FROM THE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Photo Credit: Lauren Radack
DEAR FRIENDS, We have had a very exciting fall season, welcoming new artistic partners to our stage and premiering new works by new and old composers. In January we are also featuring a new initiative as we launch a month-long festival which is the first of what we hope will be an annual occurrence. Upright & Grand focuses on the many aspects of the piano. Pianos can be found in concert halls, nightclubs, homes, schools, libraries and department stores. A pianist can play entire symphonies or a solo sonata. The piano can play the role of the orchestra in rehearsals of great opera and ballet scores, and it is a partner to instrumentalists and singers. The piano is both a solitary and independent instrument. In addition, many musical works began as a piece for piano which was then orchestrated. We are featuring many of these works such as Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition as orchestrated by Maurice Ravel, which is also the focus of our very first presentation of “Beyond the Score.”
MARTHA GILMER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
“Beyond the Score” is a creative performance that uses a narrator, actors and musical excerpts by the orchestra to explain the history and context of a piece of music. In the case of Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition, you will discover the story behind the music and its dedication to one of Mussorgsky’s friends, the artist Viktor Hartmann, after his death. After intermission, the work will be performed in its entirety. At the core of this piano festival is the array of acclaimed artists who are at the top of their profession, performing the most exciting repertoire written for the piano – all in the span of just a few weeks. Jeremy Denk, Marc-André Hamelin, Horacio Gutiérrez, Ben Folds, Joshua White, Helen Sung, Eric Reed and our very own Jahja Ling and Jessie Chang, all perform as soloists in the festival. The festival crosses over all of our presentations including Jacobs Masterworks, City Lights and the new Jazz @ The Jacobs, as well as with our collaborative partners. The La Jolla Music Society presents pianist Emanuel Ax along with Itzhak Perlman in a sonata recital at the Jacobs Music Center, as well as a solo recital by Garrick Ohlsson at the Sherwood Auditorium. The San Diego Symphony will perform in Poway as part of Poway OnStage and at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido as part of the festival. Upright & Grand offers the public the opportunity to get involved, both by performing outdoors at any of the ten “Play Me” pianos in public spaces throughout San Diego, and by joining us on January 16 for our first “Community Day” where amateur pianists are welcome to participate in master classes and events, including piano-centric workshops focused on jazz piano and technology and the opportunity to perform on the stage of Copley Symphony Hall! (See page 20 for more information about these community projects). I hope to see you at many of the performances and activities throughout the month, and I thank you for your ongoing support and enthusiasm. Sincerely,
Martha Gilmer Chief Executive Officer
COVER PHOTO CREDIT: Jeremy Denk – Michael Wilson S AN D IEGO SYMPHO NY ORC HE ST RA WINT ER SEA SO N J A N UAR Y 2 016
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SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
JAHJA LING, MUSIC DIRECTOR
MATTHEW GARBUTT
Principal Summer Pops Conductor
SAMEER PATEL Assistant Conductor
VIOLIN Jeff Thayer Concertmaster DEBORAH
PATE AND JOHN FORREST CHAIR
Wesley Precourt Associate Concertmaster Jisun Yang Assistant Concertmaster Alexander Palamidis Principal II Jing Yan Acting Associate Principal II Nick Grant Principal Associate Concertmaster Emeritus Randall Brinton Yumi Cho Hernan Constantino Alicia Engley Pat Francis Kathryn Hatmaker Angela Homnick Ai Nihira* Igor Pandurski Julia Pautz Susan Robboy Shigeko Sasaki Yeh Shen Anna Skálová Edmund Stein John Stubbs Pei-Chun Tsai Joan Zelickman VIOLA Chi-Yuan Chen Principal KAREN AND WARREN KESSLER CHAIR
Nancy Lochner Associate Principal Rebekah Campbell Wanda Law Qing Liang Caterina Longhi Thomas Morgan Adam Neeley* Ethan Pernela Dorothy Zeavin CELLO Yao Zhao Principal Chia-Ling Chien Associate Principal Marcia Bookstein Glen Campbell Andrew Hayhurst
Richard Levine Ronald Robboy Mary Oda Szanto Xian Zhuo
Douglas Hall
BASS
John MacFerran Wilds Ray Nowak
Jeremy Kurtz-Harris ˆ Principal OPHIE AND ARTHUR BRODY S FOUNDATION CHAIR
Susan Wulff Acting Principal Samuel Hager Acting Associate Principal W. Gregory Berton ˆ P. J. Cinque Jory Herman Margaret Johnston+ Daniel Smith* Michael Wais Sayuri Yamamoto* FLUTE Rose Lombardo Principal Sarah Tuck Erica Peel PICCOLO Erica Peel OBOE Sarah Skuster Principal
TRUMPET Micah Wilkinson Principal
TROMBONE Kyle R. Covington Principal Logan Chopyk Richard Gordon+ Michael Priddy BASS TROMBONE Michael Priddy TUBA Matthew Garbutt Principal HARP Julie Smith Phillips Principal TIMPANI Ryan J. DiLisi Principal Andrew Watkins Assistant Principal PERCUSSION Gregory Cohen Principal
Harrison Linsey Andrea Overturf
Erin Douglas Dowrey Andrew Watkins
ENGLISH HORN Andrea Overturf
PIANO/CELESTE Mary Barranger
DR. WILLIAM AND EVELYN LAMDEN ENGLISH HORN CHAIR
CLARINET Sheryl Renk Principal
ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER Magdalena O’Neill ASSISTANT PERSONNEL MANAGER TBA
Theresa Tunnicliff Frank Renk
PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN Courtney Secoy Cohen
BASS CLARINET Frank Renk
LIBRARIAN Rachel Fields
BASSOON Valentin Martchev Principal Ryan Simmons Leyla Zamora
* Long Term Substitute Musician + Staff Opera Musician ˆ On leave
CONTRABASSOON Leyla Zamora
All musicians are members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 325.
