Requiem on the Road:
The ASO Chorus reminisces about taking Brahms to Berlin
By Holly Hanchey
In December of 2009, a distinctly American chorus, under the baton of their Scottish Principal Guest Conductor, took on an incredible challenge, performing one of the most revered German compositions—Brahms’ A German Requiem—in front of a German audience, singing in German. They were nervous and excited, but also somewhat at home. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2003 and 2008 at the musicians’ invitation. In 2009, the chorus was invited to close out a year-long Brahms celebration.
Jeffrey Baxter, ASO Choral Administrator and long-time member of the chorus said, “The pressure was on, yes. We knew we had to be well prepared. We had done it [the Requiem] so many times, with Robert Shaw, with Robert Spano. We had done it with Donald, but this was another layer of pressure.” “We already had standards we had to live up to, and now we were singing for the Berliners in their own language in a piece that they own, really. A piece that is their standard repertoire.”
It is also a part of the ASO Chorus’ standard repertoire and familiar to each singer. Director of Choruses Norman Mackenzie said that while it has been performed many times, Brahms’ German Requiem is never the same. “Robert Shaw loved this work and made it a staple of this chorus’ repertoire in the years that he was conducting in Atlanta,” Mackenzie said. “We have been fortunate to continue that special heritage in recent years with Donald Runnicles and Robert Spano. That kind of history with a masterpiece creates the ability to probe its depths in constantly new and exciting ways that make an Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus performance a uniquely rich emotional and intellectual experience.”
Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem is a favorite of choruses everywhere for good reason. His masterful composition both repeats themes and reinvents them, from the opening “selig sind, die da Leid tragen (blessed are they that mourn)” to the closing “selig sind die Toten (blessed are the dead).”
Mackenzie said, “Firstly, it’s a true work of genius. It is perfectly and elegantly crafted by a master of symphonic-choral literature. The writing for both
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orchestra and chorus is highly idiomatic, effective and communicative to the listener. But in the final analysis, it is the superb dramatic arc of the work and its unique personal and emotional content that have made it so meaningful to audiences all over the world.”
After the ASO Chorus sang the very last note of Brahms’ Requiem, there was silence. Then there was thunderous applause.
“We sort of were ready for that moment. German audiences are so well behaved and respectful,” said Baxter. “When it’s something that ends softly like that, there was this silence which seemed like an eternity. It was both overwhelmingly moving but also kind of nervewracking, thinking ‘Oh, did they like us?’ Then of course the applause came, and it would not stop.”
The German audience had embraced them fully, because in the words of a reviewer in the Berliner Morgenpost, the chorus “proved itself as a dependable, dynamic, gigantic instrument that lived up to the powerful proclamation continuously demanded by Runnicles.”
Mackenzie recalls “When the first performance ended in the hush of soft strings and harp, the audience was utterly silent for an unusually long time before the applause finally began. They were clearly deeply moved. That touching validation of our efforts meant so much more to Donald, to me and to the chorus than any ovation could have!”
Chorus member Marcia Chandler said, “I suspect I was holding my breath...this American chorus delivering Brahms’ German Requiem to a German audience. But the audience’s applause let me know we had done our job.”
But how was their German? Flawless, of course.
Long-time chorus member Jon Gunnemann spoke some German, and said, “I grabbed up every German newspaper I could find in the hotel lobby and looked for reviews, and there were several of them. I read them to my colleagues at breakfast, and one of them said, ‘The Chorus articulated the German text with extraordinary care and sensitive power. The excellent Berliner Rundfunk Chorus could learn something in this regard from their American colleagues.’”
“Which is a fairly stunning reviewer’s analysis of our German, so we were very, very happy. We all gave sort of a ‘Whoopee!’ as we were eating breakfast.”
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus will present Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem this month, Thursday and Saturday, January 26 and 28 at 8:00pm, again under the baton of Principal Guest Conductor Sir Donald Runnicles, with choral preparation by Director of Choruses Norman Mackenzie.
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“Firstly, it's a true work of genius."
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— Norman Mackenzie
We are deeply grateful to the following leadership donors whose generous support has made the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's season possible.
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ASO
SEASON SPONSORS
SPECIAL THANKS:
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is grateful to the generous donors who support our Education & Community Engagement Initiatives. The following list represents gifts of $500 or more made since June 1, 2021 in support of the Talent Development Program & the Orchestra’s other education & community programs.
Drs. Kevin & Kalinda Woods
$50,000+
A Friend of the Symphony Accenture
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Concert of Wednesday January 4, 2023, 8:00pm
DAVID COUCHERON, violin
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750) Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 (1721) 10 MINS I. [Without tempo marking] II. Adagio III. Allegro
EDVARD GRIEG (1843–1907)
From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style, Op. 40 (1884) 21 MINS I. Prelude II. Sarabande III. Gavotte and Musette IV. Air V. Rigaudon
INTERMISSION 20 MINS
The use of cameras or recording devices during the concert is strictly prohibited. Please be kind to those around you and silence your mobile phone and other hand-held devices.
ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678–1741) Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), Op. 8, Nos. 1–4 (ca. 1725) 37 MINS Primavera (Spring), Op. 8, No. 1 (RV 269) in E Major I. Allegro II. Largo III. Allegro L’estate (Summer), Op. 8, No. 2 (RV 315), in G Minor I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Presto L’Autunno (Autumn), Op. 8, No. 3 (RV 293), in F Major I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Allegro L’inverno (Winter), Opus 8, No. 4 (RV 297), in F Minor I. Allegro II. Largo III. Allegro David Coucheron, violin
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Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048
This concerto is scored for strings and basso continuo.
by Noel Morris Program Annotator
First ASO performance: November 23, 1949
Henry Sopkin, conductor
Johann Sebastian Bach applied for his first church job at 18. As a serious candidate, young Bach’s musicianship wasn’t up for debate. But the church council in Arnstadt had other priorities. They put him through rigorous grilling on his knowledge of the Bible and Lutheran doctrine. After all, he would be expected to write music that reflected the weekly Bible readings. He was not unprepared. “Sebastian” was a fifth-generation church musician who’d been sent to school to study the Bible in German and Latin and—like all members of the Bach family—learned music at home. He had been orphaned at 10 and went to live with his older brother Johann Christoph—already a successful organist. Sebastian thrived in his brother’s care and won that job in Arnstadt; however, he was not destined to settle. After a few years, his music-making grew too experimental for the conservatives in town, and so he moved to Mühlhausen. There, he landed in the middle of a battle between the Pietists, who decried elaborate church music, and the orthodox Lutherans, who encouraged it. After a year, he took a job as a chamber musician and organist in Weimar, a happy arrangement that lasted for nine years until a feud broke out between different branches of the ruling family. Things came to a head when the old Kapellmeister died; Bach, the best qualified musician, was passed over for the top job. Sharing his frustration, the Duke Ernst August helped him find another job. Out of spite, the Duke of Weimar jailed Bach for a month. The next chapter of his life was a revelation for today’s classical instrumentalist: He went to work for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, a Calvinist who was a fine musician but couldn’t permit music in the church. As a result, Bach went from composing sacred works to producing music for the court, including pieces for harpsichord and various string and wind instruments. Much of his instrumental music (other than for organ) comes from this period, including the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Cello Suites, the Orchestral Suites, the Violin Partitas and Sonatas, and likely some part of the Brandenburg Concertos.
Most recent ASO performance: March 22–24, 2018
Robert Spano, conductor
Bach was familiar with the Italian concerto form, thanks to a Dutch publication of (mostly) works by Antonio Vivaldi. From this, he made organ and harpsichord transcriptions, opening his mind to new possibilities in instrumental writing. The word “concerto” likely
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stems from two ideas: to be in “concert,” as in to harmonize or act jointly, and “concertare,” as in the Latin word for argue and debate. Both ideas apply to Bach’s concertos in that the form sets the soloist(s) in musical dialogue or debate with a larger ensemble.
Given his orchestra of seventeen musicians in Anholt-Köthen, Bach mixed up the instrumental combinations from one Brandenburg Concerto to the next. “Every one of the six concertos set a precedent in scoring, and everyone was to remain without parallel,” wrote Bach biographer Christoph Wolff.
The piece calls for the unusual scoring of three solo violins, three solo violas, and three solo cellos (originally violas da gamba) with bass and continuo. Over the years, the middle movement has been a source of head-scratching—it consists of only two chords— prompting some scholars to speculate that the chords were intended as bookends to an extended improvisation to be played by Bach himself. Today, the second movement is usually played as written and treated as a bridge or “semi-colon” between the first movement and the rollicking finale.
After a few years in Köthen, Bach, again, found himself searching for a job. By this time, he had sons in need of a school, and there was no university in town. And so, in 1721, he packed up six concertos and sent them to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, with the following dedication:
As I had the good fortune a few years ago to be heard by Your Royal Highness… I have in accordance with Your Highness’s most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigour of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him.
As far as we know, the Margrave never wrote back. In 1723, Bach moved to Leipzig to become the cantor at St. Thomas’s Church.
From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style, Op. 40
These are the first ASO performances.
