Program Notes: Mozart & Now

CLASSICS 2022/23

MOZART & NOW WITH PETER OUNDJIAN

PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor

JI SU JUNG, marimba CONRAD TAO, piano

Friday, January 27, 2023 at 7:30pm

Saturday, January 28, 2023 at 7:30pm

Sunday, January 28, 2023 at 1:00pm

Boettcher Concert Hall

FRIDAY PROGRAM:

MOZART Serenade No. 12 in C minor, K. 388 “Nachtmusik”

I. Allegro

II. Andante

III. Menuetto in canone

IV. Allegro

KEVIN PUTS Marimba Concerto

I. “…terrific sun on the brink”

II. “…into the quick of losses”

III. “…logarithms, exponents, the damnedest of metaphors”

— INTERMISSION —

MOZART Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 “Jupiter”

I. Allegro vivace

II. Andante cantabile

III. Allegretto

IV. Molto allegro

CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 33 MINUTES WITH A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION

SATURDAY PROGRAM:

JESSIE MONTGOMERY Starburst

CARLOS SIMON

Elegy: A Cry from the Grave MOZART

JOAN TOWER Concerto for Orchestra Part One Part Two

SUNDAY PROGRAM:

MOZART

Serenade No. 12 in C minor, K. 388 “Nachtmusik” I. Allegro II. Andante III. Menuetto in canone IV. Allegro

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488 I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Allegro assai — INTERMISSION —

MOZART Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 “Jupiter” I. Allegro vivace II. Andante cantabile III. Allegretto IV. Molto allegro

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PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor

Recognized as a masterful and dynamic presence in the conducting world, Peter Oundjian has developed a multi-faceted portfolio as a conductor, violinist, professor and artistic advisor. He has been celebrated for his musicality, an eye towards collaboration, innovative programming, leadership and training with students and an engaging personality. Strengthening his ties to Colorado, Oundjian is now Principal Conductor of the Colorado Symphony in addition to Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival, which successfully pivoted to a virtual format during the pandemic summers of 2020 and 2021.

Now carrying the title Conductor Emeritus, Oundjian’s fourteen-year tenure as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony served as a major creative force for the city of Toronto and was marked by a reimagining of the TSO’s programming, international stature, audience development, touring and a number of outstanding recordings, garnering a Grammy nomination in 2018 and a Juno award for Vaughan Williams’ Orchestral Works in 2019. He led the orchestra on several international tours to Europe and the USA, conducting the first performance by a North American orchestra at Reykjavik’s Harpa Hall in 2014.

From 2012-2018, Oundjian served as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra during which time he implemented the kind of collaborative programming that has become a staple of his directorship. Oundjian led the RSNO on several international tours, including North America, China, and a European festival tour with performances at the Bregenz Festival, the Dresden Festival as well as in Innsbruck, Bergamo, Ljubljana, and others. His final appearance with the orchestra as their Music Director was at the 2018 BBC Proms where he conducted Britten’s epic War Requiem.

Highlights of past seasons include appearances with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Iceland Symphony, the Detroit, Atlanta, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Dallas, Seattle, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. With the onset of world-wide concert cancellations, support for students at Yale and Juilliard became a priority. In 2022/2023 season Oundjian will conduct the opening weekend of Atlanta Symphony, followed by return engagements with Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas, Colorado and Toronto symphonies, as well as a visit to New World Symphony.

Oundjian has been a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music since 1981, and in 2013 was awarded the school’s Sanford Medal for Distinguished Service to Music. A dedicated educator, Oundjian regularly conducts the Yale, Juilliard, Curtis and New World symphony orchestras.

An outstanding violinist, Oundjian spent fourteen years as the first violinist for the renowned Tokyo String Quartet before he turned his energy towards conducting.

PHOTO: DALE WILCOX

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JI SU JUNG, marimba

Born in South Korea, Ms. Jung began studying marimba at age three, a rarity among percussionists. Since launching her career as a soloist, she has performed concertos with such leading orchestras and conductors as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop, the Houston Symphony with Daniel Hege, the Aspen Festival Orchestra with Michael Stern, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic with JoAnn Falletta, the Grand Rapids Symphony with Marcelo Lehninger, and the Boise Philharmonic with Eric Garcia.

