2015-16 Concert Season
PRESENTING THE FINEST
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PRESENTING THE FINEST
2015-16 Concert Season SEPTEMBER 30, 2015
Escher String Quartet OCTOBER 27, 2015
David Finckel Wu Han Philip Setzer NOVEMBER 18, 2015
Conrad Tao
FEBRUARY 9, 2016
Marina Piccinini Andreas Haefliger MARCH 11, 2016
The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Joshua Bell APRIL 21, 2016
Gregg Kallor Adriana Zabala All concerts are presented at EJ Thomas Hall, The University of Akron, 7:30 PM
For Tickets 330.761.3460 tuesdaymusical.org
“Joy onstage that generates joy in the audience.” THE PLAIN DEALER
Sacrum Mysterium A CELTIC CHRISTMAS A bbest-selling ll C CD and DVD this hit program created by Jeannette Sorrell and Sylvain Bergeron interweaves the mystical and the joyous: ancient pagan carols, Celtic fiddle tunes and dances, and a medieval Scottish Vespers service. Catch the show at home before it heads to New York for a secong time!
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The Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano Concert Endowment Fund
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uesday Musical Association wants to express its deep appreciation for your continued support of The Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano Concert •Endowment Fund. Your contribution to this fund gives a lasting voice to Margaret’s objective of presenting the world’s greatest pianists in Akron. It also helps maintain the legacy that this extraordinary woman left for us all to remember. Barbara Ainsworth-Porter Ronald & Ann Allan Moshe Amitay & Judy Levin Tom & Nancy Anderson Anonymous Marion Goetz Aron Eleanor & Richard Aron Mark Auburn Sue & Christopher Bancroft Earl & Judy Baxtresser Jeanne Baxtresser & David Carroll Robert Baxtresser Suzanne Baxtresser & Steven Wangh Jeanette & John Bertsch Jan Bird Ginny Black Sue & Pete Birgeles Mary & Dave Brown Lisle M. Buckingham Endowment/ Akron Community Foundation Alan & Sara Burky Elizabeth Butler Alfred S. Cavaretta Sarah Church Joyce Clark Cynthia Maglione Coleman Lydia Colopy Mr. & Mrs. Nicolas Constantinidis Carole Cordray-Syracuse George Curley Rita Czarnecki Jerry Davidson David & Katharine DeBolt David & Judith DeShon Mary Di Donato Marjorie Donahue & Robert Roach Dave & Susan Dudas Dennis & Karen Dunn Carolyn & Jerry Durway Hope Everhart David & Roberta Ewbank Denis & Barbara Feld Lois & Harvey Flanders Richard & Eleanor Freeman Thomas Friedman Marlene Mancini Frost Laura Lee Garfinkel Candace Gatewood Diana F. Gayer Stephen T. & Mary Ann Griebling Mary Lynne Grove Elaine Guregian & Dale Dong
Toshie Haga Bruce & Joy Hagelin Bart & Jeannie Hamilton Mr. & Mrs. Robert S. Hancock DuWayne & Dorothy Hansen Karin Harvey Jean Hauser Dan T. Hayes Marcianne Herr Harriet & Herb Herskowitz Patti Hester Monica (Niki) Houghton Kathryn E. Hug Kathryn M. Hunter Margaret W. & David M. Hunter Mary Ann Jackson Constance C. Jenkins Jerry & Helen Jenkins Scott & Linda Johnston Phyllis R. Kaplan Mr. & Mrs. Gilbert Katz Ardith & Bill Keck David W. Kellogg Jon & Martha Kelly Cynthia Knight Dr. & Mrs. Edward L. Koosed Mr. Louis Lane Laurie Lashbrook Diane Lazzerini Lehner Family Foundation Peter & Dorothy Lepp Larry & Shirley Levey Michelle and Richard V. Levin Marian Lott Martha Klein Lottman Richard & Leslie Lund Barbara MacGregor Orlene Makinson Eugene Mancini Roberta & Stan Marks Charitable Foundation Sanford & Eleonora Marovitz Gloria Massa Diane Mather Claire McJunkin Virginia Mead Dodi S. & Claude Meade David & Anita Meeker Eileen L. Meeker & Chris Houghton Mr. & Mrs. Robert Mercer Lynn & Ed Metzger Emmett & Alice Monroe Charles & Elizabeth Nelson
Dianne & Herbert Newman Wm. Max Nonnamaker Louwana S. Oliva OMNOVA Solutions Foundation Bob & Marge Palmieri Ruth Papini Reinhard & Mary Petrich Alice H. Phillips George S. Pope Madeleine Pringle John H. & Carol E. Ramey Susan Ramsdell E. G. Sue Reitz Sally & David Riede Nan & John Riemenschneider Corrinne & Donald Rohrbacher Phyllis Ronald Beverly M. Rose Lola M. Rothmann Bernadette Blount Salley Anne M. Schellin Mary Schiller Brent & Nathalina Schloneger Theresa Dye Schoettler Arthur & Jean Schooley Grace Reginald Scott Walt & Donna Scott Geraldine & Nadine Shank Dr. C.M. & Barbara Shearer Betty Sloan Sandra & Richey Smith Margo Snider & Rick Butler Mrs. Jimmy Rogers Snoga Louise & Al Spaulding R. Thomas & Meg Harris Stanton Mary Jo Stasell Kenneth F. Swanson, M.D. James Switzer & Gretchen Laatsch Mr. & Mrs. Russell Tinkham Dr. & Mrs. LeRoy Tunnell Lewis H. & Charlotte E. Walker Paul & Gwyn Wallace Lee Wallach Ann Waters Walter & Barbara Watson Virginia B. Wojno-Forney Jerry Wong Janet Wright Mary Alice & David Wyatt Zeta Omicron Chapter of Delta Omicron Mayumi & Christopher Ziegler John & Kathleen Zizka
tuesday musical
concert series The University of Akron EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall Wednesday, November 18, 2015, 7:30 pm
Conrad Tao, piano Margaret Baxtresser Annual Piano Concert Clara I. Knight Young Artist David Lang (b. 1957)
cage
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Toccata in F-sharp minor, BWV 910
Elliott Carter Two Thoughts about the Piano (1908-2012) Intermittences Caténaires Julia Wolfe (b. 1958)
Earring
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Étude-Tableaux in A minor, Op. 39, No. 2
