GEMMA NEW CONDUCTS SIBELIUS

Friday, October 11, 2024 at 11:15 am

Saturday, October 12, 2024 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Gemma New, conductor

PROGRAM

JESSIE MONTGOMERY

Coincident Dances

KAROL SZYMANOWSKI

Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 61 Vadim Gluzman, violin

INTERMISSION

JEAN SIBELIUS

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43

I. Allegretto

II. Andante ma rubato

III. Vivacissimo

IV. Finale: Allegro moderato

The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

GEMMA NEW

Known for her “unique sensitivity and a heightened attention to detail and texture” (The Washington Post) and “programming prowess” (Vancouver Sun), New Zealand-born Gemma New is the artistic advisor and principal conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and a highly soughtafter guest conductor worldwide. She is the recipient of the prestigious 2021 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award.

Highlights of New’s 2024.25 season include her debut with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales, Brussels Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, and Musikkollegium Winterthur. In the United States, she returns to lead the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and The Juilliard Orchestra. Equally in-demand in the U.K. and Europe, she returns to the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn Academy Orchestra Leipzig, Kristiansand Symfoniorkester, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra della Toscana, Orquesta Sinfonica de Barcelona, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Bergen Philharmonic.

In her third season as artistic advisor and principal conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, New conducts a string of fall 2024 performances in Wellington, Hastings, Auckland, and Christchurch, featuring Lyell Cresswell’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and the New Zealand premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Asteroid in the NZSO program The Planets: Elgar & Holst, also spotlighting violinist Christian Tetzlaff in a performance of Elgar’s Violin Concerto.

2023.24 marked New’s ninth and final season as music director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Ontario, Canada. She previously served as principal guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, resident conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and associate conductor of the New Jersey Symphony. A former Dudamel Conducting Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducting fellow at Tanglewood Music Center, New was awarded Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards in 2017, 2019, and 2020, before receiving the 2021 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award.

More information on Gemma New can be found at www.gemmanew.com. Management for Gemma New: Primo Artists, New York, NY www.primoartists.com.

VADIM GLUZMAN

Universally recognized among today’s top performing artists, Vadim Gluzman breathes new life and passion into the golden era of the 19th and 20th centuries’ violin tradition. Gluzman’s wide repertoire embraces new music, and his performances are heard around the world through live broadcasts and a striking catalogue of award-winning recordings exclusively for the BIS label. The Israeli violinist performs with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including Tugan Sokhiev with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and Orchestre de Paris, Neeme Järvi with the Chicago Symphony and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Riccardo Chailly with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gewandhaus Orchestra, and Gothenburg Symphony, and with the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Hannu Lintu and Mikhail Jurowski. He performs at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the BBC Proms, Grant Park, and the North Shore Chamber Music Festival, which he founded in 2011.

Highlights of the 2024.25 season include performances with Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Uppsala Kammarorkester, the Solistes Européens, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Bochumer Symphoniker, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, and the Beethoven Orchester Bonn under the direction of Tugan Sokhiev, Eliahu Inbal, James Gaffigan, Tung-Chieh Chuang, Matthew Halls, Hugh Wolff, and Ruth Reinhardt, as well as concerts with Johannes Moser and Andrei Korobeinikov, and with his duo partner, Evgeny Sinaiski. Vadim Gluzman also conducts concerts this season with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio, where he is creative partner and principal guest artist.

Gluzman has premiered works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Moritz Eggert, Giya Kancheli, Elena Firsova, Pēteris Vasks, Michael Daugherty, and Lera Auerbach. In the 2023.24 season, he performed the European premiere of Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with the HR-Rundfunkorchester Frankfurt.

Accolades for his extensive discography include the Diapason d’Or of the Year, Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice, Classica magazine’s Choc de Classica award, and Disc of the Month by The Strad, BBC Music Magazine, and ClassicFM

Program notes by Elaine Schmidt

JESSIE MONTGOMERY

Born 8 December 1981; New York City, New York

Coincident Dances

First performance: 16 September 2017; Mei-Ann Chen, conductor; Chicago Sinfonietta

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; 2 clarinets (2nd doubling on bass clarinet); 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; bass trombone; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cowbell, high hat, shakers, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tambourine, timbales, tom-tom, triangle, xylophone, wood block) strings

Approximate duration: 12 minutes

If you’ve ever walked through New York City, you were likely surrounded by a host of languages, smelled the jumbled aromas of unrelated cuisines, and heard a bevy of musical styles swirling around you. It was those overlaid musical sounds that inspired American composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery, who grew up and earned two degrees in Manhattan, to write Coincident Dances. Montgomery’s biography states that her compositional style “interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience” — a great description of Coincident Dances

Montgomery has received the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) Foundation and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence. Her connection to the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, with its mission of “transforming lives through the arts” and its support and education of African American and Latino students, goes beyond receiving an award. She has held the position of Composer-in-Residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization’s professional touring ensemble. She has also held a threeyear position as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony, is a professor of violin and composition at the New School in New York City, and is a Ph.D. candidate in composition at Princeton University.

