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BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL S
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saturday July 19
A TASTE OF SPAIN The Cleveland Orchestra Bramwell Tovey, conductor Karen Gomyo, violin Emily Fons, mezzo-soprano
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Waiting for the Peak of Perfection.
With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.® smuckers.com
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BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL
Saturday evening, July 19, 2014, at 8:00 p.m.
THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA B R A M W E L L T OV E Y , conductor
GEORGES BIZET
Suite from Carmen
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Opus 61
(1838-1875)
(1835-1921)
1. Allegro non troppo 2. Andantino quasi allegretto 3. Molto moderato e maestoso — Allegro non troppo KAREN GOMYO, violin
INTERMISSION MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946)
The Three-Cornered Hat (complete ballet music) 1. Introduction and Song Part One 2. Afternoon — The Procession 3. Dance of the Miller’s Wife (Fandango) 4. The Grapes Part Two 5. The Neighbor’s Dance (Seguidellas) 6. The Miller’s Dance (Farruca) — The Arrest 7. Song — Nocturne — The Corregidor’s Dance — The Confrontation — The Miller’s Return 8. The Final Dance (Jota) EMILY FONS, mezzo-soprano
This concert is sponsored by The J.M. Smucker Company, a Cleveland Orchestra Partner in Excellence, as part of the Orchestra’s Blossom Celebrations Series. Media Partner: The Plain Dealer
Blossom Music Festival
Program: July 19
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Bramwell Tovey British conductor Bramwell Tovey has been music director of the Vancouver Symphony since 2000, and artistic advisor of its School of Music since 2011. He made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in August 2011; his most recent appearance here was in August 2013. At the Royal Academy of Music and University of London, Bramwell Tovey studied piano and composing. He subsequently spent twelve years as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, where he founded its New Music Festival. He also served as music director of the Luxembourg Philharmonic 2002-06. He has ongoing relationships with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and as part of the New York Philharmonic’s Summertime Classics series. Bramwell Tovey has guest conducted across Europe and North America, as well as in Asia and Australia, including performances with the orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, Melbourne, Montreal, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Seattle, Sydney, and Toronto. His operatic repertoire includes works by Britten, Menotti, Mozart, Poulenc, Puccini, Strauss, and Stravinsky. As a composer, Mr. Tovey is the first artist to win a Juno Award in both conducting and composing. He received the Best Canadian Classical Composition 2003 Juno Award for his Requiem for a Charred Skull. Commissioned by Calgary Opera to write an opera, Mr. Tovey chose as his subject Sandy Keith, a 19th-century con artist from Nova Scotia, for The Inventor, which was premiered in 2011. Mr. Tovey and the Luxembourg Philharmonic received the Orphée d’Or of the Académie Lyrique FranÇaise in 2004, for their recording of Jean Cras’s opera Polyphème. His CBC Records album with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and James Ehnes, of the Barber, Korngold, and Walton violin concertos, received both Grammy and Juno awards in 2007. As a jazz pianist, Mr. Tovey has recorded albums and DVDs and been featured in several television appearances. Bramwell Tovey’s honors include fellowships from London’s Royal Academy of Music and Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. In 1999, he received Canada’s M. Joan Chalmers National Award for Artistic Direction in recognition of his contributions to performing arts organizations. Visit www.bramwelltovey.com for further information.
