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Transformational Support
The DSO is grateful to the donors who have made extraordinary multi-year, comprehensive gifts to support general operations, endowment, capital improvements, named chairs, ensembles, or programs. These generous commitments establish a solid foundation for the future of the DSO.
FOUNDING FAMILIES
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Julie & Peter Cummings The Davidson-Gerson Family and the William Davidson Foundation The Richard C. Devereaux Foundation The Fisher Family and the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation Stanley & Judy Frankel and the Samuel & Jean Frankel Foundation Danialle & Peter Karmanos, Jr. Linda Dresner & Ed Levy, Jr. James B. & Ann V. Nicholson and PVS Chemicals, Inc. Clyde & Helen Wu◊
Penny & Harold Blumenstein Mr. & Mrs. Phillip Wm. Fisher
Shari & Craig Morgan Mrs. Richard C. Van Dusen
VISIONARIES
CHAMPIONS
Mr. & Mrs. Richard L. Alonzo Mandell & Madeleine Berman Foundation Mr. & Mrs. Raymond M. Cracchiolo Joanne Danto & Arnold Weingarden Vera and Joseph Dresner Foundation DTE Energy Foundation The Fred A. & Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation Ford Motor Company Fund Mr. & Mrs. Morton E. Harris◊ John S. & James L. Kinght Foundation The Kresge Foundation Mrs. Bonnie Larson The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Ms. Deborah Miesel Dr. William F. Pickard The Polk Family Bernard & Eleanor Robertson Stephen M. Ross Family of Dr. Clyde and Helen Wu
LEADERS
Applebaum Family Philanthropy Charlotte Arkin Estate Mr. & Mrs. Lee Barthel Marvin & Betty Danto Family Foundation Adel & Walter Dissett Herman & Sharon Frankel Ruth & Al◊ Glancy Mary Ann & Robert Gorlin Ronald M. & Carol◊ Horwitz Richard H. & Carola Huttenlocher John C. Leyhan Estate Bud & Nancy Liebler Richard & Jane Manoogian Foundation David & Valerie McCammon Mr. & Mrs. Eugene A. Miller Pat & Hank◊ Nickol Jack & Aviva Robinson◊ Martie & Bob Sachs Mr. & Mrs.◊ Alan E. Schwartz Drs. Doris Tong & Teck Soo Paul & Terese Zlotoff
BENEFACTORS
Mr.◊ & Mrs. Robert A. Allesee W. Harold & Chacona W. Baugh Robert & Lucinda Clement Lois & Avern Cohn Mary Rita Cuddohy Estate Margie Dunn & Mark Davidoff DSO Musicians Bette Dyer Estate Marjorie S. Fisher Fund Dr. Marjorie M. Fisher & Mr. Roy Furman Barbara Frankel & Ronald Michalak Victor◊ & Gale Girolami Fund Herbert & Dorothy Graebner◊ Richard Sonenklar & Gregory Haynes Mr. & Mrs. David Jaffa Renato & Elizabeth Jamett Ann & Norman◊ Katz Dr. Melvin A. Lester◊ Florine Mark Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs Dr. Glenda D. Price Ruth Rattner Mr. & Mrs.◊ Lloyd E. Reuss Mr. & Mrs. Fred Secrest◊ Jane & Larry Sherman Cindy McTee & Leonard Slatkin Marilyn Snodgrass Estate Mr. James G. Vella
INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY
In 2017, the DSO launched its Social Progress Initiative, affirming a commitment to continuous dialogue and action that leverages the power of music to improve the quality of life for the people of Detroit and beyond. Building on the foundations of the past, we recently expanded this vision into the Detroit Strategy—one pillar of which is the Detroit Neighborhood Initiative.
The core of Neighborhood Initiative work in 2021 has been community partnership-building and listening. “We began by reaching out to organizations in the neighborhoods of Chandler Park and Southwest and asking them if they would partner with us and introduce us to their residents in community listening sessions. We have now met 63 community organizations,” says Karisa Antonio, DSO
Director of Social Innovation. The goal of meeting residents, listening, and learning about each neighborhood’s vibrant culture is to build sustainable relationships and co-create celebratory musical experiences with the people who live, work, and grow in each neighborhood.
After twelve listening sessions, the DSO planned four neighborhood-driven Musical Experiences for summer 2021, including the first annual Chandler Park Community Arts and Music Festival on Detroit’s east side in collaboration with 27 community partners.
By the time the festival came around in July, it had been over a year since students from the Civic Youth Ensembles Dresner Allegro Ensemble had performed before a live audience. With the encouragement of their CYE director Leslie DeShazor—beaming with pride—they took to the stage and performed for an attentive audience as eager to hear as they were to play.
The festival also featured performances blending classical and urban music, spoken word poetry, and West African music and dance. Ceramics artists from the Pewabic Pottery street team demonstrated baking pottery, and community members tried violins with Sphinx, danced with Crescendo Detroit, and completed a musical scavenger hunt with the DSO. Of the 400 Detroiters in attendance at the event, more than half had never attended a performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra before.
Sustainability is a critical foundation of the Detroit Neighborhood Initiative, so next summer will see the expansion to one additional neighborhood, allowing for continual engagement with residents met this year. Join us next summer to hear DSO musicians, celebrate community artists, meet local organizations, and get connected with musical resources for everyone in the family. Read more at dso.org/stories.
The Detroit Neighborhood Initiative is supported by General Motors and The Stone Foundation of Michigan. PwC provided support for the July 10 Chandler Park event.
—Karisa Antonio, DSO Director of Social Innovation
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
PVS CLASSICAL SERIES
Title Sponsor:
DVOR ˇÁK & LEE: NEW WORLDS
Friday, October 29, 2021 at 8 p.m. Saturday, October 30, 2021 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, October 31, 2021 at 3 p.m. in Orchestra Hall
George Enescu Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1881 - 1955) Maestoso (US Premiere) Alexandra Dariescu, piano
Clara Schumann Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1819 – 1896) in A minor, Op.7 I. Allegro maestoso II. Romanze: Andante non troppo con grazia III. Finale: Allegro non troppo Alexandra Dariescu, piano
Intermission
James Lee, III Amer’ican (World Premiere) (b. 1975)
Antonín Dvorˇák Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, (1841 - 1904) [old No. 5] “From the New World” I. Adagio - Allegro molto II. Largo III. Molto vivace IV. Allegro con fuoco
Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D minor
Composed c. 1897
GEORGE ENESCU
B. August 19, 1881, George Enescu (formerly Liveni-Vârnav), Romania D. May 4, 1955, Paris, France Scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 15 minutes)
Demonstrating remarkable talent from a young age, George Enescu is regarded amongst the most illustrious Romanian musicians, known for his artistry as a composer, violinist, pianist, conductor, and educator. Born in August 1881 in the village of Liveni, Romania (later renamed “George Enescu” in his honor), he was a child prodigy who composed his first significant work at age five. At age seven, he became the youngest student ever admitted at the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied with Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr., Robert Fuchs, and Sigismund Bachrich. Three years later, he gave a private concert at the Court of Vienna, in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph. In 1894 he became acquainted with Johannes Brahms, whose style he later emulated.