David Lang (b. 1957)
wed INTERMISSION
Modest Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (1839-1881) Gnomus Il vechio castello Tuileries Bydlo The Ballet of Unhatched Chicks in their Shells Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle Limoges Catacombae The Hut on Fowl’s Legs The Great Gate of Kiev Conrad Tao has held the distinction of being a Steinway Artist since 2013, and performs tonight on Tuesday Musical’s “Three Graces” Steinway concert grand piano. Management: OPUS 3 ARTISTS 470 Park Avenue South 9th Floor North, New York NY 10016 www.opus3artists.com Season Support:
Educational Outreach Support: John A. McAlonan Fund of the Akron Community Foundation
Conrad Tao
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onrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer, and has been dubbed a musician of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by the New York Times, a “thoughtful and mature composer” by NPR, and “ferociously talented” by Time Out New York. In June 2011, the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars and the Department of Education named Tao a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts awarded him a YoungArts gold medal in music. Later that year, Tao was named a Gilmore Young Artist, an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. In May of 2012, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. During the 2015-16 season, Tao performs with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, Brazilian Symphony, and Calgary Philharmonic, among others; he also performs recitals in Europe and throughout the United States with repertoire
ranging from Bach to Frederic Rzewski to Rachmaninoff to Julia Wolfe. Past notable symphonic engagements have included the San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Toronto Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, and Nashville Symphony. Tao maintains a close relationship with the Aspen Music Festival, and has appeared at the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Brevard Music Center, Ravinia Festival, and Mostly Mozart Festival. In June 2013, Tao kicked off the inaugural UNPLAY Festival at the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, which he curated and produced. The
WOOSTER
Chamber Music SERIES 2015-2016
October 4, 2015 November 8, 2015 February 7, 2016 March 20, 2016 April 24, 2016
Emerson String Quartet Michael Strauss and Friends Wu Han and David Finckel Harlem String Quartet Gryphon Trio
All concerts are Sundays, at Gault Recital Hall, The College of Wooster, unless noted. n - ava Tickets: $25.00 general admission available at the Wilson Bookstore on The College of Wooster Campus, The Wooster Book Company, or at the door. For formation, phone 330-263-2115 3 additional information, www.woosterchambermusic.com woosterchamberm
tuesday musical concert series 2015 | 2016
festival, designated a “critics’ pick” by Time Out New York and hailed by the New York Times for its “clever organization” and “endlessly engaging” performances, featured Tao with guest artists performing a wide variety of new works. Across three nights encompassing electroacoustic music, performance art, youth ensembles, and much more, UNPLAY explored the fleeting ephemera of the Internet, the possibility of a 21st-century canon, and music’s role in social activism and critique. That month, Tao, a Warner Classics recording artist, also released Voyages, his first full-length for the label, declared a “spiky debut” by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross. Of the album, NPR observed: “Tao proves himself to be a musician of deep intellectual and emotional means – as the thoughtful programming on this album ... proclaims.” His next album, Pictures, which slots works by David Lang, Toru Takemitsu, Elliott Carter, and Tao himself alongside Mussorgsky’s familiar and beloved Pictures at an Exhibition, was released just last month. Tao’s career as composer has garnered eight consecutive ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and the Carlos Surinach Prize from BMI. In the 2013-14 season, while serving as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s artist-in-residence, Tao premiered his orchestral composition titled The world is very different now. Commissioned in observance of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the work was described by the New York Times as “shapely and powerful.” Most recently, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia commissioned a new work for piano, orchestra, and electronics, An Adjustment, which received its premiere in September 2015 with Tao at the piano. The Philadelphia Inquirer declared the piece abundant in “compositional magic,” a “most imaginative [integration of] spiritual postRomanticism and ’90s club music.” Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1994. He has studied piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago and Yoheved Kaplinsky in New York, and composition with Christopher Theofanidis. Tonight’s pre-concert lecture Dr. Caroline Oltmanns is an International Steinway Artist, Fulbright Scholar, and a professor of piano at Youngstown State University
Program Notes David Lang (born 1957) cage from memory pieces