HORN Benjamin Jaber Principal Darby Hinshaw Assistant Principal & Utility Danielle Kuhlmann Tricia Skye
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Financial support is provided by the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.
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JANUARY 9 MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL PICTURES FROM AN EXHIBITION
Beyond the Score®
SATURDAY January 9, 2016 – 8:00pm conductor Karina Canellakis (see biography on pg. 9) piano Marc-André Hamelin (see biography on pg. 9)
Performance at The Jacobs Music Center’s Copley Symphony Hall JACOBS MASTERWORKS SERIES
PROGRAM Beyond the Score: Mussorgsky's 'Pictures from an Exhibition' Marc-André Hamelin, piano Nuvi Mehta, narrator Paul Maley, actor
INTERMISSION MODEST MUSSORGSKY / Orch. by Maurice Ravel
Pictures from an Exhibition Promenade 1. Gnomus Promenade 2. The Old Castle Promenade 3. Tuileries 4. Bydlo Promenade 5. Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells 6. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle 7. Limoges 8. Catacombs Cum mortuis in lingua mortua 9. The Hut on Fowl's Legs 10. The Great Gate of Kiev
A production of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Gerard McBurney, creative director The appearance of Karina Canellakis is generously sponsored by The Dow Divas.
T he approximate running time for this concert, including intermission, is one hour and forty minutes.
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ABOUT THE MUSIC
MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL PICTURES FROM AN EXHIBITION – JANUARY 9 Pictures from an Exhibition M O DEST MU S S ORGSKY (Orch. Maurice Ravel) Born March 21, 1839, Karevo Died March 28, 1881, St. Petersburg In the summer of 1873, Modest Mussorgsky was stunned by the sudden death of his friend Victor Hartmann, an architect and artist who was then only 39. The following year, their mutual friend Vladimir Stassov arranged a showing of over 400 of Hartmann’s watercolors, sketches, drawings and designs. Inspired by the exhibition and the memory of his friend, Mussorgsky set to work on a suite of piano pieces based on the pictures and wrote enthusiastically to Stassov: “Hartmann is bubbling over, just as Boris did. Ideas, melodies, come to me of their own accord, like the roast pigeons in the story – I gorge and gorge and overeat myself. I can hardly manage to put it all down on paper fast enough.” He worked fast indeed: beginning on June 2, 1874, Mussorgsky had the score complete three weeks later, on June 22, just a few months after the premiere of Boris Godunov. The finished work, which he called Pictures from an Exhibition, consists of ten musical portraits bound together by a promenade theme that recurs periodically. Mussorgsky said that this theme, meant to depict the gallery-goer strolling between paintings, was a portrait of himself. Curiously, Pictures spent its first half-century in obscurity. It was not performed publically during Mussorgsky’s lifetime, it was not published until 1886 (five years after its composer’s death), and it did not really enter the standard piano repertory until several decades after that. (The earliest recording of the piano version did not take place until 1942.) Even early listeners were struck by the “orchestral” sonorities of this piano score, and in 1922 conductor Serge Koussevitzky asked Maurice Ravel to orchestrate it. Koussevitzky gave the first performance of Ravel’s version at the Paris Opera on October 19, 1922, and it quickly became one of the most popular works in the orchestral repertory: today over 60 different versions are available on compact disc.
