NOLA FRINK: Robert Shaw's Loyal, Iconic Lieutenant

Her planned gift helps ensure that the Orchestra, and her beloved ASO Chorus, will continue to be heard

Everyone called her “Nola,” but her real name was Flanola Frink. That first name? An acronym combining Florida, where her parents were from, with New Orleans, LA, where she was born. And for 26 years, she was Robert Shaw’s fiercely loyal lieutenant and an unforgettable, iconic presence at the ASO.

Over that time, Nola worked as Administrative Assistant to Shaw and as Choral Administrator for the ASO Chorus, in which she also sang. At her 2001 retirement, an AJC article quoted her friends' descriptions of her as “a firecracker,” “a spark plug,” and “a loaded pistol.” Definitely not a shrinking violet, she described herself this way: “Everybody important has to have a pit bull. Mr. Shaw needed one. I was his.” By all accounts, Shaw was a demanding boss, and often a difficult one. Nola was vital to his success and that of the ASO.

The ASO Chorus was Shaw’s glorious creation and legacy, and Nola did pretty much everything to keep it running smoothly, from helping recruit singers to arranging scores. “I get the water ready for Mr. Shaw to walk on,” she famously said. Working in a basement office she referred to as “the Low Museum” (vs. the High Museum next door), she was Shaw’s faithful right hand, devoted to him and to the Chorus, which she made into a family.

Nola died last September. Years earlier she had become a member of the Henry Sopkin Circle by making the ASO the beneficiary of her retirement plan as well as a bequest. By honoring the Orchestra in this way, Nola helped ensure that the Orchestra, and her beloved all-volunteer ASO Chorus, will continue to be heard by future generations.

For more information about Planned Giving, or to join the Henry Sopkin Circle (see page 50), contact Jimmy Paulk at James.Paulk@atlantasymphony.org or call 404.733.4485.

Concerts of Thursday, March 2, 2023

8:00 PM Saturday, March 4, 2023

8:00 PM

JERRY HOU, conductor

AWADAGIN PRATT, piano

JOAN TOWER (b. 1938)

1920/2019 (2020)

JESSIE MONTGOMERY (b. 1981)

14 MINS

Rounds for Piano and String Orchestra (2022) 20 MINS

Awadagin Pratt, piano

INTERMISSION

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945)

Concerto for Orchestra (1943)

I. Introduzione: Andante non troppo — Allegro vivace

20 MINS

38 MINS

II. Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando

III. Elegia: Andante non troppo

IV. Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto

V. Finale: Pesante — Presto

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.

by Noel Morris Program Annotator

1920/2019

1920/2019 is scored for two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano and strings.

During a career spanning more than 60 years, composer Joan Tower’s works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, Paul Neubauer, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Nashville, Albany NY, and Washington DC, among others.

Recent awards: in 2020 Chamber Music America honored her with its Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award; Musical America chose her to be its 2020 Composer of the Year; in 2019 the League of American Orchestras awarded her its highest honor, the Gold Baton. In 1990, Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders. She is the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission of 65 orchestras. The Nashville Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin recorded that work, Made in America, with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra for the Naxos label. The top-selling recording won three Grammy awards in 2008.

Tower’s tremendously popular six Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 600 different ensembles. She is Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972.

Her composer residencies with orchestras and festivals include a decade with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year for their 2010–11 season, as well as the St. Louis Symphony, the Deer Valley Music Festival, and the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. She was in residence as the Albany Symphony’s Mentor Composer partner in the 2013–14 season. She has received honorary doctorates from Smith College, the New England Conservatory, and Illinois State University.

From the composer: 1920/2019 was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Jaap van Zweden, Music Director. It is dedicated to Deborah Borda, the orchestra’s President and CEO, in recognition of her vision for the creation of Project 19.

Project 19 is the Philharmonic’s initiative to commission and premiere nineteen new works by women composers in honor of the 2020 centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. Project 19 is the single largest commissioning project for women in history.

1920 was the year when the amendment was ratified and adopted— an important and long sought-after achievement. I began writing this music in 2019 as the #MeToo movement continued to grow. Victims of sexual abuse, assault, and harassment are ending their silence, finding strength by sharing their experiences and beliefs.

These two years—1920 and 2019—were probably the two most historically significant years for the advancement of women in society.

Rounds

Rounds is scored for solo piano and strings.

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles.

Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and Banner (2014)—written to mark the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation, which was presented in its UK premiere at the BBC Proms on 7 August 2021.

Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African American and Latinx string players and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble.

A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Jessie holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University. She is Professor of violin and composition at The New School. In May 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-inResidence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

From the composer:

Rounds for solo piano and string orchestra is inspired by the imagery and themes from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem Four Quartets. Early in the first poem, Burnt Norton, we find these evocative lines:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

(Text © T.S. Eliot. Reproduced by courtesy of Faber and Faber Ltd)

In addition to this inspiration, while working on the piece, I became fascinated by fractals (infinite patterns found in nature that are self-similar across different scales) and also delved into the work of contemporary biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber who writes about the interdependency of all beings. Weber explores how every living organism has a rhythm that interacts and impacts with all of the living things around it and results in a multitude of outcomes.

Like Eliot in Four Quartets, beginning to understand this interconnectedness requires that we slow down, listen, and observe both the effect and the opposite effect caused by every single action and moment. I’ve found this is an exercise that lends itself very naturally towards musical gestural possibilities that I explore in the work—action and reaction, dark and light, stagnant and swift. Structurally, with these concepts in mind, I set the form of the work as a rondo, within a rondo, within a rondo. The five major sections are a rondo; section “A” is also a rondo in itself; and the cadenza— which is partially improvised by the soloist—breaks the pattern, yet, contains within it, the overall form of the work.

To help share some of this with the performers, I’ve included the following poetic performance note at the start of the score:

Inspired by the constancy, the rhythms, and duality of life, in order of relevance to form:

Rondine – AKA Swifts (like a sparrow) flying in circles patterns

Playing with opposites – dark/light; stagnant/swift

Fractals – infinite design

I am grateful to my friend Awadagin Pratt for his collaborative spirit and ingenuity in helping to usher my first work for solo piano into the world.

Commissioned by Art of the Piano Foundation for pianist Awadagin Pratt; Co-Commissioned by Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, IRIS Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

First ASO performance:

January 17, 1967

Robert Mann, conductor

Most recent

ASO performances:

April 4–6, 2019

Robert Spano, conductor

Concerto for Orchestra

Concerto for Orchestra is scored for three flutes (one doubling piccolo), three oboes (one doubling English horn) three clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), three bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps and strings.

“Ishall pursue one objective all my life, in every sphere and in every way: the good of Hungary and the Hungarian Nation,” wrote young Béla Bartók in a letter to his mother. And over his lifetime, he did just that—at least until Hungary became a place he couldn’t recognize.

Starting in his early twenties, Bartók took rural treks with his friend Zoltán Kodály, traveling from village to village where they persuaded old-time musicians to sing into an Edison phonograph. With academic precision, they cataloged the songs, forever preserving them. Bartók developed an enduring affection for those rural communities, but upheaval was coming.

Under the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, country folk stood powerless as their homeland tumbled into World War I. Within six years, they lost a generation of fathers, brothers, and sons and were saddled with a peace deal that ceded 70 percent of Hungarian territory to other countries (Bartók’s birthplace is no longer in Hungary). Ethnic Hungarians were outraged. It was a recipe for extremism.

Through the 1920s and 30s, Hungary moved to the right and fell increasingly under German influence. Fascism and anti-Semitism crept into the mainstream. Bartók, a prominent composer and concert pianist, became a vocal opponent of the fascists. When Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933, Bartók boycotted Germany. When Hitler annexed Austria and extended his influence into Hungary, the composer no longer felt safe. Nevertheless, he stayed to care for his mother.

Paula Voit, mother of Béla Bartók, died December 19, 1939. By that time, Hitler had begun his drive to take over Europe. Bartók and his wife, Ditta Pásztory, steamed into New York Harbor on October 30, 1940, where he was classified as a visitor. When Hungary joined the Axis Powers, he became an “enemy alien.” Bartók’s status was diminished in the United States. From 1941–42, he worked as a “Visiting Assistant in Music” at Columbia University, where he edited a collection of Serbo-Croatian folk music. In the spring of 1942, he developed symptoms of leukemia, and his finances suffered. His son, Peter, enlisted in the U.S. Navy and arranged to have most of his earnings sent to his parents (or so he thought).

