Great History, Bright Future
UW Symphony Orchestra with Joshua Roman, cello Saturday, November 10, 2012 8 pm
www.uniontheater.wisc.edu 608-265-ARTS
UW Symphony Orchestra with Joshua Roman
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Presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee, directed this year by Ben Ferris, and supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Other sponsors include the Wisconsin Union Theater Endowment Fund and WORT, 89.9 FM.
UW-Madison students: to join the Wisconsin Union Directorate Theater Committee and help program our upcoming events, please contact Ben Ferris at ferrisferrisferris@gmail.com.
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Wisconsin Union Theater
PROGR A M
UW Symphony Orchestra with Joshua Roman, cello Menuet Antique.........................................................................................Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 4.......................................Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) Allegro Adagio ma non troppo Allegro moderato Joshua Roman, cello Intermission Symphony No. 4, H. 305...................................................................... Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) Poco moderato Allegro vivo Largo Poco allegro ABOUT THE MUSIC Notes by Norman Gilliland France went through a lot of turmoil between 1895, when Maurice Ravel wrote his Menuet Antique for piano, and 1929, when he orchestrated it, and Ravel’s experience as an ambulance driver during World War I no doubt accounts for the brassy edginess of the later version. The title is intentionally anachronistic in that Ravel apparently had ancient Greece in mind when referring to antiquity even though the minuet didn’t come along until the 16th century. Antonin Dvorák’s Cello Concerto in B Minor is the last of the seven works he composed between 1892 and 1895, during his term as director of the National Concervatory of Music in New York. The prompting to write a cello concerto came from a friend, virtuoso Hanuš Wihan, but Dvorák thought of the cello as a chamber music instrument and was concerned about balancing the sound between the cello and the orchestra. He also thought that the high notes might sound nasal and the low notes gruff. Then, in 1894, he heard Irish-American comoposer Victor Herbert performing his second cello concerto, and Dvorák became convinced that he could achieve the equilibrium he wanted. Following Herbert’s example, he added three trombones to enhance the sound of the cello and also added a tuba, piccolo and triangle, making the orchestra the largest he would use in any of his concertos. The two main themes of the first movement emphasize the low and high registers of the cello as if Dvorák is shattering his misgivings about the extremes of its tone. A sudden mood shift in the second movement was brought on by news that the former object of Dvorák’s affections, Josefina Cermáková, had fallen seriously ill. Dvorák had fallen in love with the actress when she was his 16-year-old piano student, and when she married someone else, Dvorák married her sister Anna. The shift comes as Dvorák brings in the song Leave Me Alone, which was a favorite of Josefina’s. When Dvorák returned home to Bohemia in 1895, he received word that Josefina had died, and he changed the end of the finale, returning to Joesfina’s song, before concludUW Symphony Orchestra with Joshua Roman
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Wisconsin Union Theater
ABOUT THE MUSIC
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ing the concerto on a powerful, assertive note. Johannes Brahms, who was a big help in launching Dvorák’s career, reportedly said that if he had known how effective a cello concerto could be, he would have written one himself. Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů began his Symphony No. 4 in New York and finished it on Cape Cod, using his favorite key, B-flat, because he was in high spirits as the end of World War II approached and he looked forward to returning to Czechoslavakia. Martinů was a fast worker and wrote the entire symphony in less than two months, finishing it on June 14, 1945. The lyrical and celebratory first movement leads to a robust scherzo. The third movement is a study in contrasts in which two solo violins and a solo cello play against an ensemble of strings. And while the finale begins with an ominous tone, it ends in a triumphant mood that alternates between the keys of B-flat and D. The ambiguity was portentous because after the euphoric libration of Czechoslovakia from the Nazis, the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe prevented Martinů from returning to his homeland. ABOUT THE ARTIST Joshua Roman Dubbed a “Classical Rock Star” by the press, cellist Joshua Roman has earned a national reputation for performing a wide range of repertoire with an absolute commitment to communicating the essence of the music at its most organic level. The San Francisco Chronicle hailed Roman as “a cellist of extraordinary technical and musical gifts” following his 2010 debut with the San Francisco Symphony under Herbert Blomstedt. For his ongoing creative initiatives on behalf of classical music, Roman was named a 2011 TED Fellow, joining a select group of Next Generation innovators of unusual accomplishments with the potential to positively affect the world. In the 2011/12 season Roman was guest artist for the Seattle Symphony’s opening night gala, which marked Ludovic Morlot’s first concert as Music Director. He made his Toronto Symphony debut, performed at the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, and was presented in recital by San Francisco Performances and on the Dame Myra Hess series in Chicago. He also played concertos with orchestras in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina and Oregon. Among the highlights of this past season, Roman performed duos with Yo-Yo Ma at a State Department event hosted by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden for the President of China, participated in the 2011 TED Conference in Long Beach and played at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway. He made his debut as soloist and conductor with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and appeared with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. Summer engagements included debuts at the Caramoor International Music Festival and La Jolla Summerfest. Before embarking on a solo career, Roman was for two seasons principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony, a position he won in 2006 at the age of 22. Since that time he has appeared as soloist with the with the Seattle Symphony, where he gave the world premiere of David Stock’s Cello Concerto, as well as with the Albany and Santa Barbara Symphonies, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional del Ecuador, among many others. He performed Britten’s third Cello Suite during New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival in a UW Symphony Orchestra with Joshua Roman
