OCTOBER 25, 2024 / 7:30 PM / MAURICE ABRAVANEL HALL
OCTOBER 26, 2024 / 5:30 PM / MAURICE ABRAVANEL HALL
STEPHANIE CHILDRESS , conductor
RANDALL GOOSBY, violin
BARBER
FLORENCE PRICE
FLORENCE PRICE
GERSHWIN
BERNSTEIN
Second Essay for Orchestra (10’)
Adoration (5’)
RANDALL GOOSBY, violin
Violin Concerto No. 2 (15’)
RANDALL GOOSBY, violin
INTERMISSION
An American in Paris (16’)
Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (24’)
I. Prologue
II. “Somewhere”
III. Scherzo
IV. Mambo
V. Cha Cha
VI. Meeting Scene
VII. “Cool” Fugue
VIII. Rumble
IX. Finale
CONDUCTOR SPONSOR
Stephanie Childress Conductor
Strong ideas, lucid communication and intensely focused energy are among the qualities that define Stephanie Childress among today’s most compelling young musicians. Recently appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, her musicianship and command of a broad scope of repertoire have already led her to establish herself on both sides of the Atlantic.
On the orchestral podium, Childress continues to be reinvited internationally and returns to the Barcelona and North Carolina Symphonies. In North America she will have debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and National Arts Centre Ottawa. In Europe Childress will also make her first appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and her Japanese debut with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.
GUEST ARTIST SPONSOR
THE EVELYN ROSENBLATT YOUNG ARTIST AWARD
Randall Goosby Violin
Signed exclusively to Decca Classics in 2020 at the age of 24, American violinist Randall Goosby is acclaimed for thesensitivity and intensity of his musicianship alongside his determination to make music more inclusive and accessible, as well as bringing the music of underrepresented composers to light.
Highlights of Randall Goosby’s 2024/25 season include debut performances with the Chicago Symphony/Sir Mark Elder, the Minnesota Orchestra/Thomas Søndergård, National Arts Centre Orchestra/Alexander Shelley, Montreal Symphony Orchestra/Dalia Stasevska and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic/ Michele Mariotti. He joins the London Philharmonic Orchestra on their U.S. tour led by Edward Gardner.
Goosby returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Detroit Symphony and Utah Symphony. He appears in recital across North America and Europe as soloist as well as with the Renaissance Quartet.
Goosby plays the Antonio Stradivarius, Cremona, “ex-Strauss,” 1708 on generous loan from Samsung Foundation of Culture.
Second Essay for Orchestra
Duration: 10 minutes.
THE COMPOSER – SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) – For so many artists around the globe in the early 1940s, the War was either coincident with or fully responsible for a change of voice. Samuel Barber, in the year just prior to the outbreak, had been established as America’s most lyrical composer thanks to the massive success of his Adagio for Strings. Toscanini conducted the work on a 1938 broadcast with his newly minted NBC Symphony and Barber’s Romanticism resonated at home and abroad among music’s more conservative traditionalists. But the War, and the attack on Pearl Harbor in particular, shifted his perspective. The cooler, reserved style Barber began to explore after the Adagio was, in many ways, his reaction to a world ablaze. He still looked to Europe for inspiration, but he was less dependent upon it.
THE HISTORY – Also included in that fateful 1938 broadcast was the first of Barber’s three Essays for Orchestra. The great tradition of America’s literary nonfiction giants was on his mind, for sure, but so was the even older convention of rhetorical speech-making. Written essays and verbal orations share a structural rigor that requires their ideas to be presented clearly, argued deftly and, ultimately, defended passionately. The same holds true for Barber’s musical prose. When Bruno Walter commissioned a new work from him for the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in 1942, Barber felt established enough (thanks to the Adagio for Strings) to follow his own instincts about what to offer in response. In the end, he decided to continue the literary experiment he began four years earlier and presented Walter with a Second Essay for Orchestra. This was just before enlisting in the Army Air Corps. The timing of the two events is important, it seems in hindsight. Though it would be nice to have a piece of actual writing to guide our way through the Second Essay, it exists in its own purely musical space. Only Barber’s imminent departure for war seems to provide an external anchor for the listener, as the sounds of conflict lurk beneath the surface of the work’s evolving succession of thematic thoughts. Walter’s performance of the Second Essay for Orchestra was followed quickly by a second reading in Philadelphia under Eugene Ormandy. Musicologist and author Walter Simmons wrote that Barber was often present at the transition points of musical fashion, if perhaps too often a little late to the party. It’s a keen observation. The Second Essay is not, and was not, proof of Barber’s embrace of modern techniques. It was part of his attempt to answer the questions of the heart with the head, and to do so in his own sweet time.