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The opening Promenade alternates 5/4 and 6/4 meters: Mussorgsky marks it “in the Russian manner,” and Ravel assigns the famous opening to the solo trumpet, quickly joined by the full brass section. Gnomus is a portrait of a gnome staggering on twisted legs; the following Promenade is marked “with delicacy.” In Hartmann’s watercolor The Old Castle, a minstrel sings before a ruined castle. Ravel makes a daring (and very effective) choice by assigning his song to a solo saxophone, whose mournful sound feels exactly right in this context. Tuileries is a watercolor of children playing and quarreling in the famous Paris park; Ravel portrays them with chattering woodwinds. Bydlo returns to Eastern Europe, where a heavy ox-cart grinds through the mud. The wheels pound ominously along as the driver sings, and Ravel assigns his song to the euphonium (a brass instrument not often heard in orchestral works). The music rises to a strident climax as the cart draws near and passes, then diminishes as the cart moves on. Mussorgsky wanted the following Promenade to sound tranquillo, and Ravel begins with the clear sound of high flutes, but gradually this Promenade takes on unexpected power. The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks depicts Hartmann’s costume design for the ballet Trilby, in which these characters wore eggshaped armor; Ravel captures the sound of the chicks with chirping grace notes in the woodwinds. “I meant to get Hartmann’s Jews,” said Mussorgsky of Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle, a portrait of two Jews – one rich and one poor – in animated conversation. Ravel gives each of them a particular sound: the rich voice of Goldenberg is heard in the strings, while Schmuyle’s rapid, high voice is depicted by a trumpet solo, one of the most famous ever composed for that instrument. Limoges shows Frenchwomen quarreling furiously in a market there, while Catacombs is Hartmann’s portrait of himself surveying the Roman catacombs by lantern light; Ravel makes effective use of deep brass and woodwinds here. This section leads into Cum mortuis in lingua mortua: “With the dead in a dead language.” Mussorgsky
noted of this section: “The spirit of the departed Hartmann leads me to the skulls and invokes them: the skulls begin to glow faintly.” Embedded in this spooky passage is a minor-key variation of the Promenade theme. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs shows the hut (perched on hen’s legs) of the vicious witch Baba Yaga, who would fly through the skies in a red-hot mortar. Ravel’s version depicts her with slashing attacks for full orchestra. Mussorgsky has her fly scorchingly right into the final movement, The Great Gate of Kiev. Hartmann had designed a gate (never built) for the city of Kiev, and Mussorgsky’s brilliant finale transforms the genial Promenade theme into a heaven-storming conclusion. Ravel gives the first statement to a noble brass choir, then gradually builds to one of the most exciting orchestral sounds ever created, full of ringing bells and massed attacks. A NOTE ON THE RAVEL ORCHESTRATION: So famous has Ravel’s orchestration become that it is regarded as a virtual treatise on orchestration all by itself, yet some observers have not been totally satisfied with it, and listeners may be surprised to learn that there are at least ten other orchestral versions by such varied names as Mikhail Tushmalov, Sir Henry Wood, Leo Funtek, Leopold Stokowski, Serge Gortchakoff and others. Pianist-conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, who has prepared a version of his own, makes an interesting point: effective as Ravel’s orchestration is, it gives this essentially Russian music a distinctly “French” sound – light, bright and brilliant. Ashkenazy set out to restore a “Russian” sound to Pictures, and his version is much darker and heavier, making the music sound unexpectedly somber. Ashkenazy has a point, but it is difficult to separate this music from Ravel’s superb orchestration, which is a creative act fully worthy of Mussorgsky’s original score. n PROGRAM NOTES BY ERIC BROMBERGER
SAN DI E GO SYM P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A W I N T E R S E AS O N JANUAR Y 2016
SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
PATRON INFORMATION
TICKET OFFICE HOURS Jacobs Music Center Ticket Office (750 B Street) Monday through Friday, 10 am to 6 pm Concert Tuesdays through Fridays: 10 am through intermission Concert Weekends: 12 noon through intermission
be allowed into the concert hall. They must be held by an adult and may not occupy a seat, unless they have a ticket.
SUBSCRIPTIONS San Diego Symphony Orchestra offers an attractive array of subscription options. Subscribers receive the best available seats and (for Traditional subscribers) free ticket exchanges (up to 48 hours in advance for another performance within your series). Other subscriber-only benefits include priority notice of special events and (for certain packages) free parking. For more information, call the Ticket Office at 619.235.0804.
UNUSED TICKETS Please turn in unused subscription tickets for resale to the Ticket Office or by mailing them to 1245 7th Ave., San Diego, CA 92101 (Attn: Ticket Office). Tickets must be turned in anytime up to 24 hours in advance of your concert. A receipt will be mailed acknowledging your tax-deductible contribution.