The Holberg Suite is scored for strings.
At the age of 25, Edvard Grieg issued his Piano Concerto in A minor. Dazzling audiences with fiery bombast, the piece earned him instant recognition. Overnight
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he became the hero of Norwegian music and joined the ranks of Europe’s most important composers. Fans eagerly waited for more of the same. But going forward, Grieg favored music on a more intimate scale—songs, piano music, choral pieces.
The Holberg Suite brings together the hero of Norwegian music with a literary hero: Ludvig Holberg, who is credited with having brought the Enlightenment to Scandinavia. Holberg’s accomplishments seemed almost implausible: According to Britannica, “his seriocomic epic Peder Paars (1719), a parody of Virgil’s Aeneid, was the earliest classic of the Danish language.”
Orphaned as a child, Holberg set out on foot to visit the major cities of Europe. Along the way, he attended university and supported himself by teaching French, flute and violin. He turned out a series of comedies that helped establish Danish-language theater. He wrote novels in Danish and Latin. He became a professor of metaphysics and logic and chaired the departments of Latin literature and history at the University of Copenhagen. Grieg wrote the Holberg Suite (From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style), in honor of the 200th anniversary of Holberg’s birth.
Born in Bergen, Norway, Holberg (1684–1754) is an exact contemporary of Bach and Vivaldi. To pay tribute, Grieg wrote a suite of piano pieces in the style of Baroque dances (as he understood them) from Holberg’s own time.
1. Praeludium: a prelude or introductory piece.
2. Sarabande: a slow Spanish dance in triple meter with hints of Arab influence. It was considered disreputable in 16th-century Spain before it spread to Italy, France and the Americas.
3. Gavotte: originally a French folk dance in quadruple meter with a strong upbeat that became popular in the court of Louis XIV and later found its way into concert works by composers ranging from Bach to Prokofiev.
4. Air: Akin to “aria,” air is a song-like composition.
5. Rigaudon: originally a rustic, 17th-century French folk dance in duple or quadruple meter. The rigaudon is an athletic dance that became popular at courts in England and France.
Grieg wrote the Holberg Suite for piano and played the premiere in Bergen at a celebration of the Holberg bicentennial. He arranged the piece for orchestra the following year.
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First ASO performance of complete cycle: March 12–14, 1992
Pinchas Zukerman, violin and conductor
Most recent ASO performance of complete cycle: November 15–18, 2001 Robert Spano, conductor Gil Shaham, violin
Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), Op. 8, Nos. 1–4 Le quattro stagioni are scored for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo.
Antonio Vivaldi was the master of the side hustle. He was an ordained priest, a schoolteacher, a touring opera composer, an impresario and theater director. During his lifetime, he achieved fame and fortune yet died a pauper and a stranger in a foreign land. Today, he is wildly popular but was almost lost to history. For all these reasons, Vivaldi’s music has been copied, borrowed, and arranged—he has a vast filmography (Fantastic Four, Six Feet Under, What We Do in the Shadows, Spy Game, Madagascar 2, etc.)—yet there are holes in what we know about his life. For example, we don’t know precisely when he wrote his most famous music, The Four Seasons.
Vivaldi was the son of a violinist who worked at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. As a working-class boy, he had only one path to higher education: the priesthood. Because he suffered from “tightness of the chest,” young Antonio was allowed to live at home, where he continued to play music with his father. Not long after his ordination in 1703, he received dispensation from having to say Mass. (There’s a rumor that he was caught writing music in the sacristy, but the official reason cited poor health.) That same year, he became master of violin at Ospedale della Pietà, a school for foundling girls. Because many of the students were illegitimate daughters of the nobility, the school was well funded, giving Vivaldi all the resources needed for an excellent orchestra. Over his lifetime, he produced some 500 concertos, many of which were written for the girls to play.
Later in life, as his popularity waned, Vivaldi turned his attention to Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. Moving to the Austrian capital in 1740, the composer had hoped to win a royal appointment, but Charles died suddenly. Without income or royal protection, Vivaldi sank into poverty and died alone in 1741. His music was forgotten (apart from the Bach transcriptions) until 1926 when a crate of Vivaldi manuscripts was discovered at a boarding school in Italy’s Piedmont. There began an effort to recover, reconstruct, perform and publish his music. In 2012, an entire opera was discovered at an Italian library.
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WIKIPEDIA
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The original manuscript of The Four Seasons has not been found, but the music was published in Amsterdam in 1725, part of a set of twelve violin concertos titled “The contest between harmony and invention.” Although we don’t know the year of composition, suffice it to say it was a golden age for the violin. Just a hundred miles from Venice, violin makers, especially the Amati, Bergonzi, Guarneri and Stradivari families, had made innovations to the instrument’s design. Today, their violins are priceless. (To put them in perspective, the most valuable guitar, a 1959 Martin D-18E played by Kurt Cobain on MTV Unplugged, sold for $6 million; a Stradivari violin recently sold for $20 million.) The other factor making the eighteenth century a golden age for the violin had to do with Vivaldi himself; his virtuosity as a player caused other composers to reimagine the expressive capabilities of the instrument.
With The Four Seasons, Vivaldi did something that would become popular a hundred years after his death: he used instrumental music to tell a story. The 1725 publication includes a sonnet for each concerto which Vivaldi paints with the sounds of the instruments. For example, during the harvest feast (Autumn), the countrymen sink into a drunken stupor. For this effect, Vivaldi uses irregular rhythms to evoke the image of a man staggering off in search of a place to sleep. Some editions of The Four Seasons credit Vivaldi as the author of the sonnets; however, this has never been confirmed.
The Four Seasons Sonnets attributed to Antonio Vivaldi Spring
Allegro
Spring has arrived, and joyfully the birds greet her with glad song, while at Zephyr's breath the streams flow forth with a sweet murmur. Her chosen heralds, thunder and lightning, come to envelop the air in a black cloak; once they have fallen silent, the little birds return anew to their melodious incantation:
Largo
then on the pleasant, flowerbedecked meadow, to the happy murmur of fronds and plants, the goatherd sleeps next to his trusty dog.
Allegro
To the festive sound of rustic bagpipes nymphs and shepherds dance beneath the beloved sky at the glorious appearance of spring.
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Summer Allegro
In a harsh season burned by the sun, man and flock languish, and the pine tree is scorched; the cuckoo unleashes its voice, and soon we hear the songs of the turtledove and the goldfinch. Sweet Zephyr blows, but Boreas suddenly opens a dispute with his neighbor; and the shepherd laments his fate for he fears a fierce squall is corning.
Adagio
His weary limbs are robbed of rest by his fear of fierce thunder and lightning and by the furious swarm of flies and blowflies.
Presto
Alas, his fears are only too real: the sky fills with thunder and lightning, and hailstones hew off the heads of proud cornstalks.
Autumn Allegro
The countryman celebrates with dance and song the sweet pleasure of a good harvest, and many, fired by the liquor of Bacchus, end their enjoyment by falling asleep.
Adagio
Everyone is made to abandon singing and dancing by the temperate air, which
gives pleasure, and by the season, which invites so many to enjoy the sweetness of sleep.
Allegro
The huntsmen come out at the crack of dawn with their horns, guns and hounds; the quarry flees and they track it; already terrified and tired out by the great noise of the guns and hounds, the wounded beast makes a feeble effort to flee but dies in agony.
Winter Allegro
To shiver, frozen, amid icy snow in the bitter blast of a horrible wind; to run, constantly stamping one's feet; and to feel one's teeth chatter on account of the excessive cold; Largo to spend restful, happy days at the fireside while the rain outside drenches a good hundred [people];
Allegro
to walk on the ice, and with slow steps to move about cautiously for fear of falling; to go fast, to slip and fall down; to go on the ice again and run fast until the ice cracks and opens up; to hear coming out of the iron gates Sirocco, Boreas and all the winds at war: that's winter, but of a kind to gladden one's heart.
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DAVID COUCHERON, VIOLIN
David Coucheron joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as Concertmaster in September 2010. At the time, he was the youngest concertmaster among any major U.S. orchestra.
Throughout his career, Coucheron has worked with conductors Robert Spano, Michael Tilson Thomas, Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich and Charles Dutoit, and has performed as soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Sendai Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.
Coucheron serves as the Artistic Director for the Kon Tiki Chamber Music Festival in his hometown of Oslo, Norway. Recordings with sister and pianist Julie Coucheron include “David and Julie” (Naxos/Mudi) and “Debut” (Naxos). He is also the featured soloist on the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, released on ASO Media in Fall 2014.
Coucheron began playing the violin at age three. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music, his Master of Music from The Juilliard School and his Master of Musical Performance from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Coucheron plays a 1725 Stradivarius, on kind loan from Anders Sveaas Charitable Trust.