The Second Essay remains one of his most performed orchestral scores.
THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1942, Bing Crosby recorded “White Christmas”, French author Albert Camus published “The Stranger”, Ghandi launched the “Quit India” movement to unite his people against British Rule, all while the War raged on.
THE CONNECTION – Utah Symphony last performed Barber’s Second Essay during the 2015–16 season. Christian Macelaru was on the podium.
Adoration
Violin Concerto No. 2
Duration: 5 minutes and 15 minutes.
THE COMPOSER – FLORENCE PRICE (1887-1953) –The classical music industry is attempting today to make amends for its many sins of omission and exclusion, and a revival of interest in Florence Price has been an important part of that effort for many institutions. In her time, Price knew what she was up against and how unlikely history was to make room for her name in the future. In an oftquoted program note reference (this annotator included), Price wrote to the eminent conductor Serge Koussevitzky in 1943. She understood that composers needed champions on the podium and hoped he would take up her cause, despite the cards stacked against her. “I have two handicaps,” she told him, “those of sex and race”. Later in the letter she added, “I would like to be judged on merit alone”.
THE HISTORY – To be considered objectively was not an outrageous wish. But it was un-grantable in Florence Price’s time and is only just beginning to come true in ours. Price was essentially rediscovered in 2009 when a trove of her manuscripts and letters were discovered at her abandoned summer home in Illinois. The story they tell is one of an obscure but prolific compositional life, with over 300 works to fill the catalogue. The list includes four symphonies, four concertos and a wealth of choral and chamber ensemble music. Two of her concertos were for violin, with No. 2 completed in 1952, just months before her death. It is only a brief 14 minutes long, but it contains all the hallmarks of her late style. The music has some chromaticism and dissonance, yes. But more important than any modest modernist convention is the clear sense of confidence that comes from
vast experience. Price may not have had renown, but she did have that – experience. Her previous Violin Concerto was written in 1939 and was quite conventional by comparison. Violin Concerto No. 2 is cast in a single movement, with four overlapping sections that contrast and converse with each other in fascinating ways. It was Price’s last orchestral score. Adoration was also written just before Price’s passing. Composed in 1951, it was originally scored for solo organ but has since been arranged to feature other solo instruments, including that one always closest to her heart, the violin. Any work for the organ suggests an aspect of devotion, and Adoration fits this expectation perfectly. Over its short but beguiling duration, the music follows a three-part design of hymn, response, hymn and concludes with a quiet Amen.
THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1951, Libya gained its independence from Italy and the Rosenbergs were sentenced to death for treason in the U.S. In 1952, King George VI of England died, the first thermonuclear bomb was exploded in the Marshall Islands and King Farouk was ousted in Egypt.
THE CONNECTION – These concerts represent the Utah Symphony debut of Florence Price’s Adoration and Violin Concerto No. 2.
An American in Paris
Duration: 16 minutes.
THE COMPOSER – GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) –
With the sensational popularity of Rhapsody in Blue firmly lodged in the international consciousness, Gershwin found himself quite the celebrity when he travelled abroad in in the mid-1920’s. While in Europe with his family he met some fellow “serious” composers, including Prokofiev, Ravel, Walton and even Schoenberg and Berg. In fact, the diaries of George’s brother Ira said that George spent every spare minute in the company of the artistic elite, establishing relationships and looking for feedback on his ideas. Though he continued to compose for the theatre, Gershwin had spent the years immediately following the Rhapsody in greater contemplation of his concert music persona. Time among the leading lights was just what he needed.
