Tech Talk: Automotive Double Trouble & Highway Sweatshirts

Another installment of "Tech Talk" by me, Rebecca Kopycinski, VSO Summer Festival Tour Technical Director. The most memorable happenings on tour are usually the ones that involve a crisis situation. One such event that has gone down in history occurred in Grafton, Vermont – a town which, at that time, was a cell phone black hole (a tower has since been affixed to the roof of the Old Tavern!). Our truck stopped and refused to start as we left the concert field. It was midnight or so, July 3, two and a half hours from home. Thankfully, the problem was diagnosed and we moved along (we added water to the coolant reservoir!). Ever since that near-tragedy, I’ve been very aware of our vehicle functionality, hoping to avoid possible crises. The crew travels in two vehicles: a 26-foot Ryder truck with a ramp and lift gate and a Dodge Caravan. As a precaution, and because the inspection is due in June, we always take the van in for servicing before the tour. This year it was also fitted with new brake rotors. Long story short, several people assured me that a horrible odor and some smoke emitting from the wheel wells is normal for new rotors. Two weeks later, the thing is billowing smoke. Needless to say, I’ll post pictures of our loaner vehicle later!! One never wants to test the limit of shoddy brakes on a very long journey! And our truck, oh our truck. It bucks. Around 40 mph. We’ll be dropping it off around midnight this evening at Ryder for a quick check-up tomorrow morning. Boo. If the problem can’t be fixed by 9 a.m., they will give us a new truck. Boo. This means unloading and reloading 26 feet of gear before 9 a.m. Boo. I’ll keep you updated.

Moving on to more pleasant topics, our VSO merchandise is looking fantastic this year! See pictures below and don’t hesitate to stop in at our merchandise tent at any of the concerts. Part of the title of this post is “Highway Sweatshirts” because I realized the yellow screenprinted hoodie is reminiscent of the road with a dark heather material emblazoned with a double yellow line screenprint!

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"Behind the Scenes on Summer Tour" segment from VSO On Stage

The day has FINALLY come! Today, my crew and I ("I" being Rebecca Kopycinski, Technical Director for the forthcoming 2009 TD Banknorth Summer Festival Tour) meet for the first time to gather the items we need for a successful tour. What might this list of sundry items include? The obvious: chairs, stands, timpani, bug spray, etc. The not-so-obvious: clothespins (to keep sheet music from blowing away!), a hatchet (hey, when you're camping in a field...), a small bin for trash (for when the musician port-o-pottie has no trash receptacle), and lots and lots of little orange flags (instant parking lot). Every year I'm amazed at our traveling caravan made up of musicians, several crews, staff, volunteers, and...YOU! I hope to be able to keep you posted with pictures and commentary during the tour, you know, "Tech Talk." Until my next entry, here's a little segment from our TV show, On Stage. It features me and Assistant Principal Second Violinist Mary Gibson rapping about our side of things -- the behind-the-scenes part of tour that's about to take center stage!


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"Team VSO" tour hits a homerun

The VSO recently toured the state with one of its orchestral youth concert programs, "Team VSO." We visited five magnet locations across the state in Newport, Swanton, Barre, Rutland, and Manchester, delighting and inspiring schoolchildren in grades K-8. Watch the video below of Champ in action, shot by the Rutland Herald.



And a testimonial:

As a 6th grade teacher from Barre Town, I would like to express my thinks to those who arranged and came to give a presentation last week to our students at the Barre Opera House. As you can see by the following student comments, they were most impressed by the bassoon player:

"Dear VSO, I really liked all the music. You guys are very talented! I have never seen a bassoon before, and it was very interesting. Champ was very funny and cool. Thanks for coming to the Barre Opera House."

"Thank you very much. The VSO was fun. The bassoon ROCKED! GO CHAMP!"

"I enjoyed the part when the guy played the bassoon. I had never heard nor seen that instrument before. It was a great and exciting experience."

"I liked the song about Champ in Lake Champlain. I also like the Bethoven song."

"Thank you so much for everything. The bassoon was awesome and the songs were amazing."

"I liked when the 16 year old boy was playing the bassoon because it look really cool. I liked the violins, too. Thanks, Mr. White (Barre Town Music Instructor)."

"My favorite part was when Champ came out. I was so close to getting a T-shirt, but it hit the wall as I went forward. Thanks tons for the music."

"I really liked the music you did for us. I especially enjoyed the solos some people did. The Bethoven piece and Champ were cool!"