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avid Lang’s cage, composed in 1992, is the first of his eight memory pieces; wed (described later) is the third. Each, around five minutes long, is dedicated to a specific person. The composer John Cage is the dedicatee of cage. In his writing about memory pieces, Lang specifically mentions cage: “One of the horrifying things about growing older is that your friends don’t all grow older with you. People get sick and then they die. You watch, you try to comfort them, and then you try to comfort yourself. The true horror is that after a while your memories begin to fade. How long can you hold on to the sound of a voice, the memory of a strange event, a bittersweet feeling, a silly story? “I was friends with all the dedicatees of the enclosed set of pieces – some were closer friends than others – and I have very personal memories of my dealings with them that I don’t want to fade. Each of these little pieces highlights some aspect of my relationship with each friend. I hope this will help me hold on to these memories just a little while longer. “There are a few ways to approach these pieces. In one respect they are inventions, each an intellectual and philosophical exploration of one distinct, mechanical way to make music. They are also little etudes, as each one highlights a different technical concern, such as overlapping arpeggios (spartan arcs), polyrhythmic counterpoint (wed) or strange cross-hands (cello). The way I choose to look at them is as laboratories for larger works. If I can incorporate the music or the ideas or the techniques of these little pieces into other works then I am in some way keeping something of my friendship alive. “I would like to thank the different pianists who have either premiered one or more of these works or who have offered advice about how to edit or present these pieces – David Arden, Carlo Boccadoro, Anthony de Mare,
Moritz Eggert, Lisa Moore. Most of all I want to thank Yvar Mikhashoff – I was writing Yvar a piece when John Cage died (August 12, 1992). I put that piece aside and wrote cage, which Yvar then played several times. Yvar was already ill then and it was his idea that I write a series of memorial pieces. If there is any one person to whom this entire set should be dedicated it is Yvar.”
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Toccata in F-sharp minor
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he word toccata entered the musician’s vocabulary in 16th century Italy from the verb toccare, which literally means “to touch.” Since keyboard instruments were played by “touching,” the word acquired the figurative meaning “to play,” and a toccata was simply “something played.” By 1607, when Monteverdi called the overture-like prelude to his opera Orfeo a toccata, the word could be applied to many different kinds of compositions. In the 17th century toccata was widely used as the name for virtuosic keyboard pieces; Bach carried this usage into the 18th century. He wrote two toccatas for organ as showy introductions to fugues, and composed more than a half dozen of them as harpsichord pieces. This one, belonging to a group of early works, was probably written in 1712, and is not well known. It was not published until 1853. Bach’s virtuosic and rhapsodic harpsichord toccatas are often performed as today on the piano. Bach’s toccatas are loosely assembled compositions whose sections, generally an introduction, some slow music and a fugue, are almost separate movements, but they are usually played without pause. The Toccata in F-sharp minor is memorable for what has been described as the “arch” shape of its four movements and its unusual key for Bach’s era. This toccata, along with Bach’s other keyboard toccatas, has a rather unequal surface which some believe suggests that its individual sections
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Program Notes may have been composed at different times only later to be assembled. Wanda Landowska, one of the first half of the 20th century’s most famous harpsichordists, wrote of the toccatas in general as seeming “incoherent and disparate” initially, mentioning this toccata as an example of that feature. She felt the difficulty comes from the difficulty of understanding the toccatas’ shapes. Landowska goes on to say that the writing is nevertheless impassioned. The Toccata in F-sharp minor opens with a rapid fantasia-like section with bravura scalar figures and descending lines, after which there is a slow, expressive, intense Adagio section, noble and chromatic and distinguished by a descending chromatic figure. A rapid fugue follows, the first of two fugues, Presto e staccato; its subject is a descending scale with a short cadential trill. The fugue is quite straightforward with no unusual counterpoint, although there are modulations to remote keys. Then comes another Adagio section that sounds improvisatory and includes an unusual series of harmonic progressions with an arpeggio-like figure repeated twenty-one times. To some it seems like the endless repetition of a line. Of this passage, Landowska noted: “What strikes us above all is the unrelenting insistence with which Bach holds on to a motive, repeating it indefatigably.” The second and quite different, more impressive fugue, in three voices, is based on a descending chromatic figure in which the chromatic section from the earlier Adagio is reprised. It ends with a closing flourish.
