OKCPHIL program edition 4 for the 23-24 season

CLASICS

Glorious Life!

March 23, 2024

Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor Teng Li, viola PG. 27

POPS

Cirque Musica: Heroes & Villians

April 5-6, 2024

Jayce Ogren, guest conductor PG. 39

CLASICS

Pines of Rome

April 20, 2024

Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor Sō Percussion PG. 43

POPS An Evening with Bernadette Peters!

May 3-4, 2024

Tedd Firth, guest conductor PG. 53

CLASICS Tosca

May 18, 2024

Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor Latonia Moore, soprano PG. 59

WELCOME

THIRTY-FIFTH SEASON

JERROD SHOUSE, President

Oklahoma Philharmonic Society, Inc.

Welcome to the Oklahoma City Philharmonic! We are honored to welcome our faithful season subscribers, our dedicated community philanthropic partners, and our first-time attendees. This season marks 35 years of the OKCPHIL providing inspiration and joy for the community through orchestral music. We are proud of our legacy and so excited about our future.

Part of our vision is to enhance the cultural life of the community and to educate future generations about the value of music. Given that charge, the OKCPHIL is focused more than ever on programs and concert experiences bringing the entire community together. This season has something for everyone to enjoy through our Classics, Pops, and Discovery concerts, thanks to our Music Director, Maestro Alexander Mickelthwate and our dynamic and dedicated staff led by our new Executive Director Brent Hart. This season is the perfect opportunity to invite someone to a future Philharmonic concert who has not attended before.

On behalf of the entire Oklahoma City Philharmonic family, thank you for being here! Say “hello” to someone you have not met before, and come back soon!

DEBRA KOS, President

Oklahoma City Orchestra League

The Oklahoma City Orchestra League welcomes you to the 35th season of the OKC Philharmonic. We are excited about the lineup presented by our wonderful Maestro, Alexander Mickelthwate, and our talented OKCPhil musicians!

I am honored to serve as President of the Orchestra League, and we will continue with our mission to educate, enrich, and inspire our community by supporting orchestral music and promoting volunteerism. Our social activities and fundraising efforts provide support to the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, and our educational programs and instrumental competitions promote inspiration and inclusion to our community at large.

This year, the Orchestra League celebrates 75 years since our inception, and I am grateful to those who continue to contribute to our rich legacy.

To learn more about the Orchestra League or to become a member, please kindly visit www.orchestraleague.org or email league@okcphil.org.

DESIREE SINGER, President Associate Board

On behalf of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Associate Board, I am privileged and honored to welcome you to the 2023-2024 season! This season’s lineup beautifully returns to the traditional while highlighting diversity in musical expression, and even throws in some heart-pounding, gravity-defying action toward the end. Our hope is that you will leave each performance hearts full and feeling inspired.

The mission of the Associate Board is to build a space for young professionals to cultivate a love for the orchestral arts and connections with others who value what the arts add to our beautiful city. To do this, we have created the Overture Society, a three-concert package combined with opportunities to socialize, network and serve the community. Consider joining the Overture Society today and show your support for the arts in OKC. We are excited to have you!

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

BRENT HART

On behalf of the entire OKCPHIL family, welcome to our 2023-24 Season! We are thrilled to present another year of phenomenal performances and programs, as we continue to serve our mission of providing joy and inspiration through orchestral music to our community

This season’s Inasmuch Foundation Classics Series features beautiful stories reflecting on the highs and lows of the human experience. The lineup features meditative and inspirational works by Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Brahms, Strauss and Respighi. We close the Classics Series with a powerful opera performed by our full orchestra on stage with internationally recognized singers from The Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

The Chickasaw Nation Pops Series offers something for everyone, from famous music from the movies, to Broadway, and Heroes and Villains. Our Christmas spectacular, A Very Merry Pops, features Sandi Patty and Take 6. We are excited to bring back the very popular Mariachi Los Camperos who wowed us in 2020. You won’t want to miss our final performance of the Pops season featuring Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning actress Bernadette Peters!

Here in the Civic Center Music Hall and across our region, the OKCPHIL continues its commitment to offering accessible music through a variety of Education and Community Engagement programs. From our free outdoor orchestral concerts at Scissortail Park, music education programs and Youth Concerts for elementary school students, Society of Strings program for adult amateur string players and Young Musician Competition for talented players, these initiatives continue to enhance the lives of thousands of Oklahomans of all ages.

We are deeply grateful for your ongoing loyalty, support and generosity which makes all of this possible. Your ticket purchases, season subscriptions and donations of all sizes allow us to deepen our impact in the community in numerous ways.

Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you at our concerts throughout the season!

MUSIC DIRECTOR

THIRTY-FIFTH SEASON

ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE

As he prepares for his sixth season leading the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Maestro Alexander Mickelthwate has become part of the community.

“It’s amazing, and also quite humbling,” Mickelthwate said. “My morning routine usually consists of studying at Harvey Bakery in Midtown. Quite often customers will approach me and say they saw me on television or on the side of a bus. To me, that signifies what we are doing at the OKCPHIL is resonating with the community, and making everyone feel welcome.”

The OKCPHIL has been a source of joy and inspiration for 35 years, enriching Oklahoma and its communities through orchestral music. When Mickelthwate came on board, he brought with him an eagerness to build on the successes of the past and pave the way for the future.

“Oklahoma City should be known as a breeding ground for fun and creativity,” he said. “That’s my thing. In our first season, we were always surprised how the audiences were really open to the contemporary. It’s crazy how embracing the audience is for adventurous, fun new things. This season, we are tempering the contemporary with traditional. I think audiences will be pleased with what they hear.”

Born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany, Mickelthwate grew up in a home filled with classical music. He received his degree from the Peabody Institute of Music, and has worked with orchestras in Atlanta, Winnipeg and Los Angeles. He is Music Director Emeritus of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in Canada, and in 2022, accepted the position of Music Director for the prestigious Bear Valley Music Festival in Bear Valley, California. In early 2023, Mickelthwate traveled to Hanoi where he was Guest Conductor at the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra.

Since he’s been in Oklahoma, Mickelthwate has received numerous awards and honors, including being twice-named “The Face of Music” by 405 Magazine. The OKC Friday newspaper named him one of the “Top 50 Most Powerful,” and the Ladies Music Club of Oklahoma City lauded him “Musician of the Year.”

Accolades aside, one of Mickelthwate’s goals is to tell Oklahoma stories through music.

“When I first came to Oklahoma City, I read Sam Anderson’s book, ‘Boom Town,’ and from there I began studying Oklahoma’s colorful history,” he said. “We have so many great stories, and seeing them come to life through music is aweinspiring. Two seasons ago, I programmed a Native American work by Jerod Tate. We commissioned a piece by Jonathan Leshnoff commemorating the Oklahoma City Bombing. And last year we told the story of local civil rights icon Clara Luper through music composed by Hannibal Lokumbe. I want to continue bringing more of these stories to our audiences.”

Mickelthwate lives in Oklahoma City with his wife of 25 years, Abigail, and sons Jack and Jacob. He is active in the community, and in high demand for speaking engagements from Rotary to the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber. When he’s not studying at Harvey Bakery, Mickelthwate is Artist in Residence at the University of Central Oklahoma where he enjoys working with the next generation of musicians, and conducting UCO’s symphony orchestra.

“My personal philosophy is that music has a way of reaching us in a way nothing else does,” Mickelthwate said. “It goes deep inside, creating and facilitating beauty in a harsh world. We want the Oklahoma City Philharmonic to be meaningful, to be fun and a place where we are all one. I have often said we feel the love, Oklahoma City. And we are giving it right back.

OKLAHOMA PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY, INC

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

OFFICERS

Jerrod Shouse

President

Jim Roth

President Elect

Debbie McKinney

Vice President

Kevin Dunnington

Treasurer

Jennifer Schultz

Secretary

Jane Jayroe Gamble

Immediate Past President

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

John Allen

General Manager

Jose Batty

Music Librarian

Blossom Crews

Director of Development

Jared Davis

Customer Service Representative

Allison Demand

Concert Operations Assistant & Guest Artist Liaison

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIFETIME DIRECTORS

Jane B. Harlow

Patrick Alexander

DIRECTORS

Louise Cleary Cannon

Robert Clements

Joy Hammons

Kirk Hammons

Mautra Staley Jones

Debra Kos

Kristian Kos

Tom Lerum

Matt Paque Jeana Gering Education Manager

Daniel Hardt

Finance Director

Brent Hart

E xecutive Director

Judy Hill

Administrative Assistant

Daryl Jones

Senior Manager of Ticketing & Patron Data

Oklahoma City Police Association

George Ryan

THE OKLAHOMA PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY, INC.

Craig Perry

Sam Rainbolt

Kelly Sachs

Amalia Miranda Silverstein

Desiree Singer

Doug Stussi

Geetika Verma

Evan Walter

Renate Wiggin

Wendi Wilson

Joel Levine

Archivist/Historian

Ashley Spears

Development Associate

Robin Sweeden

Institutional Giving Coordinator

Corbin Taggart

Marketing Coordinator

Valorie Tatge

Orchestra Personnel Manager

AFFILIATED PARTNERS

The Oklahoma City Philharmonic Foundation was established to provide leadership and endowment expertise to help ensure a stable financial base for orchestral music and musical excellence in Oklahoma City for generations to come. Distributions from the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Foundation provide a meaningful and secure source of annual income for the Philharmonic’s operations, continually confirming the importance of endowment in an organization’s long-range planning and overall success.

Current officers and directors of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Foundation are:

OFFICERS

Douglas J. Stussi, President

Charles E. Wiggin, First Vice President

Jeff Starling, Second Vice President

Louise Cleary Cannon, Treasurer

Alice Pippin, Secretary

DIRECTORS

Steven C. Agee

Patrick B. Alexander

J. Edward Barth

L. Joe Bradley

Andre’ B. Caldwell

Teresa L. Cooper

Paul Dudman

Jane Jayroe Gamble

Mischa Gorkuscha

Jane B. Harlow

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Debra Kos President

Geetika Verma President-Elect

Orchestra League Office

424 Colcord Dr., Ste. B

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102

Phone: (405) 232-7575

Fax: (405) 232-4353

e-mail: league@okcphil.org

Jean Hartsuck

Michael E. Joseph

Harrison Levy, Jr.

Duke R. Ligon

Jessica Martinez-Brooks

Penny McCaleb

Michael J. Milligan

Erik Salazar

Patrick E. Randall, II

Richard Tanenbaum

OFFICERS

Desiree Singer President

James Hulsey President-Elect

Mady Hendryx Secretary

Kelsey Karper

Marketing Chair

Kelley Bennett

Maya Johnson

THE ORCHESTRA

THIRTY-FIFTH SEASON

ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE, Music Director and Conductor

JOEL LEVINE, Founder and Music Director Emeritus

BRENT HART, Executive Director

FIRST VIOLIN

Marat Gabdullin, Acting Concertmaster, Gertrude Kennedy Chair

Densi Rushing, Assistant Concertmaster

Hong Zhu

Beth Sievers

Chandler Fadero

Min Jung Kim

Deborah McDonald

Ashley Cooper

Lu Deng

Lok-Hin Cheng

SECOND VIOLIN

Katrin Stamatis*, Principal, McCasland Foundation Chair

Catherine Reaves, Assistant Principal

Sophia Ro

Sarah Sanford Brown

Corbin Mace

Angélica Pereira

Audrey Lee

Yajing (Cindy) Zhang

Paulo Eskitch

VIOLA

Royce McLarry, Principal

Mark Neumann, Assistant Principal

Joseph Guevara

Kelli Ingels

Steve Waddell

Donna Cain

Brian Frew

CELLO

Jonathan Ruck, Principal, Orchestra League Chair

Meredith Blecha-Wells, Assistant Principal

Valorie Tatge

Emily Stoops

Jim Shelley

Angelika Machnik-Jones

Jean Statham

Samantha Kerns

BASS

Anthony Stoops, Principal

Larry Moore, Assistant Principal

Christine Craddock

Mark Osborn

Taylor Dawkins

DoYoun Kim

Parvin Smith

FLUTE

Valerie Watts, Principal

Parthena Owens

Nancy Stizza-Ortega

PICCOLO

Nancy Stizza-Ortega

OBOE

Lisa Harvey-Reed, Principal

Rachel Maczko

Katherine McLemore

ENGLISH HORN

Rachel Maczko

CLARINET

Bradford Behn, Principal

Tara Heitz

James Meiller

BASS/E-FLAT CLARINET

James Meiller

BASSOON

Rod Ackmann, Principal

James Brewer

Barre Griffith

CONTRABASSOON

Barre Griffith

HORN

Kate Pritchett, Principal, G. Rainey Williams Chair

James Rester

Mirella Gable

Matt Reynolds

TRUMPET

Karl Sievers, Principal

Jay Wilkinson

Michael Anderson

TROMBONE

Philip Martinson, Principal

John Allen, Bass Trombone

TUBA

Ted Cox, Principal

TIMPANI

Jamie Whitmarsh, Principal

PERCUSSION

Patrick Womack, Principal

Stephanie Krichena

Roger Owens

HARP

Gaye LeBlanc, Principal

PIANO

Peggy Payne, Principal

*on leave for the 2023-24 season

PRODUCTION STAFF

John Allen, General Manager

Valorie Tatge, Personnel Manager

Jose Batty, Librarian

Allison Demand, Guest Artist Liaison/ Concert Operations Assistant

Ken Dines, Stage Crew Leader

PLANNED GIVING

The Oklahoma Philharmonic Society, Inc. is honored to recognize its EncoreSociety members — visionary thinkers who have provided for the future of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic through their estate plans.

Anonymous (3)

Steven C. Agee, Ph.D.

Linda and Patrick Alexander

Gary and Jan Allison

Louise Cleary Cannon

Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Clements

Thomas and Rita Dearmon

Dr. and Mrs. James D. Dixson

Dr. Ralph and Lois Ganick

Hugh Gibson

Pam and Gary Glyckherr

Carey and Gayle Goad

Ms. Olivia Hanson

Jane B. Harlow

Dr. and Mrs. James Hartsuck

Mr. and Mrs. Michael E. Joseph

THANK YOU

Joel Levine and Don Clothier

John and Caroline Linehan

Mr. and Mrs. Marvin C. Lunde, Jr.

Mrs. Jackie Marron

Mr. and Mrs. John McCaleb

Mrs. Jean McLaughlin

W. Cheryl Moore

Carl Andrew Rath

Mrs. Cathy Reaves

Mrs. Lil Ross

Dr. Lois Salmeron

Mr. and Mrs. William F. Shdeed

Susie and Doug Stussi

Larry and Leah Westmoreland

Mr. John S. Williams

Mr. and Mrs. Don T. Zachritz

The Oklahoma Philharmonic Society, Inc. is grateful for the support of caring patrons who want to pass on a legacy of extraordinary music to future generations. You can join this special group of music enthusiasts by including a gift for the OKC Philharmonic’s future in your own will or estate plan. For more information on how to become an Encore Society member, contact the Philharmonic’s Development Office at (405) 232-7575.

MEET OUR FAMILY

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE MUSIC

CHANDLER FADERO ROBIN SWEEDEN

Violin OKCPHIL Musician

Chandler Fadero is finishing his second full season as First Violin for the OKCPHIL. He began playing at age 9 in his school orchestra program. Then, when his grandmother took him to his first symphony concert, he was hooked.

“I remember how the light cascaded from far above onto the stage,” he said, “illuminating the dapper-dressed musicians and their glittery instruments. The music spoke to me with a language that transcends words. I felt like I was waking up. Even then, I knew this would be my life’s work.”

Chandler began as a substitute with the OKCPHIL in the spring of ’21 and in ‘22 auditioned and won a regular position with the orchestra.

“Orchestra auditions are notoriously strenuous and brutally competitive,” he said. “It took me three separate auditions to win a spot here, and it is one of my proudest accomplishments ever. The OKCPHIL is truly an elite orchestra, and my colleagues never cease to inspire me.”

Besides his work with the OKCPHIL, Chandler loves to cook, and says his wood-fired pizza oven is his new obsession.

“I’ve also been focusing on weightlifting,” he added, “and a marathon is on my bucket list. I also dabble in Irish fiddling, which is a fun musical outlet!”

Institutional Giving Coordinator OKCPHIL Staff

Music has been an ever-present force in my life. I was born into a musical family and began playing the piano at age 5. I picked up the oboe at age 9 and took my first professional gig at age 16. From there, I received my Bachelor of Music Education from Baylor University and my Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from The University of Oklahoma. While working on my doctorate, I began researching American ultra-modern music and American music during and after the Great Depression. This research led me to my dissertation topic, the life and music of American composer Vivian Fine. While writing my dissertation, I discovered that I have a gift for storytelling, along with a passion for elevating and preserving the arts. This brought me to the OKCPHIL as the Institutional Giving Coordinator

Outside of my work with the OKCPHIL, I teach oboe and bassoon at Southern Nazarene University, play the oboe in and around OKC, and maintain a private music studio. I have two cats, Ethel and Bumper, and enjoy spending time crocheting, sewing, and being in the mountains.

