CONVERGING LANDSCAPES Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:15 am Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 7:30 pm ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL Yaniv Dinur, conductor Tracy Silverman, electric violin Adam Larsen, visual artist
JEAN SIBELIUS Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Opus 39 I. Andante, ma non troppo – Allegro energico II. Andante, ma non troppo lento III. Scherzo: Allegro IV. Finale (Quasi una Fantasia): Andante – Allegro molto
INTERMISSION
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR PERKINSON Sinfonietta No. 1 for Strings I. Sonata Allegro II. Song Form: Largo III. Rondo: Allegro furioso JOHN ADAMS The Dharma at Big Sur
Tracy Silverman, electric violin Adam Larsen, visual artist
Guest Artist Biographies TRACY SILVERMAN Lauded by BBC Radio as “the greatest living exponent of the electric violin,” Tracy Silverman is the world’s foremost electric violin soloist, bringing concert hall legitimacy to this nextgeneration instrument. Pulitzer and Grammy award winning composer John Adams raves: “No one makes that instrument sing and soar like Tracy, floating on the cusp between Jasha Heifetz and Jimi Hendrix.” As part of Silverman’s vision for the “future of strings,” he has premiered and recorded several major new electric violin concertos written specifically for him by composers John Adams (The Dharma at Big Sur), Terry Riley (The Palmian Chord Ryddle), Nico Muhly (Seeing is Believing), Roberto Sierra (Ficciones), Kenji Bunch (Embrace), and three concertos of his own; appearing with the LA Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and many others at Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, Royal Albert Hall, and stages all over the world. Formerly first violinist with the innovative Turtle Island String Quartet, Silverman was named one of 100 distinguished alumni by The Juilliard School and is notable not only for his development and use of the electric six-string violin, but also for what he terms “progressive string playing,” an evolution of classical string playing that embraces contemporary popular idioms such as rock, jazz, and hip hop. Television, internet, and radio includes a solo Tiny Desk Concert on NPR, A Prairie Home Companion, Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday, and a profile on CBS News Sunday Morning. A longtime proponent of string education, Silverman is a leader in the progressive string community and the host of The Greater Groove: The Future of Strings podcast. His Strum Bowing method has been adopted by players and teachers all over the world. Silverman is the author of The Strum Bowing Method: How to Groove on Strings and The Rhythm String Player: Strum Bowing in Action, as well as several etude books and online courses on his Strum Bowing Groove Academy. Silverman is on the faculty of Belmont University in Nashville, Tenessee. Tracy Silverman plays a custom 6-string electric violin built by Joe Glaser, Nashville, TN, and Thomastik Strings courtesy of Connolly Music.
Guest Artist Biographies ADAM LARSEN Adam Larsen has designed video projections for over 200 productions in theater, dance, symphony, and opera. Projects have ranged from intimate to extravagant and have appeared both on Broadway and in many of the major venues across the country. Larsen’s multifaceted work has led to collaborations with leading voices in symphony and opera including, 30 projects with James Darrah,15 projects with Michael Tilson Thomas, three with John Adams, as well as projects with Joni Mitchell, Janelle Monae, Esperanza Spalding, Missy Mazzoli, and Ellen Reid. Other designs include Hal Prince’s LoveMusik on Broadway; Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking The Waves at Opera Philadelphia and the Prototype Festival; Lee Breuer’s The Gospel at Colonus at the Athens, Edinburgh, and Spoleto festivals; Esperanza Spalding’s 12 Little Spells national tour; Watermill at the BAM Next Wave Festival; Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the Singapore and Edinburgh festivals; Janáček’s From the House of the Dead at Canadian Opera Company; Bernstein’s Mass at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Lincoln Center; David Lang’s Prisoner of the State at the New York Philharmonic; Britten’s Peter Grimes, Bernstein’s On the Town, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, as well as all eight seasons of the SoundBox series at San Francisco Symphony; The Pelleas Project at the Cincinnati Symphony; Adams’s A Flowering Tree and Handel’s Agrippina at Opera Omaha; and the direction and design for a semi-staged production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle at the Houston Symphony. In addition, Larsen has directed two feature-length documentaries about disability. His first, Neurotypical, about autism from the perspective of autistics, premiered on the the PBS series P.O.V and his second, Undersung, about caregivers of severely disabled family members, is available on Amazon.
