Program Notes: A Lang Lang Super Sunday

FEBRUARY 5

A LANG LANG SUPER SUNDAY SUNDAY February 5, 2017 – 1:00pm JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT

conductor Jahja Ling piano Lang Lang

All performances at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall This concert is made possible, in part, through the generosity of The Vail Memorial Trust, John W. Brown Trustee.

PROGRAM DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

Festive Overture, Op. 96 Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1 Vivace Andante

Allegro vivace Lang Lang, piano

INTERMISSION PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36

Andante sostenuto

Andantino in modo di canzona

Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato

Finale: Allegro con fuoco The approximate running time for this program, including intermission, is one hour and forty-five minutes.

Lang Lang is managed by: Columbia Artists Music LLC 1790 Broadway New York, NY 10019 www.camimusic.com Jean-Jacques Cesbron

THIS CONCERT IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

CONRAD PREBYS

AUGUST 20, 1933 – JULY 24, 2016 The San Diego Symphony is honored to dedicate this performance in the memory of our dear friend, CONRAD PREBYS. Conrad was a cherished member of the Symphony family, along with his life partner Debra Turner. Together, as generous supporters of the great classical masterworks, they enabled the Symphony to bring some of the world’s most highly acclaimed artists, like today’s performance of Lang Lang, to San Diego audiences. Conrad’s unparalleled life has left an indelible impression on this community and will continue to affect lives in San Diego for generations to come.

P 10 PERFORMAN C ES MAGA ZINE

S A N D I E G O SYM PH O NY O R C H E ST R A 2 0 1 6 -1 7 S E A S O N F EBR UA RY 2017

ABOUT THE ARTIST

A LANG LANG SUPER SUNDAY - FEBRUARY 5 Tom and Jerry cartoon “The Cat Concerto” which introduced him, as a delighted child, to the music of Liszt – and that childlike excitement at the discovery of music – now surely stays with him and propels him to what he calls “his second career,” bringing music into the lives of children around the world, both through his work for the United Nations and through his own Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

LANG LANG, PIANO

I

f one word applies to LANG LANG, to the musician, to the man, to his worldview, to those who come into contact with him, it is “inspiration”. It resounds like a musical motif through his life and career.

He inspires millions with his open-hearted, emotive playing, whether it be in intimate recitals or on the grandest of stages – such as the 2014 World Cup concert in Rio, with Placido Domingo, to celebrate the final game; the 56th and 57th Grammy® Award telecast two years in a row, where he performed with Metallica and Pharrell Williams; the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where more than four billion people around the world viewed his performance; the Last Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall or the Liszt 200th birthday concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Charles Dutoit which was broadcast live in more than 300 movie theaters around the United States and 200 cinemas across Europe (the first classical music cinema-cast to be headlined by a solo artist). He forms enduring musical partnerships with the world’s greatest artists, from conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel and Sir Simon Rattle, to artists from outside of classical music – among them dubstep dancer Marquese “nonstop” Scott, king of the crooners Julio Inglesias and jazz titan Herbie Hancock. He even builds relationships with corporations who will help him get classical music to ever more people.

And he builds cultural bridges between East and West, frequently introducing Chinese music to Western audiences, and vice versa.

Yet he never forgets what first inspired, and continues to inspire him: great artists, above all the great composers – Liszt, Chopin and the others – whose music he now delights in bringing to others. Even that famous old

It takes a special kind of dedication to come from a small Chinese town Shenyang, to travel to the big city as a small child and to win the attention of the country’s finest music professors…and then to leave behind your home country altogether to join the world-famous Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Lang Lang achieved all of these early on. He started playing piano at age three, won the Shenyang Competition and gave his first public recital by the time he was five, entered Beijing’s Central Music Conservatory aged nine, won first prize at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians’ Competition and playing the complete Chopin Etudes at the Beijing Concert Hall at 13. He left for America, Curtis and the great piano teacher Gary Graffman, and when his moment came, he was ready. That moment happened when, aged 17, he was called upon to make a dramatic last-minute substitution for the famous Andre Watts to perform in the “Gala of the Century,” playing a Tchaikovsky concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It made him what journalists like to call an “overnight star,” and the world’s finest concert halls quickly beckoned.

Today, his resume reads like a bestseller.

(Indeed, his autobiography, Journey of a Thousand Miles, has been published by Random House in eleven languages, and was released to critical acclaim. As part of his commitment to the education of children, he released a version specifically for younger readers, entitled Playing with Flying Keys).