Elliott Carter (1908-2012) Two Thoughts about the Piano
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he spare, lean pieces comprising Two Thoughts about the Piano were written in 2007, when two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Elliott Carter was 99. Approaching his 100th birthday, Carter remarked, “I finally have done all my adventures and great big noisy pieces. Now I write simple ones.” Two Thoughts about the Piano was cocommissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. The first piece, Intermittences was first performed in 2006 by Peter Serkin, for whom it was written. Caténaires, the second piece, was premiered in 2006 by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, for whom it was written. Both pieces are brief and showcase
Carter’s concentration and economy with their tight control, multidimensional textures and abundant polyrhythms. A chapter of Marcel Proust’s novel Les intermittences du Coeur inspired the atonal, dissonant Intermittences. Carter wrote “the many meanings silences can express in musical discourse challenged me to use some of them in Intermittences ... a short work that also uses many different piano sounds to convey its expressive meanings.” The mood changes quickly in this work, which uses the sostenuto pedal frequently to sustain particular notes in the contrapuntal texture and to underline complex rhythmic relationships. The work, which musically examines contrasts or differences, has been described as wistful. Caténaires, which is briefer and more frenetic than Intermittences, reflects the image of a catenary, the curve that a hanging chain creates with its own weight. Carter explained that he “became obsessed with the idea of a fast oneline piece with no chords. It became a continuous chain of notes using different spacings, accents, and colorings, to produce a wide variety of expression.”
Julia Wolfe (born 1958) Earring
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omposer Julia Wolfe takes her inspiration from a combination of folk, classical, and rock genres. The Wall Street Journal declared she “long inhabited a terrain of [her] own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock.” Wolfe’s music has “an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience.” Her works are rhythmically vigorous and complex and often dissonant, and she is often described as postminimalist. In 1987, Wolfe was a founder/co-artistic director of the international music collective Bang on a Can, which she began together with
tuesday musical concert series 2015 | 2016
composers David Lang and Michael Gordon, her husband. She received her BA at the University of Michigan, her Master’s degree in music composition from the Yale School of Music, and has held a doctoral fellowship at Princeton University. Wolfe has written a major body of work for strings, with pieces commissioned by the Lark, Ethel, Kronos and Cassatt quartets. Wolfe has also written for theatre, composing for Anna Deveare Smith’s House Arrest, and she won an Obie award for her score to Ridge Theater’s Jennie Richie. She has compiled a series of collaborative multimedia works with composers Michael Gordon and David Lang, including Lost Objects, Shelter and The Carbon Copy Building. Wolfe recently created the citywide spectacle Travel Music with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro in Bordeaux, France, filling the streets of the old city with 100 musicians walking and riding in pedi-cabs. Wolfe has been a recipient of numerous grants, including awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art. She is a recipient of a Fulbright grant to the Netherlands. Wolfe joined the NYU Steinhardt School’s composition faculty in the fall of 2009. Thalia Meyers, who commissioned Earring, performed its premiere. The brief, moodily atmospheric Earring has a repeating, rhythmically steady, slowly descending figure played at the top of the keyboard, which creates a crystalline, jangling backdrop for a gentle, midrange melody.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Étude-Tableaux in A minor, Op. 39, No. 2
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ne of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s earliest memories was that of playing duets at the piano with his grandfather. He became an extraordinary pianist, an admired composer and a conductor competent enough to have been offered the direction of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The étude-tableau is a form of piano piece Rachmaninoff invented; his two groups of pieces in this idiosyncratic genre have been
understood as the culmination of the 19th century tradition of composer-pianists writing virtuoso compositions. The term étudetableau loosely translates as “picture study.” One of Rachmaninoff’s biographers, Oskar von Riesemann, called these brief tableaux works “majestic al fresco pictures.” Each of the etudes is known to be a musical evocation of a pictorial or narrative idea, and each presents a brief, musical image like a tiny symphonic poem whose subject is the composer’s secret, although Rachmaninoff hesitated to reveal the programs, saying “I do not believe in the artist disclosing too much of his images.” Rachmaninoff wrote the first set of ÉtudesTableaux, or “Picture Studies” in mid-August 1911 and performed the premiére on December 13, 1911. He seems to have invented the title, but not the form; Haylock posited the theory that Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes were forerunners to the Rachmaninoff works. Rachmaninoff found these short works difficult to compose, saying that they “presented more problems than a symphony or a concerto ... after all, to say what you have to say and say it briefly, lucidly, and without circumlocution is still the most difficult problem facing the creative artist.” The Études-Tableaux were Rachmaninoff’s last works composed in Russia. Composed between 1916 and 1917, the Études-Tableaux, Op. 39 are longer and more challenging than those of the earlier Opus 33 series, but they are equally poetic. Robert Matthew-Walker, a biographer of Rachmaninoff, wrote that the Op. 39 ÉtudesTableaux are a hidden set of variations on Rachmaninoff’s idée-fixe, the Dies Irae, and that parts of the plainchant are quoted directly in all of the pieces. He calls the works “virtuosic in the extreme,” mentioning the tragic and powerful Étude No. 2 as extraordinarily difficult. In this sedate work, Rachmaninoff introduces three themes, the third of which is based on the
Program Notes Dies Irae chant, which is used as an ostinato throughout the piece. To assist Resphigi in his orchestration of this work, Rachmaninoff gave this étude the subtitle The Sea and Seagulls.