Thank you again,
Ms. Cassie Major, 6th grade teacher Barre Town Middle and Elementary School"

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2009 TD Banknorth Summer Festival Tour

I call it the "most wonderful time of the year," those two weeks that envelop the Fourth of July each summer. Usually you won't read too much personal commentary from me, though I am the keeper of this blog, but the VSO's Summer Festival Tour (SFT) holds a very special place in my heart. It's my baby. This will be my seventh year on the tour, sixth as Technical Director. My affiliation with the VSO began with SFT. That first year, I was Volunteer Coordinator. The next year (and the three after that), I took on the dual roles of Volunteer Cordinator and Technical Director. Now, through the power of seniority and the mercy of the powers that be, I am simply the Technical Director (simply?).

What's not to love? This tour swirls together like some heavenly flavor of Ben and Jerry's the three things I love most: (1) music, (2) the beauty of Vermont (when is the last time you toured the entire state at its most verdant over 11 days), and (3) food. Yes, food. Anyone who knows me is chuckling right now. Whether you are the orchestra/crew meal coordinator, a caterer showing up on site, or the venue coordinator, you can be sure of me quizzing you on the evening's menu. Sometimes, I even troll the crowd of picnickers, drooling at their elaborate spreads. These three aspects of SFT are yours, too. We bring the music, Vermont brings her beauty in nine picturesque locations, and you bring the food!! Hey, we'll even throw in a pretty nifty light show. Every concert concludes with a spectacular fireworks display accompanied by Tchaikovsky's 1812 Oveture -- a piece I now know every note of!

Tickets just went on sale at the Flynn Regional Box Office. Don't fret if you are wanting to purchase tickets for the Upper Valley concert at the Quechee Polo Grounds and can't as we are firming up our rain site details before we start selling. Oh, and all concerts start at 7:30 p.m.

"The Lake Effect" (A celebration of Lake Champlain's Quadricentennial)
Anthony Princiotti, conductor

BERLIOZ
Roman Carnival Overture
HANDEL
Water Music Suite
IVANOVICI
Waves of the Danube March
GERSHWIN
An American in Paris
GLIÈRE
Russian Sailors' Dance
SCHONBERG, arr. LOWDEN
Selections from Les Misérables
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN, arr. BENNETT
Symphonic Scenario from South Pacific
TCHAIKOVSKY
1812 Overture
SOUSA
Hands Across the Sea March

All concerts at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 25
Middlebury College
Middlebury
Gates at 5:30 p.m.

Friday, June 26
Jackson Gore at Okemo Mountain Resort
Ludlow
Gates at 5:30 p.m.

Saturday, June 27
Three Stallion Inn
Randolph
Gates at 5:00 p.m.

Sunday, June 28
Mountain Top Inn
Chittenden
Gates at 5:00 p.m.

Monday, June 29
Quechee Polo Grounds
Quechee (Upper Valley)
Gates at 5:00 p.m.

Thursday, July 2
Hildene Meadowlands
Manchester
Gates at 5:00 p.m.

Friday, July 3
Grafton Ponds
Grafton
Gates at 5:30 p.m.

Saturday, July 4
Shelburne Farms
Shelburne
Gates at 5:00 p.m.

Sunday, July 5
Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow
Stowe
Gates at 5:30 p.m. Keep reading!

Vermont Music Now Episode 7: Troy Peters

VSO New Music Advisor David Ludwig (who just barely completed his two-year stint as our Composer-in-Residence) interviews Troy Peters, a long-time friend and fellow composer. Troy is also Music Director for the Vermont Youth Orchestra (for a little while longer, anyway).



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Audience reaction and critical acclaim for Masterworks finale

The VSO ended its 2008/2009 Masterworks Series, "Music of OUR Time," with a fiery performance at the Flynn Center on Saturday, May 2, 2009. Click the link below to read a review of the concert by Jim Lowe for the Times Argus. Watch the short video for reactions from audience members, musicians, and Jaime Laredo, to the season as a whole.

Jim Lowe's review in the Times Argus.



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Program Notes: May 2

The 2008/2009 Masterworks series at the Flynn Center in Burlington concludes this Saturday with its finale concert featuring Jaime Laredo, violist Cynthia Phelps playing a concerto by composer Joan Tower, and other great pieces representing "Music of Our Time." Keep reading for program notes. Find out even more about the program by attending Musically Speaking, our pre-concert discussions featuring guest artists chatting about the music, the composers, and themselves. The discussion begins at 7 p.m., the concert begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are available through FlynnTix online or by calling (802) 86-FLYNN.