“Father was too proud to use the money,” he said. “When I returned, every bit of my pay was in a bank account.” This pride, as Peter called it, became an ongoing problem for stateside fans of the composer. Through the war years, his friends and admirers conspired to support him, always under the guise of some shortterm job. (Bartók refused anything that smacked of charity.)

Through 1942 and into 1943, his condition worsened. He was in hospital when Fritz Reiner and Joseph Szigeti persuaded Serge Koussevitzky to commission a new piece. It would be dedicated to the memory of Natalie Koussevitzky, the maestro’s wife. The commission gave the composer a lift, and his condition improved. Under doctor’s orders, Bartók spent the summer in a quiet cabin on Saranac Lake, where he wrote the Concerto for Orchestra.

Koussevitzky conducted the premiere in Boston on December 1, 1944. The piece was an instant success; Bartók went on to write his Third Piano Concerto and his String Quartet No. 6. Although he became a United States citizen in 1945, he continued to long for his native Hungary.

Béla Bartók died on September 26, 1945. In his will, he requested that the Hungarian people refrain from memorializing him until all commemorations of Hitler and Mussolini had been expunged from Hungarian soil.

A Shostakovich Cameo?

On July 20, 1942, Soviet Composer Dmitri Shostakovich graced the cover of Time magazine. In one of the cultural coups of the year, his Seventh Symphony had been smuggled out of Leningrad in the middle of the 900-day Nazi siege. Western orchestras clamored to play it. Appropriate to the times, the Symphony culminates in an insipid, Bolero-like march that repeats and repeats, each time becoming more twisted and pugilistic until it explodes into a grotesque indictment of militarism.

It’s possible that the irony and social commentary of the Shostakovich Seventh were lost on Béla Bartók. According to conductor Antal Dorati, Bartók confessed to him that he found the insipid melody just that—insipid. The tune turns up as a playful romp in the fourth movement of Concerto for Orchestra, after which Bartók blows a raspberry with trills in the trumpets. Many believe Bartók was lampooning the Russian composer. Others argue that the tune is not by Shostakovich but by Franz Lehár, a tune from The Merry Widow. As of now, this matter remains unsettled.

JERRY HOU, CONDUCTOR

Born in Taiwan and raised in a small town in Arkansas, TaiwaneseAmerican conductor Jerry Hou had a late start in music. Beginning on trombone in middle school band, Hou went on to work professionally in American and European orchestras before his playing career was ended by injury. He returned to school to study conducting, and is now recognized for his dynamic presence, insightful interpretations, versatility and commanding technique on the podium.

Hou is the Resident Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. He leads the Atlanta Symphony in classical, family, and education concerts. In March of 2023, Hou will make his official subscription debut in a program of music by Joan Tower, Jessie Montgomery, and Bela Bartók.

This past season, Hou began an association with the New York Philharmonic and their music director Jaap van Zweden, and recently conducted the orchestra in the tuning of the newly renovated David Geffen Hall. He continues to work as a cover conductor and this spring will make his debut with the orchestra.

During the summer, Hou serves as Resident Conductor of the Grand Teton Music Festival where he stepped in at the last minute this past August to lead a program of Gershwin, Prokofiev’s Symphony 5, and the Trumpet Concerto of John Williams. In addition, he serves on the faculty of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he is Artist Teacher of Orchestras and Ensembles.

Known for his flexibility in many styles and genres, Hou has conducted a wide range of repertoire from classical to contemporary.

In the spring of 2019, Hou led performances of a new collaboration between composer Steve Reich and artist Gerhart Richter to commemorate the opening of New York City’s new performing arts space and center for artistic invention, The Shed. A leading interpreter and conductor of contemporary music, he has collaborated with acclaimed composers such as Steve Reich, Anthony Davis, John Adams, Melinda Wagner, John Harbison, George Lewis, Bernard Rands, Joel Thompson, Gyorgy Kurtag, Helmut Lachenmann, Unsuk Chin, and Carlos Simon. He lives in Houston with his wife Jenny and son Remy, and has competed on the game show Jeopardy!

AWADAGIN PRATT, PIANO

Born in Pittsburgh, Awadagin Pratt began studying piano at the age of six. Three years later, having moved to Normal, Illinois with his family, he also began studying violin. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Illinois where he studied piano, violin, and conducting. He subsequently enrolled at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he became the first student in the school’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas: piano, violin and conducting.

Mr. Pratt won the Naumburg International Piano Competition and was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. His orchestral performances include the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra and the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, National, and New Jersey symphonies among many others.