David Lang wed
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he third work from memory pieces (described earlier), wed is dedicated to Kate Ericson, a young conceptual artist and the composer’s wife’s dear friend. Lang explains: “Kate was a great artist who made most of her work in collaboration with her boyfriend Mel Ziegler. As she was dying of brain cancer, she and Mel were married in her hospital room. I tried to make a piece to make sense of that, so I designed a piece in which little changes in accidentals keep the music oscillating between major and minor, between restfulness and sudden dissonance. In this way I wanted to make something in which hope and despair were in some strange equilibrium with each other.” Lang suggests wed should be subdued and still, devoid of almost all expression.
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Pictures at an Exhibition
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n the spring of 1874, Mussorgsky and the music critic Vladimir Stassov organized an exhibition of drawings and paintings by their friend Victor Hartmann, who had died unexpectedly less than a year before. Mussorgsky was shocked at the death of his 39-year-old dear friend, and set out to make something of this loss. Hartmann’s works were architectural drawings and pictures of scenes that interested Russians both at home and abroad. While walking through the gallery, Mussorgsky had a bold and brilliant inspiration: to compose a set of piano pieces that would be musical reflections of Hartmann’s art. He worked with a speed and certainty that were unusual for him, and on June 22, completed the work. Mussorgsky may have had a somewhat inflated impression of Hartmann’s artistic importance, but these pieces have guaranteed Hartmann a place in history that his art alone never would have achieved. Rimsky-Korsakov, the musical executor of Mussorgsky’s estate, edited the manuscript
and introduced the work to the world. The thought of orchestrating Pictures evidently never occurred to Mussorgsky. The idea of rendering visual images in music was a modern one at the time, but it was no longer really new. The truly original feature of the work is the Promenade music that opens it and then recurs, appropriately altered in character, binding the work together, as the visitor ambles about the gallery and stops to look at the works of art. There is no record of a public performance of Pictures at an Exhibition in Mussorgsky’s lifetime; the composer never included the work during his extensive 1879 concert tour. The uneven rhythm depicts the movement well and also gives a characteristically Russian feel to the Promenade. After the first Promenade there are ten pictures: 1. Gnomus. The first of Hartmann’s drawings to receive attention is that of a grotesque, little bow-legged creature, its jaw open, which is in fact a nutcracker. Stassov’s notes suggest that gnome “accompanies his droll movements with savage shrieks.” Mussorgsky’s music mirrors the gruesome gnome’s movement with awkward, limping music. 2. Il vechio castello. Outside a medieval castle, a troubadour sings a serenade and accompanies himself on the lute. This was Hartmann’s watercolor study of a medieval castle, painted when he was a student in Italy. (Followed by a Promenade.) 3. The Tuileries. Little children play and quarrel on a path in Paris’ Tuileries Gardens. Mussorgsky presents a lively, high-spirited game and chase. 4. Bydlo. This movement represents Hartmann’s sketch of a Polish ox-cart with enormous wheels, in the town of Sandomir, on his way home from Western Europe. (Bydlo is the Polish word for cattle.) The music, powerful and ponderous, gives appropriate weightiness to the huge beasts drawing the cart. (Followed by a Promenade.)
