Frank Almond Performs Vaughan Williams by Footlights.com

FRANK ALMOND PERFORMS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Carter Simmons, Music Director January 20, 2021

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Indepe Assiste Memor

Carter Simmons, Music Director presents

“FRANK ALMOND PERFORMS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS” 7:00 PM Wednesday, January 20, 2021 The Harris Theater Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts

GUSTAV HOLST Brook Green Suite (1874-1934) I. Prelude II. Air III. Dance RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending (1872-1958) FRANK ALMOND, VIOLIN FRANZ SCHUBERT Symphony no. 5 in B-flat Major, D. 485 (1797-1828) I. Allegro II. Andante con moto III. Menuetto. Allegro molto IV. Allegro vivace

Frank Almond Performs Vaughan Williams

C A R T E R S I M M O N S , M U S I C D I R E C TO R Festival City Symphony Music Director, Carter Simmons, is a long-time member of Milwaukee’s close-knit arts community. The well-known Artistic Director of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO) has served for 25 years with the organization that has nurtured, challenged, and inspired young people since 1956. During his association with MYSO, the organization has grown to serve 6,000 students and received recognition as an awardee of the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the nation’s highest honor for out-of-school arts and humanities programs. Mr. Simmons has been invited to work with the Milwaukee Ballet, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Starry Nights Orchestra featuring artists of Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera, and the Wisconsin Philharmonic among other orchestras. He has conducted the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra throughout China, most notably in Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, and also in Orchestra Hall in Chicago’s Symphony Center. He has also accompanied the orchestra for its performances in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Valencia’s Palau de la Música, Prague’s Dvořák Hall, Budapest’s Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, in Argentina and Uruguay, and the Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic. F R A N K A L M O N D, V I O L I N Violinist Frank Almond held the Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for 25 years. He held the Concertmaster position with the Rotterdam Philharmonic with Valery Gergiev and Guest Concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra with Kurt Masur. Frank regularly performs as a soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and as soloist and chamber musician throughout the U-S and Europe. He is the founder of his own chamber music series in Milwaukee, Frankly Music, consistently recognized for innovative programming and its ability to attract leading performers from around the world. At 17, Frank Almond was one of the youngest prizewinners in the history of the Nicolo Paganini Competition in Genoa, Italy, and five years later was one of two American prizewinners at the Eighth International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, which was documented in an award-winning PBS film. His extensive recording discography includes a wide range of repertoire on various labels that have garnered multiple Grammy nominations. His most recent series of recordings, A Violin’s Life, chronicles the extraordinary history and lineage of his current violin, the 1715 Lipiński Stradivarius. This instrument has direct ties to Giuseppe Tartini, Edvard Grieg, Johannes Brahms, and Robert and Clara Schumann. 2

Festival City Symphony

F R A N K A L M O N D, V I O L I N

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On January 27, 2014, the “ex-Lipiński” Stradivarius was stolen from Mr. Almond in an armed robbery after a concert. The violin was recovered nine days later, and the story continues to make headlines around the world. The robbery and recovery are the subject of a new documentary film, “Plucked,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April (2019). Frank will also recall the event in April on “The Moth Radio Hour,” the critically acclaimed story-telling program heard on Public Radio stations nationwide. Community outreach and giving back to the Milwaukee community are also at the heart of Frank Almond’s artistic priorities. He mentors young musicians of all performing levels and backgrounds, and performs in nontraditional venues where classical music has a rare and unusual presence. Frank holds two degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy Delay, Michael Tseitlin, Felix Galimir, and Joseph Silverstein. He currently serves on the Faculty at Roosevelt University in Chicago and is the Artist-in-Residence at the Milwaukee Youth Symphony, one of the largest youth arts programs in the United States. Previous teaching positions include positions at Northwestern University and Texas Christian University. Frank Almond writes an online column, as he admits, “instead of practicing.” Nondivisi offers his thoughts, hopes and expectations for the present and future of classical music. More information about Frankly Music, A Violin’s Life and the Lipiński Stradivarius is available at frankalmond.com. F C S S TA F F A N D B OA R D O F D I R E C TO R S Chief Executive Officer................................................................................................Franklyn Esenberg Music Director.....................................................................................................................Carter Simmons Music Director Emeritus......................................................................................................Monte Perkins Operations Director...............................................................................................................Brandon Yahn Personnel Manager........................................................................................................ Kathryn Krubsack Children’s Program Notes Host.........................................................................................Lynn Roginske Librarians............................................................................................................... Julie Bamberger Roubik Assistant Librarian.........................................................................................Robert and Martha Kriefall Board of Directors Franklyn Esenberg, Chairman of the Board Charlane O’Rourke, Interim Executive Officer/Assistant Financial Officer Dr. Patricia Ellis Sharie Garcia Bethany Perkins