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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pre-concert recital at Avery Fisher Hall, and was the only guest artist invited to play an unaccompanied solo during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra’s 2009 debut concert at Carnegie Hall. In addition to his solo work, Roman is an active chamber music performer. He has enjoyed collaborations with veterans like Earl Carlyss, Christopher Taylor and Christian Zacharias, as well as with the Seattle Chamber Music Society and the International Festival of Chamber Music in Lima, Peru. He often joins forces with other dynamic young soloists and performers from New York’s vibrant music scene, including artists from So Percussion, the JACK Quartet and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two. In spring 2007, Roman was named Artistic Director of TownMusic in Seattle, where he creates programs that feature new works and reflect his eclectic musical influences and inspirations. TownMusic’s 2011/12 season offerings feature Roman in the complete Bach Cello Suites, performances by Brooklyn Rider and Alarm Will Sound, and a commission for composer Mason Bates. Committed to making music accessible to a wider audience, Roman may be found anywhere from a club to a classroom, performing jazz, rock, chamber music, or a solo sonata by Bach or Kodály. His versatility as a performer and his ongoing exploration of new concertos, chamber music, and solo cello works have spawned projects with composers such as Aaron Jay Kernis, Mason Bates, Derek Bermel, Gabriela Lena Frank and Dan Visconti. He has collaborated with photographer Chase Jarvis on Nikon video projects, and Paste magazine singled out Roman and DJ Spooky for their cello and iPad cover of Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place,” created for The Voice Project. One of Roman’s ongoing undertakings is an online video series called “The Popper Project”: wherever the cellist and his laptop find themselves, he performs an étude from David Popper’s “High School of Cello Playing” and uploads it, unedited, to his YouTube channel. Roman’s outreach endeavors have taken him to Uganda with his violin-playing siblings, where they played chamber music in schools, HIV/AIDS centers, and displacement camps, communicating a message of hope through music. The Oklahoma City native began playing the cello at the age of three on a quarter-size instrument, and played his first public recital at age ten. Home-schooled until he was 16, Roman then pursued his musical studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Richard Aaron. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Cello Performance in 2004, and his Master’s in 2005, as a student of Desmond Hoebig, former principal cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra. Joshua Roman has been singled out as “Musical America’s New Artist of the Month.” He is grateful for the loan of an 1899 cello by Giulio Degani of Venice.
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Wisconsin Union Theater
U W S Y M P H O N Y R O S T E R - N OV E M B E R 10 , 2 012 FIRST VIOLIN Ben Seeger, concertmaster Alice Huang Ami Yamamoto Mariah Schultz Samantha Kahl John Brauer Charis Wong Monica Chou Katherine Jiang Ashley Kasim Keisuke Yamamoto Amy Davis Leland Pan SECOND VIOLIN Tony Oliva* Patrick Wade Max Spiewak Thomas Bewell Hannah Muehlbauer Megan Whip Jennifer Stenson Lydia Balge Elizabeth Grams Stephen Taylor Christian Blank Maia Gumnit Stephanie Woodfill VIOLA Daniel Jacobs* Mikko Utevsky Brieanne Tingley Alexandra Cohn Karen Hill Josh Rosing Laura Gildenstern Margaret Hietpas
CELLO Christopher Peck* Tadhg Sauvey Adam Stiber Daniel Ma Tori Rogers Katherine Sadowsky Natalie Melk Caroline Carlson Piper Owen STRING BASS Elizabeth Clawson* Spencer Hobbs Colin Rohm Mark Ziegler
CONTRABASSOON Sam Allen HORN Kyle Pompei* Amanda Fry Hope Evans Dan Hively TRUMPET Kyle Erickson* Brian De Vere Ben Davis TROMBONE Christopher Van Hof* Joseph Greer+ Alan Carr
FLUTE Erin Murphy* Elspeth Hayden Elizabeth Lieffort
TUBA Aaron Hynds*
PICCOLO Mi-Li Chang
HARP Meghan Orr*
OBOE Konstantinos Tiliakos* Allison Maher Youngjin Ki Becca Dora
PIANO Jonathan Thornton
ENGLISH HORN Allison Maher Konstantinos Tiliakos CLARINET Laura McLaughlin* Tom Regouski Philip Berger
PERCUSSION Dave Alcorn* Mike Basak Mike Koszewski Jacob Wolbert *principal +co-principal
BASS CLARINET Tom Regouski BASSOON Sergio Acosta* Ross Duncan Sam Allen
UW Symphony Orchestra with Joshua Roman
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Other Shows this Season: Korea – Land of the Morning Calm with Buddy Hatton Monday & Tuesday, November 12 & 13, 2012, 7:30pm The Marquee at Union South Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas Scottish fiddle and cello Thursday, November 15, 2012, 8pm Music Hall 90 Miles Project Stefon Harris, David Sánchez and Nicholas Payton Thursday, November 29, 2012, 8pm Music Hall The Acting Company “As You Like It” Thursday & Friday, February 7 & 8, 2013, Mitchell Theatre The Knights with Wu Man, pipa Renowned chamber orchestra with the world’s premier pipa player Saturday, February 9, 2013 8pm Mills Hall
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Wisconsin Union Theater