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Conductor
The Cleveland Orchestra
Suite from Carmen
arranged into suites from the opera composed 1873-75
by
Georges
BIZET
born October 25 1838 Paris died June 3, 1875 Bougival, France
F O R A L L T H A T the operatic world adores it now, Bizet’s Carmen was close to an utter failure at its 1875 premiere. That fact was at least partially due to its composer’s ambitions. Bizet had been asked to write a brand-new stagework for the Paris Opéra-Comique, which for a century had specialized in presenting somewhat light, moralistic pieces in which virtue is ultimately rewarded. It was largely a family theater where parents might bring their eligible daughters to display them to possible suitors. No doubt the director expected the new work to be in a vein appropriate to such a scene. Bizet, however, chose instead to bring to light the shady world of gypsies, smugglers, deserters, factory girls, and other ne’er-do-wells little suited to pristine Parisian tastes of the day. Reaching beyond his audience and his contemporaries, Bizet rejected the conventions of Verdi in favor of the passions that would soon inspire Puccini. Although he began with a sufficiently ambitious plan to revise the opéra comique, he achieved far more than he expected, blazing a new operatic trail into realism. At the time of Bizet’s death three months after the opera opened (he was only thirty-six), he remained convinced that Carmen was a failure. The opera found little immediate acceptance, but the orchestral suites that soon arose from the work (compiled posthumously for Bizet by his friends) earned many performances. This evening’s concert features prominent numbers from the opera (taken from two different suites), not heard in the order of their appearance in the full work:
March of the Toréadors Prélude and Aragonaise Intermezzo Dragons d’Alcala Habanera Danse Bohème Although himself no Spaniard, Bizet had taken the trouble to study the rhythms and colors of that nation’s music, and here conveys it well, particularly in the vibrant rhythms of an Aragonaise, the Seguidille, and the Habanera, the last two of which in the opera are arias for Carmen herself. The Intermezzo is a Blossom Festival 2014
About the Music
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At a Glance Bizet wrote his opera Carmen, to a libretto by Ludovic Halévy, for the Paris OpéraComique , beginning sometime in 1872 or 1873 and completing it by 1875. The work was premiered March 3, 1875. Bizet died just three months later, and several of his friends worked on creating two suites of orchestral music from the opera’s score. Conductor Bramwell Tovey has chosen a selection of these movements, taken from Suites Nos. 1 and 2, for this evening’s performance. This suite from Carmen runs about 15 minutes in performance. The score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes (both doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, english horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.
nocturnal transitional scene midway through the opera when Carmen and her smuggler friends are off in the mountains. The “Song of the Toréador” from Act Two introduces the charismatic lead bullfighter, who sings of the excitement and rewards of his profession in some of the most familiar music from any opera. Only the most devout bullfighting purist would obsess over the fact that, in the sport, these men are known as toreros, not toréadors. The concluding Danse Bohème features Carmen and her gypsy friends swirling to increasingly frenetic rhythms; here, as so frequently in this colorful score, Bizet succeeds in vividly evoking a culture much different from his own. —Betsy Schwarm © 2014 Betsy Schwarm spent twenty years as a classical radio announcer and producer. Currently, she teaches music at Metropolitan State College of Denver and serves as recording engineer for Central City Opera.
19th-century lithograph illustrating the opening scene of Carmen.
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About the Music
The Cleveland Orchestra
Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Opus 61 composed 1880
used to say that he “composed music as easily and naturally as a tree produces apples.” It might be added that his “apples” were always tasty and well-shaped. However, unlike real apples that resemble one another “like two apples,” each one of Saint-Saëns’s musical fruits has something special and different about it. Saint-Saëns wrote two earlier concertos for the violin, but these were youthful compositions created before he was yet 24 years old. He wrote his third and last work in the genre twenty years later. It benefitted not only from the lessons life had provided him, but also from an association with Pablo de Sarasate, one of the era’s leading violin virtuosos (and also a composer in his own right). Sarasate was a frequent guest in Saint-Saëns’s home, and the latter recalled that “for several years no other violinist would play at my house. All were terrified at the idea of being compared with Sarasate.” Saint-Saëns had written several other works for the Spanish violinist, including the very popular Introduction and Rondo capriccioso of 1863. The first movement of the concerto opens with soft tremolo passages in the orchestra. This sound returns at the start of each major section in the movement, providing a dramatic accompaniment to the soloist, who reigns supreme throughout. The first melody is passionate in character, the second — in accordance with the dictates of tradition — is more lyrical in tone. There is much brilliant passagework for the solo violin, but, interestingly, no cadenza (when the soloist would play alone, without the orchestra). The second movement is a lilting barcarolle (originally a type of song sung by Venetian gondoliers). The violin shares the sweetly rocking melody with the woodwinds. There follows a second theme, a little more assertive than the first. Both are then repeated, and the movement ends with a molto tranquillo (“very quiet”) passage in which the solo violin displays a special technique called “artificial harmonics.” The third movement finale opens with a brief cadenza for solo violin, leading into the perky main theme of the Allegro non troppo section. One gorgeous melody follows another in this highly spirited movement, which slows down only once, when the strings introduce a hymn-like theme of angelic purity,
SAINT- SAËNS
by
Camille
SAINT-SAËNS born October 9, 1835 Paris died December 16, 1921 Algiers
The Cleveland Orchestra
About the Music
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At a Glance Saint-Saëns composed his Third Violin Concerto in 1880 for the Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate, who gave the first performance on January 2, 1881, at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris. The United States premiere took place in Boston on January 3, 1890, with Timothée Adamowski playing the solo part and Arthur Nikisch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This concerto runs about 30 minutes in performance. Saint-Saëns scored it for an orchestra of 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings, plus the solo violin. The Cleveland Orchestra first performed Saint-Saëns’s Third Violin Concerto in April 1920.