GIFTS TO THE PHIL

The Oklahoma City Philharmonic gratefully acknowledges the commitment and generosity of individuals, corporations, foundations, and government agencies that support our mission. To help us provide inspiration and joy to the community through live orchestral performances and a variety of Education and Community Engagement programs, please contact the Philharmonic’s Development Office at (405) 232-7575.

This Annual Fund recognition reflects contributions made in the 2023-24 season. Contributions of $250 and above are listed through February 5, 2024.

If your name has been misspelled or omitted, please accept our apologies and inform us of the error by calling the phone number listed above. Thank you for your generous support!

CORPORATIONS, FOUNDATIONS & GOVERNMENT

Express their generous commitment to the community.

UNDERWRITER

$25,000 & Above

Ad Astra Foundation

E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation

Express Employment Professionals

International

The Oklahoman

The Skirvin Hilton Hotel

GUARANTORS

$10,000 - $24,999

405 Magazine

American Fidelity Foundation

Crawley Family Foundation

HSPG and Associates, PC

I Heart Media

Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores

MidFirst Bank

NvYa Technologies

OGE Energy Corp.

Tyler Media Co./Magic 104.1FM and KOMA W&W Steel, LLC

BENEFACTORS

$5,000 -$9,999

BancFirst

Bryan Garrett Injury Law Firm

Clements Foods Foundation

Devon Energy Corporation

Mekusukey Oil Company, LLC

SUSTAINERS

$2,500 - $4,999

BNSF Railway Foundation

Brewer Entertainment

Morningstar Properties

OKC Friday

Omni Hotel

The Black Chronicle

ASSOCIATES

$1,500 - $2,499

Bank of Oklahoma

The Fred Jones Family Foundation

FRIENDS

$1,000 - $1,499

PARTNERS

$500 - $999

Benevity Community Impact Giving The Kerr Foundation

MEMBERS

$250-$499

GIFTS TO THE PHIL

MAESTRO SOCIETY

Providing leadership support.

UNDERWRITER

$25,000 and above

Margaret Freede and Daniel Owens

Amalia Miranda-Silverstein, MD

GUARANTOR

$10,000 - $24,999

Linda and Patrick Alexander

Mo Anderson

Lawrence H. and Ronna C. Davis

Gerald and Jane Jayroe Gamble

The Estate of Carol Marshall Hall

Jane B. Harlow

Ed and Barbara Krei

Mr. Albert Lang

Larry and Polly Nichols

Dr. Lois Salmeron

Susie and Doug Stussi

BENEFACTOR

$5,000 - $9,999

Anonymous (1)

Steven C, Agee, Ph.D.

John and Margaret Biggs

INDIVIDUALS

SUSTAINER

$2,500-$4,999

Anonymous

Dr. and Mrs. Dewayne Andrews

Dr. and Mrs. John C. Andrus

Mr. J. Edward Barth

Mrs. Betty D. Bellis-Mankin

Dr. Charles and Marilyn Bethea

Dr. and Mrs. Philip C. Bird

Mrs. Phyllis Brawley

Mr. and Mrs. Pete Brown

Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Browne

Phil G. and Cathy Busey

Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Clements

Mari Cook Medley

Barbara Cooper

Mr. and Mrs. David C. DeLana

Mr. Sidney G. Dunagan

David and Druanne Durrett

Dr. and Mrs. L. Joe Bradley

Martha and Ronnie Bradshaw

Louise Cleary Cannon and Gerry Cannon

Teresa Cooper

Kevin and Alisha Dunnington

Darleene A. Harris

Dr. and Mrs. Patrick McKee

Ruth Mershon Fund

Brent Hart and Matt Thomas

Glenna and Dick Tanenbaum

Diane and Michael Thomas

Providing essential support for the Annual Fund.

Tom and Cindy Janssen

Kim and Michael Joseph

Kathy and Terry Kerr

Thomas and Jane Lerum

Jerry and Jan Plant

Mr. H.E. Rainbolt

Mr. Larry Reed

Lance and Cindy Ruffel

Ernesto and Lin Sanchez

Dr. and Mrs. Hal Scofield

Jeff and Kim Short

Rick and Amanda Smith

John and Katherine Spaid

Mr. and Mrs. John E. Stonecipher

John Stuemky and James Brand

Billie Thrash

Larry L. and Leah A. Westmoreland

Dr. James and Elizabeth Wise

Jeanise Wynn

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Fleckinger

Frank Goforth and Nancy Halliday

Dr. and Mrs. James Hartsuck

David and Vicki Hunt

Colonel (ret.) Dean and Mrs. Jeanne Jackson

ASSOCIATE

$1,500 - $2,499

Anonymous (2)

Virginia and Albert Aguilar

Mr. and Mrs. Louis Almaraz

Ms. Beth M. Alonso

Ms. Zonia Armstrong

Dr. Sterling and Cheryl Baker

Dr. and Mrs. William L. Beasley

William Beck

Dr. Jack and Ruth Beller

Nels and Donna Bentson

Nick and Betsy Berry

Bart Binning

Robert Blakeburn

Mike and Dawn Borelli

Mr. and Mrs. Del Boyles

Mrs. Carole S. Broughton

Mr. and Mrs. William M. Cameron

J. Christopher and Ruth Carey

Ms. Janice B. Carmack

Jeff Caughron

Drs. Fong Chen and Helen Chiou

Ms. Betty Crow

Patricia Czerwinski

Mr. Charles B. Darr, III

Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Dearmon

Tony and Pam Dela Vega

Vickie Dennis

Gary and Fran Derrick

Nancy Payne Ellis

The OKCPHIL would like to thank the following people who believe in our mission by providing support through the 2023-24 Maestro’s Ball as we honor our beloved Maestro’s Circle inductees Glenna and Dick Tanenbaum. This recognition reflects contributions received through October 20, 2023.

EVENT CHAIRS

Debra & Kristian Kos

EVENT COMMITTEE

HONORARY CO-CHAIRS

Yvette & Joseph Fleckinger

Rachel Gieger, Shaye Matthews, Lisa Reed, Desiree Singer, Mark Taylor, Geetika Verma, Wendi Wilson

DONORS

PRESENTING SPONSORS

Glenna & Dick Tanenbaum

PLATINUM SPONSORS

Dr. Margaret Freede

BancFirst

GOLDEN SPONSORS

American Fidelity Foundation

Bank of Oklahoma

Mark & Julie Beffort

Joel Levine & Don Clothier

Lawrence H. & Ronna C. Davis

Jane B. Harlow

Paycom

Susie & Doug Stussi

Drs. Geetika & Bobby Verma

SILVER SPONSORS

405 Magazine

Pascal & Dolores Aughtry

Barbara Cooper

Yvette & Joseph Fleckinger

Jim Roth & Phillip Koszarek

OKC Friday

Presbyterian Health Foundation

Amalia Miranda Silverstein

BRONZE SPONSORS

Mark & Beverly Funke

Gerald & Jane Jayroe Gamble

Debbie & Jay Harper

Christopher Lloyd, Erik Salazar, Jennifer Schultz & Mike Kouandjio

Larry & Polly Nichols

Dr. Lois Salmeron

Jamie & Jerrod Shouse

BENEFACTOR SPONSORS

Linda & Patrick Alexander

J. Edward Barth

Sody & Robert Clements

Rita & Al Dearmon

Nicole and Nick Dell’Osso

Sue & John Francis

Kirk Hammons

Col. (Ret) Dean & Mrs. Jeanne Jackson

Margaret Keith

Penny & John McCaleb

Anna & John McMillin

Dr. Dinesh Dalbir & Mrs. Sumita Pokharel

Sarah Sagran

Lee Allan Smith

D. Wayne & Emy Trousdale

Marcia Crook & Terry West

Wendi & Curtis Wilson

FRIEND SPONSORS

Anonymous

Judy Austin

Ms. Janice Carmack

Carole Doerner

Jeannie Drake

OTHER MAESTRO’S BALL SUPPORTERS

Ad Astra Foundation

Rick & Tracey Brown

Laura & James Blakewell

Sunny Cearley & Adam Brooks

Wendy & Shawn Calvin

Swapna Deshpande & Ameya Pitale

Kim Fletcher

James Hulsey

Julia & Dick Hunt

Bruce Jackson

Margaret Keith

Daniel Kim

Jane Krizer

Shay & Travis Matthews

Carol McCoy

Courtney Briggs Melton & Timothy Melton

William and Marilyn North

Lisa Reed

Kirstin Reynolds

Diane Riggert & Wayne Buchman

John Roberts & Kenneth Long

Meg Salyer

Ernesto & Lin Sanchez

Maggie Sermersheim

Pam & Bill Shdeed

Jacqueline Short & Byron Foley

Michele Simon

June Tucker

Ivan Wayne & Robynn Poortvliet

The OKCPHIL would like to thank the following people who believe in our mission by providing support through the 2023-24 Maestro’s Ball as we honor our beloved Maestro’s Circle inductees Glenna and Dick Tanenbaum. This recognition reflects contributions received through October 20, 2023.

WE’VE GOT RHYTHM SPONSORS

SPONSORING 10 SCHOOLS

Debra & Kristian Kos

Glenna and Dick Tanenbaum

SPONSORING 5 SCHOOLS

Linda & Patrick Alexander

Anonymous

Brent Hart & Matt Thomas

Dr. Margaret Freede

Justin & Amanda Loven

Leighann & Brett Price

SPONSORING 2 SCHOOLS

Skip & Joan Cunningham

Dr. Kenneth Evans

Yvette & Joe Fleckinger

Blair & Maggie Humphreys

Joel Levine & Don Clothier

Annie & Jonathan Middlebrooks

Susie & Doug Stussi

Drs. Geetika & Bobby Verma

SPONSORING 1 SCHOOL

Christine Alsobrooks & Mike Fina

Julia & David Assef

Pascal & Dolores Aughtry

Richard Brown

Louise Cleary Cannon & Gerry Cannon

Sody & Robert Clements

Eric & Sandy Eissenstat

Mitch & Allison Enright

David & Aimee Harlow

Debbie & Jay Harper

Matt & Melody Hughes

Col (Ret) Dean & Mrs. Jeanne Jackson

David & Diana Le

Tom & Jane Lerum

Becky & Jeff Mallace

Valerie Naifeh & George Catechis

Matt & Brittanie Paque

Richard and Gayle Parry

Kathy Pendarvis

Red Carpet Car Wash

Jamie & Jerrod Shouse

Amalia Miranda Silverstein

D. Wayne & Emy Trousdale

Jim & Jill Williams

Wendi & Curtis Wilson

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

Patra Brown

Wayne Buchman

Rachel Cannon

Jed & Sharon Castles

Brooke Coe

Sid & Tom Ellington

Dee Hodapp

Rachel & David Holt

Farooq Karim & Blossom Crews

Barrett Knudsen

Christopher Lloyd & Erik Salazar

Irina Miskovsky

Kindt Myers & Malei Yangilmau

Diana Osman

Martha Pendleton

Sam & Kylee Rainbolt

Robert & Olga Reed

Brooke & Danny Rivera

Heather & Evan Walter

HOUSE NOTES

RESTROOMS are conveniently located on all levels of the theater. Please ask your usher for guidance.

LATECOMERS and those who exit the theater during the performance may be seated during the first convenient pause, as determined by the management.

ELECTRONIC DEVICES must be turned off and put away during the performance (no calling, texting, photo or video use please).

BEVERAGES: Bottled water is permitted in the theater at the Classics Series concerts. Beverages are permitted in the theater at the Pops Series concerts; however, bringing coffee into the theater is discouraged due to the aroma.

SMOKING in the Civic Center Music Hall is prohibited. The Oklahoma City Philharmonic promotes a fragrance-free environment for the convenience of our patrons.

FIRE EXITS are located on all levels and marked accordingly. Please note the nearest exit for use in case of an emergency.

ELEVATORS are located at the south end of the atrium lobby of the Civic Center Music Hall.

CHILDREN of all ages are welcome at the Philharmonic Discovery Family Series and Holiday Pops performances; however, in consideration of the patrons, musicians and artists, those under five years of age will not be admitted to evening Classics and Pops concerts unless otherwise noted.

BOOSTER SEATS for children are available in the Civic Center lobby. Please inquire at the Box Office.

STUDENT RUSH are $11 each and available with a high school or university I.D. and email address at the Box Office, 1 hour prior to the start of each Philharmonic performance. Tickets are offered based on availability only and seats may be located throughout the theater.

VIDEO MONITORS are located in the lobby for your convenience.

WHEELCHAIR AVAILABLE SEATING – Persons using wheelchairs or with walking and climbing difficulties will be accommodated when possible. Those wishing to use the designated wheelchair sections may purchase the wheelchair space and a companion seat. Please inform the Philharmonic or Civic Center Box Office staff of your need when ordering tickets so that you may be served promptly and appropriately. Please request the assistance of hall ushers to access wheelchair seating.

HEARING LOOPS have been installed. Ask your audiologist to activate the telecoil in your hearing aid or cochlear implant. Due to the mechanics of the stage, the hearing loops do not reach the pit section but are available at the Box Office and the Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre. The copper wire in the floor and telecoil work together to connect the hearing device to the theater’s sound system using a magnetic field which dramatically improves sound clarity for patrons using hearing devices.

LOST & FOUND is located in the Civic Center office (405-594-8300) weekdays 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

PHILHARMONIC TICKET OFFICE may be contacted by calling 405-TIC-KETS (405-842-5387) or you can visit the Philharmonic Ticket Office located on the first floor of the Arts District Garage at 424 Colcord Drive in Suite B. The Philharmonic Ticket Office is open Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and by phone on concert Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

CIVIC CENTER BOX OFFICE hours are Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and two hours prior to each performance. (405-594-8300)

ARTISTS, PROGRAMMING, AND DATES SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

CONCEPTS FROM THE Maestro

This season is about humanity. The deep-seated humanity of you, me, all of us. Humanity with all its emotional expressions. In our case, the deepseated humanity of our heroes. Our geniuses. Our composers. Born with gifts. Imagining the most beautiful melodies and inspiring music. Yet fully human. With all their ups and downs.

GLORIOUS LIFE!

“Our Glorious Life concert is deeply personal. And I’m really excited for it. Birth and death are the most profound and mystical occurrences of the human life cycle. Where did we come from? Is there life before life? Is there life after death?

We turn to religion, spiritual practices, psychics, priests, gurus, doctors.

The most famous story in Western culture is that of Jesus with celebrations of Christmas and Easter, a worldwide phenomenon directly linked to birth and death. With this in mind, this particular Classics features mystical works directly connected to different moments in the transition process, from this life to another.

Christopher Theofanidis creates a magical scene depicting the Rainbow Body, the Tibetan experience of a dying enlightened master disappearing into the eternal light. Georgian composer Kancheli composed a score of the River Styx, describing the Greek myth of a river dividing this world from the Underworld. And Richard Strauss’ tone poem Death and Transfiguration leads the listener through this journey all the way to absolute peace and light. Transcending all earthly woes. ”

For a deeper understanding of concert programming, please, join Maestro Mickelthwate for his Preconcert Talk at 7pm in the auditorium. Open seating.

for Viola, Mixed Choir, and Orchestra*

Teng Li, viola Canterbury Voices

Intermission

GUEST ARTIST

TENG LI

Teng Li is a diverse and dynamic performer internationally. She is the Principal Violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic after more than a decade as Principal with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A passionate teacher, Teng Li teaches at the Music Academy of the Colburn School and continues to give masterclasses at conservatories worldwide.

Teng Li is also an active recitalist and chamber musician participating in the festivals of Marlboro, Santa Fe, Cleveland Chamber Fest, Mostly Mozart, Music from Angel Fire, Rome, Moritzburg (Germany), and the Rising Stars Festival in Caramoor. She has performed with the Guarneri Quartet in New York, at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), and with the 92nd Street “Y” Chamber Music Society. Teng was featured with the Guarneri Quartet in their last season (2009) and was also a member of the prestigious Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two program. She is a member of the Rosamunde Quartet, together with Noah BendixBalgley, Shanshan Yao and Nathan Vickery.

Teng Li has been featured as soloist with the LA Phil, Toronto Symphony, National Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Haddonfield Symphony, Shanghai Opera Orchestra, Canadian Sinfonietta, and Esprit Orchestra. Her performances have been broadcast on KUSC, CBC Radio 2, National Public Radio, WQXR (New York), WHYY (Pennsylvania), WFMT (Chicago), and Bavarian Radio (Munich).

