Welcome from the Conductor
YOW's senior orchestra has been in existence for less than two years and is part of the wider Orchestras Central family which supports and develops orchestral music in the Waikato. We are truly excited to be performing our very first formal concert at the Gallagher Academy. This programme showcases the many talented young people who come together to rehearse every week. The concert is their opportunity to share the result of this hard work with you. Tim Carpenter Timothy has a Masters of Music in conducting (first class honours). He holds a Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music in Cello with Distinction, a Bachelor of Music from the University of Waikato and an Honours degree in performance organ from the University of Auckland. He has been a member of the New Zealand National Youth Orchestra, the New Zealand Youth Choir and is currently a member of Voices New Zealand. As well as at University, Timothy has attended conducting master classes overseas and worked with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. In the past he has conducted the Auckland Youth Orchestra, OPUS Chamber Orchestra, the Trust Waikato Symphony Orchestra and directed the orchestras at St Kentigern Collegiate.
Assistant Conductor: Catherine Polglase
Catherine Polglase is a freelance violinist and violin teacher. She studied violin at Auckland University with David Nalden, completing a BA in Music and History and studied baroque violin with Graham McPhail. Catherine is a member of NZ Barok and leader of Vox Baroque performing monthly cantatas as part of St Peters Cathedral Cantata Vespers. In 2017 Catherine was selected to be part of CMNZ Nelson Bach Residency working with Julliard 415 under Maasaki Suzuki. Catherine is a Suzuki violin teacher and also runs a Suzuki Early Childhood Education music class in her Hamilton studio.
Youth Orchestras Waikato: YOW Senior Orchestra Violin 1 Sarah Cathcart+ Matilda Griffiths Samara Nation Joanne Song Laura Goodman Celia Griffiths Bella Scott Catherine Polglase Violin 2 Bridget Easto* Daniel Loy Jovan Xin Jasmine Nimmo Marionne Montesa Ethan O'Donnell James Vickery Violin 3 Zachary Nation Jarren Xin Viola Natalie Garcia Gil* Dion Xue Jrome Fleming Chris Nation
+ Concert Master *Section Leader
Cello Nathanael Loy* Veronica Bagley Emma Lin Christopher Cammish Elena Morgan Ashley Koo Double Bass Michaelia Gui* Haonan Zhu George Forte Flute Joshua Lee* Alice Jin Irina Kishi-Rychkova Marina Aleksic Fionna Sun Oboe Euan Safey* Sarah Larscheid Clarinet Chloe Park* Benjamin Haworth Andrew Kang
Bassoon Michelle Kong* Annabelle Carrington French Horn Campbell Smith* Lisa Wilkinson Ben Back Trumpet Tomas Metz* Ravi Jatania Elliot Leigton-Slater Trombone Gustav Jooste Lucas Goodwin Robert Lummus Timpani/Percussion Seamus Eade Percussion/Keyboard David Su Jessie Lee Percussion Geon Choi Alex Garcia-Gil Daniel Bainbridge-Smith
Programme Holmes
In the Lair of the Cave Weta
Brahms
Academic Festival Overture
Williams
Star Wars Episode 3
Bach
Suite in B minor - Minuet and Badinerie *INTERVAL*
Schubert
Unfinished Symphony 1st Movement
Moszkowski
Spanish Dances - Moderato and Bolero
Hardiman
Lord of the Dance
Leonie Holmes In the Lair of the Cave Weta Holmes, who was Composer-in-Schools in the 1990s, has a passion for music education and for developing a musical language that will engage and challenge non-professional players. She has written many works for school and community groups. In the Lair of the Cave Weta was commissioned by Peter Thomas in 2008, who wanted a piece that was challenging for his school orchestra. Written after Holmes went white water rafting in Waitomo Caves, this piece conveys the excitement and eeriness of underground NZ, complete with creepy crawlies! Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Academic Festival Overture How do you normally say 'thank you' to people? Johannes Brahms said it in music in 1880 to the University of Breslau, which had given him an honorary doctorate. The story goes that he initially wrote them a simple thank you note but the conductor Bernard Scholz, who had nominated him for the degree, convinced him that protocol required him to make a grander gesture of gratitude. The University expected nothing less than a musical offering from the composer. '''Compose a fine symphony for us!'' they demanded. Brahms obliged and even conducted the premiere at a special convocation held by the University on 4 January 1881 to the mischievous delight of many of the academics in the audience. John Williams (1932-) Star Wars Episode 3 The scores of the famous Star Wars films are