UNITED YOUTH ORCHESTRA Music Director: Yoshi Tatsumi
Romantic Masterpieces Wagner | Massenet | Lehar | Elgar | Schubert
Soloist: Chelsea Lin - Violin GALLAGHER ACADEMY OF PERFORMING ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO SUNDAY 29 OCTOBER 2017 - 3 PM www.orchestras.org.nz
Supported by
Orchestra 1st violin: Chelsea Lin (OL), Michael Zhang (DL), Tony Wu, Lydia Han, Annabel Zhou, Matilda Griffiths, Tina Jiang. 2nd violin: Diny Zhou (SL), Joanne Zhang, Youran Wang, Yiran Wang, Joy Liao, Jovan Xin#. Viola: Mark Zhang, Steve Zhang (g). Cello: Ron Zhang (SL), Annie Li. Double Bass: Yuri Tatsumi (OB). Flute: Gabrielle Ou, Irina Kishi-Rychkova, Takashi Aota (g). Clarinet: Alice Ke, Kanna Yamanaka. Bassoon: Rosalie Croxford (OG). Horn: Grace Bartholomew#, Martin Stevenson (g). Trumpet: Robbie Price (g), Manami Takahashi (g). Trombone: Boris Kishi-Rychkov, Robert Lummus (g). Tuba: Luke van Vliet. Timpani/Percussion: Aiko Tatsumi (g). Keyboard: Kevin Li. (OL: Orchestra Leader, DL: Deputy Leader, SL: Section Leader, OB: Old Boy, OG: Old Girl, g: Guest player #unavailable this concert)
Music Director: Yoshi Tatsumi Yoshi is foundation music director of the United Youth Orchestra. Originally from Kobe, Japan, Yoshi studied brass performance, especially French horn, and spent 10 years with a civic wind orchestra in Tokyo training as a conductor. Arriving in New Zealand in 1990, Yoshi was music director of the Waikato Schools Orchestra and then Waikato Youth Orchestra from 1995 to 2002. He was selected for conductors’ masterclasses under Nicholas Braithwaite and Miguel Harth-Bedoya in 1999 and 2000. Yoshi is a guest conductor of Bay of Plenty Symphonia, and led them for a concert in November 2005. He was given a Civic Award (Hamilton) in 2003 in recognition of his substantial contributions to youth music. Yoshi also contributed to the Japanese Garden, Hamilton Gardens.
Soloist - Chelsea Lin Chelsea started playing the violin when she was 8 years old, under the tuition of Alison Hepburn, and passed ABRSM Grade 8 with Distinction in 2016. Aside from UYO, she has also been involved in chamber music, winning the Adjudicator Award at the NZCT Chamber Music Contest in 2015. In 2016 and 2017, Chelsea was the Concert Master of the Waikato Dio school orchestra, who won a Gold Award at the Waikato Band and Orchestra Festival both this year and last. She was awarded the Wentworth Cup for Progress in Strings in 2015, and the Diedre Parr Music Cup for The Advanced String Player Contributing Most to School Music in 2016. She also played in the TWSO Education Concert in 2014. Chelsea been playing in the United Youth Orchestra for 5 years, since 2012. She says that being a member of UYO has given her a wonderful opportunity to enhance her skills and ability to play as part of an ensemble, helping to improve her musicianship through performing as a group in numerous concerts.