Enescu studied at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1895 to 1899, presenting his first major work Poema Românaˇ, in 1898 with the Colonne Orchestra conducted by Édouard Colonne. He made his United States conducting debut in January 1923, leading The Philadelphia Orchestra in a concert at Carnegie Hall. Though Enescu returned to the United States many times, much of his work remains lesser known in the US.
Enescu’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D minor is an unfinished work from around 1897. The one surviving movement, Maestoso, reflects a Brahms influence in style, with a rich, romantic quality.
Enescu’s legacy endures in Romania: a museum in Bucharest honors his memory; the George Enescu Festival— founded by his friend and occasional collaborator, the late George Georgescu— has grown to become one of the largest festivals in Eastern Europe; both the symphony orchestra of Bucharest and the Bacaˇu international airport hold his name; and he is immortalized on the five lei banknote.
This performance marks the US premiere of George Enescu’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D minor.
Composed 1833-1835 | Premiered 1835
CLARA SCHUMANN
B. September 13, 1819, Leipzig, Germany D. May 20, 1896, Frankfurt, Germany Scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 20 minutes)
Born Clara Wieck in September 1819, Clara Schumann is regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. She was raised in Leipzig, Germany, by musical parents: her father a professional pianist and educator and her mother an accomplished singer. Gifted from a young age, Clara’s father helped nurture her talents, and she began touring at age 11, finding success in Paris and Vienna.
In January 1833, at age 13, Clara began composing a Piano Concerto in A minor, completing a single movement by that November. In 1834, Robert Schumann, her future husband, revised the orchestration. She performed the work in several concerts at age 14, later expanding it with two more movements,
including the original as the finale. The new first movement was completed in 1834, with the second movement following one year later. It was at this point that Clara again orchestrated the work, reverting to her original version from Robert’s revisions. She completed the work in September 1835, just ahead of her 16th birthday. Clara premiered the finished work in November 1835 with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn and featuring herself as soloist.
In 1840, she married Robert, with whom she also maintained a working relationship. In addition to premiering many works by her husband, Clara premiered works by Johannes Brahms, who both she and Robert considered a close friend and collaborator.
After Robert’s early death in 1856, Clara continued to tour in Europe, frequently with the violinist Joseph Joachim and other chamber musicians. She later served as an influential educator at Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium in Frankfurt and edited the publication of her husband’s work. Schumann died in Frankfurt in 1896, yet her compositions were met with renewed interest in the late 20th century.
This performance marks the DSO premiere of Clara Schumann’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor.
Amer’ican
Composed 2019 James Lee III
B. November 26, 1975, St. Joseph, Michigan Scored for 2 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes (1 doubling on English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 13 minutes) James Lee III wrote the following about his work Amer’ican:
Amer’ican is my response to Dvorˇák’s New World Symphony and partially inspired by various representative paintings of indigenous Americans from the eighteenth century. The work opens with imaginary evocative scenes of Pre-Colombian America. This music evokes imagery of a couple of definitions of the Anishinaabeg/Anishinaabe Native American Indians from Michigan. There is a definition of the name, which is “Beings made out of nothing,” “People created by divine breath,” and “People from whence lowered.” From this last definition I have drawn inspiration from the indigenous tribes particularly on the East Coast and southern United States, especially the Shinnecock, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Wampanoag, and Yamasee Indians. The orchestral texture continues to become denser and grow in energy until “the good humans” (another definition) are created to full form and stature.
Throughout the initial part of the work, the “Swing down, swing low” theme from Dvorˇák’s New World Symphony can be heard quoted. This appears in various forms throughout the composition. The most prominent element of this work is a four-note motive A-MER-I-CAN that personifies the aforementioned paintings of indigenous Americans from the eighteenth century.
As the music progresses, there is a digression to Mesoamerica where the ancient ballgame Ulama was played in Mexico and in what is now known as the state of Arizona. The music depicts the simple fun of the game, but also conveys the brutal aspects of a game with a hard rubber ball that many times provoked injury and unfortunately, the losing team would also be killed in a ritual sacrifice. The music that conveys the ritualistic human sacrifice grows more frantic as if to suggest a presentiment of a foreboding imminent future. Crashing dissonant chords follow, which represent 1492 and an American continent that would forever be changed. The softly
subdued strings serve as a background for the mournful and soulful solo double reed woodwind instruments of bassoon and oboe.
In 1893, a newspaper interview quoted Dvorˇák as saying “I found that the music of the Negroes and of the Indians was practically identical,” and that “the music of the two races bore a remarkable similarity to the music of Scotland.” It is for this reason that I have also quoted the Negro Spiritual “Here’s One” whose melody is heard in the flute with a particular “Indian/Indigenous” coloring or sorrow. Soon after this, the opening material returns, followed by reminiscences of the Ulama ballgame in which music representing memories of unbridled freedom and exhilaration continues to grow into an explosive end. —James Lee III
This performance marks the world premiere of James Lee III’s Amer’ican.
Composed 1893 | Premiered December 1893
ANTONÍN DVOR ˇÁK
B. September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves, Czech Republic D. May 1, 1904, Prague, Czech Republic Scored for 2 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes (1 doubling on English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 40 minutes)
Few things spark a more spirited discussion than trying to define what it means to be American. Antonín Dvorˇák found that out the hard way in May 1893, when he told a reporter for the New York Herald that he believed a truly American classical style should be built on African American folk music. The famous Bohemian composer had arrived in the United States only a few months earlier to take over as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, a relatively new venture funded by the progressive philanthropist Jeannette Thurber. Dvorˇák encountered the multicultural musical soundscape of New York and became convinced that the repertoire of spirituals, sorrow songs, Creole songs, and other styles of the African diaspora would prove to be the greatest source of inspiration for the next generation of American composers. Most white classical musicians disagreed—strongly.
Perhaps the one defining property of American identity is its resistance to firm definition. Our political landscape still crackles with sharp disagreement about who or what “counts” as American, or how American history should be told. In the 1890s, those questions were as pertinent as ever. New constitutional amendments granted civil rights to African Americans, but state and local governments routinely eroded these rights. The military attacked and displaced Indigenous peoples. The federal government curbed immigration from Asia. Yet these groups were each making essential contributions—social, economic, and cultural—to the contours of American life that remain with us today. Dvorˇák wanted to channel that vitality into musical expression, the first result of which was his Ninth Symphony, “From the New World.”
The New World Symphony, as it is often called, is one of the most frequently performed pieces of classical music ever written. The directness of its expression makes it immediately accessible, while its emotional breadth aligns with the composer’s kaleidoscope of influences. A theme sounded by the flute in the first movement echoes the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” a song Dvorˇák learned from the African American baritone vocalist Harry T. Burleigh, a student at the conservatory and his one-time assistant. And it’s possible that the plaintive English horn melody of the Largo movement evokes the timbre of Burleigh’s voice. At the same time, we know that Dvorˇák was
deeply inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha, a subject he wanted to transform into an opera. The musicologist Michael Beckerman has shown that the Largo movement corresponds to “Hiawatha’s wooing,” while the scherzo depicts “Hiawatha’s wedding feast,” including the whirling dance of Pau-Puk Keewis. Although there is no concrete evidence proving it, Beckerman thinks that we might hear the finale as the great battle between PauPuk Keewis and Hiawatha.