Frank Almond Performs Vaughan Williams

T H A N K S TO O U R S P O N S O R S Festival City Symphony would like to take this opportunity to thank its sponsors, without whom these programs would not take place.

through in-kind contribution

Festival City Symphony is a member organization of Association of Wisconsin Symphony Orchestras, the Creative Alliance, VISIT Milwaukee, an affiliate member of UPAF, and a program partner at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center. FCS made the Business Journal’s “Book of Lists” 2002–2007, 2010, and 2012.

F E S T I VA L C I T Y S Y M P H O N Y FIRST VIOLIN Pamela Simmons Concertmaster JoAnn Haasler Ass’t Concertmaster Tatiana Migliaccio Mary Stryck Kristian Brusubardis John Emanuelson Andrea Buchta SECOND VIOLIN Ellen Willman Principal Melissa Mann Cheryl Fuchs Karen Frink Jessica Williams Ashley Rewolinski VIOLA Olga Tuzhilkov Principal Jenna Dick Julie Bamberger Roubik Korinthia Klein 4

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CELLO Tom Smith Principal Ingrid Tihtcheva Sacia Jerome Beth Woodward Marti Kriefall Viktor Brusubardis BASS Charles Grosz Principal Barry Paul Clark Steve Rindt Larry Tresp FLUTE Tatiana Pearson Principal Olivia Dobbs OBOE Suzanne Geoffrey Principal Jennifer Bryan

CLARINET Laura McLaughlin Principal Sabrina Pedersen BASSOON Joshua Fleming Principal Steven Whitney HORN Brandon Yahn Principal Nancy Cline PERCUSSION Robert Kriefall Principal

PROGR A M NOTES Gustav Holst b. September 21, 1874; Cheltenham, England d. May 25, 1934; London, England Brook Green Suite for String Orchestra The English composer Gustav Holst was the son of a musician and descended from a family of mixed Scandinavian, German and Russian origin that had settled in England in the early nineteenth century. His childhood was spent in Cheltenham, where his father supervised his study of the piano. A later period at the Royal College of Music in London brought a lasting friendship with Ralph Vaughan Williams, an association that was to the advantage of both in their free criticism and discussion of one another’s compositions. It was in part a weakness in health, as well as financial necessity, that prompted Holst for a time to earn his living as a trombonist, touring with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and playing with the Scottish Orchestra. Eventually he decided to devote himself, as far as possible, to composition. Teaching positions, and particularly his long association with St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, and his work as director of music for the enthusiastic amateurs at Morley College, allowed him some time, at least in the summer holidays, but the relatively even tenor of his life, which suited his diffident character, was considerably disturbed by the great popular success of The Planets, which had its first complete public performance in 1920. His later music never achieved such a lasting triumph with the public, although his Shakespearian opera At the Boar’s Head aroused respectful interest at the time, while other works generally had a mixed critical reception, including his 1927 Egdon Heath, published as a tribute to Thomas Hardy. His St Paul’s Suite, written for the well-known girls’ school in Hammersmith, retains a firm place in string orchestra repertoire, as does the later Brook Green Suite, and the 1917 Hymn of Jesus for choruses and orchestra has an honourable position in English choral music. Holst wrote his Brook Green Suite during the last year of his life during a period in hospital. It was dedicated to the St Paul’s Girls’ School Junior Orchestra and scored primarily for strings, with optional additional parts for flute, oboe and clarinet. As so often with Holst there is a prevailing suggestion of English folk-song in each of the three movements, the first of which, Prelude, presents its principal theme over a pattern of descending scales, at first for cello and double bass, and then also for viola. The first violin melody of the Air is accompanied initially by the plucked notes of the other instruments, before the viola takes up the theme. A secondary melody, marked Poco animato, is introduced, before the principal theme is heard again from the cello, followed by the first violins. The viola takes up the Poco animato theme before the brief closing section. The third movement, Dance, is said to be based on a melody heard in Sicily, but is presented in very characteristically English form. Program Notes by Keith Anderson