“Ji Su Jung’s performance of the Kevin Puts Marimba Concerto was dazzling—filled with breathtaking virtuosity but also beautifully shaped with extraordinary color and nuance,” remarked conductor JoAnn Falletta about Ms. Jung’s performance with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. Ms. Jung has recorded the Marimba Concerto of Puts, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, with the Baltimore Symphony and Marin Alsop, to be released on the Naxos label in early 2023.

Equally at home as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist, Ms. Jung has performed solo recitals in such venues as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ newly renovated David Geffen Hall. An active chamber musician, she frequently performs with The Percussion Collective, an all-star collection of young percussionists, of which she has been a core member since its inception. As part of The Percussion Collective, she has recorded Garth Neustadter’s Seaborne, anticipated to be released in 2023. As a collaborative artist, she has also appeared at Yellow Barn and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, where she performed with notable artists such as Gilbert Kalish and the late Roger Tapping.

The recipient of numerous awards and competition prizes, in 2022, she received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming the first percussionist to receive the award. She won both First Prize and the Audience Choice Award at the 2018 Ima Hogg Competition of the Houston Symphony, as well as a top prize at the 2015 International Marimba Competition in Linz, Austria. She has also appeared as a young artist in residence with American Public Media’s highly popular radio program Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child.

Recognized internationally as a pedagogue, Ms. Jung serves on the faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. She has taught master classes at New York University’s Steinhardt School, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Michigan State University, and Beijing Central Conservatory in China, among other schools.

Ms. Jung holds a bachelor’s degree from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, where she attended thanks to a generous grant from The Brookby Foundation. She also holds a master’s degree and an artist diploma from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Robert van Sice.

Ji Su is a musical ambassador for Adams Percussion, Pearl/Adams, and Vic Firth percussion companies.

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CONRAD TAO, piano

Conrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer and has been dubbed “the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music” by New York Magazine, and an artist of “probing intellect and openhearted vision” by The New York Times. Tao has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony. As a composer, his work has been performed by orchestras throughout the world; his first large scale orchestral work, Everything Must Go, received its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic, and its European premiere with the Antwerp Symphony, and he was the recipient of a 2019 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, for Outstanding Sound Design / Music Composition, for his work on More Forever, in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher. He is the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a Gilmore Young Artist—an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation.

In the 2022-23 season, Tao returns to perform Mozart with the New York Philharmonic, for whom he will also curate a program for their Artist Spotlight series, featuring collaborations with vocalist, Charmaine Lee, and wind ensemble, The Westerlies. He will also return to the San Francisco Symphony both as a soloist in Gershwin’s Concerto in F major at Davies Symphony Hall, and as a curator for their Soundbox series. In Washington, DC, he will make his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra performing Shostakovich with Dalia Staveska, and, following Atlanta Symphony’s premiere of his Violin Concerto with Stefan Jackiw in 2021, he will appear as soloist with the orchestra performing Ravel with Ryan Bancroft. After their successful collaboration with the Finnish Radio Symphony, Tao will further re-unite with Hannu Lintu to perform Tchaikovsky with the Naples Philharmonic, as well as return to Finland to open the season with the Tampere Philharmonic and Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

In his first collaboration with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra this Fall, Tao will curate and lead a program of music by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Gesualdo, CPE Bach, Feldman, and Mozart. Other upcoming collaborations include ongoing performances of Counterpoint with dancer Caleb Teicher, and performances of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Orchestra of St Luke’s, as part of Paul Taylor Dance Company’s season at Lincoln Center. The season will also include a multicity tour with the Junction Trio, which includes the group’s Celebrity Series of Boston debut, alongside performances in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and more.

In the 2021-22 season, Tao opened Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart with Louis Langree at Damrosch Park performing Mozart, Gershwin, and William Grant Still. He also returned to perform with Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic at the Bravo! Vail Festival and appeared with the Chicago Symphony performing Ravel at the Ravinia Festival. Further orchestral engagements included Ravel with Cincinnati Symphony; Rachmaninov’s Concerto No.4 with the Kansas City Symphony; and Tao’s own composition, “Spoonfuls”, with the New Jersey Symphony. In the same season, Tao also made solo recital debuts at London’s Wigmore Hall, Seattle’s Meany Center, and Celebrity Series of Boston, and also gave recitals in New York,

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Washington, and other cities throughout North America. Tao’s violin concerto, written for Stefan Jackiw, was premiered by the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Spano, and the Baltimore Symphony under Kirill Karabits. His recent performances also include multi-concert residencies with the Finnish Radio Symphony and the Swedish Radio Orchestra, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Santa Caecilia Orchestra and Antonio Pappano.