In November 2009, Mr. Pratt was one of four artists selected to perform at a classical music event at the White House that included student workshops hosted by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, and performing in concert for guests including President Obama. He has performed two other times at the White House.

Mr. Pratt is currently a Professor of Piano at the CollegeConservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He also served as the Artistic Director of the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati and is currently the Artistic Director of the Art of the Piano Festival at CCM.

Concert of Sunday, March 5, 2023, 3:00pm

WILLIAM R. LANGLEY, conductor

JOHN WILLIAMS (b. 1932)

Lost

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841—1904)

Carnival Overture, Op. 92 10 MINS

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)

“March of the Mogul Emperors” from The Crown of India 4 MINS

Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 (“Enigma”)

XI. (G.R.S.) Allegro di molto

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)

This performance is made possible through a generous grant from the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation, which is part of the family of foundations that also includes the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.

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.

Performance time is approximately 45 minutes, and there is no intermission.

WILLIAM R. LANGLEY, CONDUCTOR

Founding Music Director of the Memphis Repertory Orchestra, William R. Langley began his career as an orchestral conductor at age sixteen. In 2009 he founded the Wolf River Chamber Orchestra and in 2011 the MRO. Langley also serves as conductor of the Blueshift Ensemble and frequent guest conductor with All of the Above Ensemble, contemporary ensembles dedicated to programming and promoting new and existing chamber works while incorporating multi-genre collaborations.

Langley has appeared as guest conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Starling Chamber Orchestra, Blueshift Ensemble, Concert:Nova, and All of the Above ensemble.

In demand as a cover conductor, Langley has been a frequent cover with both the Atlanta and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras covering such conductors as Sir Donald Runnicles, Louis Langrée, Carlos Kalmar, Juanjo Mena, Ramón Tebar, Peter Oundjian, Nathalie Stutzmann, Nicola Luisotti, Xian Zhang, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya, to name a few.

Langley holds a Master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) in Cincinnati where he studied under the tutelage of Maestro Mark Gibson. He was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the American Austrian Foundation to be awarded one of two esteemed Ansbacher Fellowships for Young Conductors with the opportunity to study in Austria at the 2019 Salzburger Festspiele.

Concerts of Thursday, March 16, 2023

8:00 PM Saturday, March 18, 2023

8:00 PM

STEPHEN MULLIGAN, conductor

TIMOTHY MCALLLISTER, saxophone

CARL MARIA VON WEBER (1786–1826)

Overture to Der Freischütz (1821) 10 MINS

TYSHAWN SOREY (b. 1980)

Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith) (2022) 20 MINS

Timothy McAllister, saxophone

Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith) was commissioned by Lucerne Festival and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as part of New Music USA’s “Amplifying Voices” program.

INTERMISSION 20 MINS

JEAN SIBELIUS (1865–1957)

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 (1902) 44 MINS

I. Allegretto

II. Tempo Andante, ma rubato

III. Vivacissimo —

IV. Finale: Allegro moderato

Amplifying Voices is a New Music USA initiative which is powered by the Sphinx Ventures Fund, with additional support from ASCAP and the Sorel Organization.

Notes on the Program by Noel Morris

Overture to Der Freischütz

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

First ASO performance: March 27, 1949

Henry Sopkin, conductor

Most recent

ASO performances: April 9–12, 2015

Der Freischütz (The Marksman) comes from the age of the gothic novel. Think Dracula, Frankenstein, Turn of the Screw, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Because the composer taps into German folklore, some elements would even sound familiar to today’s gaming culture.

Lionel Bringuier, conductor

In the opera, Max is in love with Agathe and must win a shooting competition to earn her hand. Although he’s the best shot around, his skills abandon him, thanks to a spell by Kaspar, who has sold his soul to Zamiel, the Black Huntsman. Zamiel sees a chance to add Max’s soul to his collection and tempts him with magic bullets. Around this scenario, the composer crafted a brilliant and diabolical score. It is a rustic tale—notice the outdoorsy sound of the horns—as common folk battle temptation and the supernatural in pursuit of love.