He has been heralded as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet” by The New York Times, has played sold out concerts in every major city in the world and is the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic orchestras. Time Magazine has included Lang Lang in the “Time 100,” the magazine’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, naming

SAN DIE GO SYMPHO NY O R C HES T R A 2016- 17 S EA SO N F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7

him as a symbol of the youth of China, and its future.

Lang Lang has made numerous TV appearances, including The Today Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Good Morning America, The Early Show, 60 Minutes, Wetten Dass…? and El Número Uno among many others. He has been featured on every major TV network and in news and lifestyle magazines worldwide, including such diverse publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Vogue, The Times, Financial Times, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Die Welt, Reader’s Digest and People.

As well as President Obama, Lang Lang has performed for numerous international dignitaries including the former SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations Kofi Annan, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, President Xi Jin-Ping and former President Hu Jin-Tao of China. Wherever he can, Lang Lang tries to give back. In 2013 he

Concert Sponsor Spotlight

CARLETON & ANDREE VAIL

The late CARLETON and ANDREE VAIL were long time supporters of classical music and education and Carleton Vail served as a member of the San Diego Symphony’s Board of Directors. The Vail Memorial Trust, John W. Brown Trustee, was established upon the death of the survivor and is the sponsor of today’s concert.

PE R F O R MA N C E S MAGA Z INE P 11

ABOUT THE ARTIST

A LANG LANG SUPER SUNDAY - FEBRUARY 5 was designated by the Secretary General of the United Nations as a Messenger of Peace focusing on global education.

In 2007 he was nominated for a Grammy® Award, becoming the first Chinese artist to be nominated for Best Instrumental Soloist.

He is one of the world’s most prolific and highest-profile recording artists. Featured soloist on the Golden Globe® winning score for the film The Painted Veil, composed by Alexandre Desplat, he can also be heard on the soundtracks of The Banquet, composed by Tan Dun, and of My Week with Marilyn. All of his albums have entered the top classical charts as well as many pop charts around the globe.

In February 2010 Lang Lang joined Sony Music Entertainment as an exclusive recording artist; his first album with Sony featured a live recording of his 2010 recital at Vienna’s legendary Musikverein (including a segment filmed in 3D). His next CD, Liszt, My Piano Hero and DVD Liszt, Now! celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the great composer, while 2012 saw the release of The Chopin

Album, 2013 a recording with Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker of two masterpiece piano concertos of the 20th century, Prokofiev No.3 and Bartok 2, and 2014 an album devoted to Mozart. His recently released an album entitled Lang Lang in Paris features Tchaikovsky’s Seasons and four Chopin Scherzos.

Lang Lang is an Exclusive Recording Artist of Sony Music. n

ABOUT THE MUSIC

TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY NO. 4 - FEBRUARY 3 A LANG LANG SUPER SUNDAY - FEBRUARY 5 Festive Overture, Op. 96 D M I T R I S H O STAKOVICH Born September 25, 1906, St. Petersburg Died August 9, 1975, Moscow

Early in November 1954, the directors of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow – who were planning a concert to celebrate the 37th anniversary of the Communist Revolution – suddenly realized that they needed a brief curtain-raiser for that concert. They turned to Shostakovich, who was a musical consultant for the Theatre, and asked him to write that piece. Faced with an immediate deadline, Shostakovich wrote as fast as he could, and his manuscript – the ink still wet – was taken by courier to the Theatre, where it was copied, rehearsed and premiered by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra under Alexander Melik-Pashayev on November 6, 1954. The music had not even existed a few days before.

The directors wanted a piece to open a celebration concert, and that is exactly what they got. The overture springs to life on a series of ringing trumpet fanfares, and at the Presto it zips ahead on a saucy clarinet solo. Soon cellos and horns announce the overture’s main theme, a broad, openspirited tune, and this develops with a great deal of energy. The climax brings back the opening trumpet fanfares, and P 12 PERFORMAN C ES MAGA ZINE

the overture rushes to its close in a blaze of sound. This music is rousing enough by itself, but to insure that it made a maximum impact Shostakovich authorized optional extra brass instruments – four horns, three trumpets and three trombones – to reinforce the climaxes.

was instinctive. His Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and Violin Concerto No. 3 – music that combines a Gallic elegance with some superbly idiomatic writing for the violin – are important parts of the repertory of every concert violinist.