In an age of ubiquitous cinematic media, it is easy for us “hear” vivid stories in Dvorˇák’s symphony—either those from Longfellow’s poem or some of our own creation. The work’s original audiences had a far more difficult time. No one could decide if the music sounded truly American, or if it belonged to some other place altogether; situating it for a story was impossible. For Dvorˇák, however, the piece was the beginning of something new, not the final word. It might open the door to fresh channels of creative expression. Dvorˇák’s student, the African American composer Will Marion Cook, once explained that Dvorˇák could not adequately capture the inner meanings of Black music as someone who had lived through the unthinkable struggles out of which it arose. “Soon, perhaps,” Cook wrote, thinking about the symphony, “will some native composer, hopefully of the future, take the pen, inspired by long repressed imagination, and paint glowing tone pictures of a radiant dawn—a dawn without passing— a day without a night.” And so the New World Symphony, like America itself, lives in a constant state of becoming. Both point continually toward new visions, toward a dawn without passing, and a day without a night. — Douglas W. Shadle,
Vanderbilt University The DSO most recently performed Antonín Dvorˇák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” in March 2017, conducted by Manuel Lopez-Gomez on the William Davidson Neighborhood Concert Series. The DSO first performed the piece in January 1915, conducted by Weston Gales.
Antonín Dvorˇák’s New World Symphony by Douglas W. Shadle
(2021, Oxford University Press)
Before Antonín Dvorˇák’s New World Symphony became one of the most universally beloved pieces of classical music, it exposed the deep wounds of racism at the dawn of the Jim Crow era while serving as a flashpoint in broader debates about the American ideals of freedom and equality. Drawing from a diverse array of historical voices, author Douglas W. Shadle’s richly textured account of the symphony’s 1893 premiere shows that even the classical concert hall could not remain insulated from the country’s racial politics.
DSO patrons can save 30% on the title when purchased on the Oxford University Press website at global.oup.com using code AAFLYG6.
ALEXANDRA DARIESCU
Pianist and creator of “The Nutcracker and I,” Alexandra Dariescu stands out as an original voice whose fundamental values are shining a light on gender equality in both her concerto and recital programs as well as championing lesser-known works, advocating for diversity and inclusion.
In 2017, Dariescu took the world by storm with her incredibly successful piano recital production “The Nutcracker and I,” an original ground-breaking multimedia performance for piano solo with dance and digital animation, which has since enjoyed international acclaim and has drawn thousands of young audiences into concert halls across Europe, Australia, China, the Emirates, and the US, realizing Dariescu’s vision of building bridges and making classical music more accessible to the wider public. In the 2020-21 season, Dariescu also premiered the revised pandemic-safe version, “The Nutcracker – reimagined” for solo piano, brass ensemble, narrator, and dance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, making it one of the very few Nutcracker performances to happen in 2020.
The first ever female Romanian pianist to perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Dariescu made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2012 and has since appeared in some of the most prestigious concert halls around the world. In demand as a soloist worldwide, Dariescu has performed to critical acclaim with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Oslo Philharmonic, European Union Youth Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, and Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, among others.
Visit alexandradariescu.com for more.
ERIC JACOBSEN
Hailed by The New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative programming. In July 2021, he assumed the post of Music Director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, becoming the 12th music director in the orchestra’s 100-year history.
Jacobsen is Artistic Director and conductor of The Knights and serves as the Music Director for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. He founded the adventurous orchestra The Knights with his brother, violinist Colin Jacobsen, to foster the intimacy and camaraderie of chamber music on the orchestral stage. As conductor, Jacobsen has led the “consistently inventive, infectiously engaged indie ensemble” (The New York Times) at Central Park’s Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, (Le) Poisson Rouge, the 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center; at major summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Ojai; and on tour nationally and internationally. Recent collaborators include violinists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham; singers Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham, and Nicholas Phan; and pianists Emanuel Ax and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
In demand as a guest conductor, Jacobsen has led the symphony orchestras of Baltimore and Detroit, the New World Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck, and the Tonkunstler Orchestra, with whom Jacobsen appeared at Vienna’s legendary Musikverein.
Visit jacobseneric.com for more.
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
PVS CLASSICAL SERIES
Title Sponsor:
JADER CONDUCTS RACHMANINOFF Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 5, 2021 at 10:45 a.m. Saturday, November 6, 2021 at 8 p.m. in Orchestra Hall
JADER BIGNAMINI, conductor SERGEI BABAYAN, piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 (1873 - 1943) I. Allegro ma non tanto II. Intermezzo III. Finale Sergei Babayan, piano
Intermission
Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 (1833 - 1897) I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo III. Allegretto grazioso (Quasi andantino) IV. Allegro con spirito
Additional support for Saturday’s performance is provided by the Musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Fund for Artistic Excellence.
Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30
Composed 1909 | Premiered November 1909
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
B. March 20, 1873; Oneg, Russia D. March 28, 1943; Beverly Hills, California Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. (approx. 44 minutes).
Following in a line of exceptional Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s compositions are representative of late Russian Romanticism. He composed the third piano concerto for his first American tour and the work displays his phenomenal keyboard skills. In fact, the concerto’s technical difficulty may have contributed to the work’s delayed entry to the popular repertoire.
The first movement opens with a repeated, dotted rhythmic motive played by the orchestra. This swaying rhythm recurs throughout the piece, unifying all three movements. The folk-like melody inspires the piano to ‘sing’ the melody, reserving displays of technical virtuosity for a later time. Once the piano has stated the theme it exchanges roles with the orchestra, playing rapid scalar and arpeggiated gestures while the orchestra plays the theme.
The second movement is a slow adagio and its title, “Intermezzo,” highlights the fact that this movement is an interlude between two thematically related movements. Although the Intermezzo recalls some material from the first movement, its main theme is not picked up by the other movements. The violins play a falling phrase in the first measure that transforms into the first theme. After thirty measures, the piano enters rather suddenly, finally taking up the sorrowful tune.
The finale is an exciting display of virtuosity and Romantic piano writing. It places the rhythmic and the lyrical into counterpoint with one another, constantly alternating between moments of rhythmic urgency and expansive lyrical melody as well as combing these two elements. In the second theme, playfulness first transforms into a light, dreamlike passage before a rising chromatic passage takes the melody to a place that blends piano and string lyricism with light, rhythmic figures in the winds.
A variant of the second theme is then presented as a happy, lyrical melody
that leads into a central section. A recapitulation of the themes from the opening of this movement provides the necessary closure after the central section, however, Rachmaninoff continually peaks the listeners’ interest, this time by presenting both themes differently. This leads to a long, percussive coda that ends with a final, explosive bust of melody from both the piano and orchestra.
