Yale Philharmonia, Leonard Slatkin, guest conductor, January 27, 2023

Robert Blocker, Dean

Yale Philharmonia

Leonard Slatkin, guest conductor

Jakob Taylor, cello

Friday, January 27, 2023 | 7:30 p.m.

Woolsey Hall

Cindy McTee

b. 1953

Sergei Prokofiev

1891–1953

Circuits (1990)

Sinfonia concertante in E minor, Op. 125

I. Andante

II. Allegro

III. Andante con moto – Allegretto –Allegro marcato

Jakob Taylor, cello

intermission

Béla Bartók

1881–1945

Concerto for orchestra (1943)

I. Introduzione

II. Presentando le coppie

III. Elegia

IV. Intermezzo interrotto

V. Finale

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.

Artist Profiles

Leonard Slatkin, guest conductor

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria (OFGC). He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting throughout the world and is active as a composer, author, and educator.

Slatkin has received six Grammy awards and 35 nominations. His latest recordings are Jeff Beal’s The Paper Lined Shack on Supertrain Records and Slatkin Conducts Slatkin, a compilation of pieces written by generations of his musical family, including three of his own compositions, on Naxos Records. Other recent Naxos releases include works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Berlioz (with the ONL) and music by Copland, Rachmaninov, Borzova, McTee, and John Williams (with the DSO). In addition, he has recorded the complete Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky symphonies with the DSO (available online as digital downloads).

The 2022–23 season includes engagements with the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover, OFGC, ONL, NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, Spokane Symphony Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, DSO, Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra

in Dublin, Beethoven Festival in Warsaw, SLSO, Sacramento Philharmonic, Nashville Symphony, and Rhode Island Philharmonic.

A recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has received the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award, and the 2013 ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business. A second volume, Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry, was published by Amadeus Press in 2017. His latest book, Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century (2021), is available through Rowman & Littlefield. He is working on two more books and several new compositions.

Slatkin has conducted virtually all the leading orchestras in the world. As Music Director, he has held posts in New Orleans; St. Louis; Washington, DC; London (with the BBCSO); Detroit; and Lyon, France. He has also served as Principal Guest Conductor in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Cleveland.

Artist Profiles cont.

Program Notes

Jakob Taylor, cello

Jakob Taylor, 25, is currently pursuing his Master of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of the esteemed cellist of the Emerson Quartet, Paul Watkins.

His career as a soloist and chamber musician has taken him to perform at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Stude Hall, Bargemusic, and Jordan Hall.

Jakob received his Master of Music degree at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music studying with Desmond Hoebig. He has also studied at the New England Conservatory and at The Juilliard School, with Paul Katz and Richard Aaron respectively. He is most recently the winner of the 2022 Yale School of Music Woolsey Concerto Competition, as well the 2020 Shepherd School of Music concerto competition. He is the recipient of the Harvey R. Russel Scholarship and Irving S. Gilmore Fellowship at Yale University.

He has spent his summers working and performing at the Taos School of Music, Music Academy of the West, Music@Menlo and Bowdoin International Music Festival, among others.

He is performing on a Bartolomeo Bimbi Cello Circa 1769, generously on loan to him by Jonathan Solars Fine Violins.

Circuits

mctee

Patrick Campbell Jankowski

Cindy McTee’s Circuits is a rare orchestral work that might be better known in its band incarnation. Written in 1990 for the Denton Chamber Orchestra, McTee adapted it shortly thereafter for wind ensemble, for which it has remained popular. As a spirited and zippy concert overture, the musical substance and character suit the title quite well. Percussion lays the groundwork for the continuous momentum churning throughout these quick-paced six minutes. Sections play off one another in brief repeating gestures and rhythmic ostinatos, with bombastic interjections in the brass and whirling linear lines in the woodwinds and strings. Melodic fragments come together into longer sinuous passages, the most pronounced of which emerges near the end in unison strings, before dissolving once again into sparks of light.

Sinfonia concertante

prokofiev

Patrick Campbell Jankowski

This Sinfonia concertante has a meandering coming-of-age story, decades in the making and involving one very important player: the brilliant cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. The prologue unfolds in Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto, Op. 58, which he completed in 1938, but which immediately fell flat after its premiere (owing to a lackluster performance). A young Rostropovich picked it up in 1947, bringing new life to the work in the composer’s eyes, inspiring him to

adapt it into this “Symphony-Concerto,” dedicated to the cellist. It becomes an altogether more complex, challenging, and innovative work, with substantive thematic development and a monumental central movement requiring great stamina from soloist and orchestra alike. Prokofiev plays with form by placing this weightier, more expansive movement at the work’s center, bookended by a lyrical “slow movement” and a mercurial and at times humorous finale.