Carl Maria von Weber came from a family of entertainers. His father founded a traveling theater company populated by the composer’s aunts, uncles, and siblings. His first cousin was the singer Constanze Weber, who was married to Mozart. As a gifted youngster, Carl received the best musical training (at least for a kid who spent his life on the road). He was a brilliant pianist and took to composition. As he grew, he bounced from job to job as a musician, lithographer, poet, music critic, music director, and court secretary. History took a left turn when Weber became director of the German opera in Dresden. Before that time, Italian opera had dominated the art form. (Mozart’s German hit The Magic Flute was the exception.) Weber took his company and Germanlanguage opera to new heights. Supervising the lighting, the sets, the costumes, the chorus and all aspects of the production, he built a first-class company.

Der Freischütz is a giant in the annals of German opera. When the show premiered in Berlin in 1821, influencers flocked to the theater, including E.T.A. Hoffmann, Heinrich Heine, and the prodigy composer Felix Mendelssohn. It became a favorite of Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Richard Wagner. As productions spread across Germany, Europe, Russia and America, Wagner rode that wave, seizing upon a new interest in German opera to become a dominant cultural figure in the 19th century. One could argue that without Weber, there may not have been a Wagner.

Today, music critics speak of the gorgeous music that runs throughout Der Freischütz, yet it is a difficult ticket to find; American opera companies seldom perform it.

In 1826, the 39-year-old Weber succumbed to tuberculosis while supervising a production of Oberon in London. There, he was laid to rest until 1844, when Richard Wagner brought his remains back to Dresden. For the procession, Wagner composed his Trauermusik and personally delivered a eulogy.

Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)

In addition to the solo saxophone, Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith) is scored for two flutes (one doubling bass flute), two oboes, clarinet, e-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, percussion, harp and strings.

Newark-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey (b. 1980) is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex scores, and an extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Claire Chase, Steve Lehman, Jason Moran, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Myra Melford, among many others.

The New York Times has praised Sorey for his instrumental facility and aplomb, “He plays not only with gale-force physicality, but also a sense of scale and equipoise”; The Wall Street Journal notes Sorey is, “a composer of radical and seemingly boundless ideas.” The New Yorker recently noted that Sorey is “among the most formidable denizens of the in-between zone…An extraordinary talent who can see across the entire musical landscape.”

Sorey has composed works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, soprano Julia Bullock, PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the McGill-McHale Trio, bassbaritone Davóne Tines, Alarm Will Sound, the Louisville Orchestra, and tenor Lawrence Brownlee with Opera Philadelphia in partnership with Carnegie Hall, as well as for countless collaborative performers. His music has been performed in notable venues such as the Walt Disney

Concert Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Village Vanguard, the Ojai Music Festival, the Newport Jazz Festival, the Kimmel Center, and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Sorey has received support for his creative projects from The Jerome Foundation, The Shifting Foundation, Van Lier Fellowship, and was named a 2017 MacArthur fellow and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow. Sorey has released 12 critically acclaimed recordings that feature his work as a composer, co-composer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, and conceptualist. His latest release, Pillars (Firehouse 12 Records, 2018), has been praised by Rolling Stone as “an immersive soundworld… sprawling, mysterious… thrilling” and has been named as one of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction 2018 albums of the year.

In 2012, he was selected as one of nine composers for the Other Minds Festival, where he exchanged ideas with such like-minded peers as Ikue Mori, Ken Ueno, and Harold Budd. In 2013, Jazz Danmark invited him to serve as the Danish International Visiting Artist. He was also a 2015 recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Award. Sorey has taught and lectured on composition and improvisation at Columbia University, The New England Conservatory, The Banff Centre, University of Michigan, International Realtime Music Symposium, Harvard University, Hochschule für Musik Köln, Berklee College of Music, University of Chicago, and The Danish Rhythmic Conservatory. Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in the Fall of 2020.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43

Symphony No. 2 is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

In 1910, the Boston critic Arthur Elson wrote: “It is undoubtedly true that Italy has been the most important nation in musical history… her supremacy was of long duration, and dates from before the fall of the Roman Empire.”

First ASO performance: February 3, 1951

Henry Sopkin, conductor Most recent ASO performances: April 7–8, 2016

Robert Spano, conductor

To Elson’s point, Italy gave us opera and musical terminology and perfected the design of the violin. History sports a long list of composers who were forever changed by contact with Italy, including Bach, Handel, Mozart and Richard Strauss. Other composers wrote musical postcards from there, including Mendelssohn, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Liszt and Stravinsky. The Second Symphony by Jean Sibelius, is one of those pieces.