TICKET EXCHANGE POLICY • Aficionado subscribers may exchange into most Winter series concerts for free! All exchanges are based on ticket availability. • Traditional subscribers receive the best available seats and may exchange to another performance within their series for free. Build Your Own subscribers and Non-subscribers can do the same, with a $5 exchange fee per ticket. • Exchanged tickets must be returned to the Ticket Office 24 hours prior to the concert by one of the following ways: In person, by mail (1245 Seventh Ave., San Diego, CA 92101, Attn: Ticket Office) or by fax (619.231.3848). LOST TICKETS San Diego Symphony concert tickets can be reprinted at the Ticket Office with proper ID. GROUP SALES Discount tickets for groups are available for both subscription and non-subscription concerts (excluding outside events). For further information, please call 619.615.3941. YOUNGER AUDIENCES POLICY Jacobs Masterworks, Classical Specials, and Chamber Music: No children under five years of age will be allowed into the concert hall. Children five and older must have a ticket and be able to sit in an unaccompanied seat. City Lights, Jazz @ The Jacobs, International Passport, Fox Theatre Film Series: No children under the age of two years will be allowed into the concert hall. Children two and older must have a ticket and be able to sit in a seat. Family Festival Concerts: Children three years and older must have a ticket and be able to sit in a seat. Babies and children two years old and younger who are accompanied by a parent will
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GIFT CERTIFICATES Gift certificates may be purchased in any amount at the Jacobs Music Center Ticket Office in person, online, by phone, or by mail. They never expire!
Large-Print Programs: Large-print program notes are available for patrons at all Jacobs Masterworks concerts. Copies may be obtained from an usher. PUBLIC RESTROOMS AND TELEPHONES Restrooms are located on the north and south ends of the upper lobby, and the north end of the lower lobby. An ADA compliant restroom is located on each floor. Please ask an usher for assistance at any time. Patrons may contact the nearest usher to facilitate any emergency telephone calls. COUGH DROPS Complimentary cough suppressants are available to symphony patrons. Please ask our house staff for assistance.
QUIET ZONE Please turn all cellular and paging devices to the vibrate or off position upon entry into Symphony Hall. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated by fellow concertgoers and performers.
LOST & FOUND Report all lost and/or found items to your nearest usher. If you have discovered that you misplaced something after your departure from Jacobs Music Center, call the Facilities Department at 619.615.3909.
RECORDING DEVICES No unauthorized cameras or recording devices of any other kind are allowed inside the concert hall. Cell phone photography is not permitted.
PRE-CONCERT TALKS Patrons holding tickets to our Jacobs Masterworks Series concerts are invited to come early for “What’s The Score?” preperformance conversations beginning 45 minutes prior to all Jacobs Masterworks programs (Fridays and Saturdays, 7:15 pm; Sundays, 1:15 pm).
SMOKING POLICY Smoking is not permitted in Jacobs Music Center, its lobbies or the adjoining Symphony Towers lobby. Ashtrays can be found outside the building on both 7th Avenue and B Street. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND REFRESHMENTS Alcoholic beverages are available for sale in Jacobs Music Center lobbies before the concert and during intermission. Please have valid identification available and please drink responsibly. Refreshment bars offering snacks and beverages are located on both upper and lower lobbies for most events. Food and beverages are not allowed in performance chamber for concerts. LATE SEATING Latecomers will be seated at an appropriate interval in the concert as determined by the house manager. We ask that you remain in your ticketed seat until the concert has concluded. Should special circumstances exist or arise, please contact the nearest usher for assistance. SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONS Seating: ADA seating for both transfer and non-transfer wheelchairs, as well as restrooms, are available at each performance. Please notify the Ticket Office in advance at 619.235.0804, so that an usher may assist you. Assistive Listening Devices: A limited number of hearing enhancement devices are available at no cost. Please ask an usher for assistance.
HALL TOURS Free tours of the Jacobs Music Center are given each month of the winter season. Check the “Jacobs Music Center” section of the website, or call 619.615.3955 for more details. No reservations are necessary.
JACOBS MUSIC CENTER TICKET OFFICE 750 B Street (NE Corner of 7th and B, Downtown San Diego) San Diego, CA 92101 Phone: 619.235.0804 Fax: 619.231.3848 SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ADMINISTRATION OFFICE 1245 7th Avenue San Diego, CA 92101 Phone: 619.235.0800 Fax: 619.235.0005
Our Website: SanDiegoSymphony.com
Contact us to receive mailed or e-mailed updates about Orchestra events. All artists, programs and dates are subject to change.
SAN DI E GO SYM P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A W I N T E R S E AS O N JANUAR Y 2016