final break with Poland.

The premiere of the F-minor Concerto took place at Warsaw’s National Theater, on a program that also included Chopin’s Fantasia on Polish Airs. And in

BRAVO August 2017

Maybe the intrusion wasn’t such a bad idea, since the audience didn’t quite get into the swing of that magnificently rich first movement. Chopin, in a letter to his friend Titus Woyciechowksi, on the reception of the Concerto, reported:

In these youthful works, above all in their slow movements, we can already glimpse the dreamy-eyed Chopin of Romantic lore: the delicate, sensitive poet of our most ardent imaginings, nowhere more so than in the second movement of the F-minor Concerto, which has become associated with a young singer named Constantia Gladkowska, of whom Chopin was to write to a friend: “I have...found my ideal, whom I worship faithfully and sincerely... But in the six months since I first saw her I have not exchanged a syllable with her of whom I dream every night, she who was in my mind when I composed [the slow movement].” Shades of Dante and his Beatrice!

But Beatrice was nine when the poet was smitten, and they never did speak. Chopin and Constantia did eventually speak and even became friends, but there was no romance. In fact it wasn’t until she was a grandmother several times over and the biography of Chopin by Moritz Karasowski was read to her (she became blind in her mid-30s) that Constantia had any inkling of the intensity of his feelings during the period in question.

Chopin forgot Constantia but retained a lifelong affection for the F-minor Concerto, and particularly the slow movement. It also made a profound impression on other musicians of the time, not the least of them Liszt, who regarded the Concerto as “of ideal perfection, its expression now radiant with light, now full of tender pathos.”

The virtuoso finale, marked “simply and gracefully,” is the most Polish of the three movements, what with its jaunty mazurka rhythms – and the least sophisticated, lacking the harmonic magic of the preceding movements, to say nothing of what Chopin would create in the years to come.

But its straightforwardness rounds out the Concerto neatly, the composer’s dreams dispelled by some bracing fresh air and bright sunlight.

What happened in the months between the two concerts and two concertos is a sadly familiar story: that of the idolized artist falling out of favor for no apparent reason other than the whim of a fickle public, eager for new sensations. There were not the tragic consequences, however, that accompanied Mozart’s similar fall in Vienna during the mid-1780s. Chopin, even younger and without the family responsibilities that burdened his predecessor, departed for the hospitable artistic climate of Paris.

With his two concertos, Poland found in Chopin its national composer, and it was widely suggested, by some astute politicians as well as by artists, that everything be done to keep their treasure contented and at home – except for foreign visits to proclaim the glory of “Polish music.” But young Fryderyk had bigger things in mind.

He would soon find them, and a far more complicated existence, in Paris.

Herbert Glass is the English-language annotator for the Salzburg Festival and a contributor to musical periodicals in the United States and Europe. Re-published with permission.

7

PO Box 1266 Colorado Springs, co 80901-1266 719-575-9632 www.csphilharmonic.org

Nonprofit Organization US Postage PAID Colo Spgs, CO Permit No 434

Generously underwritten by

LISE DE LA SALLE PLAYS CHOPIN SEPTEMBER 16-17, 2017 Opening night couldn't get any hotter as Josep Caballé-Domenech, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and Lise de la Salle kick-off the season with Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2, but not before Glinka's Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla and followed by Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.

SUPER SUBSCRIBER NIGHT THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 The first of the season, Super Subscribers enjoy a back stage tour, meeting musicians, attending an open rehearsal and more. Super Subscribers help support musical excellence, thrilling programming, and education for thousands of young people. Super Subscribers donate $100 or more annually to the Philharmonic.

SOME ENCHANTED EVENING: RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN SEPTEMBER 22-23, 2017 The hills are alive! History’s greatest musical theatre partnership, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein produced a legacy of beloved shows. From The Sound of Music to Oklahoma! and South Pacific, their legendary work pioneered narrative storytelling, ushering in Broadway’s Golden Age.

8