She has won top prizes at the Johansen International Competition, the Holland-America Music Society Competition, the Primrose International Viola Competition, the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Germany. She was also a winner of the Astral Artistic Services 2003 National Auditions. Her discography includes a solo album entitled 1939 with violinist Benjamin Bowman and pianist Meng-Chieh Liu (for Azica), along with many LA Phil and Toronto Symphony credits. The Toronto Symphony’s Vaughan Williams disc featuring Teng Li performing Flos Campi (for Chandos) won the Juno award for the classical album of the year in 2019.

Teng is a graduate of the Central Conservatory in Beijing, China, and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

GUEST ARTIST

CANTERBURY VOICES

Now in its fifth decade, Canterbury Voices has grown into the premier symphony chorus of Oklahoma, bringing singers and audiences from throughout our great state to the place where music truly comes alive! Canterbury Voices was founded in May 1969 as Canterbury Choral Society, and met at All Souls Episcopal Church with 60 singers. Today, the 150-member adult chorus is the largest of its kind in Oklahoma. All singers are auditioned, most with extensive musical and stage experience, and come from all over Oklahoma. Canterbury also leads a 200-voice youth music education program named Canterbury Youth Voices for children and youth grades 2-12. Canterbury Voices collaborates with other arts organizations including the OKC Philharmonic, Oklahoma City Ballet, and Oklahoma City Jazz Orchestra, as well as many talented singers and musicians from around the United States, including Kelli O’Hara, Sarah Coburn, Gabriel Preisser, Barry Manilow, and Ron Raines; and joined with the OKC Philharmonic in June, 2022, to perform with Andrea Bocelli.

Canterbury Voices also strives to grow the catalog of new music by commissioning new choral works by composers including Stephen Paulus, Edward Knight, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, and Dominick Argento. In June, 2022, Canterbury Voices received the American Prize for Best Choral Performance, Community Division.

JULIE YU, Artistic Director

Award-winning choral conductor and educator Dr. Julie Yu is the artistic director of Canterbury Voices and director of choral activities at the Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University.

As artistic director, she conducts and guides the creative direction of Canterbury Voices’ award-winning 150-voice ensemble. At OCU, she oversees the artistic vision of OCU’s four major choirs, conducts the Chamber Choir and Ad Astra women’s chorus, and teaches courses in conducting and in the graduate choral curriculum.

She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting with specialized studies in Early Music from the University of North Texas, a Master’s degree in Choral Conducting from Oklahoma State University, and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Central Oklahoma. Her choirs have performed in Carnegie Hall, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., as well as in Austria, Czech Republic, and France. She was an ACDA International Conducting Exchange Fellow to Kenya in 2019 and has led All-State choruses from Florida to Utah to Maine.

Yu conducted the Oklahoma Arts Institute (OAI) chorus at Quartz Mountain in 2016 and 2020. She was featured conductor at Ireland’s 2019 International Dublin Choral Festival. Dr. Yu was a clinician and keynote speaker at the European Music Educators Association Conference in Naples, Italy, and also served in 2018-2020, as president of ACDA’s Southwestern Region.

PROGRAM NOTES

Rainbow Body

Christopher Theofanidis

Single Performance: 10/18/2008

Conductor: Joel Levine

Born: December 18, 1967, in Dallas, Texas

Residing: New Haven, Connecticut

Work composed: 2000, on commission from Meet the Composer for the Houston Symphony Orchestra

Work premiered: April 8, 2000, by the Houston Symphony, Robert Spano conducting

Instrumentation: Three flutes (third doubling piccolo), three oboes (third doubling English horn), three clarinets (second doubling E-flat clarinet, third doubling bass clarinet), three bassoons (third doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, suspended cymbal, chimes, large gong, claves, triangle, congas, Chinese cymbal, crash cymbals, vibraphone, bass drum, bells, harp, piano, and strings

A Texas native of Greek descent—and briefly a resident of Greece as a child—Christopher Theofanidis (pronounced thee-o-fan-EE-dis) was born into a musical lineage. His grandfather held a doctorate in music, and his father, who emigrated to America from the Greek island of Samos, was trained as a composer and conductor.

He was educated at the University of Houston, Eastman School of Music, and Yale University (D.M.A.), and became a respected teacher himself, serving formerly on the composition faculties of The Juilliard School and the Peabody Institute at the Johns Hopkins University, and since 2008 at the Yale School of Music. He is also composer-in-residence and co-director of the composition program at the Aspen Music Festival and School. His works have been recognized through numerous awards, including the Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barlow Prize, a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Columbia-Bearns Prize,

and a Fulbright Fellowship to France. He has held the position of composer-in-residence for the Pittsburgh Symphony, California Symphony, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. In 2022 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Rainbow Body, which has been performed by more than 150 orchestras worldwide, was awarded the International Masterprize in 2003. It delves into the musical connection between past and present, as it is based on a medieval chant by Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard was a Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, scientist, diplomat, and more—a regular “Renaissance man” except that she lived before the Renaissance and wasn’t a man. She composed a lengthy liturgical drama (titled Ordo virtutum; it seems to be history’s first morality play) and about 75 monophonic compositions, all of them songs suitable for liturgical purposes. Some of her pieces adhere to straightforward, syllabic text-setting, while others let loose in sweeps of ecstatic melismas comprising as many as 75 notes. In 1999, Theofanidis used the opening notes of Hildegard’s chant “O vis eternitatis” as the starting point of his Piano Quintet, and the following year he returned to her for inspiration in Rainbow Body, which is based on her response “Ave Maria, O auctrix vite” (Hail Mary, O authoress of life), a chant that appears in both of the major period sources of her music (both of which were compiled posthumously, in the second half of the 12th century).

“Ave Maria, O auctrix vite” falls toward the melismaticrhapsodic end of Hildegard’s spectrum. Following an ethereal introduction that suggests visionary ecstasy through sparkling outbursts, Theofanidis quotes her chant in long, spun-out string phrases, eventually developing a clearly plotted 13-minute movement in which the chant mingles with more essentially original thematic material (much of it stressing brass and percussion), all in a texture characterized by imaginative, reverberant orchestration. The work’s name, by the way, does not derive from Hildegard. “The title of Rainbow Body” Theofanidis has explained, “comes from the Zen Buddhist idea that when the body dies of an enlightened being, it doesn’t decay, but it gets absorbed back into the universe as energy or light.” He continued:

Rainbow Body begins in an understated, mysterious manner, calling attention to some of the key intervals and motives of the piece. When the primary melody enters for the first time about a minute into the work, I present it very directly in the strings without accompaniment. In the orchestration, I try to capture a halo around this melody, creating a wet acoustic by emphasizing the lingering reverberations one might hear in an old cathedral.

PROGRAM NOTES

Although the piece is built essentially around fragments of the melody, I also return to the tune in its entirety several times throughout the work, as a kind of plateau of stability within an otherwise turbulent environment. Rainbow Body has a very different sensibility from the Hildegard chant, with a structure that is dramatic and developmental, but I hope it conveys at least a little of my love for the beauty and grace of her work.

A Practical Musician

Asked to discuss the special characteristics of his generation of composers, Christopher Theofanidis responded:

This is something that one of my teachers, Joseph Schwantner, said: my generation is the first generation of composers that is free of the stuff we have been dealing with for the past 40 or 50 years, psychologically speaking—the issue of communication and connection with the public. Those things are maybe the biggest contribution, in a way. The performability of things, the practical nature of things, that people write for performances, they don’t write gigantic, six foot scores with 150 staves on each page, for three orchestras, and that kind of stuff. They’re writing things that are meant to be played by very standard groups, such as string quartets, and acknowledging that that’s a very rich tradition, and not turning their backs on it completely. That seems to me to be very valuable, ultimately. That these things are integrated—the idea of trying things out (the Modern) and the idea of connecting with the past seem to be much more integrated in our generation’s music because of the movement towards that. —JMK

Styx, for Viola, Mixed Choir, and Orchestra Giya Kancheli

First Performance on this Series

Born: August 10, 1935, in Tbilisi (Tiflis), Georgia

Died: October 2, 2019, in Tbilisi

Work composed: 1999, on commission from the Eduard van Beinum Foundation

Work premiered: November 7, 1999, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with Tonu Kaljuste conducting the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hilversum, Netherlands Radio Choir, and violist Yuri Bashmet

Instrumentation: Two flutes plus alto flute (doubling piccolo), three oboes (third doubling English horn), three clarinets (third doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, tam-tam, snare drum, tambourine, cymbals, cowbells, bar chimes, suspended cymbal, glockenspiel, chimes, triangle, four temple blocks, four tom-toms, piano (doubling harpsichord), mixed chorus, bass guitar, and strings

Giya Kancheli, from the nation of Georgia, was among the Eastern European composers gathered under the rubric of “The New Spirituality.” His music expresses a sense of deep spirituality through a personalized vocabulary that draws on an eclectic array of musical traditions. East and West find common ground in Kancheli’s scores, which may at moments suggest the complex traditional musics of the crossroads culture of the Caucasus and at other times draw on techniques of such Western European figures as Webern and Stravinsky.

His life reflected those dichotomies. He had already been working as a popular-music performer (a pianist with a penchant for jazz) when he decided to begin acquiring a classical-music education at the conservatory in his native Tbilisi. He enrolled as a composition student, graduated in 1963, and for most of the ’70s taught orchestration at his

PROGRAM NOTES

alma mater. In 1971, the same year he joined the Tbilisi Conservatory’s faculty, he was named music director of that city’s Rustaveli Theatre, where he remained affiliated until 1990. The premiere of his First Symphony also took place in 1971, at the XIV Party Congress in Moscow, and its success consolidated his reputation in the Eastern bloc. He enjoyed immense prestige in Georgian musical circles; he served as Secretary General of the Georgian Union of Composers and was awarded the USSR State Prize (1977) and Rustaveli State Prize of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1981), among other honors in the old Soviet Union.

When the Soviet confederacy crumbled, he moved to Western Europe, first to Berlin (1991-95), then to Antwerp, where he lived from 1995 until he returned to Tbilisi a few years before he died. The musicologist Wolfgang Sandner noted that Kancheli’s westward trajectory was not unique: “Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Alfred Schnittke, and Sofia Gubaidulina, who all lived for a time in the West or were forced to emigrate, constitute an avant-garde in two senses of the word: through the very nature of their works, and as forerunners of artists who, no longer under the control of the state, are hoping to receive the recognition they deserve.” For Kancheli, the state of self-imposed exile was flooded with melancholy. One of the first of the pieces he wrote after leaving Georgia was his viola concerto Abii ne viderem, which can be translated from the Latin as “I turned away that I might not see” (or, perhaps more literally, “I went away that I might not see”). The title is certainly mournful at heart, and the music is similarly inhabited by the implied sense of despondency enhanced by ethical distress.

Silence typically plays an important role in Kancheli’s compositions, and episodes of contrasting styles emerge from and recede to stillness in sometimes quick succession. Some of these eruptions may be startling and even violent, but the overwhelming spirit of his music nearly always remains meditative and lyrical. Forms seem to evolve organically and rhapsodically: the listener is best served by going with the flow without expecting to encounter the much-traveled structures of Western European music. “When I compose music,” he said, “I don’t focus on the everyday collisions of life. I want to see it as a bird in flight, from a height, from an angle.”

After producing seven symphonies from 1967 through 1986, he focused on smaller forms in his orchestral music. “When you are 60,” he told interviewer Rob Cowan in 1997, “you are less attracted to the huge, mounting layers of sonority that you favored in your 40s; you become

About Styx

Styx is the river of ancient Greek (and, by extension, Roman) mythology that separated the lands of the living and the dead, and also the goddess who reigned over it, the daughter of Night and Darkness. In the Aeneid, Virgil describes the River Styx as winding around Hades nine times, with the boatman Charon ferrying deceased souls across to the realm of death. In Kancheli’s Styx, the solo viola would seem to portray the river and the ferryman, the point of connection between those two states of being. “Only the viola, with the richness of its sound and versatility of expression, can bring the soul to reconciliation, peace and harmony,” explained the composer.

“The solo viola has become the center of the work, the core of its dramaturgy and thanks to [its] richness of colors and expressive intonation, it seems to reconcile the contrary extremes of my music.” The chorus sings a text, assembled by the composer, that includes references to Georgian folk songs, liturgical chants, and the names of holy sites and departed acquaintances. Although these words do not add up to semantic meaning in a traditional way, they do build a linguistic ambience that evokes memory, spirituality, and a sense of the sacred.

—JMK

interested in a different scale of sound.” He was also lauded for his more than forty film scores. During the 1990s, most of his composition focused on either of two types: devotional pieces in different genres (a cantata, a string quartet, chamber pieces for various vocal or instrumental ensembles) that he gathered under the title Life Without Christmas, or works that combined orchestra, voice(s), and a solo instrument, hybrids of cantatas and concertos: Diplipito (1997, for cello, countertenor, and orchestra), And Farewell Goes Out Sighing (also 1997, for violin, countertenor, and orchestra,) and Styx (1999, for viola, chorus, and orchestra).

PROGRAM NOTES

Festina Lente

Arvo Pärt

First Performance on this Series

Born: September 11, 1935, in Paide, Estonia

Residing: Laulasmaa, Estonia

Work composed: 1986, revised 1990

Work premiered: November 17, 1986, in Paris, by the Music Projects London orchestra, Richard Bernas conducting Instrumentation: String orchestra with optional harp

Like Giya Kancheli, Arvo Pärt staked a defining niche among composers of “The New Spirituality,” a thread of production marked by a minimalist approach to melody, harmony, and rhythm that leads to an austere, contemplative musical product. He grew up in an Estonia that was buffeted between the Soviets and the Nazis during World War II. It stood as a Soviet Socialist Republic until 1991, when the dissolution of the Eastern bloc spelled revived independence for Estonia. By that time, Pärt had left his homeland. In 1980 he and his Jewish wife were granted emigration papers to settle in Israel, but they never made it that far. Touching down at the Vienna airport, they were met by a representative of the music publisher Universal Edition (alerted to the Pärts’ journey by Alfred Schnittke, another composer who had managed to get out of the Soviet Union); he arranged for them to stay in Vienna and shortly thereafter move to Berlin, where Pärt remained until he moved back to Estonia in 2010.

He began his career unremarkably, earning his living as a recording engineer at Estonian Radio and writing utilitarian film scores. Some of his early works display a neoclassical flavor while others are more in the mode of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, or Bartók. In 1962, a year before he graduated from the Tallinn Conservatory, he earned a measure of attention when a children’s cantata he had

written was awarded the joint first prize in the All-Union Young Composers’ Competition in Moscow. In the early 1960s, he began studying serial principles and applying them to his own works. That led to official rebuke from the Soviet cultural authorities. By the mid-’60s he was immersed in the study of Bach, and soon he began producing pieces in which modernist dissonance and serialism were set in contrast with clearly defined neoBaroque tonality. This tendency reached an apex in his Credo (1968), which shocked Soviet officials less through its musical innovations than through the fact that its title and text evoked Christianity, which was officially forbidden.

Bell-like Clarity

“Tintinnabulation,” wrote Arvo Pärt in 1984, “is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers—in my life, my music, my work. ... Here, I am alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements—with one voice, with two voices. I build with the most primitive materials— with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it tintinnabulation.”

—JMK

Shortly thereafter, he turned his attention to materials of the greatest possible simplicity, such as monody (singleline music) or two-part counterpoint. He immersed himself in medieval and Renaissance chant and polyphonic music, and focused on the mystical energy born of the simultaneous sounding of notes. By 1976, he achieved the style with which he became immutably associated: a tonal technique he dubbed “tintinnabuli,” referring to bell-like resonances—sometimes involving actual bells but more commonly conveyed in his music by instrumental or choral groupings. The tintinnabulation parts—as they are called in English—articulate the three tones of a tonic triad (frequently a minor triad) while the melody part moves slowly in simple patterns that gravitate around the tonic pitch, often taking the form of scales. The particular behavior of tintinnabulation and melody parts is strictly regulated by some theoretical pattern of interaction devised by the composer for each new piece.

PROGRAM NOTES

Festina Lente—meaning “Make Haste Slowly”—was a motto reportedly favored by Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire; he employed it to urge his military leaders to proceed with caution and avoid rash decisions. It serves as a key to the musical construction of Pärt’s piece. The violins, the violas, and the cellos/double basses, operating as three sub-groups within the string orchestra, play the same melody simultaneously but at different speeds, all overlapping as a logical whole. The violins play through the melody seven times, the violas play the same notes at halfspeed, and the low strings play it half as fast as the violas. This is an ancient process found in the “mensuration canons” (a.k.a. “prolation canons”) of the late-medieval/ early-Renaissance period, as in the 15th-century Missa prolationum of Johannes Ockeghem. As the musicologist Leopold Brauneiss described it, the title “points towards the paradoxical time structure of the proportional canon: as the melody proceeds fast and slow at the same time, the fastest voice always sounds at the same time as its own stretched past.” The music is simultaneously fast and slow; it makes haste slowly.

Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24

Richard Strauss

First Performance: 4/6/1952

Conductor: Guy Fraser Harrison

Last Performance: 9/10/2016

Conductor: Joel Levine

Richard Georg Strauss

Born: June 11, 1864, in Munich, Bavaria (Germany)

Died: September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Work composed: 1888 though November 18, 1889

Work premiered: June 21, 1890, at the Eisenach Stadttheater in Germany, with the composer conducting

Instrumentation: Three flutes, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, tam-tam, two harps, and strings

The idea of the symphonic poem may trace its ancestry to the dramatic or depictive overtures of the early 19th century, such as Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave Overture or Berlioz’s Waverley Overture, but it was left for Franz Liszt to mold it into a clearly defined genre. This he did through a series of dozen single-movement orchestral pieces composed in the 1840s and ’50s that drew inspiration from, or were in some way linked to, literary sources. The idea proved popular in Germany and elsewhere. One figure who jumped on the bandwagon was Alexander Ritter, a violinist and composer who fell in with the Liszt and Wagner circle, married a niece of Wagner’s, composed six symphonic poems of his own, and eventually acceded to the position of associate concertmaster of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, which was conducted by the eminent Hans von Bülow. In Meiningen he grew friendly with the young Richard Strauss, who von Bülow had brought in as an assistant music director in 1885. Strauss would later say that it was Ritter who revealed to him the greatness of the music of Wagner, Liszt, and Berlioz and, by extension, opened his eyes to the possibilities of the symphonic poem. In 1886, Strauss produced what might be considered his first symphonic poem, Aus Italien (it is more precisely a descriptive symphony), and he continued through the series of works that many feel represent the genre at its height, including Don Juan, Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks), Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), and Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life).

Death and Transfiguration deals with serious, metaphysical matters. As Strauss explained some years after the fact, he had set out “to represent the death of a person who had striven for the highest and most ideal goals, possibly an artist.” This was already an “evolved” choice for the basis of a symphonic poem, since the genre was understood to be a musical interpretation of a pre-existent literary work or perhaps a painting. In this case, Strauss simply worked from a general idea. Nonetheless, after he had composed the piece, an appropriate poem was supplied retroactively by Ritter. It was printed in the program for the premiere and then expanded for the published score. Ritter was apparently a better musician than poet, and in its ultimate version his long-winded text overstays its welcome.

The progress of the action is quite clear for those who care to approach the work that way. In 1895,

PROGRAM NOTES

Strauss acquiesced to a friend’s request to provide an explanation of the piece’s action:

The sick man lies in a bed asleep, breathing heavily and irregularly; agreeable dreams charm a smile onto his features in spite of his suffering; his sleep becomes lighter; he wakens; once again he is racked by terrible pain, his limbs shake with fever—as the attack draws to a close and the pain resumes, the fruit of his path through life appears to him, the idea, the Ideal which he has tried to realize, to represent in his art, but which he has been unable to perfect because it was not for any human being to perfect it. The hour of death approaches, the soul leaves the body, in order to find perfected in the most glorious form in the eternal cosmos that which he could not fulfill here on earth.

Strauss quoted from Death and Transfiguration in several of his later works, most magically in the song “Im Abendrot” (1946-48) from the Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs), where the horn sounds the tone poem’s “Artistic Ideal” motif at the point when the singer wonders “Can this perhaps be death?” The composer felt that his musical theme held up well for the purpose, though he had composed it nearly six decades earlier. He confirmed his accuracy in the summer of 1949, when, on his deathbed, he declared to his daughter-in- law, “It’s a funny thing to say, but this business of dying, it’s just the way I composed it in Death and Transfiguration.”

The Plot of Death and Transfiguration

The episodes Richard Strauss described in his précis of Death and Transfiguration are divided into four broad sections: the sick man and his dreams (Largo); the man’s struggle with death (Allegro molto agitato); the man seeing his life pass before him and giving himself over to death (Meno mosso, ma sempre alla breve); and the man’s redemption and transfiguration (Moderato). The tableaux are depicted with considerable subtlety. In the opening sections, for example, irregular breathing is represented by gentle syncopations and pain through an agitated orchestral outburst. The famous “Artistic Ideal” theme certainly possesses great nobility, and its octave leap is a Straussian fingerprint already at this early point in his career. But it is not necessary to follow the “plot” of Death and Transfiguration obsessively—or at all—in order to appreciate the piece. It would stand on its own perfectly well as a work of nonprogrammatic music; Strauss himself stated at one point that the real reason he composed Death and Transfiguration was a “musical need ... to write a piece that begins in C minor and ends in C major”—which is precisely what he did.

—JMK

JAMES M. KELLER

James M. Keller is the longtime Program Annotator of the San Francisco Symphony and was formerly Program Annotator of the New York Philharmonic and a staff writer-editor at The New Yorker. The author of Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press), he is writing a sequel volume about piano music.

GEORGIAN AND ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS

GLORIOUS LIFE!

Giya Kancheli’s Styx is a unique and evocative composition that combines elements of various languages, creating a tapestry of sound and emotion. While there is not a readily available English translation, we have compiled a version taken from a Vocal glossary. The bold text is the original text and the italicized text is the translation.

Galoba angelozebis, galoba

Angelic hymn, Hymn (Song of Angels)

Velebi da bibini

Valleys and the rustling (of the grass)

Vaios veli, Vaios suli

Valley of Vaio, The soul of Vaio Da galoba, suli

Hymn, Soul

Dideba upalsa, ugalobet Mariams, Mariam

Glory to the Supreme God, Sing a hymn to Mary

Didebuli suli, Alaverdi, Sioni, Ateni

Sublime soul, Alaverdi, Sioni, Ateni

Betania, Gremi

Betania, Gremi

Kari cris, sada har mimaluli, lelianshi

The wind is raging, where are you hiding?

Lelianshi Dakarguli

Lost in the thicket

Galobid davlie suli

The soul is exhausted by praying

Deda, mama, tsoli, shvili, shvilishvili, dideda

Mama, papa, wife, child, grandson, grandmother

Kera budea

My hearth is my nest

Tu danama

If it bedewed

Oboli doli, oboli suli

Lonesome tambourine, lonesome soul

Bindia, tendeba, gatenda, sinatle, Sioni

Twilight, the day is dawning, the day has dawned, light, Sioni

Tu aisi

If dawn

Galoba upalsa, Alleluia

Hymn to the Supreme God

Tu daria

Or fair weather

Schnittke, Alfred Schnittke

Schnittke, Alfred Schnittke (late Russian Composer)

Dio odio lileo-lile

Dio odio lileo-lile

Sheminde upalo

Lord, forgive my sins

Shemindet Givi, Tito, Ira, Rezo

Forgive, Givi, Tito, Ira, Rezo

Gogi, Vazha, Sulkhani, Muriko

Gogi, Vazha, Sulkhani, Muriko

Dareka zarma, Temiko, Temo, sheminde

A bell resounds, Temiko, Temo, Lord

Temo

Temo

Givi, Tito, Ira, Rezo, Temo

Givi, Tito, Ira, Rezo, Temo

Tu daria tu tu tu

If fair weather

Odio odoia naduri nana odoia naduri

Odio odoia naduri nana odoia naduri

Odio odoia!

odio odoia!

Odio naduri zari nana

Odio naduri zari nana

Chu chu...

Daria tu avdaria

Fair weather or bad weather

Kriala tsa, shoria gza, bibini, shori

Clear sky, distant way, swaying, distant

Karia, bibini, suli, bibini, veli

Wind, swaying, soul, swaying, field

Eria, eri

Such is the people

Suli nateli, Avet, Alfred

Soul ..., Avet, Alfred Dideba upalsa, ugalobet Mariams

Glory to the Supreme God, sing a hymn to Mary Uplis gamchens

the Mother of God

Dauntet santeli suli nateli

Light a candle, bright soul

Amen, Alleluia

Amen, Alleluia

Time! merciless time!

Time! merciful time!

Gone with the time!

Time, merciful time!

Time! merciless time!

Gone with the time!

Time that tries all

CIRQUE MUSICA: HEROES & VILLIANS

JAYCE OGREN, CONDUCTOR

VOLUNTEER APPRECIATION NIGHT

THIS CONCERT IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY:

PROGRAM

CIRQUE MUSICA; HEROES & VILLIANS

Strauss ........................................................... Also Sprach Zarathustra: Opening

Williams ......................................................... Superman March

Elfman/Wasson ........................................... Spider-Man

Zimmer/Ford ................................................. Theme to Dark Knight

Silvestri/Moore ............................................ Music from the Avengers

Silvestri/Brown ........................................... Captain America March

Beck/Brown .................................................. Theme from Ant-Man

Williams/Brubaker ..................................... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Concert Suite)

Zimmer/Lopez ............................................. Dark Knight Concert Suite

Williams ......................................................... Devil’s Dance from Witches of Eastwick

Rimsky-Korsakov ........................................ Scheherazade Movement 4

Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov ............... Night on Bald Mountain

Williams ......................................................... Star Wars Main Title

Williams ......................................................... Star Wars Imperial March

Williams ......................................................... Phantom Menace Duel of the Fates

Saint-Saens ................................................... Danse Macabre

Holst ................................................................. Planets: Jupiter

Holst ................................................................. Planets: Mars

Williams ......................................................... Star Wars Throne Room (Excerpt)

GUEST CONDUCTOR

CIRQUE MUSICA: HEROES & VILLIANS

JAYCE OGREN

Jayce Ogren has established himself as one of the most innovative and versatile conductors of his generation. From symphonic concerts to revolutionary community service programs to operatic world premieres, Mr. Ogren is a leader in breaking down barriers between audiences and great music.

Mr. Ogren began his career as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Youth Orchestra, a concurrent appointment he held from 2006-2009. In the years since, he has conducted many of the world’s most prominent orchestras, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, the Dallas and San Francisco Symphonies, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, in programs ranging from Mozart to Beethoven through Sibelius and Bernstein, to presenting U.S. and world premieres of works by Steve Mackey and Nico Muhly.

Among the numerous progressive projects Mr. Ogren has conducted are the New York premieres of Leonard Bernstein’s only opera, A Quiet Place, and puppeteer Basil Twist’s The Rite of Spring, both at Lincoln Center; the world premiere of David Lang’s symphony for a broken orchestra, bringing together 400 student, amateur and professional musicians in Philadelphia; and the world premiere of Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

A longtime collaborator of singer/songwriter/composer Rufus Wainwright, Mr. Ogren conducted the 2012 U.S. premiere of his opera Prima Donna at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and led its recording with the BBC Symphony on Deutsche Grammaphon in 2016. Mr. Ogren and Mr. Wainwright have since appeared together throughout the world, with ensembles such as the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France in Paris and the Toronto Symphony.

A devoted educator, Mr. Ogren was invited by renowned poet Paul Muldoon to create an interdisciplinary studio class at Princeton University for the 2017-2018 academic year. He has worked with students at the Brevard Music Center, the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Music Academy of the West and Verbier Festival. In 2016, he presented a unique workshop in orchestral rehearsal techniques for music teachers at Carnegie Hall in collaboration with the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute and the Juilliard School Pre-College. For his own part, Mr. Ogren earned his Masters in conducting at the New England Conservatory and studied as a Fulbright Scholar with Jorma Panula. In March 2022 the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance announced Jayce Ogren would join the faculty as Associate Director of Orchestras in fall 2022.

A native of Hoquiam, Washington, Jayce Ogren lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife Carly, an architect, and their son, Alistair. An avid athlete, he has run the Big Sur, Boston and New York City marathons, the JFK 50 Miler trail run, and the Ironman Lake Placid triathlon. As an individual member of 1% for the Planet, Mr. Ogren is proud to connect his artistic work with his deep love of nature and concern for the environment.

CONCEPTS FROM THE Maestro

This season is about humanity. The deep-seated humanity of you, me, all of us. Humanity with all its emotional expressions. In our case, the deepseated humanity of our heroes. Our geniuses. Our composers. Born with gifts. Imagining the most beautiful melodies and inspiring music. Yet fully human. With all their ups and downs.

PINES OF ROME

“Our Pines of Rome concert will be really exciting. Music of pulsating living nature vs the miracles of human engineering. Do you remember feeling utterly peaceful standing in the middle of a thick green forest? Brimming with life. Or the sense of majestic flow sitting at the banks of a broad river?

Richard Wagner was deeply connected to the German landscape. His ‘Forest Murmurs’ describe a forest not only full of life but trenched in history.

Then we switch to the percussion concerto by American composer David Lang. ‘Man Made’ is a total joyful piece marrying the traditional orchestra with ideas from the Blue Man Group.

The second half will start with Smetana’s The Moldau. I love the music of Icelandic composer Johann Johansson. His ‘IBM 1401 Processing Unit’ is slow emotional minimalism.

Lastly, Italian composer Respighi’s most famous work, the Pines of Rome. Like Wagner’s Forest Murmurs, it’s about nature, and the history associated with it. Far gone memories of a time l ong past. Yet, a lingering presence through the famous pine trees of Rome. The last movement, wow.”

For a deeper understanding of concert programming, please, join Maestro Mickelthwate for his Preconcert Talk at 7pm in the auditorium. Open seating.

PINES OF ROME

CLASSICS

SÖ PERCUSSION

BOULANGER .............. D’un matin du printemps (Of a Spring Morning)*

WAGNER ...................... “Forest Murmurs,” from Siegfried LANG ............................ man made* Sö Percussion Intermission

SMETANA .................... The Moldau

JÓHANNSSON. ........... IBM 1401 Processing Unit*

RESPIGHI. ................... Pines of Rome

The Pines of Villa Borghese

The Pines near a Catacomb

The Pines of the Janiculum

The Pines of the Appian Way

*First performance on this series

THIS CONCERT IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY:

ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE, CONDUCTOR

GUEST ARTIST

S Ō PERCUSSION IS: Eric Cha-Beach,

Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason

Treuting

For twenty years and counting, Sō Percussion has redefined chamber music for the 21st century through an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker). They are celebrated by audiences and presenters for a dazzling range of work: for live performances in which “telepathic powers of communication” (The New York Times) bring to life the vibrant percussion repertoire; for an extravagant array of collaborations in classical music, pop, indie rock, contemporary dance, and theater; and for their work in education and community, creating opportunities and platforms for music and artists that explore the immense possibility of art in our time.

Their commitment to the creation and amplification of new work, and their extraordinary powers of perception and communication have made them a trusted partner for composers, allowing the writing of music that expands the style and capacity of brilliant voices of our time. Sō’s collaborative composition partners include Caroline Shaw, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Nathalie Joachim, Dan Trueman, Kendall K. Williams, Angélica Negrón, Shodekeh Talifero, Claire Rousay, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Bora Yoon, Olivier Tarpaga, Bobby Previte, Matmos, and many others.

In 23/24, Sō returns to Carnegie Hall for its biennial Zankel show, offering world premieres by composers Vijay Iyer, Angélica Negrón, and Olivier Tarpaga, as well as a sprawling performance of the latest flexible work by Sō’s Jason Treuting, Go Placidly with Haste. Other dates this season include Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa, Oklahoma City Philharmonic (for David Lang’s man made, written for Sō, and featured in their latest recording with the Cincinnati Symphony and Louis Langrée); concerts with composer/performer Shodekeh Talifero at the Library of Congress; in Berlin with Caroline Shaw; performances in Burkina Faso with Olivier Tarpaga; and more.

Recent highlights have included performances at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Big Ears, Cal Performances, at the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, at the Barbican in London, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Penn Live Arts in Philadelphia, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Their Nonesuch recording, Narrow Sea, with Caroline Shaw, Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish, won the 2022 Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Other recent albums include the co-composed cycle with Caroline Shaw, Let the Soil Play its Simple Part; A Record Of... on Brassland Music with Buke and Gase, and – on new imprint Sō Percussion Editions – an acclaimed version of Julius Eastman’s Stay On It, plus Darian Donovan Thomas’s Individuate. This adds to a catalog of more than twenty-five albums featuring landmark recordings of works by David Lang, Steve Reich, Steven Mackey, and many more.