Program notes by J. Mark Baker On today’s concert, we’ll journey from the rustic beauty of Finland’s open spaces to the breathtaking scenery of the Pacific Coast. In between, we’ll enjoy Perkinson’s early and evocative Sinfonia No. 1. Welcome, Tracy Silverman! Jean Sibelius
Born 8 December 1865; Hämeenlinna, Finland Died 20 September 1957; Jarvenpää, Finland Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Opus 39
Composed: 1899 First performance: 26 April 1899; Helsinki, Finland Last MSO performance: February 2014; Santtu-Matias Rouvali, conductor Instrumentation: 2 flutes (1st and 2nd doubling piccolo); 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle); harp; strings Approximate duration: 38 minutes Jean Sibelius was born into a Swedish-speaking family in a hamlet in south central Finland. The man who would become the most famous Finn in history did not begin to speak the Finnish language until age eight and acquired complete proficiency in the language only as a young man. His official first name was Johan; as an adolescent, he adopted the gallicized “Jean.” And though he was prolific in many genres – tone poems, choral music and songs, chamber music, solo piano works – his stature rests chiefly on his accomplishment as a composer of symphonies. For much of the 19th century, Finland had been a self-governing grand duchy of the Russian empire. That changed in 1899, when Tsar Nicholas II issued his “February Manifesto.” In essence, this held that he could rule Finland by edict. To fight back, the Finnish people chose passive resistance and music over guns. (This “Russification” continued until 1905, when the manifesto was declared null and void.) In 1899, the young Sibelius was just coming into his powers. He was patriotic, but not political, eager to write music that would bolster the spirits of his fellow countrymen. His bold new First Symphony was about to be premiered in the coming months. Its success let the world know that Finnish culture was worth the fight. (Finlandia, his most overt statement of Finnish nationalism, was also composed in 1899.) After its Helsinki premiere, his Opus 39 toured to Scandinavia, Germany, and the 1900 Paris World Exhibition. It has been said that Sibelius never approached the symphonic challenge the same way twice. The E minor symphony is indebted to Tchaikovsky’s harmonic vocabulary, especially the slow movement, “written in the wake, as it were, of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique” (Robert Layton), which he had heard in Helsinki in prior years. Additionally, as writer David Hurwitz notes, “anyone who loves Italian opera will find much that sounds familiar in the first two Sibelius symphonies.” Igor Stravinsky, who was fond of some of Sibelius’s music, once quipped, “I like Italian-melody-gonenorth. Tchaikovsky did, too, of course…” The symphony begins with ominously rolling timpani, and the clarinet sings a pensive melody. As the drums subside, the clarinet proceeds on its own until the violins interrupt with a repeated-note figure; this initiates the main Allegro energio, a sonata-form in 6/4 meter. There’s a lot to take in here: soaring string melodies, stately brass fanfares, and lively woodwind conversations. There are also hazy passages of descending chromatic woodwind scales that seem to undermine the sense of a tonal center. As the movement nears its conclusion, the mood turns ominous, and two pizzicato chords bring it to a decisive close.
The second movement, cast in a rondo-like form, falls into the “Italian-melody-gone-north” category, as gentle notes from the harp accompany an elegiac melody in the muted violins and cellos. A brief episode introduces, in sequence, the bassoon, clarinet, oboe, and flute; the strings soon join, and a dialogue between strings and brass ensures. Then follows an interlude of tranquil “nature music.” Listen, too, as fragments of the opening clarinet melody are employed by violins, horns, and harp arpeggios. Sibelius rounds off the movement by restating its initial material; the harp plays low E-flats in octaves beneath a tender variation of the Andante’s opening theme. As composers have long been wont to do, Sibelius set his Scherzo in a three-part form (A-B-A) in 3/4 time. Its tempestuous outer sections (A) enclose a more lyrical middle portion (B). Sibelius said the Finale is “Like a Fantasy;” its many contrasts are often abrupt, and the music seems to turn on a dime. Nevertheless, it follows a strict sonata form, and these contrasts go hand-in-glove with the Symphony’s aesthetic intent. The last movement’s “big tune” is in Sibelius’s expansive Italianate style; in its final statement, toward the end of the work, groups of instruments share the melody. Underpinning it all is an incessant, anxiety-ridden pedal tone, and the final bars strive to end forte. The last statement, however, goes to the same E-minor pizzicatos that closed the first movement – only paler and more stoic.