Concerto for Orchestra

bartók

Julia Clancy

Distraught over his native Hungary’s coziness with Nazi Germany, Bartók emigrated to the United States in 1940 while war raged in Europe. He settled in New York, where he faced a barrage of new problems, including ailing health, financial hardship, a declining career as a solo pianist, and a public that was increasingly indifferent to his music. In the spring of 1943, conductor Serge Koussevitzky learned of Bartók’s situation and, knowing the composer would be too proud to accept any form of charity, commissioned Bartók to compose something for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which premiered the Concerto for Orchestra with overwhelming success on December 1, 1944. The title “Concerto for Orchestra” seems to be an oxymoron, as a concerto is traditionally scored for a soloist with orchestral accompaniment. Bartók, however, evokes the genre by treating an array of individual instruments and sections of the orchestra as soloists. The virtuosity expected of concerto soloists is especially apparent in

the brass playing during the fugato sections of the first movement and the devilishly fast sixteenth-note passages that the strings execute in the Finale. The second movement, “Presentando le coppie” (“Presentation of the Couples”), reflects the duo-concertante style. Five pairs of instruments (bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, and muted trumpets) introduce themes in counterpoint, with members of each pair separated by a different interval. Bartók’s fascination with folk music pervades every movement of the work. Themes in the first movement, pentatonic and rhythmically free, are typical of early Hungarian folk songs. The second movement imitates the Yugoslav kolo (round dance), inspired by the folkloric duet performed on a pair of sopile (folk oboes). “Elegia,” the third movement, uses Romanian mourning songs, and the fourth movement’s Lydian mode is characteristic of Slovak folksongs. The irregular rhythms of the Finale evince Romanian instrumental folk music, traditionally played on the bagpipe, violin, and peasant flute.

Yale Philharmonia Roster

Peter Oundjian, principal conductor

violin i

Gregory Lewis

Emma Meinrenken

Anna Lee

Yasmine Fu

Alexander Franco Goldberg

Minkyung Lee

Riana Heath

Tiffany Wee

Sophia Steger

Zili Sha

Herdís Guðmundsdóttir

Katherine (Kit Ying) Cheng

violin ii

Miranda Werner

Andrew Samarasekara

Ladusa Chang-Ou

Satoka Abo

Da Young (Rachel) Lim

Amy Oh

Kenneth Naito

Tristan Siegel

Andy OuYang

viola

Matthew McDowell

Brian Isaacs

Colin Laursen

Serena Hsu

Madison Marshall

Joseph Skerik

Katie Liu

Emily Rekrut-Pressey

cello

Mafalda Santos

Hans Emil Sollesnes

Jenny Bahk

William Suh

Thomas Hung

Amanda Chi

Jasmine Pai

Cheng “Allen” Liang

double bass

Nicole Wiedenmann

Dylan Reckner

Nico Hernandez

Xinyun Tu

Min Kyung Cho

Esther Kwon

flute

Hyeonjeong Choi 3

Daniel Fletcher ²

Collin Stavinoha ¹

oboe

Rachel Ahn 3

Alec Chai ¹

Mickenna Keller

Michelle Oh ²

Will Stevens

clarinet

Jonathan López ¹

Lloyd Van’t Hoff ²

Kean Xiong 3

bassoon

Darius Farhoumand

Winfred Felton 3

Anjali Pillai

Marty Tung ¹ ²

horn

Annie Citron

Franco Ortiz 3

William Purvis *

William Sands ²

trumpet

Philip Barrington 3

Joshua Bialkin ²

Lizbeth Yanez ¹

trombone

Timothy Maines

Chandler McLaughlin ¹

Yuki Mori ² 3

Jackson Murphy

Declan Wilcox

tuba

Bridget Conley ¹ ²

Connor Higley 3

timpani

Makana Medeiros ²

Michael Yeung 3

percussion

Jessie Chiang ²

Makana Medeiros 3

Michael Yeung ¹

harp

Yun Chai Lee 3

Mia Venezia

keyboard

Arseniy Gusev

¹ Principal on McTee

² Principal on Prokofiev

3 Principal on Bartók

* Faculty

Staff manager

Jeffrey M. Mistri

assistant manager

Samuel Bobinski

assistant conductor

Samuel Hollister

office assistant

Marty Tung

stage crew

Shania Cordoba

Ryan Goodwin

Riana Heath

Makana Medeiros

Jackson Murphy

Xinyun Tu

Amber Wang

Declan Wilcox

Kean Xiong

Lucas Zeiter

library

Darius Farhoumand

Stephanie Fritz

Nicholas Hernandez

Guan-Ru Lin

Freya Liu

Jaimee Reynolds

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