In Fall 2023, Sō Percussion began its tenth year as the Edward T. Cone performers-in-residence at Princeton University. Rooted in the belief that music is an elemental form of human communication, and galvanized by forces for social change, Sō enthusiastically pursues a range of social and community outreach through their nonprofit umbrella, including partnerships with local ensembles including Pan in Motion and Castle of Our Skins; their Sō Laboratories concert series; a studio residency program in Brooklyn; and the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for percussionists and composers.

Sō Percussion uses Vic Firth sticks, Zildjian cymbals, Remo drumheads, Estey Organs, and Pearl/Adams instruments. Sō Percussion would like to thank these companies for their generous support and donations.

PROGRAM NOTES

PINES OF ROME

D’un matin du printemps (Of a Spring Morning)

Lili Boulanger

First Performance on this Series

Born: August 21, 1893, in Paris, France

Died: March 15, 1918, in Mézy-sur-Seine, northwest of Paris

Work composed: 1918, expanded from an earlier chamber work

Work premiered: March 13, 1921, at the Paris Conservatoire, with the orchestra of the Concerts Pasdeloup, Rhené-Baton conducting Instrumentation: Two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, sarrusophone (a metal reed instrument, its part optionally played by contrabassoon, as it is here CK), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, triangle, suspended cymbal, small snare drum (alternatively castanets), harp, celesta, and strings

Lili Boulanger died in 1918 at the age of 24, well on her way to becoming one of the notable French composers of the 20th century. To musicians, the surname Boulanger most immediately evokes Nadia Boulanger, the eminent organist, conductor, and teacher who instructed a Who’s Who of 20th-century composers, most prominently American ones like Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Elliott Carter. Nadia was Lili’s sister, older by six years. They grew up in a musical family; their elderly father, the composer Ernest Boulanger, had won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1835, and their mother, Raïssa Mischetzky, was a contralto who had been his pupil. Both parents being active musicians, they were in a position to recognize Lili’s musical proclivities, which became evident when she was two. (It was their friend Gabriel Fauré who first noticed that Lili had perfect pitch.) But at about that time she was struck with bronchial pneumonia, which had lasting effects on her constitution. Always frail, she rarely enjoyed good health. Her most serious medical issue was diagnosed as intestinal

tuberculosis, a chronic condition that ultimately led to her early death.

Physically unable to pursue the full curriculum of one of the leading French conservatories, she mostly relied on private instruction. In 1913 she won the prestigious Prix de Rome, the first woman ever to receive the top prize, an achievement that earned headlines in the international press. Her prize-winner’s residency in Rome was cut short by the outbreak of World War I; and when she returned to complete her term after the War, her stay was curtailed by collapsing health. Back in Paris, she was running out of time. In 1918, she completed a pair of related works, D’un soir triste (Of a Sad Evening) and D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning). As her strength ebbed away, her sister Nadia helped write down her music. By the time she created the motet Pie Jesu Domine (for voice, string quartet, harp, and organ)—her last composition and probably the most frequently performed of her works today—she was totally dependent on dictating her notes to Nadia.

She began work on D’un matin de printemps in the spring of 1917 as a piece for violin and piano (or optionally flute and piano), then made another setting for piano trio, and finally created the version for orchestra performed here. The various versions do not align exactly. Lili did not intend for any of these settings to supersede the others; instead, she viewed them as parallel, slightly different takes on the same basic conception. All of the surviving manuscripts are in the hand of Nadia, who effected some refinements particularly on the orchestral version, which seems to have been completed in January 1918.

This does not sound at all like a deathbed piece. It is a work of vibrant energy and surpassing delicacy, strikingly in the mode of the French “Impressionist” composers—or, at places, of Spanish composers (like Falla) who were similarly inspired by them. Boulanger makes colorful use of her wind sections, typically a strength of French composers. It captures the listener from the outset, where the good-spirited principal theme is introduced by solo flute playing in its low register against whispering strings and shimmering touches of triangle and celesta. The theme is passed around from instrument to instrument, as is the accompanying figure, and the music soon sinks to the orchestra’s lower reaches, losing its propulsive energy and taking on a gauzy quality, almost as if it were underwater. From there, the music again rises through a crescendo for the full orchestra. Suddenly the texture thins to chamber-like combinations—a passage not unreminiscent of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, a work with which Nadia was familiar, and probably Lili along with

PROGRAM NOTES

PINES OF ROME

her. The work’s ending is stunning: a buildup of volume and energy, a precipitously descending harp glissando, and a final pop from the orchestra.

One Piece, Many Guises

Lili Boulanger produced several different versions of D’un matin de printemps, in 1917-18, each for different forces. The setting for piano trio was the first to be heard, on February 8, 1919, and it was followed, six weeks later, by the version for violin and piano. The orchestral setting was unveiled March 13, 1921, and the version for flute and piano was heard on June 19, 1921, with flutist Philippe Gaubert accompanied by Nadia Boulanger; Gaubert was at that time the flute professor at the Paris Conservatoire, principal conductor of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, and principal conductor of the Paris Opéra. That all four composer-sanctioned versions were performed by major figures of Parisian musical life in the years immediately following her death testifies to the esteem in which she was held in French musical circles. —JMK

“Forest Murmurs,” from Siegfried Richard Wagner

Single Performance: 2/3/1946

Conductor: Victor Alessandro

Born: May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Saxony (Germany)

Died: February 13, 1883, in Venice, Italy

Work composed: 1857

Work premiered: August 16, 1876, at the Bayreuth Festival, with Hans Richter conducting

Instrumentation: Flute and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, and strings

Richard Wagner’s operatic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is a complicated web spun out of Germanic-Nordic mythology and unified by the composer’s overarching musical conception and his detailed interweaving of melodic motifs. It comprises the four operas Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung—or, as Wagner liked to think of it, three operas with Das Rheingold serving as a prologue. The tetralogy occupied him for 26 years, from 1848, when he made the first prose sketch for the libretto, until 1874, when he placed final details in the score of Götterdämmerung. The four operas together include some 15 hours of music, making the Ring the most imposing single work in the canon of classical music of the Western world.

One way to get a grip on Wagner’s cycle is to follow the magical ring of the title as it moves through telescoping generations, through landscapes subterranean and terrestrial, through a universe of gods and mortals and creatures, through what Sir Arthur Sullivan (of operetta fame) described as an array of “thieves, liars, and blackguards.” Everybody thinks they want the ring, but when they get it, it leads to no good. As we learn in the opening opera, Das Rheingold, it was originally forged by a dwarf of the Nibelung race out of gold he stole from the Rhine Maidens, denizens of Germany’s aquatic aorta. Some distance into the cycle, in Die Walküre (the second opera), we meet Brünnhilde, a Valkyrie (a warrior maiden) whose father is Wotan, the chief god. She has gotten mixed up with a brother-sister incestuous couple (Siegmund and Sieglinde) and tries to rescue the male of the pair, defying her father’s orders. Wotan punishes her by plunging her into a profound sleep and surrounding her with a circle of fire, where she is condemned to remain until she is saved by the bravest of all heroes. Fortunately, she had already managed to shepherd to safety the pregnant Sieglinde, who dies giving birth.

The third opera, Siegfried, is named for that offspring of incest. He learns about his origins and, fulfilling a prophecy, he repairs a magical sword that has come down as his inheritance. He uses it to slay Fafner, a giant who has transformed himself into a dragon and who currently holds the ring, which accordingly passes to Siegfried. A bird leads him to the peak where Brünnhilde has lain sleeping now for many years, surrounded by fire, and he awakens her with a kiss. They fall in love.

PROGRAM NOTES

PINES OF ROME

Happiness ensues for a while, but things take a bad turn in the cycle’s fourth and final installment, Götterdämmerung. Brünnhilde now holds the ring, and Siegfried, under the influence of an evil spell, wrests it from her. Not realizing that he has been temporarily deprived of power over his actions, she plots with confederates to murder him. Too late realizing her error, she builds a funeral pyre for him and, carrying the ring, rides into it on her horse. Valhalla (the fortress-city of the gods) is in shambles and the race of the gods with it. The Rhine overflows its banks and the ensuing flood drags everything underwater, including the golden ring whose fateful trajectory—itself a full-circle “ring” leading back to the Rhine Maidens—has proved to be such a curse. Please understand that this plot summary leaves out almost everything.

So, back to the opera Siegfried. “Forest Murmurs,” from its second act, is heard while Siegfried waits on a grassy knoll in the woods for the dragon Fafner to emerge from his lair. Murmuring strings suggest a breeze in the leaves, and a succession of birdsongs (flute, oboe, clarinet) illustrate the bucolic surroundings. The Ring cycle is shot through with leitmotifs, brief musical themes associated with specific characters or ideas, and here a number of them interweave to convey what is going through Siegfried’s mind—thoughts of the parents he never knew (Siegmund and Sieglinde) and the love they shared, the hovering presence of Freia, the goddess of youth and love. As the movement unrolls it grows into a full-bodied depiction of the forest, an idyllic descriptive tone poem within an opera.

man made David Lang

First Performance on this Series

Born: January 8, 1957, in Los Angeles, California

Residing: New York City

Work composed: 2013, rev. 2017

Work commissioned for Sō Percussion by the Barbican Centre and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Work premiered: May 10, 2013, at Barbican Hall, London, with the BBC Symphony and Sō Percussion

Instrumentation: Two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, orchestral percussion (marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone, tubular bell, bass drum, tam-tam, woodblocks, crotales), harp, piano, and strings, in addition to an array of percussion instruments played by the solo quartet

David Lang does not like to repeat himself. He can seem a strikingly different composer from one work to the next, and the unifying feature of his oeuvre, which encompasses about two hundred works, appears to be his insatiable and circuitous curiosity. He has written for a broad spectrum of media—works for single instruments, chamber pieces for often unconventional combinations, works of opera or more broadly defined musical theatre, and compositions for dance, for film, for band, for chorus, and for orchestra. He does not shy away from daunting aspirations. In 2015, he wrote questionnaire to honor the 120th anniversary of New York’s Third Street Music School Settlement and scored it accordingly for 120 guitars. New Yorkers flooded the outdoor areas of Lincoln Center in 2016 to catch the public domain, his piece for a thousand performers divided into five sub-choirs. For the mile-long opera, a thousand singers were arrayed along the length of the High Line, an elevated park in New York, singing individual texts derived from first-hand interviews—all set to music by Lang.

A recurrent theme within his output is his personal confrontation with towering masterpieces of the classical canon and how those compositions spur him to create new works in the rays of illumination or shadows of perplexity they cast. This includes what has become his most famous composition, the little match girl passion, which earned him the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music. It retells a tale by Hans Christian Andersen using the general form, dramatic methods, and emotional magnetism of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. His love fail (2012) takes on the myth of Tristan and Isolde as filtered through ancient and modern narratives, incorporating a nod to Wagner’s opera. In death speaks (2012) he confronts Schubert songs on the theme of mortality, drawing inspiration from Schubert’s musical-dramatic architecture and even quoting from 32 such songs; and his opera prisoner of the state is a reinterpretation of the tale Beethoven set in Fidelio.

One of the most widely performed of American composers, Lang is a co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s influential music collective Bang on a Can. Since 2008

PROGRAM NOTES

PINES OF ROME

he has served as professor of composition at Yale School of Music. He was honored as Musical America’s 2013 Composer of the Year and was given the 2016 Audiences and Engagement Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society for his memorial ground, a piece for massed singers and soloists that he created to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

He provided this comment about his percussion concerto man made:

“I have worked with Sō Percussion for a very long time now and I know them really well. When I got the opportunity to write a concerto for them, I wanted to make it specifically for them, for the things that they have been concentrating on for the past few years. They are frequently theatrical, they invite found objects into their performances, they build their own instruments, etc. I wondered if I could make the unusualness of their musicality the centerpiece of this concerto, but how could an orchestra of “normal” instruments doing mostly “normal” things find common ground with them? My solution was to set up a kind of ecology between the soloists and the orchestra, using the orchestral percussionists as “translators.” An idea begins with the soloists on an invented instrument, the percussionists in the orchestra hear the solo music and translate it into something that can be approximated by more traditional orchestral percussion, the rest of the orchestra hears and understands the orchestral percussion, and they join in. The opening, for example begins with the soloists snapping twigs, which the orchestral percussionists translate into woodblocks,

About those titles

Aficionados of capital letters will not find fulfillment in David Lang’s titles, which eschew them. In an interview with Michael Cooper in the New York Times, Lang ruminated on how lowercase titles may maintain an aura of mystery that differs from the certainty projected by capital letters. Particularly in works overtly descended from classical masterworks, lower-case titles might project a demeanor of humility—or, as he put it, “It feels like I’m not trying to say, ‘Well, Beethoven did this, and now it’s my turn to do that.’”

—JMK

marimba, and xylophone, which the orchestra takes up and embellishes, eventually overwhelming the soloists. This process of finding something intricate and unique, decoding it, regularizing it, and mass producing it reminded me of how a lot of ideas in our world get invented, built, and overwhelmed, so I decided to call it man made.”

The Moldau Bedřich Smetana

First Performance: 1/14/1947

Conductor: Victor Alessandro

Last Performance: 10/19/2013

Conductor: Joel Levine

Born: May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Saxony (Germany)

SMETANA

Born: March 2, 1824, in Litomyšl, Bohemia (now Czechia)

Died: May 12, 1884, in Prague, Bohemia (now Czechia)

Work composed: November 20 to December 8, 1874

Work dedicated: To the City of Prague

Work premiered: April 4, 1875, in Prague, with Adolf Čech conducting the Orchestra of the Prague Provisional Theatre

Instrumentation: Two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, harp (or piano), and strings

We remember Bedřich Smetana as one of the great figures of Czech nationalism, the composer of numerous operas (of which The Bartered Bride surfaces most regularly) and, most famously, of the group of six symphonic poems known as Má Vlast (My Fatherland) and especially the second item in that set, Vltava (The Moldau), which has achieved the status of unofficial musical ambassador from the Czech Lands.

Smetana was the son of a relatively prosperous brewer who loved music but discouraged his son from pursuing

PROGRAM NOTES

it as a profession. He was a prodigy, turning heads as a promising pianist by the time he was six and confounding his early teachers by always seeming to be a step or two ahead of them. He managed to get himself transferred briefly to a high school in Prague, where he immersed himself in as much music as he could, composed a string quartet for friends to play, and marveled at a piano recital Liszt performed when passing through on an 1840 tour.

By the time he graduated from the school in the far less interesting town of Plzeň, Smetana had achieved considerable musical prowess; but he also knew that his native musical talent left technical gaps that only rigorous training could fill. He therefore returned to Prague, entered into a three-year appointment as live-in piano teacher for a wealthy family, and used his earnings to finance further study of harmony, counterpoint, and composition. By 1851, thanks to a kind word from Liszt, Smetana could take pride in seeing one of his compositions accepted by a publisher. Finally he had hope of being a professional composer. But times were difficult in Bohemia. Civil war had broken out in many areas of the Habsburg Empire, including Bohemia, and Smetana found himself stirred to political activism. The installation of a repressive regime surely played a part in his decision to leave Bohemia in 1856 to seek opportunities in Sweden. He remained there five years but success eluded him. When he returned to Prague, in 1862, he set about promoting his work in a more consistent way, and within a few years he occupied a place of prominence in the Czech musical world, as a conductor, a critic, and, increasingly, a composer. In 1866 he was named principal conductor of the Provisional Theatre, where he would build an orchestra that included among its ranks the violist— and fledgling composer—Antonín Dvořák. His life was not happy in all respects. His first wife died young, and he lost three of his four daughters in childhood. In June 1874 he began losing his hearing, and within a few months he became substantially deaf. Although this forced him to withdraw from conducting, he appreciated the silence it afforded him and he immediately plunged into composing the first two movements of Má vlast. The other four would follow in the next five years.

The Moldau follows the general idea of the symphonic poem as set forth by Liszt in the 1850s, which is to say that it is a self-contained orchestral composition that explicitly depicts a literary description or a clearly delineated scene. Here his subject is the Moldau, the river that flows north through Prague on its way to join the Elbe, which in turn leads its waters to the North Sea. In Smetana’s score we witness the incipient gurgling of the streams from which it emerges and then travel with it through a variety of

Czech landscapes until it becomes an impressive river as it passes through Prague, with the Vyšehrad castle towering on a promontory alongside. The Vyšehrad had itself been the subject of the opening symphonic poem in Má vlast, and a theme from that work recurs in The Moldau (and also in the final piece, Blanik), helping instill a sense of unity in the cycle. Early on it seemed as if Vyšehrad was destined to be the most famous movement from Má vlast, but in the end it was The Moldau that most enduringly captured hearts and ears in the Czech Lands and beyond.