Soirées Musicales
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

A musician of great invention, technical mastery, and charm, Britten was undoubtedly the leading English composer of his generation. The son of a dentist, he showed his musical gifts early on. He studied with Frank Bridge and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and attended the Royal College of Music. Essentially a lyricist, Britten drew his imagery and melodic line from that most personal of instruments, the human voice. His life partner and musical collaborator was tenor Peter Pears, and many would say the fullest expression of Britten’s genius came in his vocal works, particularly his second opera, Peter Grimes, completed in 1945. (Britten was a conscientious objector, so he was exempted from active service, and spent the war years playing piano recitals all over England and composing.)

But before his international reputation was secured by that premiere, he put in a lot of hard work. A prolific juvenile composer, Britten had already written some 800 works and fragments by the time he published his first piece. His set of choral variations, “A Boy Was Born,” composed for the BBC Singers in 1934, attracted significant attention, and in 1935 Britten landed a position scoring films for a small documentary company. “The company I was working for had very little money. Many times I had to write scores not for large ensembles but for six or seven instruments, and these few had to make all the effects that each film demanded.” A valuable apprenticeship indeed! A year later, he was asked to supply the music for a film called Men of the Alps. For this assignment he chose to orchestrate five piano pieces written by Gioacchino Rossini, and later adapted the selections into this “Musical Evenings” suite. In combination with the 1941 Matinées Musicales (another group of Rossini tunes), the two suites make up the music for George Balanchine’s wonderful ballet, Divertimento.


Purple Rhapsody
Joan Tower (1938- )

Purple Rhapsody was commissioned by a consortium of orchestras which included the Omaha Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra with a grant from the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress. The composer says: “The work is dedicated with affection to the wonderful violist Paul Neubauer, who made it all possible.” This is the second solo piece Tower has written for Neubauer. The first is called Wild Purple. A colorful explanation is clearly in order! And here it is: “The sound of the viola has always reminded me of the color purple—a deep kind of luscious purple. The word ‘wild’ in Wild Purple refers to the high energy and virtuosity of that work. In Purple Rhapsody, I try to make the solo instrument sing—trying to take advantage on occasion (not always) of the viola’s inherent melodic abilities. This is not an easy task, since the viola is one of the tougher instruments to pit against an orchestra. In fact, for my orchestration of this work, I omitted horns and oboes to thin out the background and allow the viola to come forward with a little more leverage. My hope is that at the climaxes of some of these rhapsodic and energetic lines the orchestra does not overwhelm the soloist.”

After the Columbus (OH) premiere, Barbara Zuck from the Columbus Dispatch had this to say about Purple Rhapsody: “It is an astonishing work—if you can just live through it. It assaults the senses and the emotions over and over, climbing scales in loud, jabbing, dissonant chords, ratcheting up intensity by layering agitated sounds on top of one another….Tower and Neubauer have made it impossible for the viola to ever again be dismissed as that nondescript entity somewhere between the violin and the cello. Purple Rhapsody is extreme music for extreme times.”


Joan Tower, composer

Even as she prepares for her 70th birthday in 2008, Joan Tower is looking forward as much as she is looking back on a career that already spans over five decades.

Hailed as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time" in The New Yorker magazine, Joan Tower was the first woman ever to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Composition in 1990. She was inducted in 1998 into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters, and into the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in the fall of 2004.

In January 2004, Carnegie Hall's Making Music series featured a retrospective of Tower's work. This special event showcased numerous artists who regularly perform her music, including the Tokyo String Quartet, pianists Melvin Chen and Ursula Oppens, violist Paul Neubauer, oboist Richard Woodhams, and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble. Most of these works were then recorded for August 2005 release on the NAXOS recording label.

In March 2004, Tower attended the premiere of her new piece, For Daniel, written for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio at the Tucson Winter Festival, and the New York premiere at the 92nd Street Y. She performed the piano part with members of the Muir Quartet and the KLR Trio has gone on to performing this work around the world. Tambor was performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony at the American Symphony Orchestra League Convention in Pittsburgh in 2004 and recorded on NAXOS along with Made in America and Concerto for Orchestra (Leonard Slatkin conducting the Nashville Symphony). Purple Rhapsody, a new viola concerto for Paul Neubauer, has so far been performed be eight orchestras including the Omaha Symphony, who premiered it. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra commissioned and premiered Chamber Dance at Carnegie Hall in May of 2006.

Joan Tower is the first composer chosen for the ambitious new "Ford Made in America" commissioning program, a collaboration of the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet the Composer. In October 2005, the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra presented the world premiere of Tower's 15 minute orchestral piece Made in America. The work went on for performances by orchestras in every state in the Union during the 2005-07 season. This is the first project of its kind to involve smaller budget orchestras as commissioning agents of a new work by a major composer.