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JEFF ROFFMAN
Concerts of Thursday, January 12, 2023 8:00 PM Sunday, January 15, 2023 3:00 PM
KAZEM ABDULLAH, conductor TOM BORROW, piano
LOUISE FARRENC (1804–1875)
Overture No. 2, Op. 24 (1834) 7 MINS LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 (1806) 35 MINS I. Allegro moderato II. Andante con moto III. Rondo: Vivace Tom Borrow, piano
INTERMISSION 20 MINS
JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957) Finlandia, Op. 26, No. 7 (1899) 9 MINS
“Valse triste” from Kuolema (Death), Op. 44, No. 1 (1904) 6 MINS
Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 105, “In One Movement” (1924) 23 MINS
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Overture No. 2, Op. 24
This overture is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.
by Noel Morris Program Annotator
These are the first ASO performances.
In 1840, Hector Berlioz heard a piece by Louise Farrenc and noted that it was “well written.” He went on to say that it was orchestrated “with a talent rare among women.” And it was rare. These skills are usually developed in an academic setting—where women were not allowed.
The 19th century was a difficult time for musicians born of a certain gender. In affluent households, girls learned voice and piano and were afforded ample time to develop skills that would then be hidden from public view by protective fathers and husbands. Musicianship was a mark of accomplishment for the debutante (think of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Emma), but it was to be shared with family and friends only.
Into this closed society came Louise Farrenc (née Dumont), born in 1804 to a family of artists. Her father was the sculptor Jacques-Edme Dumont, who arranged for her to receive piano lessons. When he realized she was gifted, he hired the best instructors available, including the prominent composerpianist Johann Nepomuk Hummel.
At 15, Louise enrolled as a piano student at the Paris Conservatory. Because girls weren’t permitted to attend the composition class, her father paid for private lessons with the composition professor, Anton Reicha. With a lot determination, Louise Farrenc developed into a formidable musician. Reicha, a friend of Beethoven, would go on to teach Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz and César Franck.
While at the Conservatory, Louise fell in love with another student, the flutist Aristide Farrenc, who was ten years her senior. They married when she was 17. Becoming recital partners, they toured together and then returned to Paris to start a music publishing house. Louise continued to perform and, in 1842, won a faculty position at the Conservatory. She was the only female professor there during the entire 19th century.
For all her fortitude, Farrenc was humble about her own compositions. It was Aristide who pushed her to publish her works. In 1849, her Nonet earned broad acclaim after a premiere headed by the famous violinist Josef Joachim. With the wind in her sails, she presented the Conservatory management with an accounting of faculty compensation and demanded equal pay—which they granted.
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Farrenc wrote her Overture No. 2 in 1834. The Paris Conservatory declined to admit women to the composition class until 1870.
First ASO performance: March 21, 1951
Henry Sopkin, conductor Claudio Arrau, piano
Most recent ASO performances: February 15–17, 2018
Roberto Abbado, conductor Jorge Federico Osorio, piano
Piano
Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
In addition to the solo piano, this concerto is scored for flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.
Beethoven was a dreamy child. His mind would wander, and he’d fail to notice things happening around him; a family friend called it his “raptus.” It was a habit that persisted throughout his life. Biographer Jan Swafford wrote, “He spends hours lost in his raptus, improvising at the keyboard, ideas flowing from his fingers into sound, sketchbook on a table beside him to fix sounds before they are gone.”
Every day, no matter the weather, the composer would venture outdoors to roam the countryside and hike through the woods, “growling and howling and waving his arms conducting the music in his head, stopping to pencil ideas in the pocket sketchbooks,” wrote Swafford. Biographer Edmund Morris referred to those sketchbooks as “inspirational bedlam.” Between 1803 and 1804, Beethoven was a fountain of ideas; he jotted down hundreds of sketches and bound them into a 192-page book. About half the sketches went into Eroica Symphony. Others found their way into the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the opera Fidelio, his Triple Concerto, and his Fourth Piano Concerto, which he wrote for himself to play. After all, he was among Vienna’s most sought-after pianists.
Through performances by composer-pianists, such as Mozart and Beethoven, the audience came to have certain expectations about piano concertos. Typically, the orchestra would play some introductory music, and then the solo piano would enter. With the Fourth Piano Concerto, Beethoven surprised them by opening with the piano alone. Curiously, that delicate music grows from a germinal idea, a four-note rhythm, that is a close cousin to something far more tempestuous—the opening of the Fifth Symphony. Where the Fifth Symphony explodes with a torrent of notes, the Fourth Piano Concerto moves like moonlight dancing on the water. What binds them, beyond the use of the same rhythmic figure, is the little book that lived in Beethoven’s pocket. The opening themes of both works appeared on the same page of his sketchbook, as if he’d had a brilliant inspiration that was too fertile to exhaust in a single composition.
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JOSEPH WILLIBRORD MÄHLER
Sadly, the bedlam described by Edmund Morris was not limited to Beethoven’s sketchbooks. In the year 1806, the composer suffered from chronic illness and profound hearing loss. He had a spat with his theater manager and withdrew his opera. He quarreled with his brother, his publisher, and his patron, who cancelled Beethoven’s stipend. In spite of all this, the composer produced one landmark piece after another, including quartets, part of the Fifth Symphony, the Fourth Symphony, the Violin Concerto, and the Fourth Piano Concerto.
The Piano Concerto had its public premiere on a bitter-cold night in 1808. It was a legendary fiasco during which Beethoven presented a whopping four-hour concert in an unheated hall. Making matters worse, the orchestra got angry and was underrehearsed. Over the course of that one evening, Beethoven premiered the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Fifth Symphony, the Sixth Symphony, and the Choral Fantasy. After its chilly debut, the Fourth Piano Concerto languished until 1836 (nearly a decade after Beethoven’s death) when Felix Mendelssohn revived the piece and brought it into the repertoire.
Finlandia, Opus 26, No. 7
Finlandia is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals a2, bass drum, triangle and strings.
First ASO Performance: February 4, 1945 Henry Sopkin, conductor.
Most Recent ASO Performances: Jan. 29–30, 2022 David Danzmayr, conductor
Finland enjoyed relative autonomy for the greater part of the 19th century, despite its acquisition by Russia in 1809. In that year, Finland became a Grand Duchy under the Russian Czar. Nevertheless, Finland maintained its own government, army, currency and postal service. Finnish and Swedish served as official languages, and the Lutheran religion was maintained.
The situation deteriorated toward the end of the 19th century with the growth of Russian nationalism. In February of 1899, a Russian imperial decree ordered that the Russian State Council would be responsible for all laws affecting Finland. Russia incorporated the formerly autonomous Finnish postal system. The Finnish army was disbanded and citizens became liable for conscription into the Russian military. The threat of Russian censorship of the Finnish press inspired the “Press Pension Fund Pageant” in November of 1899. As part of the pageant, Kaarlo Bergbom, director of the Helsinki Finnish Theater, arranged a series of six tableaux depicting landmark events in Finnish history. Texts by Eino Leino and Jalmari Finne accompanied the presentation of each of the tableaux. Jean Sibelius composed
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“subdued (musical) accompaniment” to the texts, as well as overtures for the presentation of the tableaux. Sibelius composed his tone poem, Finlandia, for the final tableau, entitled “Finland Awakes.”
In describing the composition of Finlandia, Sibelius noted in his diaries: “(t)he themes on which it is built came to me directly. Pure inspiration.” Sibelius dismissed Finlandia as a “relatively insignificant piece” and attributed the work’s broad appeal to “its plein air style.” Musicians and audiences have disagreed with Sibelius’s characterization of Finlandia, a blazing patriotic work that continues to move and thrill listeners, regardless of nationality.
The accompanying text for the tableau that inspired Sibelius’s Finlandia begins: “The powers of darkness menacing Finland have not succeeded in their terrible threats. Finland awakes!” Finlandia opens in somber fashion (Andante sostenuto) with an ominous brass chorale that contrasts with a plaintive statement by the woodwinds and strings. Suddenly, the mood changes as brass fanfares introduce the heroic principal Allegro theme. The woodwinds intone a beautiful, espressivo hymn that is soon played by the strings. Brass fanfares herald the return of the heroic theme, which joins the hymn for the triumphant conclusion of Finlandia. Ken Meltzer
First and most recent ASO performances: May 14–16, 1992 Yoel Levi, conductor
“Valse triste” from Kuolema (Death)
“Valse triste” is scored for flute, clarinet, two horns, timpani and strings.
One of Jean Sibelius’ most popular and enduring works, the Valse triste began as a request from a family member. In 1903, Sibelius’ brother-in-law, author Arvid Järnefelt, asked the composer for incidental music to accompany a play he had written. “I’ll think about it,” Sibelius replied.
His thoughts soon turned into music, and he wrote pieces for six scenes of the play. Valse triste, or “sad waltz,” went with a scene in which the protagonist sits with his mother as she lies on her deathbed. She has dreamed of attending a ball. As the weary son sinks into sleep, the sounds of a waltz begin to grow in the distance. The dying woman arises from her bed, her nightgown turning into a ball gown, and begins to dance, imagining herself surrounded by party guests. The music stops as she falls into bed, but she is roused again by a vision of her dead husband and the dance music becomes wild. The scene fades away as it becomes clear that she sees not her husband before her, but Death.