soon to be taken over by the solo violin. In the recapitulation (repeat) section, this melody is played both as a fortissimo (“very loud”) chorale by the brass and in its original lyrical form by the soloist. The concerto concludes in a brilliant manner as the solo violin goes into a final section of faster tempo and the key changes from B minor to a bright and jubilant B major. Not unexpectedly, Pablo de Sarasate gave the completed concerto’s first performance in January 1881 in Paris. The work has been enjoyed and praised ever since, and has provided many violinists with a captivating vehicle for charming audiences with their artistry. —Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association
Peter Laki, a visiting associate professor at Bard College, is a musicologist and frequent lecturer on classical music.
BANDWAGON GIFT SHOP Music is in the air! Take advantage of the moment and browse our large selection of musical gifts and Cleveland Orchestra signature items. Open before each Blossom Music Festival concert, at intermissions, and for post-concert purchases, too! We have a selection of new summertime merchandise — and a special bargain table every night. Plus CDs and DVDs of artists and music being presented this summer. Stop in, and take the music home!
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About the Music
2014 Blossom Festival
Karen Gomyo Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo is in demand as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. She made her Cleveland Orchestra debut in July 2010. Born in Tokyo to a Japanese painter and French professor of philosophy, Karen Gomyo was raised in Montreal. After her first public performances at age five, she was chosen to play in a masterclass with Dorothy DeLay, after which she studied with DeLay on full scholarship at the Juilliard School. Ms. Gomyo later worked with Mauricio Fuks at Indiana University and with Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she completed an artist diploma in 2007. The following year, she was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Karen Gomyo has performed with major orchestras across North America, as well as with a number of European ensembles, including the Danish National, Den Haag Residentie, Royal Liverpool, and Royal Scottish symphonies. Her current and upcoming appearances include concerts with the Detroit, Melbourne, Oregon, Queensland, Sydney, Tasmanian, Toronto, Vancouver, and West Australian symphonies, and her performance of the U.S. premiere of Matthias Pintscher’s violin concerto Mar’eh with the National Symphony in Washington D.C. As a chamber musician, Ms. Gomyo has performed in Europe, Japan, and the United States. Her appearances this summer include performances at Germany’s Büsingen Festival, Austria’s Musiktage Mondsee, and Norway’s Risør Festival, with Leif Ove Andsnes, Christian Ihle Hadland, Sharon Kam, Christian Poltéra, Lawrence Power, and Lars Anders Tomter. Ms. Gomyo’s interest in the Nuevo Tango of Astor Piazzolla has led to her involvement in an ongoing project with Piazzolla’s longtime pianist Pablo Ziegler, along with Hector del Curto (bandoneon), Claudio Ragazzi (electric guitar), and Pedro Giraudo (double bass). Karen Gomyo has made radio and television appearances in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. She served as violinist and narrator of a documentary about Stradivarius, titled The Mysteries of the Supreme Violin. It was broadcast worldwide via NHK World in December 2013. With pianist Andrius Zlabys, she recorded an eclectic recital album for Palette Records. Karen Gomyo plays the Aurora, ex-Foulis Stradivarius of 1703, purchased for her exclusive use by a private sponsor. For additional information, visit www.karengomyo.com.