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Born 14 June 1932; New York, New York Died 19 March 2004; Chicago, Illinois Sinfonietta No. 1 for Strings
Composed: 1954-55 First performance: 1966 Last MSO performance: MSO premiere Instrumentation: strings Approximate duration: 18 minutes Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was named after the celebrated Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Exposed to the arts at an early age – his mother gave piano lessons in the Bronx, played organ for a church there, and directed a theater company – in his teen years, Perkinson was a student at New York’s prestigious High School of Music and Art, where he began conducting and composing. He attended New York University and the Manhattan School of Music, earning a master’s degree in composition from the latter. He subsequently studied conducting in the Netherlands and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1965, he co-founded New York’s Symphony of the New World, the first racially integrated orchestra in the United States, later becoming its music director. Perkinson’s music blends Baroque counterpoint, American Romanticism, and rhythmic ingenuity with elements of the blues, spirituals, and Black folk music. His compositions range from works for unaccompanied solo instruments to those for chorus and orchestra. He also worked as a composer and arranger of recordings by many pop figures, including Marvin Gaye. His several film scores include the Martin Luther King Jr. documentary Montgomery to Memphis (1970). Perkinson was still in his early 20s when he composed the Sinfonietta No. 1 for Strings. Penned in the mid-1950s, it was not premiered for over a decade. From its opening measures, the Sonata Allegro’s robust counterpoint unveils the influence of one of Perkinson’s “teachers,” J.S. Bach. In this brief movement, listen especially for the engaging dialogues between the upper and lower voices. The mood of the second-movement Largo is not unlike that of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings: gentle, expressive, elegiac, summoning the affect and musical language of the Romantic era. The vigorous Rondo (“fast and furious”) changes time signatures frequently, creating a sort of metrical ambiguity. Rhythmic flow is likewise disrupted by switching the relative positions of
the themes. In its more lyrical moments, the melodic fourths may remind us of the style of Aaron Copland. Throughout this engaging work, Perkinson has not only deftly combined the influences of other great masters, but also unquestionably presented his own musical vocabulary.
John Adams
John Adams
Born 15 February 1947; Worchester, Massachusetts
The Dharma at Big Sur
Composed: 2003 First performance: 24 October 2003; Los Angeles, California Last MSO performance: MSO premiere Instrumentation: 2 bass clarinets; 4 horns; 3 trumpets (1st doubling piccolo trumpet); 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (almglocken, bowl gongs, chimes, crotale, flower pots, glockenspiel, marimba, triangle, tuned gongs, vibraphone, xylophone); 2 harps; 2 synthesizers, strings Approximate duration: 27 minutes “I wanted to compose a piece that embodied the feeling of being on the West Coast – literally standing on a precipice overlooking the geographic shelf with the ocean extending far out to the horizon…” –John Adams (2008) John Adams was born and raised in New England, where he learned the clarinet from his father and played in marching bands and community orchestras during his formative years. He began composing at age ten and heard his first orchestral pieces performed while still a teenager. After graduating from Harvard, he moved in 1971 to the San Francisco Bay area where he has lived ever since. Adams’s orchestral scores are among the most frequently performed and influential compositions by an American since the era of Copland and Bernstein. Works such as ShakerLoops, Harmonielehre, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, and his Violin Concerto are by now staples of the symphonic repertoire. His operas and oratorios, including Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, and Doctor Atomic – many with themes drawn from recent American history – have made a significant impact on the course of contemporary opera and are among the most produced by any living composer. The Dharma at Big Sur was composed to celebrate 2003 opening of the Frank-Gehry-designed Disney Hall in Los Angeles. Adams fashioned the piece for Tracy Silverman (see page 28) and his six-string electric violin. You’ll notice that the two extra strings allow the instrument to descend into the dark-hued cello range. Listen also to the “just intonation” of the two harps, piano, and two keyboard samplers. Adams’s original intent was that the entire orchestra be tuned this way, but it proved unfeasible. For his inspiration, Adams looked to several sources: the astounding beauty of the California coastline, of course, but also Jack Kerouac’s novel Big Sur and two fellow composer friends. The work is cast in two extensive movements. The first, “A New Day,” is an homage to Lou Harrison. Atop the quiet of an orchestral drone – with soft piano chords, gently pulsating harps, distant gongs, and brass textures – the soloist takes flight, pouring out an endless melody of rapturous delight. Eventually, the orchestra, having been so long in the distance, swells up to wrest the melody from the soloist. The music acquires a more defined pulse as we move into “Sri Moonshine,” a nod to composer Terry Riley. Adams has likened this movement to “a gigantic, pulsing gamelan” and the solo violin part to “a seagull moving in a wind storm.” “The brass instruments,” he writes, “so quiet and reserved at the beginning of the piece, now fill the acoustic space with surging walls of resonance. Low-tuned gongs mark the inner structure of the music as it vibrates over and over on one enormous ecstatic expression of ‘just B.’”