THE HISTORY – Among the many rewards for a success as potent as Rhapsody in Blue was an increase in commission opportunities. Walter Damrosch and his New York Symphony Society had already struck piano gold again with Gershwin on the Concerto in F in 1925 and the conductor wasted little
time providing funding and a Carnegie Hall date for another project. Gershwin’s rise to fame away from Broadway was so quick that it outpaced the opinions of many that still viewed his “serious” efforts with a patronizing skepticism. By 1928 however, this circumstance was beginning to correct itself, but even today Gershwin’s symphonic scores are viewed as “crossover” art. Two entertaining stories from the Europe trip tells of Stravinsky’s and Ravel’s rejections of Gershwin’s requests for composition lessons (famed composer-whisperer Nadia Boulanger turned him down too). Stravinsky, upon hearing of Gershwin’s six-figure income, supposedly said “then I should take lessons from you.” Ravel is said to have answered Gershwin’s question with a question of his own, “Why should you be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?” Stravinsky, at least, later characterized the exchange as “regrettably untrue” but the historical affection shown these twin legends is due in part to our desire to see shifting attitudes of some among Gershwin’s new peer group. The composer fulfilled the second Damrosch commission with a light-hearted tone portrait of his time in Paris. He was determined to write something that stood on its own two orchestral feet and didn’t rely on a solo piano for its credibility. Paris, with her busy streets and cultural tumult, was the perfect muse and Gershwin used the authentic French taxi horns he brought back with him to depict the many charms that eventually win over the titular “homesick American” in the piece.
THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1928, the Summer Olympics opened in Amsterdam, the Catholic institution Opus Dei was founded, the animated short film Steamboat Willie (featuring Mickey Mouse) was premiered and Leon Trotsky was sent into exile.
THE CONNECTION – An American in Paris is performed on nearly every Utah Symphony’s concert series. The most recent Masterworks concert occurred in September 2018 under Thierry Fischer.
Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Duration: 24 minutes in nine sections.
THE COMPOSER – LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990) – It was 1957 when Bernstein completed the work he could have retired on, had it been possible for such a thing to cross his mind. West Side Story permanently reconfigured the musical cosmos when it premiered on Broadway. Bernstein, for his part, was already famous on the podium at that time. He had made his name as a conductor in 1943 thanks to the sudden illness of Bruno Walter. Bernstein was asked to fill in for Walter
HISTORY OF THE MUSIC
with the New York Philharmonic on incredibly short notice and became a superstar overnight. But even that heroic legend would be eclipsed a decade and half later by his theatrical masterpiece. West Side Story. Say the name Bernstein even today, and those are the three words that usually follow.
THE HISTORY – Three years and many hundreds of repeat performances later, Bernstein extracted a suite of Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It wasn’t a cash grab. Bernstein’s use of dance in the show was as critical to the Shakespearean plot as the songs. From its romantic escapes to its all-out gang fights, choreographed movement gave West Side Story the stylish visual language that works perfectly even when the cast is not present. The old chestnut about music so vibrant you can see it with your ears has proof in the Symphonic Dances. The distilled version of the synopsis we “watch” unfold is best described by Jack Gottlieb, Bernstein’s longtime collaborator and an undisputed expert on the composer’s work. In 1993, Gottlieb laid out the nine section of the Symphonic Dances as follows: “Prologue – The growing rivalry between two teenage gangs the Jets and the Sharks; Somewhere – In a dream ballet, the two gangs are united in friendship; Scherzo – In the same dream, the gangs break away from the city walls, suddenly finding themselves in a playful world
of space, air and sun; Mambo – In the real world again, the competitive dance at the gym between the gangs; Cha-Cha – The star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria see each other for the first time and dance together; Meeting Scene – Music accompanies their first words spoken to one another; Cool Fugue – An elaborate dance sequence in which Riff leads the Jets in harnessing their impulsive hostility, figuratively ‘cooling their jets’; Rumble – Climactic gang battle, the two leaders, Riff and Bernardo, are killed; Finale – Maria’s ‘I Have a Love’ develops into a procession, which recalls the vision of ‘Somewhere’”. Leonard Bernstein’s work is too often contextualized as an intersection of America’s low and high brows. But scores like the Symphonic Dances argue that, even in the divisive place where popular and “classical” music meet, true genius can be found.
THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1960, tennis legend Rod Laver won his first Australian Open title, Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” had its premiere in Italy and the iconic “Guerrillero Heroica” photo of Che Guevara was taken in Havana.
THE CONNECTION – Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story was last featured on the Masterworks Series in December 2019. Thierry Fischer conducted.