In March of 1900, Sibelius received a letter from an admirer that read:

“You have been sitting at home for quite a while, Mr. Sibelius, it is high time for you to travel. You will spend the late autumn and the winter in Italy, a country where one learns cantabile, balance and harmony, plasticity and symmetry of lines, a country where everything is beautiful—even the ugly.” The offer came from Baron Axel Carpelan, who raised a generous sum to send the composer on his way.

Sibelius had other reasons for a change of venue. In February, his 15-month-old daughter died of typhoid. He had also been drinking and racking up debts. It seemed an Italian getaway would help him to clear his head.

In early 1901, Jean Sibelius took his family to a villa near the seaside community of Rapallo, where pastel-colored houses hugged the Mediterranean. Until then, his only contact with such vistas had come from the theater. In Rapallo, thoughts of Mozart’s Don Giovanni flooded his brain. A scenario for a possible tone poem came to mind.

“Don Juan,” he wrote. “Sitting in the twilight in my castle, a guest enters. I ask many times who he is.—No answer. I make an effort to entertain him. He remains mute. Eventually, he starts singing. At this time, Don Juan notices who he is—Death.” Next to this scenario, Sibelius wrote down a melody.

Sibelius returned to a tense situation in Finland—the Russian tsar had begun to tighten the screws on Finnish culture, and there were rumblings of rebellion. Sibelius found his bearings in this tumultuous atmosphere and sat down to write. The Don Juan melody found its way into the second movement of the Second Symphony, which he worked on until early 1902.

Although Sibelius never ascribed a program to his Symphony No. 2, his close friend, conductor Robert Kajanus, wrote that the second movement “strikes one as the most broken-hearted protest against all the injustice that threatens at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent.” Whether or not this was the composer’s intention, the timing of the symphony, coupled with rising political tensions, forever linked the piece with the spirit of independence.

Sibelius as a National Hero

From the time of Napoleon, the Finnish people have had an 830-mile problem—their border with Russia. In 1809, they fell under the thumb of the tsar. Initially, the Russian monarch permitted the Finns some measure of autonomy. That changed in 1899 when Nicholas II instituted a policy of Russification. With that, the Russian military began to draft Finns into service and force people to adopt the Russian language. The Finns pushed back just as Sibelius was emerging as an important composer.

Often, Sibelius’s music conjures associations with the boreal forests of Scandinavia— bone-chilling and impenetrable combined with a smoldering passion. Although he grew up in a Swedish-speaking household, his romance with Aino Järnefelt, daughter of a famous general, helped bring focus to his identity. Under the influence of his future father-in-law, he switched to the Finnish language and began writing music inspired by Finnish folklore. Before long, Jean Sibelius became a potent symbol of the resistance, prompting the Russians to ban performances of his anthem Finlandia

STEPHEN MULLIGAN, CONDUCTOR

Berlin-based American conductor Stephen Mulligan recently concluded his tenure as Associate Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. Mulligan served as a Dudamel Conducting Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the 2018-19 season, leading the orchestra on the Toyota Symphonies for Youth series and assisting Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, Conductor Laureate EsaPekka Salonen, and guest conductors Lionel Bringuier, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Zubin Mehta, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Mulligan’s 2022-23 season includes return engagements with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Arkansas, and Amarillo; and debut projects with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

During the 2017-18 season, his first with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Mulligan stepped in on short notice for three classical subscription programs over the course of six weeks, working with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano and pianists Jorge Federico Osorio and Behzod Abduraimov to critical acclaim. Mulligan is a three-time recipient of the prestigious Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award.

A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Mulligan began his music studies with his father Gregory, former concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony and current violinist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He studied conducting at Yale University with Toshiyuki Shimada, at the Peabody Institute with Gustav Meier; Markand Thakar; and Marin Alsop; and at the Aspen Music Festival and School with Robert Spano.

TIMOTHY MCALLISTER, SAXOPHONE

Since his solo debut at age 16 with the Houston Civic Symphony, Timothy McAllister’s career has taken him throughout the United States, Australia, Russia, Canada, Japan, China, Mexico, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, with solo performances in Prince Royal Albert Hall in London, the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, among others. Other recent performances as soloist and recording artist include the London Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Reno Philharmonic, the Hot Springs Festival Orchestra, Dallas Wind Symphony, United States Navy Band, Hong Kong Wind Philharmonia, among others.