Blossom Festival 2014
Soloist
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The Three-Cornered Hat (complete ballet music) composed 1916-19
The Three-Cornered Hat was already wellknown in parts of Spain during Manuel de Falla’s childhood. The poet and novelist Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833-1891) wrote it out in his novel El Corregidor y la molinera (“The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife”), basing it on an older ballad. The tale’s main characters are the Miller, his pretty wife, and the corregidor, or town Magistrate (who wears a threecornered hat as his badge of office). An incorrigible but clumsy womanizer, the Magistrate has the Miller arrested and taken to jail so that he can seduce the Miller’s wife. In the midst of the action, he falls into the millstream. The Magistrate ends up in the Miller’s clothes in the Miller’s bed (but without the Miller’s wife) while his own clothes are outside drying. Coming home from jail and seeing the Magistrate’s uniform, the Miller misunderstands the situation, dons the uniform (and the hat!) and decides to take his revenge by visiting the Magistrate’s wife. At the end, everyone’s clothes and all the problems are ironed out (literally and figuratively), the Magistrate is appropriately humiliated, and the Miller reunited with his wife. Falla first considered setting The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife to music in 1904, as part of a competition at the Academia de Bellas Artes. According to Falla’s friend and biographer Jaime Pahissa, the composer had to choose from three possible subjects for the competition. He wrote down each title on a piece of paper and drew them from a hat (number of corners unknown). Fate decided in favor of a libretto by Carlos Fernández Shaw, which became La Vida breve (“Life is Short”). Yet Falla never forgot about his ideas for Alarcón’s novel — and in 1916-17 he finally realized them in collaboration with G. Martinez Sierra. The resulting theatrical work opened at the Teatro Eslava in Madrid on April 7, 1917. Falla was soon approached by Sergei Diaghilev, the director of the famous Ballets Russes, who was always looking for new ballet scores. Diaghilev was at first interested in a dance adaptation of Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, but the composer convinced him to choose The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife instead. Diaghilev’s version opened in London in 1919, with Leonide Massine dancing the role of the Miller, and with sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso. The ballet was called Le THE STORY OF
by
Manuel de
FALLA
born November 23, 1876 Cádiz, Spain died November 14, 1946 Alta Gracia, Argentina
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About the Music
The Cleveland Orchestra
Tricorne in French and The Three-Cornered Hat in English. For the occasion, Falla revised and expanded the work, re-scoring the original chamber-ensemble accompaniment to a full-size symphony orchestra. As the curtain rises, a lively trumpet call accompanied by some heavy timpani rolls gets the action going. A soprano sings: “Casadita, casadita, cierra trance la puerta; Que aunque el diablo esté dormido a lo mejor se despierta!” [“Little house, you must bolt your door; although the Devil sleeps he may wake up!”] It is The Afternoon, and we are introduced to the characters of the story. During the first, lyrical part of the music, we hear a hint of the most famous tune in the ballet, to be developed later in the final dance. In the heat of the afternoon, the Miller and his wife go about their tasks — drawing water from the well (using a pulley that is obviously in desperate need of oiling), feeding the chickens, and so on. A humorous bassoon solo signals the entrance of the Magistrate. The Dance of the Miller’s Wife is a fandango, a lively Spanish dance in triple meter. Falla makes the 3/4 time subtly alternate with 6/8 and sometimes specifically asks for a lengthening of the last beat. At this point in the story, all three characters are onstage and the Miller’s wife expresses what one commentator has called her “playful yet innocent” character, teasing the Magistrate but really wanting to please only her husband. The Magistrate responds, represented once again by the bassoon. But the powerful official is out of luck — in the next movement, The Grapes, the Miller’s wife teases him mercilessly with a bunch of grapes, which she keeps just out of reach. The Magistrate is furious, as we can tell from an expressive transformation of the bassoon theme, now played by the whole orchestra. He leaves in a huff; the Miller’s wife resumes her fandango, now for the sole benefit of her husband. Part Two of the ballet opens with The Neighbors’ Dance, a seguidilla, or, to use the more correct plural form, “seguidillas.” (The name of this Spanish dance is a diminutive of “seguida,” or “continuation.”) Both themes of this movement are traditional, the first a Gypsy wedding song, the other a folksong that had also found its way into a popular zarzuela, or Spanish light opera. It is St. John’s Eve, and the villagers are gathering to drink and dance. The Miller’s Wife invites her husband to dance. The Miller’s Dance is a farruca, or a solo flamenco dance, solemn in character, in which the neighbors Blossom Festival 2014
About the Music