A Warner Classics recording artist, Tao’s debut disc Voyages was declared a “spiky debut” by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross. Of the album, NPR wrote: “Tao proves himself to be a musician of deep intellectual and emotional”. His next album, Pictures, with works by David Lang, Toru Takemitsu, Elliott Carter, Mussorgsky, and Tao himself, was hailed by The New York Times as “a fascinating album [by] a thoughtful artist and dynamic performer…played with enormous imagination, color and command.” His third album, American Rage, featuring works by Julia Wolfe, Frederic Rzewski, and Aaron Copland, was released in the fall of 2019. In 2021, Tao and brass quartet The Westerlies released Bricolage, an album of improvisations and experiments recorded in a small cabin in rural New Hampshire in June 2019.

Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois in 1994. He has studied piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago and Yoheved Kaplinsky in New York, and composition with Christopher Theofanidis.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)

Serenade No. 12 for 8 Winds in C minor, K. 388 (K. 384a)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, and died on December 5, 1791 in Vienna. His C minor Serenade dates from 1782. The work is scored for pairs of horns, oboes, clarinets and bassoons. Duration is about 21 minutes. This performance is the Colorado Symphony premiere.

The C minor Serenade for eight wind instruments (pairs of horns, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons) occupies a special place in Mozart’s output, since it is his only such work in a minor key. The occasion and the patron for whom it was written are unknown, and even the exact date of its composition is uncertain. It is possible that he referred to it in a letter of July 27, 1782, where he wrote that he was composing a Nacht Musique — a “night music” or serenade — “in a great hurry.” Though he did not identify the work completely, it may well have been this Serenade, since he stated that the new composition was for winds. It has been conjectured that the work was written for the composer’s musician friends in Vienna, either as listeners or as performers. Certainly the dramatic nature of the music and the elaborate technical machinations of the third movement indicate that it was not intended for a cheerful outdoor party but rather for a sophisticated audience which was going to give it the same attention usually accorded to a symphony or quartet. It was among Mozart’s last creations in the forms of entertainment music, succeeded only by Eine kleine Nachtmusik (K. 525) and The Musical Joke (K. 522). In it, he heralded the deepening spiritual resources of such later works as his C minor Piano Concerto (K. 491) and Don Giovanni, and even looked forward to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, also in C minor.

Of the emotional milieu of this Serenade, German-American critic and musicologist Alfred Einstein wrote, “If G minor is the fatalistic key for Mozart, then C minor is the dramatic one, the key of contrasts between aggressive unisons and lyric passages. The lyric quality is always overtaken by gloomy outbursts.” The first movement opens with just such an “aggressive unison” in long notes that establishes the deeply emotional nature of the entire work. Following a brief silence (Mozart’s characteristic marker for this important structural junction), the lyrical second theme in the brighter tonality of E-flat major is played by the solo oboe. The development is given over to sighing figures derived from the main theme shared among the oboes, clarinets and bassoons. The recapitulation recalls the thematic material from the exposition, but maintains the dark minor tonality to the stern closing measures of the movement. The Andante is a lyrical song in sonata form with the moonlit quality of an operatic love scene. The third movement is one of Mozart’s most elaborate contrapuntal inventions. The minuet proper is in strict canon (i.e., exact imitation, like a round; e.g., Row, Row, Row Your Boat) between oboes and bassoons, with the other instruments filling in the harmony. Occupying yet another level of polyphonic complexity is the central trio, which is written in “Canone al rovescio,” or “canon in reverse,” with the new canon melody played both in its original version and upsidedown, in mirror image. This learned procedure (which Mozart derived from his careful study of the works of Bach) can be heard in the music, but, as always with Mozart, it results in a beautiful, euphonious whole which may be enjoyed without the slightest bother about its compositional technique. The finale is a set of variations on a sixteen-measure theme announced at the outset by oboes and bassoons. The deployment of the instruments is masterly, drawing a richness of

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sonority from these winds that is at once both characteristic and unique. The dark shadow of C minor lifts from the music in the closing pages for a high-spirited galop to the end in C major.