The DSO most recently performed Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor in October 2014, conducted by Leonard Slatkin and featuring Garrick Ohlsson. The DSO first performed the piece in February 1920, conducted Ossip Gabrilowitsch and featuring Alfred Cortot.
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73
Composed 1877 | Premiered December 1877
JOHANNES BRAHMS
B. May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany D. April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 39 minutes)
In 1876, Johannes Brahms won a 21-year struggle to complete his First Symphony. The wait was worth it, though—not just because the First is a remarkable work, but because getting it over with seemed to free the composer’s creative spirit. Suddenly, Brahms began the most productive period of his career, writing three more symphonies, three concertos, two major overtures, and numerous keyboard, vocal, choral, and chamber music masterworks over the next decade.
While this D major symphony is obviously the work of the very same Brahms, its relaxed, genial character is sometimes as different from its predecessor, the frowning C minor symphony, as day is from night. It was composed in the sunny rural environment of Pörtschach, a remote lakeside village in the Carinthian Alps of Southern Austria. Biographer Karl Geiringer has recorded a characteristic quote on the symphony by Brahms’ close friend, the surgeon and amateur pianist Theodor Billroth: “It is all rippling streams, blue sky, sunshine, and cool green shadows. How beautiful it must be at Pörtschach!”
Billroth’s comment is especially applicable to the easy, rocking themes that dominate the exposition of the first movement and to the gentle Austrian minuet that makes up the third movement. Though the first movement builds up a typical Brahmsian storm in its central development section and its lengthy coda, the themes set forth at the beginning of the movement are mostly lyrical and untroubled. But even here, Brahms’s stylistic fingerprints are clear in a motivic imitation that shadows the opening horn theme, as well as in the long, spun-out character of a subsidiary violin theme that soon follows. In his contrapuntal wizardry, Brahms combines the two themes when they return at the beginning of the recapitulation.
The plaintive slow movement opens with one of Brahms’s heartfelt cello themes. Gorgeous touches of his unique orchestration abound in this movement, along with elusive harmonic colors. And the third movement is the gentlest of minuets, interspersed with two trios. Each of its sections becomes a variant of what came before and contrast is achieved by sudden changes in the pulse. The extroverted finale makes an oblique reference to the symphony’s two opening themes, then builds climax upon climax in a gigantic movement that concludes in a brassy display. — Carl R. Cunningham
The DSO most recently performed Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in November 2017, conducted by Fabien Gabel. The DSO first performed the work in April 1920, conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch.
Jader Bignamini biography, see page 6.
SERGEI BABAYAN
Pianist Sergei Babayan is one of the leading pianists of our time. Hailed for his emotional intensity, bold energy, and remarkable levels of color, he brings a deep understanding and insight to an exceptionally diverse repertoire. Le Figaro has praised his “unequaled touch, perfectly harmonious phrasing and breathtaking virtuosity.” Le Devoir from Montreal put it simply: “Sergei Babayan is a genius. Period.”
Babayan has collaborated with such conductors as Sir Antonio Pappano, David Robertson, Neeme Järvi, Yuri Temirkanov, Thomas Dausgaard, Tugan Sokhiev, and Dima Slobodeniouk. Over the years, he has performed with Valery Gergiev numerous times to great critical acclaim, including appearances at the International Festival “Stars of the White Nights,” the Moscow Easter Festival, the Barbican Centre with the London Symphony Orchestra, in St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Théâtre des Champs-Elyseés in Paris, at the Salzburg Festival, and at the Rotterdam Philharmonic-Gergiev Festival, where Babayan was artist-in-residence.
In recent seasons, Mr. Babayan’s schedule included concert performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, and the Verbier Festival Orchestra, among others. Babayan regularly performs at many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Zurich Tonhalle. At Konzerthaus Dortmund, he was a Curating Artist during the 2019-20 season.
Babayan is a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist; his latest release Rachmaninoff (DG 2020) was hailed by the international press as a groundbreaking recording and received numerous awards including BBC Recording of the Month and CHOC Classica, which said “This musical journey, born out of a limitless imagination and thought in minute detail, is one big masterpiece.” His previous DG release of his own transcriptions for two pianos of works by Sergei Prokofiev with Martha Argerich as his partner (Prokofiev for Two; DG 2018), was praised by reviewers as “the CD one has waited for”(Le Devoir) and an “electrifying duo that leaves the listener in consternation” (Pianiste). Babayan’s performances have been broadcast by Radio France, BBC-TV, BBC Radio 3, NHK Satellite Television, and Medici TV.
Born in Armenia into a musical family, Babayan began his studies there with Georgy Saradjev and continued at the Moscow Conservatory with Mikhail Pletnev, Vera Gornostayeva, and Lev Naumov. Following his first trip outside of the USSR in 1989, he won consecutive first prizes in several major international competitions including the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Hamamatsu Piano Competition, and the Scottish International Piano Competition. An American citizen, he lives in New York City.
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
PVS CLASSICAL SERIES
Title Sponsor:
BIGNAMINI & BRANFORD
Friday, November 12, 2021 at 8 p.m. Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 3 p.m. in Orchestra Hall
JADER BIGNAMINI, conductor BRANFORD MARSALIS, alto saxophone HANNAH HAMMEL, flute • SARAH LEWIS, oboe RALPH SKIANO, clarinet • MICHAEL MA, bassoon SCOTT STRONG, horn
Aaron Copland El Salón México (1900 - 1990)
John Adams Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra (b. 1947) I. Animato: tranquillo, suave II. Molto vivo: a hard, driving pulse Branford Marsalis, alto saxophone
Intermission
Jeff Scott Paradise Valley Serenade (World Premiere) (b. 1967) I. Dawn and Dusk II. Paradise Lost, but not Forgotten III. A Hug for Cab Calloway Hannah Hammel, flute Sarah Lewis, oboe Ralph Skiano, clarinet Michael Ma, bassoon Scott Strong, horn
George Gershwin Porgy and Bess; A Symphonic Picture (1898 - 1937)
Arr. Robert Russell Bennett
Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
El Salón México
Composed 1932–1936 | Premiered August 1937
AARON COPLAND
B. November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, New York, NY D. December 2, 1990, Sleepy Hollow, NY Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 11 minutes)
El Salón México marks Copland’s entrance into his populist phase, when he wanted to find a broader audience for contemporary music by using simpler harmonic melodies, often based on folk tunes, in a more accessible, but still sophisticated manner. The work’s genesis was a visit to Mexico in 1932, when composer Carlos Chávez brought Copland to a popular dance club called El Salón México. Copland described the scene, and its inspiration to him, in his autobiography:
“Perhaps my piece might never have been written if it hadn’t been for the existence of the Salón México. I remember reading about it for the first time in a tourist guide book: ‘Harlem-type nightclub for the peepul [sic], grand Cuban orchestra. Three halls: one for people dressed in your way, one for people dressed in overalls but shod, and one for the barefoot.’ When I got there, I also found a sign on the wall which said: ‘Please don’t throw lighted cigarette butts on the floor so the ladies don’t burn their feet.’ […] In some inexplicable way, while milling about in those crowded halls, one really felt a live contact with the Mexican people—the electric sense one sometimes gets in far-off places, of suddenly knowing the essence of a people—their humanity, their separate shyness, their dignity and unique charm.”