tuesday musical concert series 2015 | 2016
5. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks in their Shells. A costume design for a ballet, Trilby, with choreography of Marius Petipa, produced in 1870 in St. Petersburg. In this scene, children dance as baby canaries trying to break out of their shells. 6. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle. A drawing of a Sandomir ghetto scene that Mussorgsky described as picturing “two Polish Jews, one rich and the other poor.” In Mussorgsky’s inventive setting, the two characters have been joined in a conversation. Mussorgsky’s friend, Victor Stassov supposedly suggested their names, Goldenberg and Schmuyle. (Followed by a Promenade.) 7. Limoges. Mussorgsky originally suggested that this “picture” was intended to represent two market women exchanging neighborhood gossip, but when the music was first published, after the composer’s death, Stassov said that the women were quarreling angrily. The specific picture that inspired this movement has apparently been lost. According to a note in Mussorgsky’s manuscript, the movement shows the “good gossips of Limoges” exchanging the most important news of the day about a lost cow, someone’s new false teeth and another’s large nose. 8. Catacombae, Sepulchrum Romanum (Roman Graves), followed by Cum mortuis in lingua mortua. This sketch reflects a view of the artist, lantern in hand, examining the ancient Roman catacombs in Paris. In his manuscript,
Mussorgsky wrote the title in faulty Latin, in which he tried to explain (in even worse Latin) the heading of the gloomy version of the Promenade that follows. A footnote (in Russian) explained what he was trying to say. “With the dead, in a dead language.” The music has sufficient dark sonority to give this effect. This episode does not reflect a Hartmann picture but the composer’s reaction to going to the Catacombs. 9. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs. In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga is a witch who lives in a hut that stands deep in the forest on hen’s legs so that she can turn it in any direction. Hartmann’s drawing was a design for a clock in the form of Baba Yaga’s hut. The witch rode cackling through the woods in a huge wooden mortar propelled by an equally large pestle and gave the impression of being hungrily on the trail of naughty children to eat. 10. The Great Gate of Kiev. The Great Gate is an architectural sketch for submission in a competition run by the city council of Kiev. The monument’s erection was canceled for political reasons. The massive gate was intended to commemorate Czar Alexander II’s escape from the Kiev Nihilists’ plot to assassinate him in 1866. The design is fanciful and rich in Imperial symbols. Mussorgsky’s favorite was this sketch; he drew from it the inspiration of some of his most powerful music. – Program notes © Susan Halpern, 2015.
Annual Concert Support
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he Tuesday Musical Association gratefully acknowledges all donors to its 2015-2016 Annual Concert Support Campaign. Every gift plays a significant role in the ongoing success for Tuesday .Musical’s Concert Series and Education Programs. Revenue generated through ticket sales only covers a small portion of what is needed to sustain the artistic excellence of our programming. This list reflects gifts received through November 3, 2015. $50,000 to 150,000 “Three Graces Piano” - Anonymous
Tom & Cheryl Lyon Earla J. Patterson Rachel R. Schneider
Director $5,000 and up
Jean Schooley
Ronald & Ann Allan
Drs. Frederick & Elizabeth Specht
Tim & Jenny Smucker
Donor $200 to $399
Benefactor $1,500 to $4,999
Drs. Mark & Sandy Auburn
John & Diana Gayer
Mr. & Mrs. David Beasley
David & Margaret Hunter Cynthia Knight Donald & Corrinne Rohrbacher Lola Rothmann Kenneth Shafer Richard Shirey
Guy & Debra Bordo Helen A. Elefritz Paul Filon Jon A. Fiume Michael T. Hayes Mark & Karla Jenkins
Lucinda Weiss
Dr. Violet E. Leathers
Sustainer $700 to $1,499
David & Anita Meeker
The Maynard Family Foundation
Richard & Eleanor Aron
George Pope
John & Jeanette Bertsch
Paula Rabinowitz/Greer Kabb-Langkamp
The Honorable Frank C. Comunale
Ben & Sandy Rexroad
Robert & Beverley Fischer
Mr. & Mrs. Edward Russell
Laura Lee Garfinkel
Cyndee and Larry Snider
Howard Greene
Charlotte E. Staiger
Bruce & Joy Hagelin
Ann Tainer
Sue Jeppesen Gillman
Bob & Colleen Tigelman
Peter & Dorothy Lepp
Jorene F. Whitney
Zenon & Natalie Miahky Charles & Elizabeth Nelson
Special thanks for the many in-kind services provided by
Herb & Dianne Newman
Cogneato