Programme 1. R.Wagner/arr.Dackow: Overture to "Rienzi" 2. J.Massenet: Meditation from "Thais" Violin solo: Chelsea Lin 3. F.Lehar: Vilja Lied from "Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow)" Flute solo: Irina Kishi-Rychrova, Piano: Boris Kishi-Rychkov 4. S.Nelson & J.Rollins/arr.Sweeney: "Frosty the Snowman" Trombone solo: Boris Kishi-Rychkov 5. F.Chopin: Nocturne in C sharp minor Piano solo: Luke van Vliet 6. F.Churchill/arr.Hagiwara: “Someday My Prince will come” Clarinet solo : Kanna Yamanaka, Piano: Anri Kawashima = Intermission = 7. F.Lehar: "Gold and Silver" valse 8. E.Elgar: Nimrod from "Enigma Variations" Op.36 9. F.Schubert: Symphony No.8 in B minor "Unfinished" 1st movement Allegro moderato
This is the final concert for United Youth Orchestra for 2017. Thank you to our Music Director, musicians & supporters for your dedication this year! Youth Orchestra rehearsals will resume in February 2018. To find out more or to join us visit www.orchestras.org.nz
Programme Notes R.Wagner/arr.Dackow: Overture to Rienzi Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883), was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes; WWV 49 is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer and it was his first opera to be successfully staged. The opera opens with a substantial overture which begins with a trumpet call and features the melody of Rienzi's prayer at the start of act 5, which became the opera's best-known aria. The overture ends with a military march. J.Massenet: Meditation from "Thais' Jules Massenet (1842-1912), a French composer, composed "Meditation" from Thaïs in 1894. Massenet was one of the most prominent French composers of opera in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The piece "Meditation," is a dramatic interlude in the middle of the second act of the opera Thaïs. During this interlude, when the curtains close, "Meditation" is played by a solo violin with orchestral accompaniment. The lyrical, expressive melody of this piece symbolizes the inner struggle of Thaïs as she meditates and reflects upon the direction of her life. As the piece progresses, the music's dramatic tension and soaring melody depict a spiritual awakening as Thaïs decides to change her ways and convert to Christianity. The opera premiered at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on March 16, 1894. F.Lehar: ''Gold and Silver'' valse Franz Lehár (1870 – 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He studied violin at the Prague Conservatory, but was advised by Antonín Dvořák to focus on composition. Lehár was the bandmaster of the 26th regiment in Vienna when he was asked by the Princess Metternich to compose "something especially fine" for her "Gold und Silber" gala ball given on January 27, 1902. The waltz was to achieve international fame as "Gold and Silver" became popular throughout Europe, England, and America, and quickly gained fame for its composer. Every one was dressed in some variety of the theme colours, the ceiling was painted silver with golden stars, and arc lamp lighting highlighted golden palms with silver trunks. E.Elgar: Nimrod from ''Enigma Variations'' Op.36 Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM GCVO (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Elgar composed his Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, popularly known as the Enigma Variations, between October 1898 and February 1899. It is an orchestral work comprising fourteen variations on an original theme. The composer wrote, "The Variations have amused me because I’ve labelled ’em with the nicknames of my particular friends—you [Jaeger] are Nimrod. That is to say I’ve written the variations each one to represent the mood of the ‘party’…it’s a quaint idee & the result is amusing to those behind the scenes & won’t affect the hearer who ‘nose nuffin.’" "Nimrod" has become popular in its own right and is sometimes used at British funerals, memorial services, and other solemn occasions. It is always played at the Cenotaph, Whitehall in London on Remembrance Sunday. F.Schubert: Symphony No.8 in B minor "Unfinished" - 1st movement Allegro moderato Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian composer. His Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D.759 (sometimes renumbered as Symphony No. 7), commonly known as the "Unfinished Symphony", is a musical composition that Schubert started in 1822 but left with only two movements—though he lived for another six years. First movement opens with a ghost, with music that sounds like a revenant of a dream. A pianissimo shadow in the cellos and basses functions as an eight-bar introduction to another musical spectre, the first theme proper of the symphony, an embodiment of melancholy in the clarinet over a nervous shimmer of semiquavers in the strings. The second theme begins with a celebrated lyrical melody, stated first by the celli and then by the violins to a gentle syncopated accompaniment. The dramatic closing section leads to a coda in the tonic B minor. This recalls the opening theme for still another, final, dramatic reworking to pave the way for the emphatic concluding chords.