Copland determined he would write a “musical potpourri” that would convey his impression of the Mexican people. He realized that as an outsider he might miss the mark: “I felt nervous about what the Mexicans might think of a ‘gringo’ meddling with their native melodies.” But he discovered he needn’t worry when, “at the first of the final rehearsals that I attended … as I entered the hall the orchestral players, who were in the thick of a Beethoven symphony, suddenly stopped what they were doing and began to applaud vigorously.” The work was premiered by Chávez conducting the Mexico Symphony Orchestra on August 27, 1937 and was a critical and popular success.
In creating his potpourri, Copland borrowed at least nine Mexican folk tunes from two collections he received during his trip, El Folklore y la Musica Mexicana edited by Ruben Campos and Cancionero Mexicano by Frances Toor. The work consists of an introduction and four major segments, alternating slow-fast-slow-fast. A trumpet solo following the introduction is the longest quoted melody from Compos’s collection, a tune called El Mosco. A slow “Mexican hat dance” segues into a lyrical, broad melody that ends with a repeated trumpet call, announcing the second, faster segment. This builds to a crashing close, followed by the so-called “siesta” section, introduced by a solo clarinet and violin. Lyrical, “sleepy” melodies alternate, followed by an insistent, rocking melody that gradually increases in tempo. The finale builds in rhythmic intensity and melodic complexity, when, as Copland writes, “I present the folk tunes simultaneously in their original keys and rhythms. The result is a kind of polytonality that achieves the frenetic whirl I had in mind before the end, when all is resolved with a plain unadorned triad.” —Barbara Heninger, courtesy of Redwood Symphony
The DSO most recently performed El Salón México in October 2012, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The DSO first performed the piece in December 1944, conducted by Karl Krueger.
Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra
Composed 2013 | Premiered August 2013
JOHN ADAMS
B. February 15, 1947, Worcester, MA Scored for solo alto saxophone, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets (1 doubling on bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, harp, keyboard, and strings. (Approx. 30 minutes) John Adams wrote the following about his work Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra:
My Saxophone Concerto was composed in early 2013, the first work to follow the huge, three-hour oratorio, The Gospel According to the Other Mary. One would normally be hard put to draw lines between two such disparate creations. One deals with such matters as crucifixion, raising the dead, and the trials of battered women. The other has as its source my life-long exposure to the great jazz saxophonists, from the swing era through the likes of Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Wayne Shorter. Nonetheless there are peculiar affinities shared by both works, particularly in the use of modal scales and the way they color the emotional atmosphere of the music. Both works are launched by a series of ascending scales that energetically bounce back and forth among various modal harmonies.
American audiences know the saxophone almost exclusively via its use in jazz, soul, and pop music. The instances of the saxophone in the classical repertory are rare, and the most famous appearances amount to only a handful of solos in works by Ravel (his Bolero and his orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition), by Prokofiev (Lieutenant Kijé Suite and Romeo and Juliet), Milhaud (La Création du Monde), and of course the “Jet Song” solo in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, probably one of the most immediately recognizable five-note mottos in all of music. Beyond that, the saxophone appears to be an instrument that classical composers employ at best occasionally and usually only for “special” effect. It is hard to believe that an instrument that originated in such strait-laced circumstances—it was designed in the mid nineteenth century principally for use in military bands in France and Belgium and was intended to be an extension of the brass family—should have ended up as THE transformative vehicle for vernacular music (jazz, rock, blues, and funk) in the twentieth century. Nonetheless, its integration into the world of classical music has been a slow and begrudged one.
Having grown up hearing the sound of the saxophone virtually every day—my father had played alto in swing bands during the 1930s and our family record collection was well stocked with albums by the great jazz masters—I never considered the saxophone an alien instrument. My 1987 opera Nixon in China is almost immediately recognizable by its sax quartet, which gives the orchestration its special timbre. I followed Nixon with another work, Fearful Symmetries, that also features a sax quartet in an even more salient role. In 2010, I composed City Noir, a jazz-inflected symphony that featured a fiendishly difficult solo part for alto sax, a trope indebted to the wild and skittish styles of the great bebop and post-bop artists such as Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano, and Eric Dolphy. Finding a sax soloist who could play in this style but who was sufficiently trained to be able to sit in the middle of a modern symphony orchestra was a difficult assignment. But fortunately, I met Tim McAllister, who is quite likely the reigning master of the classical saxophone, an artist who while rigorously trained is also aware of the jazz tradition.
When one evening during a dinner conversation Tim mentioned that during high school, he had been a champion stunt bicycle rider, I knew that I must compose a concerto for this fearless musician and risk-taker. His exceptional musical personality had been the key ingredient in performances and recordings of City Noir, and I felt that I’d only begun to scratch the
surface of his capacities with that work.
A composer writing a violin or piano concerto can access a gigantic repository of past models for reference, inspiration, or even cautionary models. But there are precious few worthy concertos for saxophone, and the extant ones did not especially speak to me. But I knew many great recordings from the jazz past that could form a basis for my compositional thinking, among them Focus, a 1961 album by Stan Getz for tenor sax and an orchestra of harp and strings arranged by Eddie Sauter. Although clearly a “studio” creation, this album featured writing for the strings that referred to Stravinsky, Bartók, and Ravel. Another album, Charlie Parker and Strings, from 1950, although more conventional in format, nonetheless helped to set a scenario in my mind for way the alto sax could float and soar above an orchestra. Another album that I’d known since I was a teenager, New Bottle Old Wine, with Canonball Adderley and that greatest of all jazz arrangers, Gil Evans, remained in mind throughout the composing of the new concerto as a model to aspire to.
Classical saxophonists are normally taught a “French” style of producing a sound with a fast vibrato very much at odds with the looser, grittier style of a jazz player. Needless to say, my preference is for the latter “jazz” style playing, and in the discussions we had during the creation of the piece, I returned over and over to the idea of an “American” sound for Tim to use as his model. Such a change is no small thing for a virtuoso schooled in an entirely different style of playing. It would be like asking a singer used to singing Bach cantatas to cover a Billie Holiday song.
While the concerto is not meant to sound jazzy per se, its jazz influences lie only slightly below the surface. I make constant use of the instrument’s vaunted agility as well as its capacity for a lyrical utterance that is only a short step away from the human voice. The form of the concerto is a familiar one for those who know my orchestral pieces, as I’ve used it in my Violin Concerto, in “City Noir” and in my piano concerto Century Rolls. It begins with one long first part combining a fast movement with a slow, lyrical one. This is followed by a shorter second part, a species of funk-rondo with a fast, driving pulse.
The concerto lasts roughly thirty-two minutes, making it an unusually expansive statement for an instrument that is still looking for its rightful place in the symphonic repertory. —John Adams
This performance marks the DSO premiere of John Adams’s Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra.