Coincident Dances was written in 2017, on a commission from the Chicago Sinfonietta. She wrote that the piece was “inspired by sounds found in New York’s various cultures, capturing the frenetic energy and multicultural aural palette one hears even in a short walk through a New York City neighborhood.” Beginning with a double-bass solo, the piece takes listeners on a stroll through disparate musical styles, including samba, Ghanaian mbira dance music, English consort, and techno. Montgomery explained the piece, writing, “My reason for choosing these styles sometimes stemmed from an actual experience of accidentally hearing a pair of them simultaneously, which happens most days of the week walking down the streets of New York, or one time when I heard a parked car playing Latin jazz while I had rhythm and blues in my headphones.”

KAROL SZYMANOWSKI

Born 3 October 1882; Tymoszówka, Ukraine

Died 29 March 1937; Lausanne, Switzerland

Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 61

First performance: 6 October 1933; Grzegorz Fitelberg, conductor; Paweł Kochański, violin; Warsaw Philharmonic Last MSO performance: 12 November 2017; Karina Canellakis, conductor; Jennifer Koh, violin Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets (2nd doubling on E-flat clarinet); 2 bassoons (2nd doubling on contrabassoon); 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle); piano; strings

First performance: 6 October 1933; Grzegorz Fitelberg, conductor; Paweł Kochański, violin; Warsaw Philharmonic Last MSO performance: 12 November 2017; Karina Canellakis, conductor; Jennifer Koh, violin Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets (2nd doubling on E-flat clarinet); 2 bassoons (2nd doubling on contrabassoon); 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle); piano; strings

Approximate duration: 20 minutes

Polish composer and pianist Karol Szymanowski developed a sterling reputation in Europe during the first third of the 20th century, but never became a regular name on American stages. He is known primarily for his four symphonies, one of which included vocal soloists and a chorus, and another of which included a piano part, as well as his two violin concertos. He also wrote stage works, dances, chamber music, and more, turning to Polish folk idioms for inspiration as his career progressed.

Szymanowski was born in the Kyev District of Ukraine. His well-to-do parents provided an artsrich environment for their five children, all of whom built careers in the arts. His land-owner father hailed from Poland, where his family had been wealthy Polish nobles. His mother was a Baltic German from Latvia.

After studying music with his father, Szymanowski began formal training at age 10. At 19, he enrolled in a four-year music program at the Polish State Conservatory in Warsaw. Following his training, Szymanowski moved about Europe, founding the Young Polish Composer’s Publishing Company in Berlin in 1905. In 1911, he began a three-year stay in Vienna, where he wrote an opera and two song cycles. Sitting out World War I because of a bad knee, he indulged his love of reading and his fascination with other cultures, and their histories, and began incorporating some atonality into his music. He also wrote a novel, completing it 1918.

Szymanowski wrote both of his violin concertos as continuous, self-contained, single movements, although No. 2 is arguably a two-movement work with a cadenza separating the two movements. Dynamic, colorful, and continuously engaging, it is played without pauses between sections — hence the single-movement designation.

Szymanowski served as the director of the Warsaw Conservatory for five years and received many significant international honors, including the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and an honorary doctorate. But during his last years, he was plagued by both health and financial issues. He died at 54 while seeking medical treatment in Switzerland. In 2023, Google marked his 141st birthday with a Google Doodle.

JEAN SIBELIUS

Born 8 December 1865; Hämeenlinna, Finland

Died 20 September 1957; Järvenpää, Finland

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43

First performance: 8 March 1902; Jean Sibelius, conductor; Helsinki Philharmonic Society

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 43 minutes

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was originally named Johan Julius Christian Sibelius, but changed his first name to the French “Jean” because he thought it made a better “music name.” He didn’t start music lessons (piano and violin) until age 10, and studied composition from books on the topic, having no composition teacher at the time. He eventually attended the Helsinki Music Institute. Sibelius and his music are still viewed today as national treasures in Finland. Sibelius first achieved international fame with his tone poem Finlandia, written in 1899 and revised the following year.

Sibelius loved his homeland dearly. He once stated, “I have to live in Finland. I could never fully leave this country; it would end me and mean the death of my art.” He may not have wanted to leave Finland permanently, but he did travel quite extensively following the premiere of his first symphony. Like Beethoven and Strauss before him, Sibelius did not start writing symphonies until he was in his thirties. His first symphony, written in 1898 and revised in 1899, caught the attention of the European music press, which led to invitations for Sibelius to conduct his own music at concerts across Europe. His travels were fruitful, from successful performances to finding a publisher in Germany, even meeting Dvořák in Prague. The Finnish government paid attention to his travels, and his reception, awarding him a state pension for life, allowing him to resign from teaching at Helsinki University to focus on composing and on promoting his works.

Some historians believe Sibelius may have had ideas about making his Symphony No. 2 a programmatic work, with an extra-musical story to shape the piece. But Sibelius denied that any such program had ever existed.

Sibelius began working on his second symphony in 1901 while in Italy. It took him almost a year to finish it, creating his longest symphony (about 45 minutes long). Sibelius may not have created a programmatic element for the evocative piece, but critics and the Finnish government effectively did that for him. Immediately after the piece’s 1902 premiere, Finland dubbed it an emblem of national liberation.