KEVIN PUTS (born in 1972) Marimba Concerto

Kevin Puts was born on January 3, 1972 in St. Louis. His Marimba Concerto was composed in 1997 and premiered in September 1997 in Burlington, Vermont, conducted by Jaime Laredo with Makoto Nakura as soloist. The work is scored for woodwinds and horns in pairs, trumpet, xylophone and strings. Duration is about 21 minutes. This is the Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

Kevin Puts, born on January 3, 1972 in St. Louis, received his bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music (1994), his master’s degree from Yale (1996), and his doctorate from Eastman (1999); his composition teachers have included Jacob Druckman, Joseph Schwantner, Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler and David Burge. He also participated in the 1996 Tanglewood Festival Fellowship Program, where he worked with Bernard Rands and William Bolcom. Puts taught at the University of Texas at Austin from 1999 until the fall of 2006, when he joined the faculty of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore; he is also Director of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute. Kevin Puts has accumulated an impressive array of distinctions: the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his acclaimed opera Silent Night, based on the 2005 French film Joyeux Nöel and premiered by Minnesota Opera in November 2012; from 1996 to 1999, he served concurrently as Composer-in-Residence with the California Symphony (which premiered three of his works) and Young Concert Artists, Inc. in New York; he has received commissions from the National Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Minnesota Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, Eroica Trio, Ying Quartet and other noted ensembles and organizations; he was the first undergraduate to be awarded the Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters; he has received grants and fellowships from BMI, ASCAP, Tanglewood, Hanson Institute for American Music and Guggenheim Foundation, as well as the Benjamin H. Danks Award for Excellence in Orchestral Composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Barlow International Prize for Orchestral Music; and in 2007 he was Composer-in-Residence with both the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and Fort Worth Symphony. His most recent opera is an adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours, co-commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and Philadelphia Orchestra, and starring Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato and Kelli O’Hara. The Hours was first performed in concert in Philadelphia in March 2022, and had its stage premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in November 2022.

The composer wrote, “In my Marimba Concerto, it was my intention to reflect my love of the piano concertos of Mozart, pieces whose instrumentation are similar to that of this Concerto — chamber orchestra and a keyboard instrument. Although the wooden bars of the marimba are arranged like a piano keyboard, the sound is, of course, very different. Much of the music

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marimbists play is busy and rhythmically active due to the instrument’s inability to sustain pitches. I decided to write a piece that is basically lyrical (although the melody in the first movement might remind you more of early Michael Jackson than Mozart) and use the marimba in an almost ornamental way, darting around the melodies played by the orchestral instruments. The influence of Mozart lies strongly in the relationship of the soloist to the orchestra, one of near equality in which the marimbist’s role is interactive rather than dominant in the Romantic tradition.

“The work is in three movements — fast, slow, fast — like a Mozart concerto, and each movement bears a little subtitle taken from the poetry of my aunt, Fleda Brown Jackson. They are: I. ... terrific sun on the brink (Flowing); II. ... into the quick of losses (Broad and Deliberate); and III. ... logarithms, exponents, the damnedest of metaphors (Presto non troppo). At the end of the first movement, the soloist plays a solo cadenza. As in much of my music, the overriding message is one of optimism and exuberance.”

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, “Jupiter”

Mozart completed the “Jupiter” Symphony on August 10, 1788. The premiere is uncertain, though it may have been included on a concert of Vienna’s Tonkünstler Societät in April 1791. The work is scored for flute, pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings. Duration is about 31 minutes. This piece was last performed by the orchestra November 2-5, 2017, with Markus Stenz conducting.

Mozart’s life was starting to come apart in 1788 — his money, health, family situation and professional status were all on the decline. He was a poor money manager, and the last years of his life saw him sliding progressively deeper into debt. One of his most generous creditors was Michael Puchberg, a brother Mason, to whom he wrote a letter which included the following pitiable statement: “If you, worthy brother, do not help me in this predicament, I shall lose my honor and my credit, which I so wish to preserve.”