At a Glance Falla first wrote this work as a pantomime in two tableaux under the title El corregidor y la molinera (“The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife”) in 1916-17. It was first performed on April 7, 1917, in Madrid. The composer subsequently expanded the score for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, who gave the first performance (under the French title Le Tricorne or “The Three-Cornered Hat”) on July 22, 1919, in London, under Ernest Ansermet’s musical direction. Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony gave the American concert premiere on December 30, 1921. The complete ballet music runs almost 35 minutes in performance. Falla’s score calls for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, english horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, harp, celesta, piano, timpani, percussion (bass drum, side drum, triangle, 2 cymbals, castanets, xylophone), and strings. The Cleveland Orchestra first performed music from The Three-Cornered Hat in October 1932, under Nikolai Sokoloff’s direction. The Orchestra played the entire ballet on December 13, 1935, for a performance at Public Auditorium by the visiting Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
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gather around the Miller and spur him on with their clapping and their shouts of olé. Tempo, volume, and excitement rise constantly to the end as the Miller’s dance becomes more and more frenzied. Fate knocks (with a very famous musical quote) in the form of the police, who are here to arrest the Miller on orders of the Magistrate. They take him away, leaving his wife alone. A warning is sung: “Por la noche canta el cuco. Ad virtiendo a los casados que corran bien los cerrojos que el diablo está desvelado!” [“The cuckoo sings in the night. It cautions us to bolt the door, for the Devil is awake!”] It is night, with the sounds of a musical Nocturne. The Magistrate, in his glorious uniform, returns to find the Miller’s Wife. The Corregidor’s Dance has the Magistrate showing off. The Miller’s Wife mocks him and then threatens him, causing the Magistrate to fall into the village stream. Climbing back out to find the plaza deserted, he removes his sopping wet clothes, hangs them up to dry, he goes into the Miller’s house and falls asleep. Meanwhile, having escaped from jail, The Miller Returns Military general wearing a three-cornered hat home. He finds the Magistrate unclothed in his bed and draws the obvious conclusion. Furious, he wants revenge. He puts on the Corregidor’s uniform and sets off to find his wife. The Corregidor wakes and finds his clothes missing, so puts on the Miller’s clothes instead. His own police mistake him for the Miller and arrest him. The Miller’s Wife arrives and, mistaking the Corregidor in police custody for her husband, starts attacking them in Confrontation. The Miller returns, and seeing his wife defending the Corregidor, attacks his rival in a jealous rage. The arrival of the villagers’ St. John’s Eve procession begins The Final Dance. This is a jota, a rapid triple-time dance that is primarily associated with the region of Aragon. Its string of irresistible melodies mix Spanish folklore with a characteristic sonority complete with harps and muted horns, and a typical harmonic style in which simple themes are chromatically inflected in a most ingenious way. Its intermingling with the authentic voice of Spain defi nes the unique contribution of Falla’s musical world. Here, in the finale, the Miller and his Wife are reconciled, and the Corregidor accepts his fate — to lead the village and yet be mocked by its citizens. —Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association
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About the Music
The Cleveland Orchestra
Emily Fons American mezzo-soprano Emily Fons performs a range of music, from Mozart and Baroque works to Rossini and more modern composers. She is making her Cleveland Orchestra debut with this evening’s concert. A native of Wisconsin, Ms. Fons received her undergraduate degree from Luther College and her master’s degree in opera and music theater from Southern Illinois University. She was a 2010 semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and also has received awards from the Milwaukee Civic Music Association, National Association of Teachers of Singing, and the Santa Fe Opera. She was a member of the Ryan Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago 2010-12. She had previously spent the summers of 2008 and 2009 as an apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera, and has also participated in the University of Miami’s summer program in Salzburg, Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, and the Masterworks Festival. In 2012, Emily Fons made her European debut in Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade with Garsington Opera. In August 2015, she will perform in the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain at Santa Fe Opera. Recent and upcoming performances include roles in Bizet’s Carmen, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, Gounod’s Faust, Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Humperdinck’s Hänsel and Gretel, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Shostakovich’s Moscow Cheremushki, and Johann Strauss Jr.’s Die Fledermaus. She has appeared in productions at the Atlanta Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Dallas Opera, Göttingen Festival, Indianapolis Opera, Madison Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, and New York City Opera. In concert, Ms. Fons’s engagements have included performances with the Madison Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and the Pacific Symphony. For more information, visit www.emilyfons.com.