The Festive Overture may have been written to commemorate an anniversary of the Communist Revolution, but its title is neutral enough for it to be used on any happy occasion. And it has been – it remains one of Shostakovich’s most frequently performed and recorded works. n

Composed in 1880 when Saint-Saëns was 45, the Violin Concerto No. 3 is dedicated to the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate.

Melodic and exciting, it is remarkable for its taut construction: Saint-Saëns provides no cadenza for the soloist and makes unusual thematic connections between the movements. The first movement, marked Allegro non troppo, opens with a quiet rustle of sound from the orchestra, and over this the solo violin lays out the movement’s main theme. Saint-Saëns marks this theme appassionato, and its first five notes – vigorously stamped out by the violin – will figure importantly, both as thematic material and as accompaniment; that figure can be heard in many guises throughout this movement. The gentle second subject, in E Major, brings relief after the intensity of the opening. Perhaps to make up for the absence of a cadenza, Saint-Saëns provides the soloist with a great number of brilliant and difficult passages, and the close of this movement is especially exciting.

Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61 CAMI LLE SAI NT- SAËNS Born October 9, 1835, Paris Died December 16, 1921, Algiers

(Performed Friday, February 3 only) Saint-Saëns was a piano virtuoso of the first order, a musician so naturally gifted that after a recital at the age of ten he is reported to have offered to play any Beethoven piano sonata as an encore – from memory. Yet it is true that some of Saint-Saëns’ finest music is for the violin, an instrument he did not play; apparently his feel for that instrument

The Andantino quasi allegretto is a barcarolle,

S A N D I E G O SYM PH O NY O R C H E ST R A 2 0 1 6 -1 7 S E A S O N F EBR UA RY 2017

ABOUT THE MUSIC

TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY NO. 4 - FEBRUARY 3 A LANG LANG SUPER SUNDAY - FEBRUARY 5 a boat-song perhaps inspired by the songs of the Venetian gondoliers. The orchestra’s 6/8 accompaniment mirrors a boat’s rocking motion, and above this the solo violin sings its graceful melody. The center section of the movement grows animated as this theme develops, and Saint-Saëns rounds off the movement by giving the theme to the orchestra and having the violin accompany with arpeggios of artificial harmonics.

The last movement is the longest and the most striking. It opens with an elaborate recitative for violin, almost reminiscent of Bach’s music for solo violin. Alert listeners will discover that the violin’s figurations here look both forward and backward: they grow out of the development of the main theme of the second movement and also anticipate the main theme of the last. The Allegro non troppo bursts to life as the solo violin leaps upward on a main theme full of rhythmic spring and showers of triplets. A soaring second subject, marked appassionato, is announced by the solo violin, which also has a singing third theme. Matters seem set for a virtuoso finale when Saint-Saëns springs a surprise: muted orchestral strings sing a subdued and solemn chorale marked Cantabile, and gradually this chorale grows in strength until it blazes out triumphantly.

The solo violin, plunging and soaring throughout its range, leads the orchestra through the exciting coda. n

Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1 S E R G E I R AC H M ANINO FF Born April 1, 1873, Oneg, Novgorod Died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills

(Performed Sunday, February 5 only) Rachmaninoff was one of the greatest pianists who ever lived (his many recordings confirm this), and his talent was evident early: he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1891 at the age of 18 with the highest honors for his playing. But Rachmaninoff had already been seduced by the desire to compose, and he began to write music while still in his teens.

During the summer of 1890, when he was 17, Rachmaninoff began work on a piano concerto at his family’s summer estate at Ivanovka. He returned the following summer to complete the concerto, and

he was soloist when the conservatory orchestra performed the first movement on March 29, 1892. A few months later he composed the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor, a piece whose popularity would haunt him the rest of his life. He was still only 19 years old.

The First Piano Concerto was quickly published, but Rachmaninoff came to recognize problems in his youthful effort and resolved to revise it. That revision, however, had to wait a long time: Rachmaninoff did not get around to it until the fall of 1917. As the communist revolution tore apart the country outside the window of his Moscow apartment, Rachmaninoff – then 44 – completely restructured the final movement and revised the orchestration.

To a friend he commented: “I have revised my First Concerto; it is really good now.

All the youthful freshness is there, and yet it plays itself so much more easily…It is incredible how many stupid things I did at the age of 19. All composers do it.”