IBM 1401 Processing Unit Jóhann Jóhannsson

First Performance on this Series

Born: September 19, 1969, in Reykjavík, Iceland

Died: February 9, 2018, in Berlin, Germany

Work composed: 2006

Work premiered: As a CD on the 4AD label, released on October 30, 2006, with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Mario Klemens conducting, plus recorded sounds

Instrumentation: Strings and a laptop

If Finland was the international overachiever of contemporary music beginning in the 1980s, its most distant Nordic neighbor, Iceland, joined it in prominence perhaps a decade ago. Despite their relatively remote locations and modest populations, both nations are supplying the world with an outsized quantity of high-level composers and performers. Iceland takes its culture seriously, and that extends to educational opportunities. About eighty music schools exist in this country of 373,000 citizens, most of them funded jointly by municipalities and direct tuition fees, and this ensures that Icelandic students have access to music education beginning at the age of 6. In the realm of innovative popular music, the country has

PROGRAM NOTES

gained note for such rock groups as The Sugarcubes (after it disbanded, its star singer, Björk, went on to stardom) and Sigur Rós.

Jóhann Jóhannsson took more-or-less obligatory childhood music lessons, on piano and trombone, but he did not envision that music might be his profession. While studying languages and literature at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík, he began performing with the alternative-rock band Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, and soon he began producing albums for other indie bands. He helped found the arts alliance Kitchen Motors, which encouraged the cross-fertilization of musicians from such disparate persuasions as classical, jazz, punk, metal, and electronic music. In 2002, he produced Englabörn, the first solo album featuring himself, presenting music he had written for a theatrical production. By 2006, he had reached his fourth album, IBM 1401, A User’s Manual, which gained widespread attention.

By that time, Johánnsson was gaining note as a film composer. He would write 27 film scores before his untimely death at the age of 48, apparently from the lethal interaction of cocaine with a flu medication. His most famous film collaborations include three made with director Denis Villeneuve—Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015; it received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score), and Arrival (2016). (He also created a score for Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, but he withdrew when the musical concept moved in a direction that did not interest him.) His music for James Walsh’s The Theory of Everything (a biopic about physicist Stephen Hawking) won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score in 2015. He had been contracted to compose music for the Disney film Christopher Robin but had not begun it when he died. He also directed a science fiction film, Last and First Men, for which he also wrote music, working with the sound artist Yair Elazar Glotman. It was warmly received when released in Berlin two years posthumously.

IBM 1401, A User’s Manual was inspired by work done decades earlier by his father, Jóhann Gunnarsson, a computer maintenance engineer for IBM who, when not occupied with more pressing matters, harnessed sounds of his computer to create melodies. The machine in question was the 1401 Data Processing System, a business computer that arrived in Iceland in 1964. Jóhann (the father) figured out how to capture on reel-to-reel tape the sounds made by the computer’s electromagnetic emissions directed through a radio receiver. When the computer was retired from service, in 1971, he devised a farewell ceremony in which he played some of the music he had composed through this process. Decades later,

Jóhann (the son) ran across the tapes and used them as the point of departure for his grander composition which ultimately would include the symphonic component as well as spoken-words segments—for example, from an audio version of the machine’s instructional manual.

The piece began as an accompaniment (for string quartet, with electronics) to a dance piece by his friend and sometime collaborator Erna Ómarsdóttir. It evolved considerably from there into its final form in 2006: an hourlong album in which the recorded sounds were enmeshed with an orchestra, culminating in a newly composed final movement that presented a poem by Dorothy Parker. The entire piece consists of five movements, of which the first, IBM 1401 Processing Unit, is performed here, an eight-anda-half-minute meditation that grows out of, and finally returns to, a loop of five notes that now seem to be the sounds of computer antiquity.

Pines of Rome

Ottorino Respighi

First Performance: 3/8/1949

Conductor: Victor Alessandro

Last Performance: 5/2/2015

Conductor: Joel Levine

Born: July 9, 1879, in Bologna, Italy

Died: April 18, 1936, in Rome, Italy

Work composed: 1923-24

RESPIGHI

Work premiered: December 14, 1924, with Bernardino Molinari conducting the Augusteo Orchestra in Rome

Instrumentation: Three flutes (third doubling piccolo), two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, 3 trumpets, two trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, cymbals, small cymbal, triangle, tambourine, ratchet, bass drum, tam-tam, bells, harp, celesta, recorded birdsong (a nightingale), piano, organ, and strings, plus 50

PROGRAM NOTES

PINES OF ROME

offstage trumpet and six buccine, loud instruments of ancient Rome, which in this performance they are replaced by four trumpets and two trombones.

Following music study in his native Bologna, Ottorino Respighi started his career in earnest as an orchestral viola player in Russia, where he had the opportunity to study with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a renowned master of orchestral color. Further instruction ensued from Max Bruch in Berlin, after which Respighi returned to Italy, where he would make his mark. Though he was not a radical at heart, he became briefly associated in 1910 with the anti-establishmentarian Lega dei Cinque (League of Five), with Ildebrando Pizzetti, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Giannotto Bastianelli, and Renzo Bossi. The League advocated, in Bastianelli’s words, “the risorgimento of Italian music ... which from the end of the golden 18th century until today has been, with very few exceptions, depressed and circumscribed by commercialism and philistinism.” (That rustling you just heard was Giuseppe Verdi turning over in his grave.)

Within a few years Respighi was appointed composition professor at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and when Alfredo Casella came on board as his colleague in 1915, bringing with him some of the radical ideas he had picked up during a recent residence in France, Respighi was again swept up in a burst of modernist enthusiasm; but, again, he soon retreated to his essentially conservative stance. By 1932 he had joined nine other conservative composers to sign a manifesto condemning the deleterious effect of music by such figures as Schoenberg and Stravinsky and encouraging a return to established Italian tradition. (Curiously, Mussolini came down in favor of the modernists, although he was personally a fan of Respighi’s music.) He was by then very famous and very rich. Success had come his way through his hugely popular tone poem (or tone-poem tetralogy) Fountains of Rome (1915-16), to which he appended as sequels the two vaguely related Pines of Rome (1923-24) and Roman Festivals (1928). These three works, each of which comprises four depictive movements, are sometimes presented as a “Roman Triptych.”

One of the traits that set Respighi apart as an individual voice was his fascination—not widespread among the Italian composers of his generation—with the music of Italy’s distant past. This antiquarian interest is manifest in the beloved orchestral suites he made from such pieces, such as the three installments of Ancient Airs and Dances, essentially symphonic transcriptions of 16th- and 17th-century lute pieces, and The Birds, based on Baroque keyboard movements. A very different Respighian

hallmark surfaces in such works as his ballet Belkis, Queen of Sheba and the tone poems of the “Roman Triptych.” That is, to put it bluntly, his willingness to go what many would consider “over the top.” Roman Festivals in particular is not a work for the timid—the composer proudly averred that it represented his “maximum of orchestral sonority and color”—but Fountains of Rome and especially Pines of Rome are not far behind in terms of rich orchestral effects.

Respighi provided this commentary about Pines of Rome:

The Pines of Villa Borghese (Allegretto vivace) Children are at play in the pine groves of the Villa Borghese, dancing the Italian equivalent of “Ring around a Rosy.” They mimic marching soldiers and battles. They twitter and shriek like swallows at evening, coming and going in swarms. Suddenly the scene changes.

The Pines near a Catacomb (Lento)—We see the shadows of the pines, which overhang the entrance of a catacomb. From the depths rise a chant, which echoes solemnly, like a hymn, and is then mysteriously silenced.

The Pines of the Janiculum (Lento)—There is a tremor in the air. The full moon reveals the profile of the pines of Janiculum Hill. A nightingale sings.

The Pines of the Appian Way (Tempo di Marcia)—Misty dawn on the Appian Way. The tragic country is guarded by solitary pines. Indistinctly, incessantly, the rhythm of unending steps. The poet has a fantastic vision of past glories. Trumpets blare, and the army of the Consul bursts forth in the grandeur of a newly risen sun toward the Sacred Way, mounting in triumph the Capitoline Hill.

JAMES M. KELLER

James M. Keller, the longtime Program Annotator of the San Francisco Symphony and for 25 years Program Annotator of the New York Philharmonic, is the author of Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press) and is writing a sequel volume about piano music.

With Kevin Axt, bass and Cubby O’Brien, drums

This concert will be performed without an Intermission. Program will be announced from the stage.

THIS CONCERT IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY:

In loving memory of my parents Dr. Henry and Josephine Freede

TEDD FIRTH, GUEST CONDUCTOR, PIANIST

DR. MARGARET FREEDE OWENS

GUEST CONDUCTOR

AN EVENING WITH BERNADETTE PETERS

TEDD FIRTH

Ted is a New York City based musical director, pianist and arranger. As musical director and accompanist he has worked with Bernadette Peters, Michael Feinstein, Barbara Cook, Maureen McGovern, Marilyn Maye, Elaine Paige, Tom Wopat, Leslie Uggams, Joshua Bell, Tony DeSare, Linda Lavin, Christine Ebersole, Lucie Arnaz, Lee Ann Womack, Faith Prince, John Schneider, Betty Buckley, Karen Akers, Mary Cleere Haran, Margaret Whiting, Carol Sloane and of course, Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Among the jazz musicians he has performed or recorded with are John Pizzarelli, Houston Person, Frank Wess, Mark Whitfield, Red Holloway, Benny Golson and Joe Morello.

Recent highlights include being the musical director for the reunion of the original Broadway cast of “Into The Woods” at the Segerstrom Center For The Arts in Costa Mesa, CA as well as serving as musical director for Michael Feinstein’s “Jazz and Popular Song” concert series at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

New York appearances include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Blue Note, Birdland, the Iridium, the Algonquin, the Cafe Carlyle and Feinstein’s at the Regency. Numerous national appearances include a performance at the White House.

As an arranger and orchestrator, Tedd’s work has been performed by all major American symphony orchestras as well as Liza Minnelli. In 2013, Tedd was commissioned by the New York Pops to create new orchestrations for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” which has had numerous performances across the country in subsequent years.

Television appearances include “The Today Show,” “Live From Lincoln Center” and “All My Children.”

GUEST ARTIST

AN EVENING WITH BERNADETTE PETERS

BERNADETTE PETERS

Throughout her illustrious career, Bernadette Peters has dazzled audiences and critics with her performances on stage, film and television, in concert, and on recordings. She has garnered numerous accolades including three Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, three Emmy and four Grammy Award nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Best known for her work on stage and one of Broadway’s most critically acclaimed performers, Bernadette recently participated in an all-star gala concert on London’s West End celebrating the life and work of Stephen Sondheim. The sold out one-night-only show is being revived this Fall and will play London’s Gielgud Theatre for 16 weeks.

Bernadette has starred as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the hit musical, Hello, Dolly!. She also starred in City Center’s Encores! Production, A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair featuring the music of Stephen Sondheim and orchestrations by Wynton Marsalis. Prior to that, she starred in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and Follies.

Peters garnered both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for her performance in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Song and Dance. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Annie Get Your Gun. She received Tony nominations for her outstanding performances in Sam Mendes’ critically acclaimed revival of Gypsy , in Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl, Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, the Jerry Herman/Gower Champion ode to the movies, Mack and Mabel, and the Leonard Bernstein/Comden and Green musical On The Town. In addition to these honors, Peters earned a Drama Desk nomination for her unforgettable portrayal of the Witch in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

She also enjoys a career which boasts an impressive list of television credits, including guest-starring on the NBCTV series, “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” for which she earned an Emmy nomination. The popular series was made into a TV movie musical titled “Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas” for The Roku Channel. Other recent TV appearances include “The CW’s “Katy Keene”; CBS All Access’ “The Good Fight”; and Amazon Prime’s Golden Globe winning series, “Mozart in the Jungle”. She recently completed production on the new Apple TV+ series, “High Desert”, scheduled for a Spring 2023 premiere.

Other television credits include NBC-TV’s “Smash,” ABC-TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty’. In addition to starring in the Lifetime TV movie Living Proof, Peters has lit up the silver screen in over 30 films throughout her distinguished career. She received a Golden Globe Award for her memorable performance in “Pennies From Heaven.” Other film credits include The Jerk, The Longest Yard, Silent Movie, Annie, Pink Cadillac, Slaves of New York, Woody Allen’s Alice, Impromptu, It Runs in the Family, Coming Up Roses, The Broken Hearts Gallery and most recently, a surprise appearance in the popular Jonathan Larson biopic, tick, tick...BOOM!

Bernadette has recorded six solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, Sondheim, Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall, and Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein, in addition to numerous original Broadway cast recordings.

Peters devotes her time and talents to numerous events that benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Her “pet project” Broadway Barks, co-founded with Mary Tyler Moore, is an annual, star-studded dog and cat adoption event that benefits shelter animals in the New York City area. In 2012, The American Theater Wing recognized her efforts and awarded her with the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award. She is a New York Times best-selling author who has penned three children’s books: Broadway Barks, Stella is a Star, and Stella and Charlie: Friends Forever. All of her proceeds from the sale of these books benefit Broadway Barks. Peters resides in New York and Los Angeles with her rescue dogs, Charlie and Rosalia.

GUEST ARTIST

AN EVENING WITH BERNADETTE PETERS

KEVIN AXT

Bassist Kevin Axt was born in Burbank, California. He attended the University of Southern California as a music major and subsequently began his career in Los Angeles as a freelance bassist. Proficient on both upright and electric basses, Kevin has toured and recorded with many artists across several musical genres.

To date, he has performed on over 200 albums which have garnered 23 Grammy nominations, as well as on hundreds of feature films and television shows. His credits include artists Natalie Cole, The Manhattan Transfer, Chuck Mangione, Eddie Daniels, Dave Grusin, Shelby Lynne, The Tierney Sutton Band, Bernadette Peters, Hank Jones, Phil Woods, Dave Koz, Glenn Frey, David Benoit, Arturo Sandoval and Seal. Mr Axt currently lives in Santa Clarita, California and continues to pursue an active career in music as one of Los Angeles’s most in-demand bassists.

CARL “CUBBY” O’BRIEN

Carl “Cubby” O’Brien was born July 14, 1946, in Sun Valley, California, not far from Burbank. He was the youngest male to audition to be a Mouseketeer. Discovered by Disney talent scouts in December 1954, while performing at a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) benefit in Hollywood. At the audition, Cubby played the drums but Jimmie asked him to sing something. Cubby told him he wasn’t a singer. Jimmie suggested “Happy Birthday”. So, accompanied by a banjo player sitting nearby, Cubby sang this simple song that every child knew. But for Cubby, it won him a spot as a Mouseketeer! Cubby Recalls “I did some commercials and some TV shows like ‘Zane Grey Theater’ and ‘Cheyenne,’ but I was a drummer and that’s what I really wanted to do.” Following his tenure with the Mickey Mouse Club and the Junior Band on the Lawrence Welk show, Cubby joined small bands around the L.A. area and played local lounges. He worked with the Spike Jones band for about two years. Cubby credits the experience he got with Spike Jones as opening the door to a lot of famous acts. He traveled with Ann-Margaret for a couple of years. He was a regular on ‘The Jim Nabors Show’ for a while, then did ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ for six and a half years. While working for Carol, he met the Carpenters when they were guests on the program. From that meeting, the Carpenters asked Cubby to go on tour with them, and he ended up working with them for ten years. He then went on to work with a variety of performers such as Juliet Prowse, Debbie Reynolds, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Lena Horne, Diana Ross, Joel Grey, Bernadette Peters, Andy Williams, and Shirley MacLaine. Cubby’s list of performance credit is long and specifically highlight by work on numerous hit broadway productions including “West Side Story”, “hair”, “The Producers” and “Gypsy”. Cubby has also played with the famous duo Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas. Cubby is currently playing drums for the mega- successful broadway production of “Chicago” Cubby’s list of credits also includes recorded performances on the hit movie soundtracks of Grease, Gypsy and Change of Habit. Cubby lived in New York area for years but recently married a graduate of the University of Oregon, and he may often be seen wearing a cap or shirt bearing the likeness of the Oregon mascot - Donald Duck.

O’Brien and his wife, Holly, have recently relocated from New York City to the Pacific Northwest. Cubby remains quite active on the broadway scene.

CONCEPTS

FROM THE

Maestro

This season is about humanity. The deep-seated humanity of you, me, all of us. Humanity with all its emotional expressions. In our case, the deepseated humanity of our heroes. Our geniuses. Our composers. Born with gifts. Imagining the most beautiful melodies and inspiring music. Yet fully human. With all their ups and downs. “We will finish our season with an opera. Tosca. I was researching for a while. Which opera should we do? There are so many. And, should we do an opera? After all, we are a symphony orchestra. But at the end it’s about music. Powerful music. We will have internationally recognized singers from New York City’s Metropolitan Opera: Latonia Moore, Alan Held and Stephen Costello. And we will have our full orchestra, giving life to this dramatic score.”