Paradise Valley Serenade
Commissioned by the DSO
JEFF SCOTT
B. 1967 Scored for solo woodwind quintet, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 20 minutes) Jeff Scott wrote the following about his work Paradise Valley Serenade:
Paradise Valley and Black Bottom, Detroit. For me, it wasn’t a question of whether I knew the history, but rather, why I didn’t. As I toured through the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, I thought…. Motown, check. Ford Motor Company, check. The Flame Show Bar? The Gotham Hotel? For me, not a notion. Paradise Theatre? The very venue that this newly commissioned work will premiere, or Orchestra Hall as we know it. I had no clue that it once operated as a jazz venue under this name.
From 1941-1951, the Paradise Theatre hosted the who’s who of jazz royalty. Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and more. This piece of local history was an entryway to a much larger story: a story of a once thriving African American community that grew from extremely humble beginnings during the Great Migration and out of the Great Depression, only to be razed in favor of “Urban Renewal” projects in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
This work, Paradise Valley Serenade,
opens with a morning yawn and sunrise in “Dawn and Dusk.” The day has begun like most others and there is work to be done, like in any other urban American community. But unlike most communities, there is a cultural hub within that spews musical fire by night and draws the culturally curious to witness the flames.
In the second movement, “Paradise Lost, but not Forgotten,” I envisioned an elder from the Paradise Valley or Black Bottom community, docilly telling the history to a grandchild. The story is told with great melancholy and even describes his/her witnessing of the demolition of the neighborhoods. That said, there is a pride in the telling, a feeling of fortitude and resilience.
For the last movement, “A Hug for Cab Calloway,” I envisioned what it might have been like to see Cab Calloway live at the Paradise Theatre. With his swinging big band, double entendre lyrics, high energy dancing, and stage antics. — Jeff Scott
This performance marks the world premiere of Jeff Scott’s Paradise Valley Serenade.
Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture
GEORGE GERSHWIN
B. September 26, 1898, Brooklyn, NY D. July 11, 1937, Los Angeles, CA
Arr. ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT
B. June 15, 1894, Kansas City, KS D. August 18, 1981, New York, NY Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, and strings. (Approx. 23 minutes)
Although George Gershwin’s musicals were the toast of Broadway in the 1920s and 30s, the composer hoped to produce a stage work in a more dramatic vein that nevertheless avoided the mannerisms of European opera. He found a vehicle for such a work in the novel Porgy by South Carolina writer DuBose Heyward. Heyward’s book, which Gershwin read in 1926, told the story of a crippled Black man, Porgy, and his love for Bess, a beauty with a troubled past. Subsidiary characters include Bess’s dangerous lover Crown, a smoothtalking gambler and cocaine dealer known as Sporting Life, and Porgy’s wise and humane neighbors in the tenements on Charleston’s waterfront.
Porgy & Bess, as Gershwin eventually called the work, received mixed reviews when it opened in New York in October 1935 and ran for 124 performances before closing at a financial loss. Today, it is recognized as one of the first distinctively American operas.
Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture, as Bennett called his arrangement, is a far-ranging adaptation of much of the opera’s finest music, and despite the reemergence of Gershwin’s own orchestral excerpts, it has become the standard Porgy and Bess concert suite. Bennett’s treatment includes music from the openings of both the first and second acts, the orchestral storm music, and transcriptions of some of the more familiar vocal numbers: “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty of Nuthin,” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “I’m On My Way,” which concludes the opera. Faithful to the style and spirit of Gershwin’s music, Bennett’s score transposes to a symphonic medium the flavor of the blues, spirituals, and work songs of Southern Blacks on which Gershwin drew in composing Porgy and Bess. At the same time, it stands a fine example of the craft of modern orchestration. — Paul Schiavo
The DSO most recently performed music from Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess in February 2019 conducted by Leonard Slatkin and featuring Laquita Mitchell, Derrick Parker, and the Wayne State Centennial Choir. The DSO first performed music from the opera in December 1939, conducted by Victor Kolar and featuring the Eva Jessye Choir.
Jader Bignamini biography, see page 6.
BRANFORD MARSALIS
Growing up in the rich environment of New Orleans as the oldest son of pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis, Branford Marsalis was drawn to music along with siblings Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason. His first instrument, the clarinet, gave way to the alto and then the tenor and soprano saxophones when the teenage Branford began working in local bands. A growing fascination with jazz as he entered college gave him the basic tools to obtain his first major jobs, with trumpet legend Clark Terry and alongside Wynton in Art Blakey’s legendary Jazz Messengers. When the brothers left to form the Wynton Marsalis Quintet, the world of uncompromising acoustic jazz was invigorated. Branford formed his own quartet in 1986 and, with a few minor interruptions in the early years, has sustained the unit as his primary means of expression. Known for the telepathic communication among its uncommonly consistent personnel, its deep book of original music replete with expressive melodies and provocative forms, and an unrivaled spirit in both live and recorded performances, the Branford Marsalis Quartet has long been recognized as the standard to which other ensembles of its kind must be measured.
Branford has not confined his music to the quartet context, however. Classical music inhabits a growing portion of Branford’s musical universe. A frequent soloist with classical ensembles, Branford has become increasingly sought after as a featured soloist with such acclaimed orchestras as the Chicago, Detroit, Düsseldorf, and North Carolina Symphonies and the Boston Pops, with a growing repertoire that includes compositions by Debussy, Glazunov, Ibert, Mahler, Milhaud, Rorem, and Vaughn Williams.
Branford formed the Marsalis Music label in 2002, and under his direction it has documented his own music, talented new stars such as Miguel Zenón, and un-heralded older masters including one of Branford’s teachers, the late Alvin Batiste. Branford has also shared his knowledge as an educator, forming extended teaching relationships at Michigan State, San Francisco State, and North Carolina Central Universities and conducting workshops at sites throughout the United States and the world.
As for other public stages, Branford spent a period touring with Sting, collaborated with the Grateful Dead and Bruce Hornsby, served as Musical Director of The Tonight Show Starring Jay Leno, and hosted National Public Radio’s widely syndicated Jazz Set. The range and quality of these diverse activities established Branford as a familiar presence beyond the worlds of jazz and classical music, while his efforts to help heal and rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina mark him as an artist with an uncommonly effective social vision.
Some might gauge Branford Marsalis’s success by his numerous awards, including three Grammys and (together with his father and brothers) his citation as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. To Branford, however, these are only way stations along what continues to be one of the most fascinating and rewarding journeys in the world of music.
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
TITLE SPONSOR:
THE STREISAND SONGBOOK FEATURING ANN HAMPTON CALLAWAY
Friday, November 19, 2021 at 10:45 a.m. Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 8 p.m. Sunday, November 21, 2021 at 3 p.m. in Orchestra Hall
MICHAEL KRAJEWSKI, conductor ANN HAMPTON CALLAWAY, vocalist
Program to be announced from the stage.