The Piano Concerto No. 1, in classical concerto form, is unmistakably the work of Rachmaninoff: the big romantic tunes, the dramatic gestures and the extraordinarily difficult writing for piano were all there from the very beginning. The first instant of the opening Vivace sets the tone of this youthful concerto: a ringing brass fanfare introduces the solo piano, which spirals downward in a brief cadenza. The principal themes of this movement, both announced by the violins, are yearning and dark, and their progress is interrupted by brilliant passagework from the soloist. There are in fact several cadenzas in this first movement, though the long principal cadenza comes just before the Vivace coda that propels this movement to its firm close.

Solo horn opens the Andante, and the strings’ dark entrance at first obscures the fact that this movement will be in D Major.

Most of it belongs to the solo piano, with the orchestra becoming an equal partner only in the closing minutes. The concluding Allegro vivace returns to the manner of the opening movement. Another fanfare-figure opens this movement, and the pianist quickly answers: the orchestra’s passages are in 9/8 here, but the piano responds in phrases set in 12/8, and Rachmaninoff will alternate those two meters throughout. The virtuoso writing for soloist

SAN DIE GO SYMPHO NY O R C HES T R A 2016- 17 S EA SO N F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7

is interrupted by a calm central interlude, built on the violins’ big tune in E-flat Major.

The opening material returns, and at the end – transposed into F-sharp Major – the music rushes to a knock-out close fully worthy of the 18-year-old virtuoso who wrote it. n

Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Born May 7, 1840, Votkinsk Died November 6, 1893, St. Petersburg

The Symphony No. 4 dates from the most tumultuous period in Tchaikovsky’s difficult life, and its composition came from a moment of agony. When he began work on the symphony in May 1877, Tchaikovsky had for some years been tormented by the secret of his homosexuality, a secret he kept hidden from all but a few friends. As he worked on this score, one of his students at the Moscow Conservatory – a deranged young woman named Antonina Ivanovna Milyukova – declared her love for him. Knowing that such a prospect was hopeless, Tchaikovsky put her off as gently as he could, but she persisted, even threatening suicide at one point. As fate would have it, Tchaikovsky was also at work on his opera Eugen Onegin at this time and was composing the scene in which the bachelor Onegin turns down the infatuated young Tatiana, to his eventual regret. Struck by the parallel with his own situation – and at some level longing for a “normal” life with a wife and children – Tchaikovsky did precisely the wrong thing for some very complex reasons: he agreed to Antonina’s proposal of marriage.

His friends were horrified, but the composer pressed ahead and married Antonina on July 18, 1877. The marriage was an instant disaster.

Tchaikovsky quickly abandoned his bride, tried to return, but fled again and made what we would today call a suicide-gesture. He then retreated to St. Petersburg and collapsed into two days of unconsciousness. His doctors prescribed complete rest, a recommendation Tchaikovsky was only too happy to follow. He abandoned his teaching post in Moscow and fled to Western Europe, finding relief in the quiet of Clarens in Switzerland and San Remo in Italy. It was in San Remo – on the sunny shores of the Mediterranean and far from the chaos of his life in Moscow – that he completed the Fourth Symphony in January 1878.

The Fourth Symphony has all of Tchaikovsky’s PE R F O R MA N C E S MAGA Z INE P 13

ABOUT THE MUSIC

TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY NO. 4 - FEBRUARY 3 A LANG LANG SUPER SUNDAY - FEBRUARY 5 considerable virtues – great melodies, primary colors and soaring climaxes – and in this case they are fused with a superheated emotional content. The composer’s friends guessed, perhaps inevitably, that the symphony had a program, that it was “about” something, and Tchaikovsky offered several different explanations of the content of this dramatic music. To his friend Serge Taneyev, Tchaikovsky said that the model for his Fourth Symphony had been Beethoven’s Fifth, specifically in the way both symphonies are structured around a recurring motif, though perhaps also in the sense that the two symphonies begin in emotional turmoil and eventually win their way to release and triumph in the finale. For his patroness, Madame Nadezhda von Meck, who had supplied the money that enabled him to escape his marriage, Tchaikovsky prepared an elaborate program detailing what his symphony “meant.” One should inevitably be suspicious of such “explanations” (and Tchaikovsky himself later suppressed the program), but this account does offer some sense of what he believed had shaped the content of his music.

The symphony opens with a powerful brass fanfare, which Tchaikovsky describes as “Fate, the inexorable power that hampers our search for happiness. This power hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles, leaving us no option but to submit.” The principal subject of this movement, however, is a dark, stumbling waltz in 9/8 introduced by the violins: “The main theme of the Allegro describes feelings of depression and hopelessness. Would it not be better to forsake reality and lose oneself in

dreams?” This long opening movement (it is nearly half the length of the entire symphony) has an unusual structure: Tchaikovsky builds it on three separate theme-groups which evolve through some unusual harmonic relationships.