UTAH’S WEEKLY POLITICAL ROUNDUP
EXCEPTIONAL PROMISE
By Jeff Counts
When you sign the guestbook at a bed and breakfast or some special historical place, it’s hard not to glance at the names that came before you. You are not simply acknowledging your existence in a semi-public census, you are contributing your consciousness to a collection of meaningful experiences. It is only natural to seek kindred spirits in the register. So, imagine yourself lucky enough to have attended a dinner party at the Salt Lake City home of Evelyn and Joseph Rosenblatt in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s. Your eyes would have lit up when you grabbed the pen, because their guestbook was a gold mine.
Joseph’s parents Nathan and Tillie had immigrated to Salt Lake City in the 1880s. Nathan built up a successful machinery business and he and Tillie raised their three boys to respect education and culture. They were the first stones in the strong edifice of service their family continues to build. Joseph married Evelyn Benowitz in 1930, and the two University of Utah graduates quickly became important civic leaders in their own right. Evelyn had grown up in Ogden but knew Salt Lake well from her weekly trips there for piano lessons. Her deep love of music extended generously to Utah Symphony, where she was active as a donor and member of the Guild. In 2000, when Evelyn turned 90, the Rosenblatt family created a Young Artist Endowment in her name for Utah Symphony that will enjoy its 25th Anniversary in the 2024–2025 Season.
The Rosenblatt’s post-concert gatherings must have been legendary, if the guestbook mentioned above is any indication. Some of the signed names include pianist Arthur Rubenstein, violinist Nathan Milstein, conductor Leonard Bernstein, pianist Byron Janus, actor Betty Furness, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and, of course, Utah Symphony Maestro Maurice Abravanel. They had other notable guests too, like violinists Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern, pianist Glenn Gould, and soprano Beverly Sills. You’ve already imagined yourself with an invite, so think now about what the conversations could have been like. Bernstein in 1960 talking about the upcoming first film adaptation of his West Side Story. Rubenstein in 1965 reminiscing about the all-
Chopin program he performed in Moscow the year before. Piatigorsky in 1974 looking back on his long life in music just two years before he died.
Joseph Rosenblatt passed away in 1999, Evelyn in 2004, so their dinner events did not extend into the years of the Young Artist Award. But since we are still enjoying our imaginations here, let’s pretend they did. The twenty-three recipients of the prize, to date, comprise four conductors, three cellists, eight violinists, and eight pianists. Each was an artist in the first stage of their career so, unlike the legends from before, it was their exceptional promise that earned them the recognition of the Rosenblatt family and Utah Symphony. We had conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson in 2000, the very first honoree. At our speculative table she is talking about her time in the flute studio at Juilliard. She now serves as founder and Music Director of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra. Our next stop could be 2004 with pianist Olga Kern. She had already won the Rachmaninoff Competition and the Van Cliburn by then, so the discussion around the room is about what mountains are left to climb. She has a piano competition of her own now. Fast-forward to 2013 and there is cellist Matt Zalkind. Both of his parents were in the Utah Symphony back then, so the conversation is, appropriately, about family. He’s currently cello professor at the Lamont School of the University of Denver.
We could easily repeat this exercise with the other twenty winners, and never run out of interesting things to chat about, but it is time to arrive at today. The latest winner of the Evelyn Rosenblatt Young Artist Award is violinist Randall Goosby. Like so many former awardees, Randall went to Juilliard, but not before making his concert debut with the Jacksonville Symphony at the age of nine and appearing on a New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concert just four years later. He studied with Perlman. He has a record deal. He plays a Strad. He champions the music of black composers. Randall Goosby has exceptional promise to spare and has already given so much of himself to various social engagement projects. He regularly performs community programs in schools, hospitals, and assisted living facilities. “Music is a way to inspire others,” he says in his bio, and that is exactly the kind of generosity the Rosenblatt Award stands for. Evelyn and Randall will have a lot to discuss at dinner after he adds his name to the list. She’s going to love him.
When Joseph and Evelyn Rosenblatt’s children created this award in their mother’s name, they helped her make an exceptional promise of her own. It was a promise to use her legacy to foster future Bernsteins and Goulds and Abravanels, and to keep culture at the forefront of all our civic values. Utah Symphony has been proud to partner with the Rosenblatt family for 25 years and will celebrate the collaboration, and its important impact on the Salt Lake community, throughout the 2024-2025 season.