Sibelius arranged the work a few years later and sold it to his publisher,
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reportedly for a pittance, and the rights were subsequently aquired by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1905. The piece became wildly popular, not only in the orchestral version heard on this concert, but in arrangements for a variety of instruments and ensembles. Sibelius, however, did not see a penny of the profits, having entered into an agreement that did not include rights or royalties — Leah Branstetter
Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Opus 105, “In One Movement”
Symphony No. 7 is scored for two piccolos, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.
First ASO Performances: Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 1970 Robert Shaw, conductor. Most Recent ASO Performances: February 20–22, 2020 Thomas Søndergård, conductor
Jean Sibelius’s Seventh (and final) Symphony was the product of an extended and sometimes difficult creative process. The first mention of the work occurs in a diary entry by the composer, dated July 18, 1917: “I have the symphonies VI and VII in my head.”
In the May 20, 1918 letter to Axel Carpelan, Sibelius offers this description of his Seventh Symphony:
The Seventh Symphony. Joie de vivre and vitality, with appassionato passages. In three movements—the last a ‘Hellenic’ Rondo.
The planes will perhaps be changed as the musical ideas develop. As usual, I am a slave to my themes and adapt myself to their needs. It was not until March 2, 1924, that Sibelius completed his Symphony No. 7. By that time, the Symphony embodied a far different structure than described in the 1918 letter to Carpelan. As Sibelius told his biographer, Karl Ekman: “at night, as I entered in my diary, I completed Fantasia sinfonica—that is what I first thought of calling my seventh symphony in one movement.”
Sibelius conducted the world premiere of his Symphony No. 7 in Stockholm on March 24, 1924. At the time, the title of the piece was indeed Fantasia sinfonica. But when the work was published in 1925, it was finally given the title of the composer’s Symphony No. 7.
The Symphony No. 7 is an extraordinary work on many levels. It is designated as being “In One Movement,” and in that sense, is unique among the composer’s Seven Symphonies. But it is also possible to discern a series of symphonic movements within the structure. During the brief course of the Seventh Symphony, Jean Sibelius presents the
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constant metamorphosis of themes, couched in ever-shifting tempos and orchestral colors. The Sibelius Seventh manages to fly by in an instant, while maintaining an atmosphere of eternal timelessness. In every respect, the Sibelius Seventh represents the fitting culmination of a master composer’s unique achievements in this genre.
The Symphony opens with a brief, hushed statement by the timpani (Adagio). The cellos inaugurate an ascending passage encompassing a C-Major scale that culminates in a mysterious A-flat minor chord. The flutes, bassoons, and clarinets play an undulating sixteenth-note theme, followed by a descending passage in the oboes (the ascending scale and subsequent themes all play central roles throughout the Symphony). Divided strings inaugurate a sublime lyrical episode, culminating with a solo trombone proclaiming a noble sonore theme.
A further development of the principal themes (Un pochettino meno adagio) gathers momentum, resolving to a quicksilver scherzo (Vivacissimo) episode, featuring lightning-quick exchanges between the strings and winds. The tempo slows, and an undulating string figure serves as accompaniment for a reprise of the trombone theme (Adagio). An extended, quick-tempo episode (Allegro molto moderato) focuses upon a buoyant theme, first played by the winds.
A second scherzo episode (Vivace) jaunts to a Presto conclusion. The trombone melody returns heralding the Symphony’s expansive concluding measures (Adagio). Echoes of the central themes (including the trombone melody, now played by solo flute and bassoon), resolve to the majestic closing bars.
KAZEM ABDULLAH, CONDUCTOR
American conductor Kazem Abdullah, Music and Artistic Director of the City of Aachen, Germany from 2012 to 2017, most recently conducted the symphony orchestras of Oregon, Indianapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, as well as an opera Gala for the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the American premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s opera Brokeback Mountain with the New York City Opera, and Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda for Cape Town Opera.
Other notable engagements include leading the Orquestra de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s most celebrated classical music ensembles, on its third United States coast-to-coast tour; conducting the New World Symphony’s 2009 Ives In-Context Festival by special invitation from Michael Tilson Thomas; and substituting on very short notice to conduct the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in
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collaboration with the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Born in Indiana, Mr. Abdullah began his music studies at the age of 10 with clarinet and piano. He studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and the University of Southern California. His primary conducting teachers were Jorma Panula, Kurt Masur, James Levine, and Bernard Haitink. He was awarded the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award by his alma mater, CCM in 2015.
TOM BORROW, PIANO
Born in Tel Aviv in 2000, Tom Borrow began studying piano aged five with Dr. Michal Tal at the Givatayim Music Conservatory, and currently studies with Prof. Tomer Lev of the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University. Tom has been regularly mentored by Murray Perahia, and has participated in masterclasses under the instruction of Sir András Schiff, Christoph Eschenbach, Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler, and Tatiana Zelikman, among many others. Tom has won every national piano competition in Israel, including first prize at the Israeli Radio & Jerusalem Symphony Young Artist Competition in Jerusalem, and three first prizes at the “Piano Forever” Competition in Ashdod (in three different age categories). In 2018, he won the prestigious “Maurice M. Clairmont” award, given to a single promising artist once every two years by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and Tel-Aviv University. Tom’s recent and forthcoming engagements include the Cleveland Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Sao Paulo Symphony, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Basque National Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra and others.
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Concerts of Thursday, January 19, 2023 8:00 PM Saturday, January 21, 2023 8:00 PM
SIR DONALD RUNNICLES, conductor JONATHAN BISS, piano
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791) Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 (1785) 31 MINS I. Allegro II. Romanza: Andante III. Rondo: Allegro assai Jonathan Biss, piano
INTERMISSION 20 MINS
ANTON BRUCKNER (1824–1896), ed. Leopold Nowak Symphony No. 8 in C Minor (1890) 78 MINS I. Allegro moderato II. Scherzo: Allegro moderato — Trio: Langsam III. Adagio: Feierlich langsam, doch nicht schleppend IV. Finale: Feierlich, nicht schnell
The use of cameras or recording devices during the concert is strictly prohibited. Please be kind to those around you and silence your mobile phone and other hand-held devices.
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Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466
In addition to the solo piano, this concerto is scored for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.
by Noel Morris Program Annotator
First ASO performance: December 15, 1961
José Iturbi, conductor and piano
On March 31, 1795, the celebrated pianist Ludwig van Beethoven walked onstage to play a benefit for Mozart’s widow. Beethoven’s choice of repertoire was a favorite of his: Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor. Over the coming years, the Romantic era would take hold and displace the likes of Mozart; his music would be mostly forgotten—but not this concerto. There was something in its turbulent, minor-key affect that agreed with the Romantics.
Most recent ASO performances: January 27–29, 2011
Donald Runnicles, conductor Robert Spano, piano
Of his roughly two-dozen piano concertos, Mozart wrote only two in a minor key. The key of D minor was one he used for some of his most harrowing music, including the Requiem and Don Giovanni’s journey to hell. This is not to say that Mozart was personally struggling when he wrote the Concerto. In fact, he was at the top of his game in a splashy, urban playground.
At the age of 29, Mozart had been a keyboard soloist for more than two decades. He was only 8 when he was entertaining kings and queens across Europe. All along, his father’s greatest ambition was to see him working in the service of a ranking nobleman—possibly a royal. Yet the elder Mozart had unwittingly groomed the boy for life as a freelancer. Carting him from city to city, Leopold Mozart pushed young Wolfgang to jockey for projects from members of the nobility. In this way, Leopold grew the family coffers well beyond his own earnings. (Both Leopold and Wolfgang were lowranking servants of the Archbishop of Salzburg.) Wolfgang grew accustomed to fine clothing and elite company. In 1781, he broke with his father, broke with Salzburg, and moved to Vienna where the piano concerto became a primary source of income. Mozart’s life in Vienna was beyond hectic. Often, he taught ladies of the nobility by day and gave concerts at night, all the while pushing out piles of music. Living around the seat of the Holy Roman Empire, his world was strictly controlled by the Church. As such, theaters closed during Lent, creating an opportunity for a different form of entertainment. For the Lenten season of 1784, Mozart sold subscriptions and gave more than a dozen public concerts, with the piano concerto serving as the major draw. In the fall, he began a push to write more concertos culminating in concerts for the Lenten season of 1785, where he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 20—
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while the ink was still wet.
In a letter to Mozart’s sister, Leopold Mozart wrote: “[I attended the premiere of] an excellent new piano concerto by Wolfgang, on which the copyist was still at work when we got there, and your brother didn’t even have time to play through the rondo because he had to oversee the copying operation.” The cadenzas of the concerto were improvised, leaving large gaps in the piece as it exists today.
In the coming years, Beethoven offered his own improvisation. Other cadenzas were written by Brahms, Hummel, and Busoni. The tradition continues today with the occasional performer opting to perform original cadenzas.
First ASO performances: January 6–8, 1983
Hiroyuki Iwaki, conductor
Most recent ASO performances: January 27–29, 2011
Donald Runnicles, conductor
Symphony No. 8 in C Minor
Symphony No. 8 is scored for three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), eight horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings.