MICHAEL KRAJEWSKI
Known for his entertaining programs and engaging personality, Michael Krajewski is a much sought-after pops conductor in the US, Canada, and abroad.
His twenty-year relationship with the Houston Symphony included seventeen years as Principal Pops Conductor. He also served as Principal Pops Conductor of the Long Beach Symphony for eleven years, Principal Pops Conductor of Atlanta Symphony for eight years, Music Director of the Philly Pops for six years, and Principal Pops Conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony for twenty-five years.
Krajewski’s busy schedule as a guest conductor includes concerts with major and regional orchestras across the United States. In Canada he has appeared with the orchestras of Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Regina, and Kitchener-Waterloo. Overseas, he has performed in Ireland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Malaysia, and China.
Born in Detroit, Krajewski studied music education at Wayne State University and conducting at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of music. Krajewski now lives in Florida with his wife Darcy. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, photography, and solving crossword puzzles.
ANN HAMPTON CALLAWAY
Ann Hampton Callaway is one of America’s most gifted and prolific artists. A leading champion of the great American Songbook, she’s made her mark as a singer, pianist, composer, lyricist, arranger, actress, educator, TV host, and producer. Voted by broadwayworld.com as “Performer of the Year” and two years in a row as “Best Jazz Vocalist,” Callaway is a born entertainer.
Callaway’s unique singing style blends jazz and traditional pop, making her a mainstay in concert halls, theaters, and jazz clubs as well as in the recording studio, on television, and in film. She is best known for her Tony-nominated performance in the hit Broadway musical “Swing!” and for writing and singing the theme song to the hit TV series “The Nanny.” Callaway is a Platinum Awardwinning writer whose songs are featured on seven of Barbra Streisand’s recent CDs.
The only composer to have collaborated with Cole Porter, she has also written songs with Carole King, Rolf Lovland, Amanda McBroom, and Shelby Lynn. Callaway has shared the stage with great artists from many genres including George Shearing, Dizzy Gillespie, Stevie Wonder, Dr. John, Liza Minnelli, Betty Buckley, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Audra McDonald, Harvey Fierstein, Ramsey Lewis, Kurt Elling, and Michael Feinstein.
Visit annhamptoncallaway.com for more.
A COMMUNITY-SUP JADERPORTED ORCHESTRAJADER BIGNAMINI, Music Director BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR
Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation
JEFF TYZIK
Principal Pops Conductor TERENCE BLANCHARD
Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair LEONARD SLATKIN
Music Director Laureate NEEME JÄRVI
Music Director Emeritus
PVS CLASSICAL SERIES
Title Sponsor:
JADER & HILARY HAHN Thursday, December 2, 2021 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, December 3, 2021 at 10:45 a.m. Saturday, December 4, 2021 at 8 p.m. at Orchestra Hall
JADER BIGNAMINI, conductor HILARY HAHN, violin
Bedrich Smetana Overture to The Bartered Bride (1824 - 1884)
Antonín Dvorˇák Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1841 - 1904) in A minor, Op. 53 I. Allegro, ma non troppo II. Adagio, ma non troppo III. Finale: Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo Hilary Hahn, violin
Intermission
Bedrˇich Smetana “The Moldau,” No. 2 from Má vlast (1824 - 1884)
Florence Price Symphony No. 3 in C minor (1887 - 1953) I. Andante; Allegro II. Andante ma non troppo III. Juba IV. Scherzo. Finale
Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Overture from The Bartered Bride
Composed 1863-1866 | Premiered May 1866
BEDR ˇ ICH SMETANA
B. March 2, 1824, Litomyšl, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) D. May 12, 1884, Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 7 minutes)
The Bohemian composer Bedrˇich Smetana is considered the father of Czech opera, a rather notable accomplishment given that Czech was not his first language. Born under Hapsburg rule, Smetana was schooled first in German, and only later in life was he able to study his hereditary tongue. In fact, when he was working on his second opera, he used a German translation of the text as an aid in composition.
The Bartered Bride, which might more aptly be titled The Sold Bride, relates a comic tale of love and trickery. In brief, Marenka is in love with Jenik, but her parents plan to wed her to the son of Micha, a local landlord. Unknown to all but himself, Jenik is Micha’s long-lost son. Jenik allows the marriage broker to buy him off for a high price, but exacts a condition that Marenka be wed to “The eldest son of Micha.’” The broker agrees, thinking that Micha has only one son, but all ends happily when Jenik’s true heritage is revealed.
Overtures to operas are usually written almost as afterthoughts, but Smetana was so taken with the story that he wrote the lively prelude before beginning any other work on the opera. The result is a piece that stands alone beautifully, yet still serves as a wonderful introduction to the work that made Smetana famous. — Geoff Kuenning
The DSO most recently performed the Overture from The Bartered Bride in January 2017, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The DSO first performed the work in January 1919, conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch.
Composed 1879-1882 | Premiered October 1883
ANTONÍN DVOR ˇÁK
B. September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) D. May 1, 1904, Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) Scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 31 minutes)
Antonín Dvorˇák was encouraged to tackle a violin concerto by Joseph Joachim, one of the foremost violinists of the 19th century and a lifelong friend of Johannes Brahms (whose masterful violin concerto was written for Joachim). Although Joachim quite liked the early drafts that Dvorˇák shared, he found the final product troubling, mostly because it dispensed with the customary orchestral exposition. Joachim found excuses to not perform the work, which frustrated Dvorˇák; the composer eventually sought to premiere the work with a different violinist, and only years later would Joachim begin to see the piece’s beauty.
The concerto opens with a pair of brief and dramatic orchestral statements—but not a true exposition!—presenting glimpses of the first movement’s principal theme. Each is answered by the solo violin. The featured instrument’s responses begin purposefully, taking up the orchestra’s material, but they end in cadenza-like rhapsodies. The orchestra’s third attempt yields a more complete
thematic exposition, but the soloist soon rejoins the proceedings, leading a lively exploration of the principal subject and the more lyrical subsidiary idea. Dvorˇák offers only an abbreviated recapitulation of the opening material before continuing without pause into the central Andante. This second movement opens with music of hymnlike serenity, moves through more impassioned episodes, and finally returns to the tranquil vein in which it began. The finale is of altogether different character, suggesting the spirited village dances of Dvorˇák’s native Bohemia.
The DSO most recently performed Dvorˇák’s Violin Concerto in A minor in June 2018, conducted by Christoph Konig and featuring violinist Veronika Eberle. The DSO first performed the work in January 1928, conducted by Victor Kolar and featuring violinist Gustav Kleiner.
The Moldau, No. 2 from Má vlast
Composed 1874 | Premiered April 1875
BEDR ˇ ICH SMETANA
B. March 2, 1824, Litomyšl, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) D. May 12, 1884, Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings. (Approx. 11 minutes)
Smetana was a promising young pianist and composer when revolution shook Prague in 1848. The uprising against Austria’s Hapsburg rulers galvanized Smetana’s patriotic instincts, and the formerly apolitical musician now defended barricades and wrote inspirational Czech songs and marches. After the revolt failed, Smetana left to live and work in Sweden, where he enjoyed a measure of success as a composer, pianist, and conductor. In 1861, he was called home by the establishment in Prague of a National Theater dedicated to presenting Czech plays and operas.