2021.22 SEASON KEN-DAVID MASUR Music Director Polly and Bill Van Dyke Music Director Chair EDO DE WAART Music Director Laureate YANIV DINUR Resident Conductor CHERYL FRAZES HILL Chorus Director Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair TIMOTHY J. BENSON Assistant Chorus Director FIRST VIOLINS Ilana Setapen, Acting Concertmaster Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair Jeanyi Kim, Acting Associate Concertmaster (2nd Chair) Chi Li, Acting Assistant Concertmaster Alexander Ayers Michael Giacobassi Yuka Kadota Dylana Leung Lijia Phang Margot Schwartz SECOND VIOLINS Jennifer Startt, Principal Andrea and Woodrow Leung Second Violin Chair Timothy Klabunde, Assistant Principal Glenn Asch John Bian Lisa Johnson Fuller Paul Hauer Hyewon Kim Shengnan Li Laurie Shawger Mary Terranova VIOLAS Robert Levine, Principal Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair Samantha Rodriguez, Acting Assistant Principal Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola Chair Alejandro Duque, Acting 3rd Chair Assistant Principal Elizabeth Breslin Nathan Hackett * Erin H. Pipal Helen Reich
CELLOS Susan Babini, Principal Dorothea C. Mayer Cello Chair Nicholas Mariscal, Assistant Principal Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus Madeleine Kabat Gregory Mathews Peter Szczepanek Peter J. Thomas Adrien Zitoun BASSES Jon McCullough-Benner, Principal Donald B. Abert Bass Chair Andrew Raciti, Associate Principal Scott Kreger Catherine McGinn Rip Prétat HARP Julia Coronelli, Principal Walter Schroeder Harp Chair FLUTES Sonora Slocum, Principal Margaret and Roy Butter Flute Chair Heather Zinninger Yarmel, Assistant Principal Jennifer Bouton Schaub PICCOLO Jennifer Bouton Schaub OBOES Katherine Young Steele, Principal Milwaukee Symphony League Oboe Chair Kevin Pearl, Assistant Principal Margaret Butler ENGLISH HORN Margaret Butler Philip and Beatrice Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin CLARINETS Todd Levy, Principal Franklyn Esenberg Clarinet Chair Benjamin Adler, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair William Helmers E FLAT CLARINET Benjamin Adler BASS CLARINET William Helmers BASSOONS Catherine Chen, Principal Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Bassoon Chair Rudi Heinrich, Assistant Principal Beth W. Giacobassi
CONTRABASSOON Beth W. Giacobassi HORNS Matthew Annin, Principal Krause Family French Horn Chair Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal Dietrich Hemann Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair Darcy Hamlin TRUMPETS Matthew Ernst, Principal Walter L. Robb Family Trumpet Chair David Cohen, Associate Principal Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal Trumpet Chair Alan Campbell, Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair TROMBONES Megumi Kanda, Principal Marjorie Tiefenthaler Trombone Chair Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal BASS TROMBONE John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball Bass Trombone Chair TUBA Robert Black, Principal TIMPANI Dean Borghesani, Principal Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal PERCUSSION Robert Klieger, Principal Chris Riggs PIANO Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair PERSONNEL MANAGERS Françoise Moquin, Director of Orchestra Personnel Paul Beck, Interim Assistant Personnel Manager LIBRARIANS Patrick McGinn, Principal Librarian, Anonymous Donor, Principal Librarian Chair Paul Beck, Associate Librarian PRODUCTION Tristan Wallace, Technical Manager & Live Audio Supervisor Paolo Scarabel, Stage Technician & Deck Supervisor
* Leave of Absence 2021.22 Season