Anton Bruckner inspires a level of fandom that is rare among classical composers. If his music stirs you to the core, you are not alone. And, typical of fan culture, there are places to feed your most zealous feelings, such as the Bruckner Society of America, abruckner.com, and the Bruckner Journal. His symphonies are said to be “cathedrals of sound”; they step outside the fast-paced rhythm of life to forge their own relationship to space and time and carry the listener into unexpected places—an unsettling proposition that has engendered detractors and devotees since Bruckner started issuing symphonies at the age of 43.
Although Bruckner was a newcomer to the concert hall, he was not new to music. In fact, he was by then among the greatest organists alive. His father had been an organist, and Anton learned to play as a boy. When he lost his father at 13, he enrolled at the school that would become his spiritual home, the monastery at St. Florian, where he started as a choirboy and eventually matured into roles as teacher and organist.
St. Florian, located in Upper Austria, proved to be an ideal environment for him. He was deeply religious. He thrived in the solitude of the organ loft and found an accepting and nurturing community. (Bruckner was not neurotypical; he had an obsessive nature that drove him to count things such as roof tiles and cobblestones). St. Florian offered a magnificent library and a fine
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pipe organ (now called the Bruckner Organ), which helped to feed his soul.
Starting in 1855 he took composition lessons with Simon Sechter in Vienna and then with Otto Kitzler in Linz. By this time, he was approaching his 40th birthday. When Sechter died in 1868, Bruckner, the perennial student, assumed Sechter’s teaching post at the Vienna Conservatory. There, he started producing symphonies.
For Bruckner, Vienna was a harsh place. People tittered at his country accent and baggy suits. They found him socially awkward. And as he started presenting his symphonies, the Vienna Philharmonic declined to play them. Poor Bruckner was ill-equipped to handle the criticism and became an obsessive reviser of his works.
Nevertheless, 1884 was a banner year. The conductor Hermann Levi saw merit in the Seventh Symphony and began introducing the piece around Europe. With that, the sixty-year-old Bruckner finally tasted success as a symphonist. Feeling vindicated and empowered, he launched into his next Symphony and presented it to Levi in 1887 with a gushing letter.
“Halleluja!” Bruckner wrote. “The Eighth is finished at last and my ‘father-in-music’ must be the first to hear the news.” Alas, his “father in music,” Levi, found the Eighth Symphony baffling and declined to perform it. Bruckner, who had already started writing his Ninth Symphony, was crushed.
Within a month, he had put the Ninth aside and launched into extensive revisions of the Eighth as well as some of his earlier symphonies. It was a process that occupied him for more than two years. Tragically, by the time he returned to the Ninth, he had reached the end of his life.
“Today, Bruckner’s Eighth should still be controversial,” wrote Tom Service in The Guardian. “This is a piece that is attempting something so extraordinary that if you’re not prepared to encounter its expressive demons, or to be shocked and awed by the places Bruckner’s imagination takes you, then you’re missing out on the essential experience of the symphony.”
As the last completed symphony of Anton Bruckner, it is ironic that he altered the ending of the first movement, changing it from a bold, heroic ending to one that tapers off into something dark and unsettling. “This is how it is when one is on his deathbed,” wrote Bruckner, “and opposite hangs a clock, which, while his life comes to its end, beats on ever steadily: tick, tock, tick, tock.”
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Bruckner dedicated his Eighth Symphony to Emperor Franz Joseph I. Hans Richter led the Vienna Philharmonic in the first performance in December of 1892.
SIR DONALD RUNNICLES, CONDUCTOR
Sir Donald Runnicles is the General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In 2019 Runnicles also took up post as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever Principal Guest Conductor. He additionally holds the title of Conductor Emeritus of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, having served as Chief Conductor from 2009-2016. Runnicles enjoys close and enduring relationships with many of the leading opera companies and symphony orchestras, and he is especially celebrated for his interpretations of Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire, which are core to his musical identity.
Sir Donald Runnicles was born and raised in Edinburgh. He was appointed OBE in 2004, and was made a Knight Bachelor in 2020. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
JONATHAN BISS, PIANO
Jonathan Biss is Co-Artistic Director alongside Mitsuko Uchida at the Marlboro Music Festival, where he has spent fifteen summers. He also recently led a massive open online course (MOOC) via Coursera, reaching an international audience of over 150,000. Biss has authored four audio- and e-books, including UNQUIET: My Life with Beethoven (2020), the first Audible Original by a classical musician and one of Audible’s top audiobooks of 2020.
During the 2022-23 season, Biss gives solo recitals in cities including Cologne, New York, and Philadelphia, performing works by Berg, Schumann, and Schubert, and appears as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony, Budapest Symphony, and the Rochester Philharmonic, as well as with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”).
In 2020, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Biss concluded over a decade-long immersion in the composer’s music, which included concert series, recordings, writings, lectures, and commissions of Beethoven-inspired works, and recorded the composer’s complete piano sonatas.
He began his piano studies at age six, and has studied with Evelyne Brancart at Indiana University and Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music.
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Concerts of Thursday, January 26, 2023, 8:00 PM Saturday, January 28, 2023, 8:00 PM
SIR DONALD RUNNICLES, conductor
RUSSELL BRAUN, baritone
YING FANG, soprano
ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CHORUS NORMAN MACKENZIE, Director of Choruses
ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK (b. 1941)
Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed: In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) (1979) 7 MINS
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)
Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), Op. 45 (1868) 68 MINS
I. Chorus: Selig sind, die da Leid tragen II. Chorus: Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras III. Baritone and Chorus: Herr, lehre doch mich, daß ein Ende mit mir haben muß IV. Chorus: Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, Herr Zebaoth V. Soprano: Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit Chorus: Ich will euch trösten VI. Chorus: Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt Baritone: Seihe, ich sag euch ein Geheimnis VII. Chorus: Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herren sterben
Thursday’s concert is dedicated to SALLY & CARL GABLE in honor of their extraordinary support of the 2021/22 Annual Fund.
Saturday’s concert is dedicated to JUNE & JOHN SCOTT in honor of their extraordinary support of the 2021/22 Annual Fund.
The use of cameras or recording devices during the concert is strictly prohibited. Please be kind to those around you and silence your mobile phone and other hand-held devices.
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Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed:
In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed is scored for three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings.
First and most recent ASO performances: January 11–13, 1996 Yoel Levi, conductor
Adolphus Hailstork received his doctorate in composition from Michigan State University, where he was a student of H. Owen Reed. He had previously studied at the Manhattan School of Music, under Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond, at the American Institute at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger, and at Howard University with Mark Fax.
Hailstork has written numerous works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, various chamber ensembles, band, orchestra, and opera. Significant performances by major orchestras (Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York) have been led by leading conductors such as James de Priest, Paul Freeman, Daniel Barenboim, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maezel, Jo Ann Falletta and David Lockington.
The composer’s second symphony (commissioned by the Detroit Symphony), and second opera, Joshua’s Boots (commissioned by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Kansas City Lyric Opera) were both premiered in 1999. Hailstork’s second and third symphonies were recorded by the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra (David Lockington) and were released by Naxos. Another Naxos recording, An American Port of Call (Virginia Symphony Orchestra) was released in spring 2012.
Hailstork’s newest works include The World Called (based on Rita Dove’s poem Testimonial), a work for soprano, chorus and orchestra commissioned by the Oratorio Society of Virginia (premiered in May 2018) and Still Holding On (February 2019) an orchestra work commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is currently working on his Fourth Symphony, and A Knee on a Neck (tribute to George Floyd) for chorus and orchestra.
Dr. Hailstork resides in Virginia Beach Virginia, and is Professor of Music and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
From the composer:
A great man is being buried. A few mourners ring the gravesite singing a spiritual. Gradually, more bereaved gather and join in (strings). They reflect upon their memories of hopes and
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dreams inspired by their fallen leader. The service concludes and the bowed heads begin to lift. They will carry on.
Technically the piece is a study in understatement and control. There is no virtuosity. There are no sudden dramatic effects. Harmony is simple, coloration is medium to dark. There is a very restrained and careful control of the climax, there being only one at the end of the work.
Epitaph was first performed in January 1980 by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of William Henry Curry.
First ASO performances: March 17–18, 1960
Henry Sopkin, conductor
Most recent ASO performances: April 14–16, 2016
Robert Spano, conductor
Ein
deutsches Requiem, Op. 45
Ein deutsches Requiem is scored for soprano and baritone solo, mixed chorus, piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, harp, organ and strings.
The Backstory
Traditionally, a requiem is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral. A rite that dates back (at least) to the sixteenth century, the language remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years. This means that if you sing a requiem by Victoria (1603) or Duruflé (1947), you’ll find that much of the language is identical—and always in Latin. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the Church condoned saying Mass in other tongues. As a musical work, the requiem took on a life of its own. For many composers, it is the magnum opus, one that connects them to masterpieces by Verdi, Fauré, Berlioz, Mozart and Duruflé. For this reason, some composers continue to write requiems in Latin—but it wasn’t always optional.