E.G. Sue Reitz John P. Vander Kooi Patron $400 to $699 Alan & Sara Burky Harloe & Harriet Cutler John & Betty Dalton William & Barbara Eaton Denis & Barbara Feld Harvey & Lois Flanders (Scholarship Endowment) Mark & Laurie Gilles
Hazel Tree Interiors Hilton Akron/Fairlawn ideastream® Labels and Letters Mustard Seed Market & Café Sheraton Suites Akron/Cuyahoga Falls Steinway Piano Gallery - Cleveland TRIAD Communications, Inc. The University of Akron School of Music WKSU FM
Jarrod Hartzler
Tuesday Musical Endowment
Lawrence B. Levey
DuWayne & Dorothy Hansen
OBERLin COLLEgE & COnSERvATORy
Artist recitAl series An Oberlin tradition since 1878
FEB 3
John Relyea, bass-baritone Warren Jones, piano
FEB 12
Andr谩s Schiff, piano
MAR 10
Mir贸 Quartet
MAR 13
Robin Eubanks and the Mass Line Big Band
APR 17
The Cleveland Orchestra supported by the Oberlin college Artist recital series, the Friends of the Artist recital series, and by:
Single tickets and Pick 3 packages available: 800-371-0178 | oberlin.edu/artsguide
2015-2016 Foundation, Corporation & Government Support Tuesday Musical wants to thank the following foundations, corporations and government agencies for their recent support. $25,000+ GAR Foundation The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Ohio Arts Council $10,000 to $24,999 Community Fund – Arts & Culture of the Akron Community Foundation Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation The Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation Gertrude F. Orr Trust Advised Fund of the Akron Community Foundation C. Colmery Gibson Polsky Fund of the Akron Community Foundation $5,000 to $9,999 Mary and Dr. George L. Demetros Charitable Trust FirstMerit Bank Services
The Lloyd L. & Louise K. Smith Foundation The Welty Family Foundation $1,000 to $4,999 Arts Midwest Touring Fund Betty V. and John M. Jacobson Foundation Lehner Family Foundation The Roberta and Stan Marks Foundation The R. C. Musson and Katharine M. Musson Charitable Foundation Nelson Development OMNOVA Solutions Foundation The Richard and Alita Rogers Family Foundation The Sisler McFawn Foundation Target Foundation $250 to $999
John A. McAlonan Fund of the Akron Community Foundation
W. Paul Mills and Thora J. Mills Memorial Foundation
The Charles E. & Mabel M. Ritchie Memorial Foundation
The Laura R. and Lucian Q. Moffitt Foundation
Protection for the most important things in your life. Call 1-877-724-8069 for a free quote, or visit us at 111 W. Center St. in Downtown Akron.
tuesday musical
2015-2016 Executive Board of Directors
Executive Committee President Charles Nelson Vice President/President Elect Laurie Gilles Treasurer Cheryl Lyon Recording Secretary Magdalena McClure
Corresponding Secretary Linda Liesem
Immediate Past President Patricia Sargent
Committee Chairs Brahms Allegro Chair Cheryl Boigegrain Development Chair The Honorable Frank C. Comunale Code of Regulations/Standing Rules Paul Filon Education/Student Voucher Chair Natalie Miahky Finance Chair Cheryl Lyon Hospitality Co-Chairs Barbara Eaton & Joy Hagelin
Membership Chair Anita Meeker
Newsletter Editor Bob Fischer
Member Program Chair Mary Ann Griebling
Scholarship Co-Chairs George Pope & Guy Bordo
Staff
Executive Director Jarrod Hartzler
Programs Director Cyndee Snider
Finance Administrator Gail Wild Artistic Administrator Karla Jenkins
Program art direction by Live Publishing Co. Cover design by TRIAD Communications, Inc.
2015
CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
CHRISTMAS CONCERTS AT S E V E RANC E HAL L
MATINEES at 2:30 p.m. DEC 12 — Sat.* CSU, W, A DEC 13 — Sun.* C DEC 19 — Sat.* C DEC 20 — Sun.* C
EVENINGS at 7:30 p.m. DEC 11 — Fri.* CSU, W DEC 12 — Sat.* A DEC 17 — Thu.* DEC 18 — Fri.* Y DEC 19 — Sat.* Y DEC 20 — Sun.* Y
The Cleveland Orchestra Robert Porco, conductor Cleveland Orchestra Chorus* C Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus Members of the Y Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus CSU Cleveland State University Chorale W Wooster Chorus of The College of Wooster A University of Akron Concert Choir
Celebrate the holiday season with The Cleveland Orchestra and Choruses in these annual offerings of music for the season, including sing-alongs and a very special guest — all in the festive Yuletide splendor of Severance Hall. Sponsor:
TI C K E T S
| 216-231-1111
clevelandorchestra.com
Starring Lon C haney
with
Live AccompAniment * by organist
Todd WiLson
OCT 30
WELSER-MÖST HAS MANAGED FRI | SOMETHING 8:00 p.m. RADICAL WITH THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA — MAKING THEM at Severance PLAY AS ONE SEAMLESS UNIT .Hall . . A VERY DELICATE BEAUTY MAKES THE Just in timeTHAT for Halloween — see this CLEVELANDERS vintage 1923 silent filmSOUND with the
LIKE NO OTHER ORCHESTRA.