TOSCA

For a deeper understanding of concert programming, please, join Maestro Mickelthwate for his Preconcert Talk at 7pm in the auditorium. Open seating.

WITH Canterbury Voices, Mark McCrory, bass-baritone, Cesare Angelotti & the Jailor; Jeffrey Picon, tenor, Spoletta; Logan Dooley, operatic baritone, Sciarrone; Kevin Eckard, bass-baritone, the Sacristan; Michael Baron, Stage Director: Ernesto Sanchez, Set Designer

ACT I Intermission

ACT II

ACT III

ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE, CONDUCTOR

STEPHEN COSTELLO, TENOR CAVARADOSSI

LATONIA MOORE, SOPRANO TOSCA

ALAN HELD, BARITONE SCARPIA

GUEST ARTIST

LATONIA MOORE

When Latonia Moore sang the title role of Aida at the Metropolitan Opera, The New York Times wrote: “... her voice was radiant, plush and sizeable at its best, with gleaming top notes that broke through the chorus and orchestra during the crowd scenes.”

Considered one of the greatest sopranos in the world today, Latonia Moore opened the 2023-2024 season of the Metropolitan Opera as Sister Rose with Dead Man Walking (new production). During the 2023-2024 season she’ll sing Mefistofele at Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, she’ll reprise Billie in Fire Shut Up in My Bones at MET, and she’ll sing Verdi Requiem with BBC.

She also opened the 2021-2022 season of the Metropolitan Opera as Billie, in the New York premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones; a role she reprised for her debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Ms. Moore has received global acclaim for her interpretation of the title role in Aida; houses where she has sung the role include the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Opernhaus Zürich, Opera Australia, Teatro Colón, English National Opera, New National Theatre Tokyo, Dubai Opera, Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Detroit Opera, Polish National Opera, and at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under James Conlon.

Additional operatic highlights include appearances as Cio Cio San in Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera, Liù in Turandot at Royal Opera Covent Garden, the title role in Tosca and Elisabeth in Don Carlo with Opera Australia, Tosca with Washington National Opera, Cio Cio San and Mimi in La bohème with Semperoper Dresden, Cio Cio San at the Hamburg State Opera, Micaëla in Carmen, Liù, Elvira in Ernani, and Lucrezia in I due Foscari in Bilbao, Desdemona in Otello at Bergen National Opera, Serena in Porgy and Bess at both English National Opera and De Nationale Opera Amsterdam, and an appearance on the 50th Anniversary Gala of the Metropolitan Opera.

Orchestral highlights include the role of Lady Macbeth in a recording of Macbeth with Edward Gardner for Chandos, Mahler’s Symphony No 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic and Gilbert Kaplan for Deutsche Grammphon, Vivetta in L’Arlesiana and Fidelia in Edgar with the Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall, and Bess in Porgy and Bess with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Latonia is a three-time Grammy award winner, for Best Opera Recording together with MET Opera: in 2021 for Porgy and Bess, in 2023 for Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, in 2024 for Terence Blanchard’s Champion singing the role of Emelda Griffith. She’s a borad member board at AVA and ArtSmart.

GUEST ARTIST

STEPHEN COSTELLO

Stephen Costello has been hailed as ‘a prodigiously gifted singer whose voice makes an immediate impact’ (Associated Press). The Philadelphia-born tenor quickly established a reputation as a ‘first-class talent’ (Opera News) after coming to national attention in 2007, when, age 26, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut on the company’s season-opening night. Two years later, Stephen won the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, and he has since appeared at many of the world’s most important opera houses and music festivals, including the Royal Opera House, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper, Opéra national de Paris, Deutsche Staatsoper, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Semperoper Dresden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Hamburgische Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, Arena di Verona, Salzburger Festspiele, Bregenzer Festspiele, and Glyndebourne Festival. As Opera News noted in a recent ‘Spotlight’ double-page spread, ‘the all-American tenor’ is now ‘at the top of his game’.

In the 2023/24 season, Costello sings Don José in Carmen at Bayerische Staatsoper, Rodolfo in La bohème at The Metropolitan Opera, Verdi’s Requiem at Opernhaus Zürich and Rodolfo in La bohème with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra in Philadelphia and at the Vail Festival.

Looking ahead Stephen is engaged to sing at The Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Dallas Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Santa Fe Opera, Edinburgh Festival and Opernhaus Zürich.

In March 2018 Stephen opened a memorial concert at the Royal Opera House in honour of Dmitri Hvorostovsky, singing alongside, amongst others, Anna Netrebko, Elī na Garanča and Angela Gheorghiu.

In addition to winning the 2009 Richard Tucker Award and receiving further grants from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, Stephen won First Prize in the 2006 George London Foundation Awards Competition, First Prize and Audience Prize in the Giargiari Bel Canto Competition, and First Prize in the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Competition. Stephen is a graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts.

GUEST ARTIST

ALAN HELD

Recognized internationally as one of the leading singing actors today, American bass-baritone Alan Held has appeared in major roles in the world’s finest opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, Opéra National de Paris, Bayerische Staastoper, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Teatro Real in Madrid, De Nederlandse Opera, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, and Tokyo Opera Nomori. His many roles include Wotan in Wagner’s The Ring Cycle, the title roles in Wozzeck and Der fliegende Holländer, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg, Scarpia in Tosca, Leporello in Don Giovanni, the Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hoffman, Jochanaan in Salome, Don Pizzaro in Fidelio, Orestes in Elektra, and Balstrode in Peter Grimes.

Equally at home on the concert stage, Mr. Held has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Kirov Opera Orchestra, and Montreal Symphony. He has also appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Salzburg, Tanglewood, Cincinnati May, and Saito Kinen festivals, and at the BBC Proms. He has worked with many distinguished conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, James Levine, Sir Charles Mackerras, Zubin Mehta, Franz Welser-Möst, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, David Robertson, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Jeffrey Tate.

Mr. Held appears as the title role in Cardillac in the DVD of the Paris Opera production, and recorded the role of Don Pizzaro in Fidelio with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic for EMI Classics. He also appeared as the Four Villains in the Met’s HD broadcast and DVD of the Les Contes d’Hoffman and as Peter in the broadcast of Hansel and Gretel.

Mr. Held is currently the General and Artistic Director of the Wichita Grand Opera. A native of Washburn, Illinois, Mr. Held received his vocal training at Millikin University and at Wichita State University where he was most recently named Associate Professor, The Ann and Dennis Ross Faculty of Distinction. He is a recipient of numerous honors and awards including the Birgit Nilsson Prize and the 2014 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Male Performance in an Opera, and is also a noted clinician who regularly gives master classes at Yale University.

GUEST ARTIST

CANTERBURY VOICES

Now in its fifth decade, Canterbury Voices has grown into the premier symphony chorus of Oklahoma, bringing singers and audiences from throughout our great state to the place where music truly comes alive! Canterbury Voices was founded in May 1969 as Canterbury Choral Society, and met at All Souls Episcopal Church with 60 singers. Today, the 150-member adult chorus is the largest of its kind in Oklahoma. All singers are auditioned, most with extensive musical and stage experience, and come from all over Oklahoma. Canterbury also leads a 200-voice youth music education program named Canterbury Youth Voices for children and youth grades 2-12. Canterbury Voices collaborates with other arts organizations including the OKC Philharmonic, Oklahoma City Ballet, and Oklahoma City Jazz Orchestra, as well as many talented singers and musicians from around the United States, including Kelli O’Hara, Sarah Coburn, Gabriel Preisser, Barry Manilow, and Ron Raines; and joined with the OKC Philharmonic in June, 2022, to perform with Andrea Bocelli. Canterbury Voices also strives to grow the catalog of new music by commissioning new choral works by composers including Stephen Paulus, Edward Knight, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, and Dominick Argento. In June, 2022, Canterbury Voices received the American Prize for Best Choral Performance, Community Division.

JULIE YU, Artistic Director

Award-winning choral conductor and educator Dr. Julie Yu is the artistic director of Canterbury Voices and director of choral activities at the Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University.

As artistic director, she conducts and guides the creative direction of Canterbury Voices’ award-winning 150-voice ensemble. At OCU, she oversees the artistic vision of OCU’s four major choirs, conducts the Chamber Choir and Ad Astra women’s chorus, and teaches courses in conducting and in the graduate choral curriculum.

She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting with specialized studies in Early Music from the University of North Texas, a Master’s degree in Choral Conducting from Oklahoma State University, and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Central Oklahoma. Her choirs have performed in Carnegie Hall, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., as well as in Austria, Czech Republic, and France. She was an ACDA International Conducting Exchange Fellow to Kenya in 2019 and has led All-State choruses from Florida to Utah to Maine.

Yu conducted the Oklahoma Arts Institute (OAI) chorus at Quartz Mountain in 2016 and 2020. She was featured conductor at Ireland’s 2019 International Dublin Choral Festival. Dr. Yu was a clinician and keynote speaker at the European Music Educators Association Conference in Naples, Italy, and also served in 2018-2020, as president of ACDA’s Southwestern Region.

GUEST ARTIST

TOSCA

MARK M c CRORY

Mark McCrory, bass-baritone, has garnered attention for his strong, commanding, wide-ranging voice and his versatility in both comic and serious roles. He made his European debut with the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma as Marco in William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge, a role he created in the world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. As an alumnus of the Ryan Opera Center, he performed many roles with the Lyric Opera of Chicago including Monterone in Rigoletto and Zuniga in Carmen. Other notable engagements include performances with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Florida Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Portland Opera, Nashville Opera, and Kentucky Opera. A native of Dallas, Texas, he has enjoyed a long association with The Dallas Opera and performed numerous roles with the company, including being a part of the recent world premieres of Everest by Joby Talbot and Great Scott by Jake Heggie. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony and Daniel Barenboim, New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Dallas Symphony, Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, and Canterbury Voices. He was a winner of numerous competitions including the George London Foundation Award and was a National Winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Some recent performances include Escamillo in Carmen with Painted Sky Opera, Captain Gardiner in Moby Dick and the Imperial Commissioner in Madama Butterfly with the Dallas Opera, Angelotti in Tosca in his Tulsa Opera debut, Mike Groom in Everest with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and the Geographer in The Little Prince with Tulsa Opera, and the Sergeant in Manon Lescaut with Dallas Opera. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Voice in the School of Music at the University of Oklahoma. His students have gone on to study at many prestigious institutions such as Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Peabody Conservatory, and the University of Colorado - Boulder. Students have performed across the United States at Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Colorado, Utah Festival Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Seagle Festival, and Opera in the Ozarks, and won numerous local and national competitions including the Regional Metropolitan Opera auditions.

LOGAN DOOLEY

Logan Dooley is an operatic baritone who is currently finishing his first year as a Master’s Student in Operatic performance here at Oklahoma City University under the vocal instruction of Dr. Catherine McDaniel and Professor Jan McDaniel. In the fall, Logan played Ugo in OCU’s world premier double bill of Pieta and Puccini’s Suor Angelica which was his first production with the school, now in their latest production in February of this year, he played Herr Fluth in Otto Nicolai’s Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor. Last summer, Mr. Dooley performed with the Camerata Bardi International Vocal Academy as Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in New York City, and is now set to perform one of his new favorite roles as Dulcamara in Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore in Greece and New York with the Teatro Grattacielo. Growing up in Texas, Logan received his bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches Texas, where he performed roles such as the title character of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen. In 2023, Logan received an encouragement award from the Metropolitan Opera Laffont competition, and plans to compete again in the years to come.

GUEST ARTIST

Tenor Jeffrey Picón has proven his versatility as a concert and opera singer in a diverse selection of repertoire. Highlights of recent seasons include his New York City Opera debut in performances of Carmen, Cendrillon, Madama Butterfly, and Tosca. Debuts with the Oregon Bach Festival, the Rochester Philharmonic, Long Island Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the United States tour of Bernstein on Broadway with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Michael Barrett and featuring Leonard’s daughter, Jamie Bernstein. His Arizona Opera debut in Zemire et Azor, Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Opera Company of North Carolina; both Ramiro in La Cenerentola, and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Paolino in Il Matrimonio Segreto with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Trouble in Tahiti with the Caramoor Festival; Fenton in Falstaff with Mississippi Opera; and Tony in West Side Story with the Ash Lawn Opera Festival.

Picón began his professional career as one of the youngest members to participate in the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, and impressed audiences there with performances in Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni. Other engagements for the native Texan have included Die Entführung aus dem Serail, L’Orfeo, and Arianna with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with Dallas Opera; and roles in Lucia di Lammermoor and Il barbiere di Siviglia with Portland Opera Repertory Theatre; Die Entführung aus dem Serail with the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Wolf Trap Opera; Les Contes d’Hoffmann with the Opera Company of Philadelphia; The Rape of Lucretia for Opera Festival of New Jersey; Il barbiere di Siviglia and Semele for Anchorage Opera; Falstaff and Salomé with Pittsburgh Opera; and the national touring production of Don Giovanni with Western Opera Theatre.

Equally accomplished on the recital stage, Picón made his Schwabacher Debut Recital in Latin Lovers: Music from South America and Cuba presented by the San Francisco Opera with pianist Steven Blier. Recent concert appearances include Teatro Españoles and Songs of War and Peace with New York Festival of Song, Janacek’s From the House of the Dead with the American Symphony Orchestra; Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes with Moab Music Festival, Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and his solo recital debut in Marquette, Michigan. He has appeared with New York Festival of Song at the Moab Music Festival; the Performing Arts Society in Washington, D.C.; Wolf Trap Opera; and at Weill Recital Hall.

Picón can be heard most recently on recording as soloist for Berlioz Requiem with Oklahoma City University. He is also heard as Mike on the recording of William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge, which marked his debut with Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is featured on The Music Teacher, an off-Broadway play/opera by Wallace Shawn and Allen Shawn for the New Group, which ran at the Minetta Lane Theater for seven weeks. His television broadcast debut was in December 2003 in the PBS production of Fiesta at the Philharmonic with the Naples Philharmonic, led by Erich Kunzel. Recently, Picón was part of the Emmy Award-winning production of Madama Butterfly for New York City Opera’s “Live from Lincoln Center.” He is a graduate of the University of North Texas and the Curtis Institute of Music and is an associate professor of voice at Oklahoma City University.

GUEST ARTIST TOSCA

KEVIN ECKARD

Kevin, bass-baritone, most recently performed with the Tulsa Opera in their production of The Medium. Kevin has performed frequently throughout the United States, as well as in Italy, China, Mexico, Austria and Great Britain. He has performed as a soloist with The Messiah Festival in Lindsborg Kansas, the Chester Festival Chorus in Chester, England, Painted Sky Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Tulsa Opera, Denver Opera, Wichita Grand Opera, Colorado Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, Pueblo Symphony, Boulder Philharmonic, the Carmel and Anderson Symphonies in Indiana, Augusta Opera, Opera Carolina, Canterbury Choral Society, Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, Enid Symphony and Lyric Theater of Oklahoma City. Dr. Eckard has been the featured soloist in productions of Mozart’s Requiem, Brahms Requiem, Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He has also performed Bach’s Mass in b minor, Magnificat, Cantata 140, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott and Cantata 79. Among his many operatic credits, he has performed the roles of Boris Godunov in Boris Godunov, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Budd in Albert Herring, Blitch in Susannah, Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola, Monterone in Rigoletto, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Secret Policeman in The Consul, Don Alfonso in Cosi Fan Tutte, Escamillo in Carmen and Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore. Kevin has also performed in productions of Jekyll and Hyde, as the Bishop of Basingstoke, and Jesus Christ Superstar, as Caiaphas.

MICHAEL BARON

Michael Baron (director) is the Producing Artistic Director of Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma and has directed over 100 productions at theaters across the country. Most recently, he co-directed the ASL/Spoken English musical productions of Cinderella (ZACH and at Lyric July 2024), The Music Man (Olney Theatre), Fun Home (Lyric), and Fiddler on the Roof (Lyric). Other directing credits include The Prom, Carousel, Head Over Heels, Bright Star, Titanic, Dreamgirls, Assassins, Big Fish, Oklahoma!, Les Miserables, Big River, Spring Awakening, Ragtime, the new works King of Pangaea and Concerto in collaboration with Alexander Mickelthwate, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Canterbury Voices, and the current production of A Christmas Carol at Lyric Theatre and Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. He is a two-time Helen Hayes Award winning director and earned his MFA in directing from Trinity Repertory and a BA in theater from Wake Forest University.

ERNESTO SANCHEZ

Ernesto Sanchez is originally from Monterrey, Mexico. From an early age he was inclined to be a creative and constantly curious person. He received BA in Visual Arts at the Nuevo León University.