Back in the 1530s, a scholar named William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, ran it through a printing press, and began distributing copies. For his effort, he was arrested, strangled and burned at the stake. Less than three hundred miles away, Martin Luther had better luck. He started translating the New Testament into German while hiding at Wartburg Castle. He completed the Bible and Apocrypha in 1545. It was the Luther Bible that provided the source material for Brahms’s A German Requiem.
Ein deutsches Requiem
Brahms had come from a family with little money, but he always had a robust support system in his hometown of Hamburg. As a child, he
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received free piano lessons from local musicians. He was provided a piano and a room for practicing by others in the community. In 1853, at the age of twenty, Brahms turned up at the doorstep of two musical heavyweights: Robert and Clara Schumann. Immediately, the Schumanns brought him into their orbit. Making him their protégé, they made public endorsements and offered lots of career advice (they urged him to start writing symphonies). Clearly, there was a potent chemistry between them—Brahms remained devoted to the Schumanns for the rest of his life, although their trio lasted for just nine months.
In February of 1854, Robert Schumann left home in his nightshirt and jumped into the icy waters of the Rhine. A worker fished him out, but he never recovered and spent his last two years in an institution. Young Brahms gravitated to the one person who shared his grief: Clara. Brahms stepped in to help her with her seven little Schumanns (it must be said, there is no evidence of a romance between them). On his own, Brahms began to sketch out a somber movement for a symphony based on the Spanish sarabande. It didn’t come to anything, but years later, the material found its way into the second movement of A German Requiem. Schumann died in July 1856. Years went by; Brahms settled in Vienna and gained experience as a choral conductor and composer. (He still didn’t manage to write a symphony.) Clara, one of the greatest pianists of their time, started touring to support her children.
In 1864, Brahms received some bad news from Hamburg: his parents had separated. Brahms wrote to them, urging them to reconcile. And then a telegram arrived from his brother, Fritz. “If you want to see our mother again,” he wrote, “come at once.” Brahms made the 600-mile trip in two days but was too late. She had died of stroke. He was devastated. Back in Vienna, he poured his grief into music. Within a few months of her passing, he sent to Clara an excerpt from a new piece, a “so-called deutsches Requiem.” The work took shape over the next year. He also called it “The Human Requiem” because he had chosen versus from the Luther Bible that offered consolation. Where the Latin Mass is written for an “audience of one”—God—the Brahms Requiem is written for the bereaved. In the opening section, for example, the Latin Mass is a prayer beseeching God to grant eternal rest. In the Brahms Requiem, the opening comes from the Beatitudes: “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
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Musically, the opening adheres closer to the traditional requiem; it is hushed, mournful, and smacks of death. In fact, Brahms leaves the violins out altogether, choosing the darker timbre of the lower strings. When the violins make their appearance in the second movement, they’re muted, spinning a ghostly sheen around an offkilter funeral march (marches are typically written in two for the benefit of two-legged people; Brahms’s funeral march is in three).
Taking a left turn mid-movement, the clouds part, and Brahms unleashes the full might of the ensemble to proclaim: “they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isaiah 51:11).”
Where the Latin Mass for the dead combines God’s wrath with urgent appeals for mercy, Brahms chose a different message: “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. (Wisdom of Solomon 3:1).” The resulting requiem is a journey through sorrow and doubt that ultimately wraps the bereaved in an almost Heavenly embrace.
In December of 1867, Brahms premiered the first three movements of his requiem in Vienna, where there was a mix of enthusiasm and criticism—and evidently some hissing. Brahms made revisions. Rehearsals for the official premiere of a six-movement version began the following month. The concert took place at the Breman Cathedral on April 10, 1868—Good Friday. There was one mild disagreement between the composer and the director of music. Organist and conductor Carl Martin Reinthaler suggested to Brahms that he add language about the resurrection of Christ. Brahms declined. At the same time, he wasn’t entirely settled with the piece. After the premiere, he sent a copy of the score to his one-time piano teacher in Hamburg, Eduard Marxsen, who suggested an additional movement featuring a solo soprano. Brahms sat down and wrote “Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit,” the present-day fifth movement. The revised version of A German Requiem premiered in Leipzig the following year.
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| encore 48
Chorus
Selig sind, die da Leid tragen, denn sie sollen getröstet werden.
Die mit Tränen säen, werden mit Freuden ernten. Sie gehen hin und weinen, und tragen edlen Samen, und kommen mit Freuden und bringen ihre Garben.
Chorus
Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen wie des Grases Blumen. Das Gras ist verdorret und die Blume abgefallen.
So seid nun geduldig, lieben Brüder, bis auf die Zukunft des Herrn. Siehe ein Ackermann wartet auf die köstliche Frucht der Erde und ist geduldig darüber, bis er empfahe den Morgenregen und Abendregen. So seid geduldig.
Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in Ewigkeit.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
— Matthew 5:4
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
— Psalm 126:5–6
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away.
— I Peter 1:24
Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husband waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient.
— James 5:7–8
But the word of the Lord endures forever.
Die Erlöseten des Herrn werden wiederkommen, und gen Zion kommen mit Jauchzen; Freude, ewige Freude wird über ihrem Haupte sein; Freude und Wonne werden Sie ergreifen, und Schmerz und Seufzen wird weg müssen.
— I Peter 1:25
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
— Isaiah 35:10
Text and Translation
Baritone and Chorus
Herr, lehre doch mich, daß ein Ende mit mir haben muß, und mein Leben ein Ziel hat, und ich davon muß. Siehe, meine Tage sind einer Handbreit vor dir, und mein Leben ist wie nichts vor dir. Ach, wie gar nichts sind alle Menschen, die doch so sicher leben. Sie gehen daher wie ein Schemen, und machen ihnen viel vergebliche Unruhe; sie sammeln und wissen nicht, wer es kriegen wird. Nun Herr, wes soll ich mich trösten? Ich hoffe auf dich.
Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes Hand, und keine Qual rühret sie an.
Chorus
Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, Herr Zebaoth!
Meine Seele verlanget und sehnet sich nach den Vorhöfen des Herrn; mein Leib und Seele freuen sich in dem lebendigen Gott. Wohl denen, die in deinem Hause wohnen, die loben dich immerdar!
Lord, teach me that there must be an end of me, and my life has a term, and I must go hence. Behold, my days are a handbreadth before Thee, and my life is as nothing before Thee: Ah, what vain things are all men, that yet live so sure of themselves. They go about like a shadow, and make themselves much useless anxiety; they amass possessions, and know not who will enjoy them. Now, Lord, in what shall I find solace? My hope is in Thee.
— Psalm 39:4–7
The souls of the righteous are in God’s hand, And no pain touches them.
— Wisdom 3:1
How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
My soul desires, yea, even longs for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house: they will still be praising Thee.
Soprano and Chorus
Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit; aber ich will euch wieder sehen und euer Herz soll sich freuen, und eure Freude soll niemand von euch nehmen.
Ich will euch trösten, wie einen seine Mutter tröstet.
— Psalm 84:1–2, 4 Ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
— John 16:22
I will comfort you, as one whom his mother comforts.
— Isaiah 66:13
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| encore 50
Sehet mich an: ich habe eine kleine Zeit Mühe und Arbeit gehabt und habe großen Trost funden.
Baritone and Chorus
Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt, sondern die zukünftige suchen wir.
Siehe, ich sage euch ein Geheimnis. Wir werden nicht alle entschlafen, wir werden aber alle verwandelt werden; und dasselbige plötzlich in einem Augenblick, zu der Zeit der letzten Posaune. Denn es wird die Posaune schallen und die Toten werden auferstehen unverweslich, und wir werden verwandelt werden. Dann wird erfüllet werden das Wort, das geschrieben steht: Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg. Tod, wo ist dein Stachel? Hölle, wo ist dein Sieg?
Herr, du bist würdig, zu nehmen Preis und Ehre und Kraft, denn du hast alle Dinge erschaffen und durch deinen Willen haben sie das Wesen und sind geschaffen.
Chorus
Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben, von nun an. Ja, der Geist spricht, daß sie ruhen von ihrer Arbeit; denn ihre Werke folgen ihnen nach.
Behold me: I have for a little while had tribulation and labor, and have found great comfort.
— Ecclesiasticus 51:35
For here have we no enduring city, but we seek one to come.
— Hebrews 13:14
Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
— I Corinthians 15:51–52, 54–55
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.
— Revelation 4:11
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.
— Revelation 14:13
encoreatlanta.com | 51
SIR DONALD RUNNICLES, CONDUCTOR
See bio Page 42
YING FANG, SOPRANO
This season, Chinese soprano Ying Fang returns to the San Francisco Symphony for Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 conducted by Robin Ticciati, debuts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem led by Sir Donald Runnicles, and performs with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Handel’s Messiah, led by Manfred Honeck.
A native of Ningbo, China, Ms. Fang is the recipient of the Martin E. Segal Award, the Hildegard Behrens Foundation Award, the Rose Bampton Award of The Sullivan Foundation, The Opera Index Award, and First Prize of the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition. In 2009, she become one of the youngest singers to win one of China’s most prestigious awards – the China Golden Bell Award for Music.
She holds a Master’s degree and an Artist Diploma in Opera Study from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor’s degree from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and is a former member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.