Sources of income dried up. His students had dwindled to only two by summer, and he had to sell his new compositions for a pittance to pay the most immediate bills. He hoped that Vienna would receive Don Giovanni as well as had Prague when that opera was premiered there the preceding year, but it was met with indifference when first heard in the Austrian capital in May 1788. He could no longer draw enough subscribers to produce his own concerts, and had to take second billing on the programs of other musicians. His wife, Constanze, was ill from worry and continuous pregnancy, and spent much time away from her husband taking cures at various mineral spas. On June 29th, their fourth child and only daughter, Theresia, age six months, died.

Yet, astonishingly, from these seemingly debilitating circumstances came one of the greatest miracles in the history of music. In the summer of 1788, in the space of only six weeks, Mozart composed the three greatest symphonies of his life: No. 39, in E-flat (K. 543) was finished on

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June 26th; the G minor (No. 40, K. 550) on July 25th; and the C major, “Jupiter” (No. 41, K. 551) on August 10th.

The “Jupiter” Symphony stands at the pinnacle of 18th-century orchestral art. It is grand in scope, impeccable in form and rich in substance. Mozart, always fecund as a melodist, was absolutely profligate with themes in this Symphony. Three separate motives are successively introduced in the first dozen measures: a brilliant rushing gesture, a sweetly lyrical thought from the strings, and a marching motive played by the winds. The second theme is a simple melody first sung by the violins over a rocking accompaniment. The closing section of the exposition (begun immediately after a falling figure in the violins and a silence) introduces a jolly little tune that Mozart had originally written a few weeks earlier as a buffa aria for bass voice to be interpolated into Le Gelosie Fortunate (“The Fortunate Jealousy”), an opera by Pasquale Anfossi. Much of the development is devoted to an amazing exploration of the musical possibilities of this simple ditty. The thematic material is heard again in the recapitulation, but, as so often with Mozart, in a richer orchestral and harmonic setting.

The ravishing Andante is spread across a fully realized sonata form, with a compact but emotionally charged development section. The third movement (Minuet) is a perfect blend of the lighthearted rhythms of popular Viennese dances and Mozart’s deeply expressive chromatic harmony.

The finale of this Symphony has been the focus of many a musicological assault. It is demonstrable that there are as many as five different themes played simultaneously at certain places in the movement, making this one of the most masterful displays of technical accomplishment in the entire orchestral repertory. But the listener need not be subjected to any numbing pedantry to realize that this music is really something special. Mozart was the greatest genius in the history of music, and he never surpassed this movement.

JESSIE MONTGOMERY (born in 1981)

Starburst for String Orchestra

Jessie Montgomery was born on December 8, 1981 in New York City. Starburst was composed in 2012 and premiered in September 2012 at the New World Center in Miami by the Sphinx Virtuosi. Duration is about 4 minutes. The orchestra last performed this piece May 17, 2018, conducted by Edwin Outwater.

Violinist, composer and music educator Jessie Montgomery, who began a three-year term as Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in July 2021, started studying violin at age four at the Third Street Music School Settlement in her native New York City. She was composing by age eleven, and while still in high school twice received the Composer’s Apprentice Award from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Montgomery went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in violin performance at Juilliard and a master’s from New York University in film scoring and multimedia; she also studied composition with Derek Bermel and Steven Burke and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton

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University. In 2020, she was appointed to the faculty of the Mannes School of Music in New York. As a composer, Montgomery has created works for concert, theater and film (one of which was in collaboration with her father, Ed Montgomery, also a composer and an independent film producer), and held residencies with the Deer Valley Music Festival, New York Youth Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and Sphinx Virtuosi. Among her rapidly accumulating distinctions are the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and recognition as Musical America’s “2023 Composer of the Year.” In September 2021, Montgomery was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera along with two other Black composers — Valerie Coleman and Joel Thompson — to develop new works in collaboration with the Lincoln Center Theater.

Jessie Montgomery wrote, “The brief, one-movement Starburst for string orchestra is a play on imagery of rapidly changing musical colors. Exploding gestures are juxtaposed with gentle fleeting melodies in an attempt to create a multidimensional soundscape. A common definition of a starburst — ‘the rapid formation of large numbers of new stars in a galaxy at a rate high enough to alter the structure of the galaxy significantly’ — lends itself almost literally to the performing ensemble who premiered the work: The Sphinx Virtuosi.” (The Sphinx Virtuosi is the touring ensemble of the Sphinx Organization, which addresses the underrepresentation of people of color in classical music through training and performance opportunities.)