Like inescapable fate, the opening mottotheme returns at key points in this dramatic music, and it finally drives the movement to a furious close: “Thus we see that life is only an everlasting alternation of somber reality and fugitive dreams of happiness.”

After so turbulent a beginning opening, the two middle movements bring much-needed relief. The contrast is so sharp, in fact, that Taneyev complained that these were essentially ballet music made to serve as symphonic movements. Taneyev may have a point, but after that scalding first movement, the gentle character of the middle movements is welcome. The Andantino, in ternary-form, opens with a plaintive oboe solo and features a more animated middle section. Tchaikovsky described it: “Here is the melancholy feeling that overcomes us when we sit weary and alone at the end of the day. The book we pick up slips from our fingers, and a procession of memories passes in review…”

The scherzo has deservedly become one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular movements. It is a tour de force for strings (which play pizzicato throughout), with crisp interjections first from the woodwinds and then from brass.

Tchaikovsky makes piquant contrast between these quite different sounds, combining all his forces only in the final moments of the

PERFORMANCE HISTORY

by Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist Tchaikovsky's powerhouse Fourth Symphony was played by the San Diego Symphony for the first time during the portentous summer of 1941, under Nicolai Sokoloff's baton. That was the last season of orchestral playing until after WWII. Not only did the draft deplete the personnel, but also Balboa Park was closed to everything other than the Naval Hospital, so there was no place for even the residual orchestra to play. The Symphony reorganized in 1947, and two years later Fabien Sevitzky led its second performance of this work. All told, it has been programmed here 20 times from its first performances here, including three presentations under Jahja Ling, most recently in the 2012-13 season.

Robert Zeller led the orchestra in its first performance of Shostakovich's Festive Overture, during the 1972-73 season. It

P 14 PERFORMAN C ES MAGA ZINE

movement. The composer notes: “There is no specific feeling or exact expression in the third movement. Here are only the capricious arabesques and indeterminate shapes that come into one’s mind with a little wine…”

Out of the quiet close of the third movement, the finale explodes to life. The composer described this movement as “the picture of a folk holiday” and said, “If you find no pleasure in yourself, look about you.

Go to the people. See how they can enjoy life and give themselves up entirely to festivity.”

Marked Allegro con fuoco, this movement simply alternates its volcanic opening sequence with a gentle little woodwind tune that is actually the Russian folktune “In the field there stood a birch tree.” At the climax, however, the fate-motto from the first movement suddenly bursts forth: “But hardly have we had a moment to enjoy this when Fate, relentless and untiring, makes his presence known.”

Given the catastrophic events of his life during this music’s composition, Tchaikovsky may well have come to feel that Fate was inescapable, and the reappearance of the opening motto amid the high spirits of the finale represents the climax – both musically and emotionally – of the entire symphony.

This spectre duly acknowledged, Tchaikovsky rips the symphony to a close guaranteed to set every heart in the hall racing at the same incandescent pace as his music. n PROGRAM NOTES BY ERIC BROMBERGER

was repeated in the Masterworks Series once more, conducted

by Edward Cumming during the 2007-08 season. I also have an independent recollection of hearing it played once or twice during the “Summer Pops” seasons.

On Friday evening, February 3rd, Benjamin Bielman will be the soloist in the beautiful, underplayed Saint-Saëns Third Violin Concerto, first given here by Leila Josefowicz during the 1990-91 season, under Moshe Atzmon's direction. Its only other presentation here was during the 1994-95 season, when Jung-Ho Pak led it with Chee Yun as soloist.

On Sunday afternoon, February 5th, Lang Lang will be our soloist, playing the Rachmaninoff First Piano Concerto, last played here

by Olga Kern, under Jahja Ling's direction in the 2012-13 season.

Arthur Fiedler conducted its initial outing by the San Diego Symphony, when Howard Wells soloed, during the summer of 1972.

S A N D I E G O SYM PH O NY O R C H E ST R A 2 0 1 6 -1 7 S E A S O N F EBR UA RY 2017

WHY THIS PROGRAM? DR. MELVIN G. GOLDZBAND, ARCHIVIST, SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

“Once again, I'm very happy to be leading a concert featuring one of my closest friends,” said our music director Jahja Ling as he sat down to chat with me. Continuing, he recalled, “I led the concert featuring Lang Lang which was the first time he ever soloed with a major orchestra, in Cleveland, and he remains a very true, loyal and very special friend who has gone out of his way many times in order to play with me. And this time, with me, he is going to play a piece he has never done before in concert. Of course, his schedule is always full, but he has often made special arrangements to join me. His appearance with us in Carnegie Hall and in China was very special. He is like part of our family, very close to Jessie and the girls, who adore him. To have him here during my final season as music director is not only especially pleasurable, it is a real statement of our mutual feelings.”