RUSSELL BRAUN, BARITONE
Baritone Russell Braun’s highlights of the 2021/22 season include Sam in A Quiet Place for Opéra national de Paris, Speaker in Die Zauberflöte for the Canadian Opera Company and on the concert platform, Britten’s War Requiem with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. Braun sings regularly with the world’s major conductors and orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Danish National Symphony and Houston Symphony. He has performed Peter Eötvös’s Senza Sangue in Rome, London, Norway and Sweden, Brett Dean’s Knocking at the Hell Gate with the BBC Symphony in London, and Kaija Saariaho’s Cinque reflets de l’amour de loin with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester in both Stuttgart and Freiburg. Recent highlights include Brahms’s Vier Ernste Gesänge arranged by Detlev Glanert and Fauré’s Requiem with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Vaughn Williams’s A Sea Symphony with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
His discography features the Grammy® nominated Das Lied von der Erde (Dorian), JUNO winners Mozart Arie e duetti (CBC) and Apollo e Daphne, and JUNO nominee Winterreise (CBC). His most recent release is Dietch’s Le Vaisseau Fantôme with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble on the Naïve label.
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ACOSTA JOHANNES IFKOVITS 52 | meettheartists
DARIO
ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CHORUS
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, founded in 1970 by former Music Director, Robert Shaw, is an all-volunteer, auditioned ensemble that performs on a regular basis with the Orchestra and is featured on many of its recordings. Led by Director of Choruses, Norman Mackenzie, the chorus is known for its precision and expressive singing quality. Its recordings have garnered 14 Grammy® Awards (nine for Best Choral Performance; four for Best Classical Recording and one for Best Opera Recording).
The Chorus performs large symphonic choral works, under the direction of Co-Artistic Advisors Maestro Robert Spano and Principal Guest Conductor Sir Donald Runnicles, and Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann. In addition, the Chorus has been involved in the creation and shaping of numerous world-premiere commissioned works.
NORMAN MACKENZIE, DIRECTOR OF CHORUSES
Norman Mackenzie’s abilities as musical collaborator, conductor and concert organist have brought him international recognition. As Director of Chorus for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) since 2000, he was chosen to help carry forward the creative vision of legendary founding conductor Robert Shaw. During his tenure, the Chorus has made numerous tours and garnered several Grammy® awards, including Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance.
At the ASO, he prepares the Choruses for all concerts and recordings, works closely with Nathalie Stutzmann on the commissioning and realization of new choral-orchestral works and conducts holiday concerts. In his 14-year association with Mr. Shaw, he was keyboardist for the ASO, principal accompanist for the ASO Choruses and ultimately assistant choral conductor. In addition, he was musical assistant and accompanist for the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers, the Robert Shaw Institute Summer Choral Festivals in France and the United States and the famed Shaw/Carnegie Hall Choral Workshops.
He prepared the ASO Chorus for its acclaimed 2003 debut and successive 2008 and 2009 performances in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic, in Britten’s War Requiem, Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, respectively, conducted by ASO Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles.
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| encore 54
JD SCOTT
ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CHORUS
SOPRANO 1
Ellen Abney Khadijah Davis Liz Dean* Laura Foster Michelle Griffin* Erin Jones*
Arietha Lockhart** Mindy Margolis* Joneen Padgett* Rachel Paul Susan Ray Samaria Rodriguez Emily Salmond Lydia Sharp Susie Shepardson Chelsea Toledo Brianne Turgeon** Deanna Walton Erika Wuerzner Michelle Yancich Wanda Yang Temko**
SOPRANO 2 Debbie Ashton Sloan Atwood* Jessica Barber Tierney Breedlove Barbara Brown Maggie Carpenter Martha Craft Gina Deaton
Erika Elliott Mary Goodwin Amanda Hoffman Melissa Mack Heidi Padovano
Tramaine Quarterman
Marianna Schuck
Paula Snelling**
Anne-Marie Spalinger* Emily Tallant
Cheryl Thrash** Donna Weeks**
ALTO 1
June Abbott** Pamela Amy-Cupp
Deborah Boland** Emily Campbell
Donna Carter-Wood** Patricia DinkinsMatthews* Angel Dotson-Hall Katherine Fisher Beth Freeman* Unita Harris Beverly Hueter* Susan Jones Kathleen KellyGeorge* Virginia Little* Staria Lovelady* Alina Luke Frances McDowellBeadle** Sara McKlin Linda Morgan** Katherine Murray** Natalie Pierce Kathleen Poe Ross Noelle Ross Laura Emiko Soltis Camilla Springfield** Rachel Stewart** Nancy York*
ALTO 2 Nancy Adams* Angelica BlackmanKeim Elizabeth Borland Emily Boyer Marcia Chandler* Carol Comstock Meaghan Curry Cynthia Goeltz
DeBold** Michèle Diament* Alyssa Harris Joia Johnson Sally Kann Nicole Khoury* Katherine MacKenzie Lynda Martin Lalla McGee Sun Min Laura Rappold* Sharon Simons*
Virginia Thompson* Cheryl Vanture Kiki Wilson** Diane Woodard** TENOR 1 Jeffrey Baxter** Christian Bigliani David Blalock** LaRue Bowman John Brandt** Jack Caldwell** Daniel Cameron* Daniel Compton Justin Cornelius Joseph Cortes Clifford Edge** Leif Gilbert-Hansen* James Jarrell* Keith Langston* Sean Mayer* Christopher Patton* Stephen Reed # Mark Warden*
TENOR 2 Sutton Bacon Matthew Borkowski Steve Brailsford Charles Cottingham # Phillip Crumbly* Steven Dykes Joseph Few** Sean Fletcher John Harr Keith Jeffords** David Kinrade Michael Parker Timothy Parrott Marshall Peterson* Brent Runnels Matthew Sellers Thomas Slusher Scott Stephens** BASS 1
Dock Anderson William Borland* Russell Cason** Jeremy Christensen
Joshua Clark Trey Clegg* Rick Cobb Michael Cranford Michael Devine Thomas Elston Jon Gunnemann** Jason Hamlet Noah Horton Nick Jones # Frank Kingsley Alp Koksal Jameson Linville Jason Maynard Jackson McCarthy Hal Richards Peter Shirts John Terry Marshall Todd Edgie Wallace* BASS 2 Philip Barreca Marcel Benoit Jacob Blevins John Carter Terrence Connors Joel Craft** Paul Fletcher Timothy Gunter* Thomas Hanrahan David Hansen** Philip Jones Tamir Mickens Michael Nedvidek Joel Rose John Ruff* Jonathan Smith* George Sustman Benjamin Temko* David Webster** Gregory Whitmire** Keith Wyatt*
* 20+ years of service ** 30+ years of service # Charter member (1970)
Norman Mackenzie director of choruses The Frannie & Bill Graves Chair
Jeffrey Baxter choral administrator The Florence Kopleff Chair
Peter Marshall accompanist
encoreatlanta.com | 55
ASO | SUPPORT (cont.)
$7,500+
Jack & Helga Beam∞
Karen & Rod Bunn
Patricia & William Buss∞ Mark Coan & Family Sally W. Hawkins
Grace Ihrig*
Ann & Brian Kimsey
Jason & Michelle Kroh Dr. Fulton D. Lewis III & S. Neal Rhoney
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Stephen & Sonia Swartz Drs. Jonne & Paul Walter Mrs. Frank L. Wilson, Jr. Mr. David J. Worley & Ms. Bernadette Drankoski
$5,000+
A Friend of the Symphony
Dr. Marshall & Stephanie Abes
Mrs. Kay Adams* & Mr. Ralph Paulk
Judy & Dick Allison Dr. Evelyn R. Babey
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Asad Bashey
Mr. Herschel V. Beazley
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Bernstein
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Burton Trimble
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$3,500+
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Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Welch David & Martha West Mr. & Mrs. M. Beattie Wood
| encore 58
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$2,000+
A Friend of the Symphony (3) 2492 Fund
Dr. & Mrs. Joel M. Adler, D.D.S. Kent & Diane Alexander Mr. & Mrs. Ivan Allen IV Mr. & Mrs. Walker Anderson
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Mr. W. F. & Dr. Janice Johnston Cecile M. Jones Mr. & Mrs. David T. Jones Lana M. Jordan William L. & Sally S. Jorden
Teresa M. Joyce, Ph.D Mr. & Ms. Josh Kamin Mr. & Mrs. Todd E. Kessler Wolfgang* & Mariana Laufer
Mr. & Mrs. Theodore J. Lavallee, Sr. Lillian Balentine Law Mr. & Mrs. Chris Le Grace & Josh Lembeck Elizabeth J. Levine Mr. & Mrs. J. David Lifsey Dr. Marcus Marr Dr. & Mrs. David H. Mason In Memory of Pam McAllister
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Anne-Marie Sparrow Peggy & Jerry Stapleton
Candace Steele
James & Shari Steinberg Dr. & Mrs. John P. Straetmans
Kay R Summers
Ms. Linda F. Terry Ms. Lara C. Tumeh° Dr. Brenda G. Turner Wayne & Lee Harper Vason
Vogel Family Foundation Ron & Susan Whitaker
Russell F. Winch & Mark B. Elberfeld
Mrs. Lynne M. Winship
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Zaban Foundation, Inc. Herbert* & Grace Zwerner
Linda Matthews
chair
Kristi Allpere
Helga Beam
Bill Buss
Pat Buss
Kristen Fowks
Deedee Hamburger Judy Hellriegel
Nancy Janet
Belinda Massafra
Sally Parsonson
June Scott
Milt Shlapak
Sheila Tschinkel
Jonne Walter Marcia Watt
encoreatlanta.com | 59
are grateful to these donors for taking the extra time to acquire matching gifts from their employers.