Smetana composed several operas and stage works on nationalist themes, including his final opera, Libuše. The work concluded with the heroine relating a vision in which she sees a series of scenes from Bohemia’s history. From this, Smetana conceived the idea of translating the vision into music — more specifically, into a large-scale orchestral composition. The work took the form of a cycle of six tone poems, each representing a different aspect of Bohemia or its national legends. Smetana gave the cycle the collective title Má Vlast, which means “My Fatherland.”
The second piece of Má Vlast, Vltava (The Moldau), has become Smetana’s most famous orchestral composition, and it ranks among the finest tone poems of the nineteenth century. The piece takes its title from the great river that flows through Czechoslovakia, a body of water known to English speakers as the Moldau. Smetana’s tone poem is a hymn of praise to the river and, by extension, to his native country. Like all tone poems, it unfolds as a sort of musical narrative. In this case, the story is an imaginary journey down the stream, beginning at its source deep in the Bohemian forest. In the opening measures, running figures in the woodwinds suggest the flowing brooks and springs, which join to form the Moldau. As the Moldau courses down from the hills and into Czechoslovakia’s fertile valleys, it passes parties of hunters, a peasant celebration, and water nymphs playing in the moonlight, all of which are suggested in the music. The river and its melody then broaden before encountering the turbulent St. John’s Rapids, which lie shortly before Prague. Triumphantly, the Moldau flows past the capital and its ancient castles before disappearing in the distance.
The DSO most recently performed Smetana’s The Moldau from Má vlast in November 2019 conducted by Enrico Lopez-Yañez. The DSO first performed the piece in March 1916 conducted by Weston Gales.
Symphony No. 3 in C minor
Composed 1938-40 | Premiered November 1940
FLORENCE PRICE
B. April 9, 1887, Little Rock, Arkansas D. June 3, 1953, Chicago, Illinois
Scored for 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings. (Approx. 22 minutes)
Florence Beatrice (Smith) Price was the most widely known African American woman composer from the 1930s until her death in 1953. After graduating as Valedictorian of her class at the age of 14, she enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music— initially passing as Mexican to avoid racial discrimination—where she studied composition with George Chadwick and Frederick Converse.
Price was the first Black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra—her Symphony No. 1 in E minor, premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on June 15, 1933. The premiere brought instant recognition and accolades to Price, yet much of her music eventually fell into neglect due to “a dangerous mélange of segregation, Jim Crow laws, entrenched racism, and sexism.” (Women’s Voices for Change, 2013).
Price’s compositions reflect a romantic nationalist style, while incorporating African American musical forms. Of her four symphonies, the Second has gone missing; the First is fairly conventional, reminiscent of Dvorˇák; and the Fourth is her most polished, more sedate, somewhat elegiac in character. The Third, from its opening measures, takes more risks, indulges some strange formal asymmetries, breaks into dissonances occasionally for their own sake, and also, in its third movement, engages African American idioms more expertly.
While Price’s First Symphony may be more fully considered in the context of the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro Movement of the 1920s and 30s, the Third Symphony was inspired by new philosophical, political, and social currents, stemming from the Chicago Renaissance, underway beginning in 1935. The Great Migration of Blacks from the South to Chicago (and Detroit), the Great Depression, and the adjustment to urban life provided vivid life experiences as subject matter for writers and artists including Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Margaret Bonds, and Price, who had settled in Chicago from Little Rock, Arkansas in 1927.
The Third Symphony omits the overtly Black themes and simple dance rhythms of the First and presents a modern approach to composition—a synthesis, rather than a retrospective view, of African American life and culture. It also nurtures some anger—we need not look too far into Price’s biography to imagine why the first important African American female symphonist may have wanted to rail against the world at this point in her career—yet also some playfulness and affection for jazz and ragtime idioms.
Commissioned by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Music Project during the Great Depression, Price’s Symphony No. 3 in C minor premiered at the Detroit Institute of Arts on November 6, 1940, by the Detroit Civic Orchestra (featuring members of the DSO) and conductor Valter Poole. This performance marks the DSO premiere of the piece. — Adapted from Kyle Gann, kylegann. com, under Creative Commons license.
Jader Bignamini biography, see page 6.
HILARY HAHN
Three-time Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn melds expressive musicality and technical expertise with a diverse repertoire guided by artistic curiosity. Her barrier-breaking attitude towards classical music and her commitment to sharing her experiences with a global community have made her a fan favorite. Hahn is a prolific recording artist and commissioner of new works, and her 21 feature recordings have received every critical prize in the international press.
As Virtual Artist-in-Residence with the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Hahn performed three programs last season, including the world premiere of her newly composed cadenza to Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5. Hahn went on to perform the concerto with the Houston and Dallas Symphony Orchestras; in Dallas, she also delivered the keynote speech of the Second Annual Women in Classical Music Symposium. Hahn also took the time last season to perform the Dvorˇák Violin Concerto, appearing with both the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.
In March 2021, Deutsche Grammophon released Hahn’s 21st album, Paris, recorded with Mikko Franck and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Paris features the world premiere recording of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Two Serenades, a piece written for Hahn and completed posthumously by Kalevi Aho, which Hahn premiered in 2019. The album also includes performances of Ernest Chausson’s Poème and Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1, a long-time signature piece of Hahn’s.
A strong advocate for new music, Hahn has championed and commissioned works by a diverse array of contemporary composers. In the 2018-19 season, she premiered two new works written for her: Two Serenades, and Lera Auerbach’s Sonata No. 4: Fractured Dreams. The season was bookended by another major release: her most recent solo commission, 6 Partitas by the late Antón García Abril. García Abril, Auerbach, and Rautavaara had been contributing composers for In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores, Hahn’s Grammy Award-winning multiyear commissioning project to revitalize the duo encore genre.
Hahn is a prolific and celebrated recording artist whose twenty feature albums on Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, and Sony have all opened in the top ten of the Billboard charts. Three of Hahn’s albums—her 2003 Brahms and Stravinsky concerto disc, a 2008 pairing of the Schoenberg and Sibelius concerti, and her 2013 recording of In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores— have been awarded Grammys. Jennifer Higdon’s Violin Concerto, which was written for Hahn and which she recorded along with the Tchaikovsky concerto, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Hahn is the subject of two documentaries by filmmaker Benedict Mirow: Hilary Hahn – A Portrait, filmed in 2004, and Hilary Hahn – Evolution of an Artist, which chronicles the subsequent 16 years of her career.
Hahn has also participated in several non-classical productions. She was featured in the Oscar-nominated soundtrack to The Village and has collaborated on two records by the alt-rock band …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, on the album Grand Forks by Tom Brosseau, and on tour with folk-rock singer-songwriter Josh Ritter. In 2012, Hahn launched Silfra, a freeimprov project with experimental prepared-pianist Hauschka, following an intensive period of development.
Visit hilaryhahn.com for more.