Tower has added "conductor" to her list of accomplishments, with engagements at the American Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Scotia Festival Orchestra, the Anchorage Symphony, Kalisto Chamber Orchestra and another eight of the Made in America orchestras, among others.

Since 1972, Tower has taught at Bard College, where she is Asher Edelman Professor of Music. She has served as composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's since 1997 and at the Deer Valley Festival in Utah since 1998, a title she also held for eight years at the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Other accolades include the 1998 Delaware Symphony's Alfred I. DuPont Award for Distinguished American Composer, the 2002 Annual Composer's Award from the Lancaster (PA) Symphony, and an Honorary Degree from the New England Conservatory (2006). "Tower has truly earned a place among the most original and forceful voices in modern American music" (The Detroit News).

Tower's 2003-04 season featured two significant world premieres: DNA, a percussion quintet commissioned for Frank Epstein and his New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble; and her third string quartet, Incandescent, for the Emerson String Quartet, performed at the opening of the new Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center at Bard College. The Emerson Quartet has embraced Incandescent and is touring it throughout the world. The success of Tower's second string quartet, In Memory, premiered by the Tokyo String Quartet in 2002 at the 92nd Street Y, was a highlight of their tour of three continents. Her percussion concerto, Strike Zones, was performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center by Evelyn Glennie with the National Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and is featured at Tanglewood in 2007.

Other compositions have crossed many genres: Can I (2007) for youth chorus and two percussionists; Copperwave (2006), written for the American Brass Quintet and commissioned by the Juilliard School of Music; Fascinating Ribbons (2001), her foray into the world of band music, premiered at the annual conference of College Band Directors; Vast Antique Cubes/Throbbing Still (2000), a solo piano piece for John Browning; Big Sky (2000), a piano trio premiered by David Finckel, Wu Han, and Chee-Yun; Tambor (1998), for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Mariss Jansons; and Wild Purple (1998) for violist Paul Neubauer. Tower's 1990 Grawemeyer Award-winning Silver Ladders was written during her 1985-88 St. Louis Symphony residency, and was subsequently choreographed in 1998 by Helgi Tomasson and the San Francisco Ballet. Her 1993 ballet Stepping Stones was commissioned by choreographer Kathryn Posin for the Milwaukee Ballet.

Joan Tower's bold and energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences. From 1969 to 1984, she was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works. Her first orchestral work, Sequoia, quickly entered the repertory, with performances by orchestras including St. Louis, New York, San Francisco, Minnesota, Tokyo NHK, Toronto, the National Symphony and London Philharmonia. A choreographed version by The Royal Winnipeg Ballet toured throughout Canada, Europe, and Russia. Tower's tremendously popular five Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 500 different ensembles.

In addition to her two NAXOS recordings, Tower has had her Petroushskates open the new first recording by the innovative group, eighth blackbird, on the Cedille label. Fanfares Nos. 1-5, Duets, and Concerto for Orchestra with the Colorado Symphony (Marin Alsop) may be heard on Koch; and Tower's Four Concertos—with Elmar Oliveira, Ursula Oppens, David Shifrin, Carol Wincenc and the Louisville Orchestra—are available on d'Note Records. Turning Points (1995), a clarinet quintet for David Shifrin and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, is on Delos. A New World Records disc features her chamber music, including her first string quartet Night Fields. First Edition celebrates her legacy with the St. Louis and Louisville Symphonies with an all-Tower orchestral disc, which includes Sequoia, Silver Ladders, Music for Cello and Orchestra, and Island Prelude for oboe and strings, featuring soloists Lynn Harrell and Peter Bowman.

Joan Tower has been the subject of television documentaries on PBS's WGBH television station in Boston, on the CBS network program, Sunday Morning, and MJW Productions in England. Her music is published exclusively by Associated Music Publishers, a division of The Music Sales Group.


Cynthia Phelps, viola

"Not only does Cynthia Phelps produce one of the richest, deepest viola timbres in the world, she is a superb musician" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic, Ms. Phelps has distinguished herself both here and abroad as one of the leading instrumentalists of our time. The recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 1988 Pro Musicis International Award and first prize at both the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the Washington International String Competition, she has captivated audiences with her compelling solo and chamber music performances. She is "a performer of top rank...the sounds she drew were not only completely unproblematical --technically faultless, generously nuanced-- but sensuously breathtaking" (The Boston Globe).