CARLOS SIMON (born in 1986)

An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave for Strings

Carlos Simon was born on April 13, 1986 in Atlanta, Georgia. An Elegy was composed in 2015. It was premiered later that year in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Duration is about 5 minutes. This is the Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

Carlos Simon was named Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence in April 2021 and serves in that position for three years. During his residency, Simon will compose and present music for the National Symphony Orchestra and Washington National Opera, act as an ambassador for new music, and participate in educational, social impact, community engagement, and major institutional initiatives.

Simon, born in Atlanta in 1986, grew up playing organ at his father’s church, immersed himself in music in high school, earned degrees from Georgia State University and Morehouse College, and completed his doctorate at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Grammy-winning composer Michael Daugherty. Simon also studied in Baden, Austria and at the Hollywood Music Workshop and New York University’s Film Scoring Summer Workshop. He taught at Spelman College and Morehouse College in Atlanta before being appointed in 2019 to the faculty of Georgetown University, where his projects include a new composition dedicated to the slaves who helped build the school. He has also performed as keyboardist with the Boston Pops, Jackson Symphony and St. Louis Symphony, toured Japan in 2018 under the sponsorship of the United States Embassy in Tokyo, served as music director and keyboardist

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for Grammy Award-winner Jennifer Holliday, and appeared internationally with Grammynominated soul artist Angie Stone. Simon received the 2021 Medal of Excellence of the Sphinx Organization, which is dedicated to promoting and recognizing Black and Latinx classical music and musicians. His additional honors include the Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Award, Theodore Presser Foundation Award, ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Award, fellowships from the Sundance Institute and Cabrillo Festival, and a residency at the 2021 Ojai Festival.

Simon wrote of An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave (2015), “This piece is an artistic reflection dedicated to those who have been murdered wrongfully by an oppressive power, namely Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The stimulus for composing this piece came as a result of prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch announcing that a selected jury had decided not to indict police officer Daren Wilson after fatally shooting an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. The evocative nature of the piece draws on strong lyricism and a lush harmonic character. A melodic idea is played in all the voices of the ensemble at some point either whole or fragmented. The recurring ominous motif represents the cry of those struck down unjustly in this country. While the predominant essence of the piece is sorrowful and contemplative, there are moments of extreme hope represented by bright consonant harmonies.” 

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)

Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, and died on December 5, 1791 in Vienna. He completed the A major Concerto on March 2, 1786 and premiered it at one of his Lenten subscription concerts soon after it was written, though the exact date is uncertain. The work is scored for flute, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns and strings. Duration is about 26 minutes. The last performancnce by the orchestra was July 6, 2018 with Christopher Dragon conducting and Anna Damerau on piano.

The year 1786 was the crucial one of Mozart’s decade in Vienna. The five years after his arrival in 1781 were marked by a steady increase in his local popularity and the demand for his works and performances: the tuneful and exotic Abduction from the Seraglio was a great hit in 1782; many chamber works and symphonies were commissioned; he had composed fifteen piano concertos for his own concerts in Vienna by the end of 1786.

During his early years in Vienna, Mozart was able to attract audiences because he was the best piano player in town, because he was something new, and because of public curiosity about the durability of an aging child prodigy. As his novelty diminished, it would have been necessary for him to compose exactly what the Viennese audiences wanted to hear if he were to continue to draw listeners, and what they wanted was a good time, a frivolous entertainment, full of frothy tunes easily heard and quickly forgotten. By 1786, however, Mozart’s genius was leading him in a different direction — into musical realms that were well outside the conservative Viennese taste. For the Lenten programs of 1786, Mozart composed not only this

beautiful and deeply felt A major Concerto, but also one in the tragic key of C minor (K. 491). The Viennese public would have none of that. From that time, his fortunes and finances steadily declined.