primarily performed by a symphony orchestra of varying size often joined by a choir. Each score makes extensive use of the leitmotif, a series of musical themes that represents the various characters, objects and events in the films. Throughout all of the franchise, which consists of a total of over 18 hours of music, Williams has written approximately fifty themes in one of the largest, richest collection of themes in the history of film music. Johann Sebastian Bach (1865-1750) Suite in B minor BWV 1067 - Minuet and Badinerie This is possibly one of the best known of Bach’s works, and as a result the closing Badinerie has become a popular encore piece, and even a mobile phone ring tone. The Suite is Bach’s second orchestral suite and was originally thought to have been written between 1717 and 1723 along with the majority of his chamber works. However, recent research suggests it was in fact more likely to have been written for the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, for whom Bach was music director from 1729 to the early 1740s. Scored originally for strings, continuo and solo flute, the piece has seven movements, each based on a French dance. Today the orchestra will perform two of these movements: the Minuet, a dance in 3, with two main thematic sections and the famous Badinerie – a lively closing movement which allows the solo player to show some virtuosic skill.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D 759 ('Unfinished') By 1822, Schubert was ready to attempt in the symphony what he had already done in his songs. Rather than take on Beethoven in his own game of dynamism and confrontation, Schubert found a way of shaping time and tonality that no other symphonic composer up to this point had managed. What we know today as Schubert's Unfinished Symphony is the two movements: an Allegro moderato and Andante con moto. The music is strange from the very beginning. Instead of the energy that classical symphonies usually start with, this symphony opens with ghostly sounding music. The music ebbs and flows, piano to forte and back, and just when you think it will happen again....there's a breathtaking pause, and then a burning loud minor chord. Things stabilise, but not for long... The Unfinished is dark, with cellos and basses playing out of the shadows! The second movement has some connection to the first - the key changes and bassoons give clues. Still the weirdness continues though - the music is marked with three ppps to emphasise the strangeness, and it sounds as if there are many key changes. No one knows why it was never finished - was Schubert keen to get on to new work? Did he feel there was nothing he could do to add to the two movements he had written? Whatever the reason, it all conspired to mean that the Unfinished Symphony wasn't premiered until 1865 in Vienna - when it would still have sounded ahead of its time. Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925) Spanish dances: Moderato and Bolero Moszkowski was born in Poland but lived mostly in France. In 1875, he was soloist in a piano concerto of his own composition. Franz Liszt loved the work and arranged a matinee for an invited audience where he accompanied the young composer on a second piano. (This concerto was never published and is now unfortunately presumed lost). Around the same time, Moszkowski’s first published works appeared and these included the first set of Spanish Dances, (originally for piano duet and later orchestrated by Philipp Scharwenka), which became immensely popular and assured Moszkowski’s fame, even after his other music was largely forgotten. The music you will hear today includes the ‘bolero’ which is a Spanish style of dance. Listen for the sound of the castanets – ole! Lord of the Dance Ronan Hardiman (1961 - ) Arrangement by Larry Moore Ronan Hardiman (born May 19, 1961 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish composer, famous for his soundtracks to Michael Flatley's dance shows Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames and Celtic Tiger Live. The story of Lord of the Dance follows the character "Lord of the Dance" and his fight against the evil dark lord "Don Dorcha" from taking over Planet Ireland. The "Lord of the Dance" defeats the dark lord's invasion with help from a little spirit. There is also a story with a "love vs lust" theme expressed through dance throughout the show. "Saoirse, the Irish Cailín" fights for the love of the "Lord of the Dance" against the wicked "Morrighan, the Temptress". The music expresses a building tension until a fiery end.
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