A dedicated teacher, McAllister is Professor of Saxophone at The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and other degrees in music education, conducting and performance from The University of Michigan where he studied saxophone with Donald Sinta and conducting with H. Robert Reynolds. He received the School of Music’s most distinguished performance award—the Albert A. Stanley Medal.

Timothy McAllister is on the artist roster of Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd. Additionally, he is a ConnSelmer artist/clinician, while also serving as a Backun Woodwind Artist, assisting with research and mouthpiece design. He endorses Key Leaves and Peak Performance Woodwind products.

Concerts of Thursday, March 23, 2023

8:00 PM

Saturday, March 25, 2023

8:00 PM

NATHALIE STUTZMANN, conductor

Part I: BACH (performed without pause)

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750)

Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068

Gavottes I & II

Sinfonia from Cantata 42

Sinfonia from Cantata 12

Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043

Vivace

Largo, ma non tanto

Allegro

David Coucheron, violin

Justin Bruns, violin

Thursday’s concert is dedicated to

SALLY & PETE PARSONSON in honor of their extraordinary support of the 2021/22 Annual Fund.

BRIEF PAUSE

Part II: FRIENDS (performed without pause)

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685–1759)

“Entrance of the Queen of Sheba” from Solomon

ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678–1741)

Concerto for Strings in G Minor, RV 156

Allegro

Adagio

Allegro

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

Saturday’s concert is dedicated to JEANNETTE GUARNER, MD & CARLOS DEL RIO, MD in honor of their extraordinary support of the Talent Development Program and for helping the ASO during COVID-19.

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.

Sinfonia in B-flat Major, HWV 339

Adagio

Concerto grosso in D Minor, Op. 3, No. 5

Allegro, ma non troppo

Allegro

Concerto grosso in B-Flat Major, Op. 3, No. 2

Largo

Concerto grosso in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 6

Allegro

ANTONIO VIVALDI

Concerto for Four Violins in B Minor, RV 580

Allegro

Largo — Larghetto — Adagio — Largo

Allegro

David Coucheron, violin

Justin Bruns, violin

Jun-Ching Lin, violin

Anastasia Agapova, violin

by Noel Morris Program Annotator

BRIEF PAUSE

Part III: BACH (performed without pause)

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Sinfonia from Cantata 174

Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, BWV 1067

Polonaise

Badinerie

Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068

Bourrée

Gigue

Please note: this concert will be performed without intermission. Approximate concert length is 80 minutes.

1685was a banner year. Two little boys were born in Germany, about 100 miles apart. One is among the world’s most influential composers. The other wrote Messiah. Six hundred miles to the south, a third boy was learning the violin. Today, they dominate western music written before the arrival of Mozart.

Each year, around the world, professional and community choirs—as well as many intrepid audience members—gather to sing George Frideric Handel’s massive oratorio written on the life of Christ. On YouTube, a single video of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has over 248 million views. And, thanks to NASA’s Voyager mission, two pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach are hurtling through interstellar space at over 38,000 miles per hour.

Of the three, Bach was the least traveled. He lived his life in central Germany. Twice he hoped to meet Handel, but their schedules never aligned. He encountered Vivaldi through a book of Italian concertos and was so impressed he made keyboard transcriptions of them. (For many years, Bach’s transcriptions served as a tether between Vivaldi, who was largely forgotten, and oblivion.) Vivaldi became a jumping-off point for Bach as he wrote concertos of his own.

Probably, Handel and Vivaldi did meet. In his early twenties, Handel traveled to Italy, learning the language, learning to imitate Italian music, and readying himself for a brilliant career in Great Britain.

Johann Sebastian Bach

By the time Johann Sebastian came along, central Germany was littered with church musicians named Bach. A marvel of genetics, the Bach family trained male children for the trade from an early age, typically with older brothers, uncles, fathers and cousins serving as instructors. Johann Sebastian trained six future musicians named Bach, in addition to his own children. In the Bach family, “Sebastian” was a fifth-generation church musician. In preparation, he studied the Bible in German and Latin. At 10, he was orphaned and went to live with his older brother Johann Christoph—already a successful organist. Sebastian thrived in his brother’s care and won his first church job in Arnstadt at the age of 18.