Blossom Festival 2014
Soloist
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THE CLEVELAND ORCH
OrchestraNews M.U.S.I.C.I.A.N S.A.L.U.T.E
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
The Musical Arts Association gratefully acknowledges the artistry and dedication of all the musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra. In addition to rehearsals and concerts throughout the year, many musicians donate performance time in support of community engagement, fundraising, education, and audience development activities. We are pleased to recognize these musicians, listed below, who have volunteered for such events and presentations during the 201213 and 2013-14 seasons. Mark Atherton Martha Baldwin Charles Bernard Katherine Bormann Lisa Boyko Charles Carleton John Clouser Hans Clebsch Kathleen Collins Patrick Connolly Ralph Curry Alan DeMattia Maximilian Dimoff Elayna Duitman Bryan Dumm Tanya Ell Kim Gomez David Alan Harrell Miho Hashizume Shachar Israel Joela Jones Richard King Alicia Koelz Stanley Konopka Mark Kosower Paul Kushious Massimo La Rosa Jung-Min Amy Lee Mary Lynch Thomas Mansbacher Takako Masame Eli Matthews Jesse McCormick Daniel McKelway
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA E CLEVELAND O30RCHESTRA A THE CLEVELAND ORCHE
News
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Sonja Braaten Molloy Eliesha Nelson Chul-In Park Joanna Patterson Zakany Alexandra Preucil William Preucil Lynne Ramsey Jeffrey Rathbun Jeanne Preucil Rose Stephen Rose Frank Rosenwein Michael Sachs Marisela Sager Jonathan Sherwin Sae Shiragami Emma Shook Joshua Smith Saeran St. Christopher Barrick Stees Richard Stout Jack Sutte Kevin Switalski Brian Thornton Isabel Trautwein Lembi Veskimets Robert Walters Carolyn Gadiel Warner Stephen Warner Richard Weiss Beth Woodside Robert Woolfrey Paul Yancich Derek Zadinsky Jeffrey Zehngut
Welser-Möst leads special Vienna Philharmonic concert in Sarajevo to commemorate anniversary of World War I
Franz Welser-Möst led a commemorative concert of the Vienna Philharmonic in the atrium of Sarajevo’s rebuilt City Hall on June 28, 100 years after the assassinations of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie in that city began a series of events that resulted in the outbreak of World War I — and the start of a war-torn century for Sarajevo itself. A giant screen was erected to broadcast the concert for a crowd gathered outside on the opposite side of the Miljacka River. Broadcasters for Eurovision relayed the concert to more than 40 countries across Europe. “This is a very symbolic day in a very symbolic location,” said Clemens Hellsberg, the outgoing president of the Philharmonic. “We wanted it to be not a view back into history, but a view into the future, after the catastrophe of war.” In choosing the Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ as part of the concert, Welser-Möst said, “we wished to express the hope that war should never happen on the soil of Europe again.” Welser-Möst continued, saying that he and the Philharmonic saw themselves performing in this special concert a similar role of reconciliation that conductor Daniel Barenboim has sought with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, whose mixture of Israeli and Arab players also work to surmount the hatreds and divisions of the past. Orchestra News
The Cleveland Orchestra
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IN MEMORIAM
Lorin Maazel March 6, 1930 to July 13, 2014
The Cleveland Orchestra joins the world in mourning the death on July 13 of Lorin Maazel, who served as The Cleveland Orchestra’s fifth music director through a remarkable decade, 1972-82. He was a musician of exceptional and early talents, who had first conducted the Orchestra in 1943, at age 13. Three decades later, he was chosen to be Cleveland’s music director. Through hundreds of concerts at home, during ten international tours, in radio broadcasts and on a series of acclaimed recordings, his leadership and imaginative programming and performances brought inspiration and joy to Cleveland Orchestra audiences around the world. His dynamic energy and acute insight brought fresh ideas to The Cleveland Orchestra’s performances and presentations, and as an institution serving the art of music, the entire Northeast Ohio community, and beyond. His importance in our history will be forever remembered. We extend condolences and sympathy to his wife, Dietlinde Turban Maazel, and family and friends.
Blossom Festival 2014
Lorin Maazel: In Memoriam
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EXPERIENCE MORE BLOSSOM! See a full listing of 2014 Blossom Music Festival concerts on pages 36-37of the Festival Book.
July 26 Saturday
Beethoven & Liszt This special concert features musical masterworks and more. Beginning at 7 p.m., the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra plays pieces by Ravel and Wagner. At 8 p.m., The Cleveland Orchestra takes the stage with a Beethoven overture and Liszt’s fiery First Piano Concerto with soloist Stephen Hough. Then, both orchestras play Sibelius’s grand Second Symphony.
AN E VE NING OF MAS TE RPIEC E S .
August 9 Saturday
The Magic of Mozart shines forth in this program of three works by Mozart himself, plus an homage to him by Tchaikovsky. Enjoy the master’s delightful tunes, innovative sense of balance and form. Delight in the perfection of music created for listening and show. Including the popular Eine kleine Nachtmusik [“A Little Night-Music”] and the “Linz” Symphony No. 36.
WOLFGANG’S MAS TE RFUL MU SIC
August 23 Saturday
Carmina Burana Experience one of the most popular masterpieces of the 20th century in Carl Orff ’s compelling tale for chorus, orchestra, and soloists. Infused with spirirted rhythms, catchy melodies, and songs of love, lust, and drink — amidst the recurring change of seasons and the never-ending wheels of fortune and fate. With the Blossom Festival Chorus.
O FOR TUNA!