score improvised live on Severance Hall’s mighty Norton Memorial Organ. *Please note that The Cleveland Orchestra does not appear on this program. —The Times (London)
TI TICCKKEETTSS
| | 216-231-1111 216-231-1111
clevelandorchestra.com clevelandorchestra.com
I BELIEVE IN
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Find out more at ideastream.org/support
1900 1900 1900 23rd 23rd 23rd Street, Street, Street, Cuyahoga Cuyahoga Cuyahoga Falls, Falls, Falls, OH OH OH 44223 44223 44223 Falls, OH 44223 1900 23rd Street, Cuyahoga (330) (330) (330) 971-7000 971-7000 971-7000 | westernreservehospital.org westernreservehospital.org | westernreservehospital.org (330) 971-7000 || westernreservehospital.org
(330) 971-7000 | westernreservehospital.org
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House Notes Parking Beginning at 5 p.m. for evening concerts and 12:30 p.m. for Sunday concerts, special event parking is available at $5 per vehicle in the EJ Thomas Hall parking deck or in surrounding campus lots. Late Seating Out of consideration for other audience members and the performers, latecomers will be seated at a suitable pause in the program. Emergency Numbers Physicians and others expecting calls are requested to leave their name and seating location with the Head Usher upon arrival. Please leave your seat location with the person(s) who may need to reach you in case of an emergency and ask them to call EJ Thomas Hall at 330.972.6828. Pre-concert Lectures Free Pre-concert Lectures, designed to enrich the concert-going experience, are presented one hour before most Tuesday Musical concerts and last 30 minutes. Intermission Intermissions are 20 minutes in length. The flashing of the lobby lights is your signal to return to your seat for the start of the performance. Special Accommodations If you have special seating requirements, please inform the Ticket Office when you place your ticket order. EJ Thomas Hall has wheelchair accommodations and other seating services for the physically challenged in both the Orchestra and Grand Tier sections. Handicapped parking is available in the EJ Thomas Hall deck and the North parking deck accessed from both Forge St. and Buchtel Ave.; a valid parking permit must be displayed. A special sound system for the hearing impaired and
Concordia at Sumner
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large print program notes are available, free of charge, with advance notice. Please see the Head Usher for the sound system device and call the TMA office to request the program notes. Restrooms Public restrooms are located in the Robertson Lobby of EJ Thomas Hall. The ladies’ room can be accessed from the odd-numbered entry doors and the men’s room access is from the even-numbered entry doors. The center stairs in the Robertson Lobby lead to both restrooms. Accessible restrooms are located at the bottom of each ramp. Cameras, Audio Recorders & Video Equipment Cameras, video and audio recording devices of any kind are prohibited at all performances. Our ushers are instructed to retrieve these prohibited items from patrons in the auditorium. Paging Devices, Phones & Hearing Aids All electronic and mechanical devices – including pagers, cellular telephones, and wrist-watch alarms – must be turned off while in the concert hall. Patrons with hearing aids are asked to be attentive to the sound level of their hearing device and adjust it accordingly. Refreshments Bar service is offered in the center lobby before concerts and at intermission. Soda and light snacks are also available in the lobby. The EJ Café, located in the Herberich Lobby, offers appetizers, desserts, gourmet coffees, espresso and cappuccino. Drinking fountains are in the center lobby. Smoke Free Theatre Smoking is not permitted anywhere inside EJ Thomas Hall, but designated smoking areas are located outside the building. Event Cancellation On very rare occasions, severe weather forces EJ Thomas Hall to cancel or postpone an event. Cancellation information is available by calling the Tuesday Musical Association office at 330.761.3460. Security Policy Customer safety and security is of the upmost importance. All patrons entering the facility must have a ticket for that day’s event. There is a police presence both inside and outside of the theatre. Program Information For information about any Tuesday Musical concert, please call the Tuesday Musical Association office at 330.761.3460 or visit the website at www.tuesdaymusical.org. Ticket Information Single Tickets To purchase single tickets to any Tuesday Musical concert, call the Tuesday Musical Association office at 330.761.3460 or visit the website at www.tuesdaymusical.org. Tuesday Musical Association 1041 West Market Street, Suite 200 Akron, OH 44313-7103 Releasing Tickets Tuesday Musical subscribers who are not able to attend a concert are encouraged to release their tickets 24 hours prior to the concert. In exchange for their tickets, subscribers may receive tickets to a different 2015/2016 Tuesday Musical concert (some restrictions may apply) or receive a charitable donation receipt for the value of the tickets. Please remember to call the office 24 hours PRIOR to the concert. Your seats are the best in the house and someone else would love the experience of sitting just where you do.
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