After a few years at Arnstadt, Sebastian’s music-making grew experimental, which rankled the conservatives in town, and so he moved to Mühlhausen. There, he landed in the middle of a battle over church doctrine. After a year, he took a job as a chamber musician and organist in Weimar, where he got his hands on a Dutch publication of Italian concertos, mostly by Antonio Vivaldi. From this book, he made organ and harpsichord transcriptions, opening his mind to new possibilities in instrumental writing.

The situation in Weimar was a happy time for Bach, lasting nine years until a feud broke out between different branches of the ruling family. Soon, Bach moved on. The next chapter was a revelation—at least for today’s classical instrumentalist. Bach went to work at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, a Calvinist. Leopold was a fine musician and devoted patron but couldn’t permit music in the church. As a result, Bach went from composing sacred works to producing secular 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.

George Frideric Handel

In 1705, a 19-year-old boy carried the manuscript of his first opera, Almira, into a theater in Hamburg. He presented it to his colleagues in the orchestra, where he had been working as a violinist and harpsichordist. Soon, that orchestra played the first performance Almira—it was a hit. Young Handel followed Almira immediately with a second hit opera and soon had the financial wherewithal to choose his next move—a trip to Italy, which was, in his mind, the center of the opera universe.

Handel stayed in Italy for more than three years, learning the language, soaking up the instrumental work of Italian composers—especially Arcangelo Corelli—and absorbing the Italian opera style. He rubbed elbows with members of the high nobility, including Prince Ernst August, brother of the Elector of Hanover, who invited him to come for a visit. In 1710, Handel, now 25, crossed the Alps and made his way to Hanover, where he took the top job as Kapellmeister.

He was in Hanover for less than a year when the Elector granted him leave to go to England. There, the composer presented his “Italian opera” Rinaldo, and the Londoners received him like a rock star. Never mind the irony of a German composer writing Italian opera in London, people clamored to see his shows, and Handel postponed his return to Hanover. Soon Queen Anne granted him an annual allowance of £200, putting him in an awkward position with his employer across the Channel—it didn’t matter. Queen Anne died the following year, and the Elector of Hanover became King of England. Handel’s life in England was different from what it might have been in Hanover. Instead of serving at the pleasure of a prince, working as a church musician and entertainer at court, he was a freelancer. He depended on commissions and ticket sales, which he managed out of his house on Brook Street.

Handel wrote music at an astonishing pace. He composed his twelve Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, during the month of October in 1739. By this time, Londoners had lost interest in his Italian operas, so he shifted to writing English-language oratorios. During intermissions, he featured music from his Op. 6 Concerti Grossi, which are patterned after works by Arcangelo Corelli. With the sale of sheet music for his concertos, Handel turned a tidy profit.

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi came of age during a sweet spot in history. About a hundred miles away, the violin maker Antonio Stradivari was turning out his now priceless instruments (today, the “Messiah Strad” is valued at $20 million). In the history of the world, the overall quality of fiddles available to a poor instrumentalist had never been higher. The stage was set for someone to take violin playing to the next level. And in walked Antonio Vivaldi.

One witness said he was “terrified” by Vivaldi’s playing. Vivaldi brought fiery virtuosity to the instrument. At the same time, his growing success as an opera composer fed into a soulful lyricism that inhabited his playing in slower music.

Vivaldi was the son of a violinist at Saint Mark’s Basilica, the famous domed church in the heart of Venice. He learned music from his father before going to school to become a priest. Ordained in 1703,

Vivaldi soon was given dispensation from having to say mass due to “tightness in the chest.” This enabled him to focus on music. He took a job teaching music to “orphan” girls at the state-funded convent Ospedale della Pietà (a number of them weren’t orphans at all but illegitimate daughters of the nobility). Already, Venice was a center of tourism, a must-see for young European noblemen. With an international reputation, Vivaldi’s school supported an orchestra that was the pride of the city. For an ensemble of some forty girls, Vivaldi composed hundreds of concertos. On the side, he hustled for work as an opera composer and impresario.

Later in life, as his popularity waned, Vivaldi turned his attention increasingly to Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. Moving to Vienna in 1740, he expected to revive his career and possibly win a royal appointment. Sadly, Charles VI died shortly after Vivaldi’s arrival. Stuck in a foreign city without work and without royal protection, the composer sank into poverty and died in 1741. His music was nearly forgotten until 1926, when a crate of manuscripts was discovered at a boarding school in Piedmont. There began an effort to recover, reconstruct, perform and publish Vivaldi’s music. Most recently, an entire opera was discovered at an Italian library in 2012.