One need not look far in the A major Concerto to discover the wealth of emotion that so disturbed the Viennese audiences of Mozart’s day. The tonality of A major was, for Mozart, one of luminous beauty shadowed by somber melancholy — of “concealed intensities,” according to Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein. The opening Allegro is invested with a surface beauty that belies its depth of feeling. The movement begins with a presentation of the lovely and abundant thematic material by the orchestra. The soloist then takes up the themes and embroiders them with glistening elaborations. The central section is not based on the earlier themes, but rather takes up a new motive. The key of the second movement, F-sharp minor, is rare in Mozart’s works, and it here evokes a passionate, tragic mood. “The Finale seems to introduce a breath of fresh air and a ray of sunlight into a dark room,” wrote Einstein. The movement is in an involved sonata-rondo form that gives absolutely no trouble to the ear, and is the perfect conclusion for this work, which English musicologist Sir Donald Tovey dubbed “a study in euphony.”

JOAN TOWER (born in 1938)

Concerto for Orchestra

Joan Tower was born on September 6, 1938 in New Rochelle, New York. The Concerto for Orchestra was composed in 1991, and premiered on May 16, 1991 by the St. Louis Symphony, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The work is scored for piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, three percussionists, harp, piano and strings. Duration is about 29 minutes. This is the Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

Joan Tower was born in New Rochelle, New York in 1938, and went to South America with her family at age nine. Her father was a mining engineer whose assignments necessitated frequent family moves to Bolivia, Chile and Peru, but he always found a piano and a teacher to nurture his daughter’s musical interests. Tower returned to the United States at age eighteen to attend Bennington College and Columbia University, where she earned a doctorate in composition. After finishing her professional training, she taught at Greenwich House, a settlement house in New York, while also composing and performing as a pianist. Since 1972, Tower has taught at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where she is now Asher Edelman Professor of Music. She is also active in working with performing groups and students in residencies throughout the country, and has served as Co-Artistic Director of the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival; she was Composer-in-Residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York from 1999 to 2007, and Mentor Composer-in-Residence for the Albany Symphony’s 20132014 season. Tower’s many distinctions include awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Koussevitzky Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts and Massachusetts State Arts Council, as well as the prestigious Grawemeyer

Award from the University of Louisville in 1990, the first woman ever to receive that honor. In 2019, Tower was awarded the Gold Baton, the highest honor given by the League of American Orchestras, and in 2020 she was honored with the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award by Chamber Music America and named Musical America’s “Composer of the Year.”

Tower’s Concerto for Orchestra was composed in 1991 on a joint commission from the St. Louis Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic; Leonard Slatkin conducted the premiere in St. Louis on May 16, 1991 as well as the first performances by the other commissioning ensembles. The composer wrote, “Concerto for Orchestra begins slowly, quietly and simply, on a unison note that emerges from the depths of the orchestra. I had imagined a long and large landscape that had a feeling of space and distance. From the beginning I wanted to convey this sense to let the listener understand that the proportions of the piece would be spacious and that the musical materials would travel a long road.

“The energy of the piece emerges through the contrast of big alternating chords with little fast motives. These take on bigger and bigger shapes, picking up larger textures as they whirl around in fast repeated figures. There is a strong sense of direction in this piece, as in all my music, and a feeling of ascent, which comes not only from the scale motives, but from tempos, rhythms, and dynamics that cooperate to produce the different intensities.

“Although it had been my intention to write a work in two parts, the content of the musical materials led me to a different form. Instead of coming to a full halt at the climactic midpoint of the composition, I felt the arrival could be answered and connected by a series of unisons traversing the orchestral palette. This reaction calms things down, carries the piece forward towards its slow central section, and provides a seam that harks back toward the unison opening of the work and connects the 30-minute span of the Concerto. Unity between the two halves is also provided by the slow–fast structure and by several shared motives, particularly the four-note motive that appears early in the piece and shapes the final fast section.

“In the Concerto for Orchestra, there are not only solos, but duos, trios and other combinations of instruments to form the structural, timbral and emotive elements of the piece. As in all my music, I am working here on motivating the structure, trying to be sensitive to how an idea reacts to or results from the previous ideas in the strongest and most natural way — a lesson I’ve learned from studying the music of Beethoven. Although technically demanding, the virtuoso sections are an integral part of the music, resulting from accumulated energy, rather than being designed purely as display elements. I thus resisted the title Concerto for Orchestra (with its connotations of Bartók, Lutosławski and Husa), and named the work only after the composing was completed, and even then reluctantly.”

©2022 Dr. Richard E. Rodda