Frank Almond Performs Vaughan Williams

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Ralph Vaughan Williams b. October 12, 1872; Gloucestershire, England d. August 26, 1958; London, England The Lark Ascending, Romance for Violin and Orchestra On the eve of the First World War, Ralph Vaughan Williams read George Meredith’s poem The Lark Ascending and heard, in his mind’s ear, this ‘Romance for violin and orchestra’. Then, like thousands of others, he laid music aside to serve in France. Vaughan Williams served as an ambulance driver, and unlike so many – including two great friends, the composers George Butterworth and Cecil Coles – he made it back alive. “I sometimes dread coming back to normal life with so many gaps”, he commented, as the War drew to its close. As if in reaction to the horrors of the Western Front, he returned again to the quiet beauties of the English countryside. His music – particularly his Pastoral Symphony of 1922 – found new depths of tranquil strength. And while staying at the Somerset country house of Kings Weston, in the summer of 1919, he finally completed The Lark Ascending. It was premiered in 1921 at Queen’s Hall, London by the violinist Marie Hall, and the conductor Adrian Boult. The Lark Ascending is something unique – a supremely difficult violin showpiece without a trace of flashy virtuoso display. Poetry, purity and expressive beauty of tone are all. Against a serene orchestral landscape, the solo violin becomes both the lark, its song, and the spirit of Meredith’s poem: He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake… For singing till his heaven fills, ’Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup, And he the wine which overflows To lift us with him as he goes… Till lost on his aerial rings In light, and then the fancy sings. It all sounds so simple – in those first hazy orchestral chords you can almost see the “coloured counties” drowsing under a summer haze. It’s the rapturous stillness of this miniature masterpiece that has made it so beloved. Yet even those who deride Vaughan Williams’ pastoral style (“cow-pat music” was the once-fashionable insult) are unable to fault The Lark Ascending. As the 1920s wore on, he’d get back to grittier business. But for now, Vaughan Williams – like his whole generation – had earned the right to his dream of timeless beauty on a perfect summer day. Program Notes by Richard Bratby © 2017

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Franz Schubert b. January 31, 1979; Vienna, Austria d. November 19, 1828; Vienna, Austria Symphony no. 5 in B-flat Major, D. 485 In 1808, the eleven-year-old Schubert began a five-year term of study at Vienna’s Choir School of the Imperial Chapel. He received a thorough musical education. The student orchestra, in which he played the viola, performed symphonies by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Naturally for a budding composer involved with an orchestra, he began writing music for it to play. His earliest works for large forces date from this period. After graduation, and at his family’s insistence, he continued his education with the aim of following his father into the profession of schoolmaster. For three miserable years of training and teaching, he found consolation through composing. He created nearly 400 works, great and small, including three further symphonies, before abandoning the classroom for his true calling, music. He composed the Fifth Symphony in 1816. It is a genial and thoroughly refreshing piece, the finest of the first six. It contains just enough hints of darker emotions – forecasting the “Unfinished” Symphony in B Minor of 1822 – to lend it substance. After one, private performance soon after its completion, it vanished for 50 years. In 1867, the English musicians Sir Arthur Sullivan and Sir George Grove made a pilgrimage to Vienna, specifically in search of forgotten nuggets of Schubertiana. They brought to light this symphony, the orchestral selections from the incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and other treasures. Constructed on themes radiating youthful optimism, the first movement is brisk and as light as a feather. The second movement displays Schubert the lyrical genius of song, operating here in a mode of gently reflective melancholy. Moments of emotional unease crop up, but they are soothed into submission by the music’s gentle onward flow. The outer panels of the following menuetto bear their share of shadowy feelings, too. The central trio section, on the other hand, brings the sweet freshness of a spring morning. Schubert clears the air for good with a flashing, carefree romp of a finale. Program Notes by Don Anderson © 2016

Frank Almond Performs Vaughan Williams

ABOUT THE ORCHESTR A AND UPCOMING PROGR A MS Festival City Symphony has been a significant member of the Milwaukee-area arts community for nearly 100 years. Formerly known as the Milwaukee Civic Symphony Orchestra, Festival City Symphony is Milwaukee’s oldest performing symphony orchestra. Its mission is to extend the reach of classical music in the Milwaukee-area community by presenting free and affordable concerts in formats that embrace people of all ages. Striving to attract new audiences to live classical music performances, the orchestra’s collaborative programs often incorporate local arts or educational organizations, Milwaukee-based performers and artists, and children’s performing groups. Composed of professional musicians from around the Milwaukee area, FCS member musicians serve as instructors in many of Milwaukee’s universities, public and private schools, and private lesson studios. For information about upcoming FCS performances and to learn more about the orchestra, please visit festivalcitysymphony.org or follow Festival City Symphony on Facebook.

(262) 853-6085 | festivalcitysymphony.org | Follow FCS on Facebook!

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