Currently living in OKLAHOMA CITY, ERNESTO has enjoyed a varied career beginning with staging rock concerts and theater, then moving into a fruitful and successful museum career where he worked 8 years at MARCO (Contemporary Art Museum in Monterrey Mexico), and OKCMOA (Oklahoma City Museum of Art) for 21 years as the Exhibition Designer. He now focuses on painting and sculpting at his studio located in the Paseo Arts District.

PROGRAM NOTES

Tosca

Giacomo Puccini

Full Concert Performances:

3/30/1954 Guy Fraser Harrison, conducting

3/8/1966 Guy Fraser Harrison, conducting

Staged Production:

4/17/1970 Guy Fraser Harrison, conducting

Born: December 22, 1858, in Lucca, Italy

Died: November 29, 1924, in Brussels, Belgium

Work composed: 1898 to October 1899

Libretto: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, after Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca

Work premiered: January 14, 1900, at the Teatro Costanzi, Rome, with Leopoldo Mugnone conducting and a cast headed by Hariclea Darclée (as Tosca), Emilio de Marchi (Cavaradossi), and Eugenio Giraldoni (Scarpia)

Instrumentation: Three principal singers—soprano, tenor, and baritone—in the leading roles of Floria Tosca (a celebrated singer, soprano), Mario Cavaradossi (her painter-boyfriend, tenor), and Baron Scarpia (the Roman Chief of Police, bass-baritone); singers to portray Cesare Angelotti (an escaped political prisoner, bass), Spoletta (a police agent, tenor), the Sacristan (baritone), Sciarrone (a policeman, bass), a Jailor (bass), and a Shepherd (boy soprano); also a mixed chorus (including boy trebles) and, for the orchestra, three flutes (second and third doubling piccolo), two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, snare drum, triangle, cymbals, tam-tam, bass drum, bells, celesta, glockenspiel, harp, and strings; also onstage musical forces comprising flute, viola, harp, four horns, three trombones, bells, organ, two snare drums, rifles, and cannon

Giacomo Puccini maintains such an indispensable and generous presence in the world of opera that it comes as something of a surprise to realize that his reputation rests almost exclusively on four works: the operas La Bohème (premiered in 1896), Tosca (1900), Madama

Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (all but completed when he died, in 1924). Of his dozen operas, another six make more occasional appearances on the boards: Manon Lescaut (1893), La fanciulla del West (1910), La rondine (1917), and the three one-act operas purveyed sometimes singly and sometimes as Il trittico (Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi, premiered together in 1918). His first two operas—Le villi (1884) and Edgar (1889)—are produced so rarely as to count as curiosities.

He was born in Lucca into a family that had included musicians for generations, back to a Giacomo Puccini who had been a musical mover-and-shaker in the mid-18th century. The Puccini who concerns us—Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, to use his full and glorious name—headed off to the Milan Conservatory, attended every performance he could at the Teatro alla Scala (where he was particularly entranced by works of such modern French composers as Bizet, Gounod, and Thomas), and was already receiving good reviews for his compositions by the time he graduated. In 1883 he entered his first opera, Le villi, in a competition sponsored by Edoardo Sonzogno, a Milan-based music publisher who was casting about for new operas to publish and promote. Le villi didn’t win, and there has been speculation that this may have involved machinations by the rival publisher Giulio Ricordi, who was interested in snagging Puccini as his own client rather than see him join Sonzogno’s roster. In fact, Ricordi did sign up Puccini and immediately began planning how to position him as successor to the esteemed Giuseppe Verdi. In 1884, Verdi wrote to a friend: “I have heard the composer Puccini well spoken of. ... He follows modern trends, which is natural, but remains attached to melody, which is above passing fashion.”

Victorien Sardou’s 1887 French melodrama La Tosca was written as a vehicle for the astonishing actress Sarah Bernhardt. Though not a particularly distinguished literary lion, Sardou was a capable exponent of the French commodity known as the “well-made play.” It was not until he began writing expressly for Bernhardt that his reputation skyrocketed; in a sense, he made her career and she made his. Wrote the critic Clayton Hamilton in 1910: “His heroines are almost always Sarah Bernhardts,— luring, tremendous, doomed to die. Fedora, Gismonda, La Tosca, Zoraya, are but a single woman who transmigrates from play to play. We find her in different countries and in different times; but she always lures and fascinates a man, storms against insuperable circumstance, coos and caws, and in the outcome dies.”

Puccini was as much smitten by La Tosca as everyone else was, and as early as 1889 he begged Ricordi to

PROGRAM NOTES

get him the rights to turn Sardou’s play into an opera. Nothing happened, but in 1895 Puccini saw Bernhardt perform the play and got all worked up again. By then the operatic rights had been given to another composer, Alberto Franchetti, who had already had a libretto drafted by Luigi Illica. But Ricordi knew how to pull strings, and he and Illica convinced Franchetti to transfer the rights to Puccini. Giuseppe Giacoso was brought on as co-author, thereby re-assembling the team that had created La bohème. Puccini steadfastly insisted that the libretto—and his opera—represented a marked improvement on the original play. It is an unabashedly brutal piece, but it sure does pack a punch, and not just in its violent moments. Tosca furnished the repertoire with such irreplaceable arias as Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte” and Cavaradossi’s “Recondita armonia” and “E lucevan le stelle,” with sizzling duet encounters between each pair from the three principal characters, and with a truly symphonic sweep in such sections as the monumental Act I Te Deum in the Roman Church of St. Andrea della Valle and the nail-biting finale of Act III, dramatically set on the ramparts of the Castel Sant’Angelo.

The Puccini Sound

Puccini’s style is so distinctive that one could start listening to most of his operas at any point and identify the composer within a few bars. On the heels of Tosca’s premiere, the Italian critic Ippolito Valetta, writing in the publication Nuova antologia, targeted a few Puccinian fingerprints: Certain habits of harmonizing the scale, many successions of fourth chords, immense delays in resolving dissonances (one no longer speaks of preparation), rapid transitions of curious modulations, and contrasts of rhythm and frequent syncopations, jerks caused by strong accents on weak beats of a measure, this is the mobile or kaleidoscopic background that Puccini took pleasure in in Bohème and delights in in Tosca. ... Granted this system, few employ it with the ease and ability of Puccini.

Tosca in a Nutshell

Floria Tosca is an opera singer who is in love with the painter Mario Cavaradossi, a partisan of revolutionary ideals. She is in turn loved—or, better put, lusted after—by Baron Scarpia, the corrupt chief of the Roman police, who decides to turn the thumbscrews on the painter to make him reveal some sensitive political information— specifically, where the prisoner Angelotti, a friend of Cavaradossi’s, has escaped to. When Cavaradossi remains defiant even in the face of torture, Scarpia goes so far as to sentence him to death; but by making Tosca aware of Cavaradossi’s suffering, Scarpia gets her to spill the beans about the escapee’s whereabouts, with the result that Angelotti’s is a brief role. Tosca finally consents to yield to Scarpia in exchange for a memo guaranteeing safe passage to less perilous climes for her and her painter. But first Scarpia insists that Cavaradossi be subjected to a mock execution for appearance’s sake; this will allow Scarpia to save face, since everyone knows he has sentenced Cavaradossi to death. Tosca agrees to these terms, but when it comes time to surrender herself to Scarpia in his private chambers she instead runs him through with a dinner-knife, after which she dashes off to coach Cavaradossi in his impending feigned execution. But the execution, atop Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo, turns out to be very real indeed; and when guards discover that Scarpia has been killed and move in on Tosca, she flings herself from the castle’s parapets.

—JMK

JAMES M. KELLER

James M. Keller, the longtime Program Annotator of the San Francisco Symphony and for 25 years Program Annotator of the New York Philharmonic, is the author of Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press) and is writing a sequel volume about piano music.

GIFTS TO THE PHIL

Dr. and Mrs. Royice B. Everett

Ann Felton Gilliland

Dr. Thurma J. Fiegel

Paul and Debbie Fleming

Mr. and Mrs. Kelly George

Natalie Kurkjian and Christopher Geyer

Mr. Kent Graham

Dr. Stephen F. Hamilton and Dr. Pamela Craven Hamilton

Kirk Hammons

Lawrence and Gay Hellman

Walt and Jean Hendrickson

Mr. and Mrs. Joe R. Homsey, Jr.

Lois and Roger Hornbrook

Thomas and Elizabeth Hrubik

Blair and Maggie Humphreys

Carlos Johnson

Zach Johnson

Mrs. Margaret Keith

Mike and Kay Kellogg

Aaron and Jennifer Ketter

Ms. Claren Kidd

Rick and Dr. Barbara Masters

Mr. and Mrs. John A. McCaleb

Mr. and Mrs. Tom J. McDaniel

Debbie McKinney

John and Anna McMillin

Mr. and Mrs. K. T. Meade, Jr.

Robert and Kathy Mendez

Deann Merritt Parham

Sandra Meyers

Tom and Katherine Milam

Tom and Peggy Miller

Betsy Mitschke and Steven Helt

Northwest Institute of Sports Medicine

Mrs. Jeaneen Naifeh

Steven Newell and Deborah Naylor

Edward Oliver and Harriet Lord

Kathleen Oliver

Tiffany and Corey Phelps

Mary and Bill Price

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth R. Rees

Tracy Romberger

Donald Rowlett

Larry and Patricia Sanford

Fred and Maria Schmitt

Jeff Scott

Mr. and Mrs. John M. Seward

Pam and Bill Shdeed

INDIVIDUALS

Continued from page 21

Emma and John Shelton

Robert and Susan Shoemaker

Jerrod and Jamie Shouse

Donald J. Smock, M.A.

Susan Sutter

Jane Tubb

Robert and Sharon Varnum

Drs. Bobby and Geetika Verma

Janet Viseur

Robert and Tammy Weiss

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth K. Wert

Rainey Williams

Mrs. Carol Wright

M. Blake and Nancy Yaffe

FRIEND

$1,000 - $1,499

Glenn and Debra Blumstein

Rev. Dr. Carl Bosteels, D.Min.

Mrs. Barbara J. Bunce

Mrs. and Mr. Louise W Cheek

Nancy Coleman

Dr. Thomas Coniglione

Dr. and Mrs. Ralph G. Ganick

MH &BL Gragg Family Fund

David and Sandra Haskett

JoAnn H Holden

John and Janet Hudson

Mary Lu Jarvis

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Johnson

Kent and Brenda Johnson

Mr. Christian K. Keesee

Mrs. Lou Kerr/The Kerr Foundation, Inc.

Brad and Janet Marion

Dr. Scott McCalla and Ms. Leslie McCalla

Cindy and Johnny McCharen

Jason Milner

Charles L. Oppenheim

Patrick and Amy Randall

Jim Roth

Elizabeth Ryan

Erik Salazar and Christopher Lloyd

John and Hattie Santore

Mary Sherman

Chris Steves

Dr. and Mrs. James B. Stewart, Jr.

Jonathan and Andrea Stone

Mr. Phillip S. Tomlinson

Mrs. June Tucker

PARTNER

$500 - $999

Gillian Air

Ms. Lois Albert

Dr. Mary Zoe Baker

Mr. and Mrs. Van A. Barber

The O.K. Detrick Foundation Fund

Ms. Pamela Bloustine

Mrs. Carole S. Broughton

Joseph and Valerie Couch

Bruce and Joanne Ewing

Melinda Finley

Mr. and Mrs. Keith G. Golden

Dr. Nancy and Capt. George Hector

Mr. and Mrs. David C. Henderson

David and Virginia Marshall

Mr. and Mrs. Joe A. McKenzie

Annette Munson

Jim Murtaugh

Michael and Ginger Penn

Carl J. and Deborah Rubenstein

Jody and Pat Smith

Lee Allan Smith

Jeff and Sally Starling

Dennis and Marianne Stover

Reta and Richard Strubhar

Ms. Judie Webb

Dick Wegener

Curtis and Wendi Wilson

Dave Wilson and Karen Ross

Linda and Mike Zeeck

MEMBER

$250 - $499

Anonymous (1)

John and Nancy Alsup

Judy Austin

Nina and Kash Barker

Judy Barnett

Sherry K. Barton

Brent D. Bell, D.O.

Jerry and Jackie Bendorf

Dr. and Mrs. Harry Boyd

Joan Bryant

Ryan Bunyan

Cable Family Charitable Foundation

Mr. Ken Coffey

Merle and Elizabeth Davis

William E. Davis and Margaret H. Davis –

Charles and Libbi Davis Legacy Fund

Audie Dorrough

Elizabeth K. Eickman

Arnold and Mari Fagin

Mr. George R. Francis, Jr.

Steven Graham and Vicky Leloie Kelly

Judy Hill

Lauren and Rich Johnson

David and Virginia Marshall

Allison Matoi

Ms. Rebecca L. McNeese

Mr. and Mrs. Ray Reaves

SPECIAL GIFTS

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Rus

Mr. Eric Simson

Rick Spence

Ms. Xiao-Hong Sun and Mr. Xiaocong Peng

Greg Taber

Mrs. Anne Workman

Honor loved ones, celebrate occasions, recognize achievements and support the Philharmonic’s mission.

In Memory of Patrick McGinnis

Rita McGinnis

In Memory of David McLaughlin

Mrs. Jane B. Harlow

Susie and Doug Stussi

In Memory of June H. Parry

Ad Astra Foundation

Judy Austin

Nick and Betsy Berry

John and Margaret Biggs

Jenny and Tripp Davis

Paul and Debbie Fleming

The Good Gravy Group

Kim and Michael Joseph

Mrs. Margaret Keith

Arthur Miller

Richard and Gayle Parry

In Memory of Malcolm Robinson

Ms. Susan Robinson

In Memory of William J. Ross

Ross Family Foundation

Lil Ross, Becky Roten, Molly Fuhrman, and Bob Ross

In Memory of Mr. Irvin Wagner

Colonel (ret.) Dean and Mrs. Jeanne Jackson

Mrs. Margaret Keith

In Memory of Renate Wiggin

Mr. J. Edward Barth

Nick and Betsy Berry

Dr. and Mrs. L. Joe Bradley

Mr. Spence Carson

Louise Cleary Cannon and Gerry Cannon

Christiane Faris

Mr. and Mrs. John E. Frank

Kirk Hammons

Mrs. Jane B. Harlow

Brent Hart and Matt Thomas

Kent and Liz Hoffman

Kim and Michael Joseph

Mrs. Margaret Keith

Ms. Melinda Lyon

Skip and Esther Oppenheimer

Alice and Phil Pippin

Mr. H.E. Rainbolt

Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Riggs

Susie and Doug Stussi

Dale Toetz and Charlotte Gibbens

Mr. Donald Wiggin

In Memory of Billy Maddox Wilson

Mr. Jerry Thompson

The OKCPHIL gratefully acknowledges the generosity of individuals who have chosen to return concert tickets as a donation. This recognition reflects contributions made in the 2023-2024 concert season and are listed through February 05, 2024.

Anonymous (1)

Fatima Abrantes-Pais

Steven C. Agee, Ph.D.

Gillian Air

Linda and Patrick Alexander

Mary Ellen Anderson

Lynn Anderson

Dr. and Mrs. Dewayne Andrews

Dr. and Mrs. John C. Andrus

Dr. Henry and Carol Asin

Tom and Fran Ayres

Mr. J. Edward Barth

Mrs. Phyllis Brawley

Justin Byrne

Jeff Caughron

Dr. William Cook

Mr. Joseph H. Crosby

Lawrence H. and Ronna C. Davis

Dr. Nancy Dawson

Mark Doescher

Nancy Payne Ellis

Dr. and Mrs. Royice B. Everett

Mr. and Mrs. John Francis

Gerald and Jane Jayroe Gamble

Natalie Kurkjian and Christopher Geyer

Janet Gruel

Kirk Hammons

Sam and Joy Hammons

Lawrence and Gay Hellman

Karen Hennes

Frank and Bette Jo Hill

Drs. G. Conrad and Mary Hornbuckle

Ms. Pauline Johnson

Mike and Kay Kellogg

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen G. LaFollette

Kathy Leithner

Diane Lewis

Keith Martin

Mr. and Mrs. John A. McCaleb

Robert and Doris McKown

John and Anna McMillin

Mr. and Mrs. Phil Pippin

Kelsey Potter

Jim and Claudia Robertson

Dr. and Mrs. Michael Fred Robinson

Lyla Rousseau

Dr. Lois Salmeron

Carol and Gary Sander

Elizabeth Schumacher

Mary Sherman

Dr. and Mrs. James B. Stewart, Jr.

Jonathan and Andrea Stone

Dennis and Marianne Stover

Mrs. June Tucker

Christopher Weimer

Robert and Tammy Weiss

Phillip and Ashton Whaley

Carolyn T. and Don T. Zachritz