°We
*Deceased
Partnership and Appassionato Leadership Committee We give special thanks to this dedicated group of Atlanta
Orchestra donor-volunteers for their commitment to each year’s annual support initiatives:
Patron
Symphony
HENRY SOPKIN CIRCLE
Named for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s founding Music Director, the HENRY SOPKIN CIRCLE celebrates cherished individuals and families who have made a planned gift to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. These special donors preserve the Orchestra’s foundation and ensure success for future generations.
A Friend of the Symphony (22)
Madeline* & Howell E. Adams, Jr.
Mr.* & Mrs.* John E. Aderhold
Mr. & Mrs. Paul Aldo
Mr. & Mrs. Ronald R. Antinori
Dr. & Mrs. William Bauer
Helga Beam
Mr. Charles D. Belcher * Neil H. Berman Susan & Jack Bertram
Mr.* & Mrs.* Karl A. Bevins
The Estate of Donald S. & Joyce Bickers
Ms. Page Bishop*
Mr.* & Mrs. Sol Blaine John Blatz
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The Estate of Mrs. Gilbert H. Boggs, Jr. W. Moses Bond
Mr.* & Mrs. Robert C. Boozer
Elinor A. Breman* James C. Buggs*
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Robert Boston Colgin Mrs. Mary Frances Evans Comstock*
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Mr. & Mrs. John T. Glover Mrs. David Goldwasser Robert Hall Gunn, Jr. Fund Billie & Sig Guthman
Betty G.* & Joseph* F. Haas
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Ms. Alice Ann Hamilton Dr. Charles H. Hamilton* Sally & Paul* Hawkins John* & Martha Head Ms. Jeannie Hearn*
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Jill* & Jennings* Hertz Mr. Albert L. Hibbard Richard E. Hodges
Mr.* & Mrs. Charles K. Holmes, Jr.
Mr.* & Mrs.* Fred A. Hoyt, Jr. Jim* & Barbara Hund Clayton F. Jackson Mary B. James Mr. Calvert Johnson & Mr. Kenneth Dutter deForest F. Jurkiewicz* Herb* & Hazel Karp Anne Morgan & Jim Kelley Bob Kinsey
James W.* & Mary Ellen* Kitchell
Paul Kniepkamp, Jr. Vivian & Peter de Kok
Miss Florence Kopleff* Mr. Robert Lamy James H. Landon Ouida Hayes Lanier Lucy Russell Lee* & Gary Lee, Jr. Ione & John Lee Mr. Larry M. LeMaster Mr.* & Mrs.* William C. Lester Liz & Jay* Levine
Robert M. Lewis, Jr. Carroll & Ruth Liller Ms. Joanne Lincoln* Jane Little*
Mrs. J. Erskine Love, Jr.* Nell Galt & Will D. Magruder K Maier
John W. Markham* Mrs. Ann B. Martin Linda & John Matthews Mr. Michael A. McDowell, Jr. Dr. Michael S. McGarry Richard & Shirley McGinnis John & Clodagh Miller Ms. Vera Milner
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Pulgram
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Mr. Paul S. Scharff & Ms. Polly G. Fraser
Dr. Barbara S. Schlefman Bill & Rachel Schultz Mrs. Joan C. Schweitzer June & John Scott Edward G. Scruggs*
Dr. & Mrs. George P. Sessions
Mr. W. G. Shaefer, Jr. Charles H. Siegel*
Mr. & Mrs. H. Hamilton Smith Mrs. Lessie B. Smithgall*
Ms. Margo Sommers
Elliott Sopkin
Elizabeth Morgan Spiegel
Mr. Daniel D. Stanley Gail & Loren Starr
Peter James Stelling* Ms. Barbara Stewart Beth & Edward Sugarman
C. Mack* & Mary Rose* Taylor
Isabel Thomson*
Jennings Thompson IV
Margaret* & Randolph* Thrower Kenneth & Kathleen Tice
Mr. H. Burton Trimble, Jr. Mr. Steven R. Tunnell
Mr. & Mrs. John B. Uttenhove Mary E. Van Valkenburgh
Mrs. Anise C. Wallace
Mr. Robert Wardle, Jr.
Mr. & Mrs. John B. White, Jr. Adair & Dick White
Mr. Hubert H. Whitlow, Jr.* Sue & Neil* Williams
Mrs. Frank L. Wilson, Jr. Mrs. Elin M. Winn
Ms. Joni Winston
George & Camille Wright
Mr.* & Mrs.* Charles R. Yates
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*Deceased
EXECUTIVE
Jennifer Barlament executive director
Alvinetta Cooksey executive & finance assistant Emily Fritz-Endres executive management fellow
ARTISTIC
Gaetan Le Divelec vice president, artistic planning
Jeffrey Baxter choral administrator
RaSheed Lemon aso artist liaison
EDUCATION & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Sarah Grant director of education Ryan Walks talent development program manager
Elena Gagon coordinator of education & community engagement
OPERATIONS
Tyler Benware director of orchestra operations & asyo Elizabeth Graiser manager of operations & asyo
Victoria Moore director of orchestra personnel
Paul Barrett senior production stage manager
Richard Carvlin stage manager Holly Matthews, assistant principal librarian
Hannah Davis, assistant librarian
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
Ashley Mirakian vice president, marketing & communications
Delle Beganie content & production manager
Leah Branstetter director of digital content
Adam Fenton director of multimedia technology Will Strawn associate director of marketing, live Caitlin Buckers marketing manager, live
Lisa Eng multimedia creative manager, live Mia Jones-Walker marketing manager
Rob Phipps director of creative services Bob Scarr archivist & research coordinator
Madisyn Willis marketing manager
SALES & REVENUE MANAGEMENT
Russell Wheeler vice president, sales & revenue management
Nancy James front of house supervisor Erin Jones director of sales
Jesse Pace senior manager of ticketing & patron experience Dennis Quinlan data analyst
Robin Smith patron services & season ticket associate
Jake Van Valkenburg sales coordinator Milo McGehee guest services coordinator
Anna Caldwell guest services associate
DEVELOPMENT
Grace Sipusic vice president of development
Cheri Snyder senior director of development
William Keene director of annual giving
ATLANTA
SYMPHONY HALL LIVE
Nicole Panunti vice president, atlanta symphony hall live Christine Lawrence associate director of guest services Michael Tamucci associate director of performance management, atlanta symphony hall live
Dan Nesspor ticketing manager, atlanta symphony hall live
FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION
Susan Ambo chief financial officer & vice president, business operations Kimberly Hielsberg vice president of finance Brandi Hoyos director of diversity, equity & inclusion April Satterfield controller Brandi Reed staff accountant
James Paulk senior annual giving officer
Renee Contreras associate director, development communications Julia Filson director of corporate relations
Dana Parness manager of individual giving and prospect research
Catherine MacGregor assistant manager of donor engagement
Robert Cushing development associate, major gifts
Sarah Wilson development operations associate
Sharveace Cameron senior development associate
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ASO
CORPORATE & GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
This program is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Major funding is provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
Major support is provided by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
THE WOODRUFF CIRCLE
Woodruff Circle members have contributed more than $250,000 annually to support the arts and education work of the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and High Museum of Art. We are deeply grateful to these partners who lead our efforts to help create opportunities for enhanced access to the work.
$1MILLION+
A Friend of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
$500,000+
The Antinori Foundation Bank of America
A Friend of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
$250,000+
Accenture
AT&T Foundation
Farideh & Al Azadi Foundation
The Molly Blank Fund
Helen Gurley Brown Foundation
Chick-fil-A Foundation | Rhonda & Dan Cathy
The Goizueta Foundation
Invesco QQQ
Novelis
PNC
Mr. & Mrs. Shouky Shaheen
The Home Depot Foundation
Sarah and Jim Kennedy
The Rich Foundation, Inc.
Alfred A. Thornton Venable Trust
Truist Trusteed Foundations: Florence C. and Harry L. English Memorial Fund Thomas Guy Woolford Charitable Trust
UPS
WestRock
The Zeist Foundation, Inc.
THE LEADERSHIP CIRCLE
Leadership Circle corporations have committed to a contribution of $1,000,000 over one or more years to support the arts and education work of the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and High Museum of Art.
Accenture
The Coca-Cola Company
Chick-fil-A
Delta Air Lines Georgia Power
Graphic Packaging Novelis
UPS
WestRock