Jahja Ling commented about the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 to be played by his close friend on the Sunday afternoon concert: “Although it is, after all, Rachmaninoff, with big melodic themes, it has huge demands characteristic of the composer who himself may have been the greatest virtuoso pianist of his time. It can get very exciting.” He then turned to the soloist for the Friday evening

concert. “I'm so happy that a fine young violinist, Benjamin Beilman, offered the Saint-Saëns Third Violin Concerto for his debut here. It is a jewel among French violin concertos, and it is really too bad that it has not been played here very often, and especially not during my tenure here. It demands considerable virtuosity from the soloist, but the piece is also very romantic, and very French. Saint-Saëns was a very prolific composer, and he wrote several violin concertos as well as smaller pieces for the violin. But this is the prize among his concertos.”

Setting his sights on the symphony to be played at these concerts, he waxed ecstatic: “This is the greatest of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, his real 'Fate Symphony.' He makes sure that the listener recognizes that from the first measures of this most brilliant work. The fate motto in his Fifth Symphony also plays a big role but this one is really all about fate. He lets you know right away that fate is a tough competitor!” Continuing, Jahja Ling noted that the portions not specifically about fate are also tough for the orchestra and the conductor. “The second movement, just like in the Brahms Third Symphony, has very difficult cross rhythms in those supposedly simple folk melodies. And then, the third movement – so original and so brilliant and so novel – turns the entire, big orchestra into a giant balalaika.”

Robert Wilkins SDSO CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER SINCE 2003 RETIRES

Anyone trying to define exactly what ROBERT WILKINS’ role as COO meant to the San Diego Symphony would have to begin with a line from John Ruskin. “What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.”

Robert was a doer. From overseeing the orchestra’s recordings and radio broadcasts, to guiding the audition process that resulted in over 60 appointments to the San Diego Symphony, Robert was there. He made sure each and every orchestra member felt welcomed and supported.

A partner to Jahja Ling, Robert is a major reason the orchestra today is at such a high artistic level. Robert made everything work.

Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to parents who were each professors at the University of North Dakota, he grew up with music over the radio during those rich musical times when networks and even individual stations had their own orchestras. Robert was only 12 when he began to work at the University’s public radio station, working in the record library, programming music and ultimately announcing the classical records he would spin there. He stayed in Grand Forks, attended the university and received a master’s degree. He got a job at the NPR station in DeKalb, Illinois (outside of Chicago), and then in Chicago attended Loyola University School of Law from which he graduated and became a licensed attorney.

Robert never practiced law although he read and negotiated many a

P 15 PERFORMAN C ES MAGA ZINE

contract. For Robert, music consistently drew him.

He worked at the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago where he became a close friend to Leonard Slatkin, who conducted half of the summer season there. In 1979 Maestro Slatkin brought Robert to the Saint Louis Symphony where he remained for the tenure of Slatkin as Music Director. During those 17 years, Robert oversaw many of the Saint Louis Symphony’s radio broadcasts and recordings, and rejoiced in their numerous Grammys®. When Slatkin left St. Louis for the National Symphony, Robert went to the Milwaukee Symphony, and after seven years was then called to the Minnesota Orchestra to work on their centennial season. While in Minnesota, Robert worked with Ward Gill. Gill, upon his appointment as Executive Director (later CEO) of the San Diego Symphony, invited Robert to come to San Diego as COO, a role designed to combine all of Robert’s many talents from his previous positions.

Robert Wilkins takes enormous pride and pleasure in the tremendous growth he has seen and heard during his 13 years with San Diego. He gives a great deal of credit to music director Jahja Ling for building the splendid instrument the San Diego Symphony has become, and also to the large number of people who have donated and worked hard for the orchestra. He will continue to see and hear it, but not with the associated mountain of responsibilities that accompanied his listening before. We wish him good listening and a very happy and content retirement.

DR. MELVIN G. GOLDZBAND, ARCHIVIST, SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

S A N D I E G O SYM PH O NY O R C H E ST R A 2 0 1 6 -1 7 S E A S O N F EBR UA RY 2017