Ms. Phelps performs throughout the world as soloist with orchestras, including the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She has appeared in recital in Paris, Rome, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, and at New York's Alice Tully Hall, London's Wigmore Hall, and St. David's Hall in Cardiff, Wales. She has also been heard on National Public Radio's St. Paul Sunday Morning, Radio France, and RAI in Italy, and has been featured on The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, and CBS Sunday Morning.

Ms. Phelps has performed internationally as a collaborator with such artists as Isaac Stern, Itzak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Yefim Bronfman, among many others. A much sought-after chamber musician, she performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Boston Chamber Music Society, and at the 92nd Street Y. Ms. Phelps has performed with the Guarneri, American, Brentano, St. Lawrence and Prague String Quartets, as well as the Kalichstein-Robinson-Laredo Trio. She has appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Marlboro, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Steamboat Springs, Vail, Music at Menlo, Santa Fe, Seattle, as well as in Europe at at the Naples, Cremona, and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals. She is a founding member of the chamber group Les Amies, a flute-harp-viola ensemble recently formed with harpist Nancy Allen and flutist Carol Wincenc.

Ms. Phelps regularly receives enthusiastic reviews for her performances as soloist with the New York Philharmonic; works she has performed include Berlioz's Harold in Italy, the Bartok Viola Concerto and Strauss's Don Quixote, the Benjamin Lees Concerto for String Quartet, and the premiere of a concerto written for her by Sofia Gubaidulina. Performances have included a New York Philharmonic International tour featuring the Gubaidulina, a work written for her by composer Steven Paulus (commissioned by the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival), and return solo engagements with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony and numerous other orchestras.

Her solo debut recording is on Cala Records, and can also be heard on the Marlboro Recording Society, Polyvideo, Nuova Era, Virgin Classics, and Covenant labels. Ms. Phelps and her husband, cellist Ronald Thomas, reside in New Jersey and have three children, Lili, Christinia, and Caitlin.


Trauermusik
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

Paul Hindemith was born near Frankfurt, Germany. His father was a painter who had attempted a musical career, but was never able to provide an adequate income for his family. Determined that his three children would be professional musicians, he forced them to take lessons from early childhood. The Frankfurt Children’s Trio, as they were called, added to the family coffers by playing at all sorts of public functions. Hindemith attended the Hoch Conservatory, where he studied violin and composition. In 1914, he joined the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra and was shortly appointed concertmaster. In this position, he met the great conductors of the day, many of whom would later promote his music. By 1923, he was successful enough as a composer to leave the Opera Orchestra.

The dominant philosophy behind most, if not all, of Hindemith’s music, was that music should serve a purpose; that the circumstances of performance should have a determining effect on the style and character of a piece. In the 1920s, this philosophy was known as “Neue Sachlichkeit,” or “New Objectivity.” Hindemith wrote a great deal of music intended for amateurs with limited technical demands, and throughout his life he was critical of avant-gardism for its own sake. Despite the practical nature of his music, he was persecuted by Hitler’s National Socialist Party for cultural Bolshevism. Many of his works were banned, and he finally emigrated to Switzerland in 1938. In 1940, he moved to the U.S. to teach at Yale University, where he founded the Collegium Musicum, one of the first American ensembles devoted to early music performance practice. In 1949 he returned to Switzerland to accept a teaching post at the University of Zürich. He passed away suddenly in Frankfurt in 1963, having retired from teaching six years earlier.

Hindemith’s theoretical studies led him to assert that the dominance of the tonal system had a strong foundation in the natural world, based on the naturally occurring overtone series of a standing wave. Due to the preponderance of tonality in his music and his outspoken criticism of avant-garde practices, he had relatively little influence on compositional thought in the second half of the twentieth century. Younger composers dismissed him as reactionary; however, he has continued to be one of the most often performed twentieth-century composers. His sonatas for nearly every orchestral instrument are cornerstones of the repertoire.

Although Hindemith’s early performing career was on the violin, the viola emerged as his favorite instrument, and he was known as a first-rate violist. In 1936 he was engaged to perform his Schwanendreher Concerto in London, but his arrival unfortunately coincided with the death of King George V. The light, upbeat work was deemed inappropriate, and in six hours he replaced it with Trauermusik, unapologetically borrowing material from both Schwanendreher and Mathis der Maler. Hindemith was surprised to learn that the chorale he used at the end of the piece, known to him as “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit,” was known ubiquitously in Great Britain as “The Old Hundredth.”

--Gabriel Langfur


Firebird Suite No. 3
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Stravinsky's most popular work (which he himself sometimes referred to as “that great audience lollipop”), The Firebird was written for the ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev. Despairing of receiving the work on time from the original recipient of the commission, Anatol Liadov--whose response to an inquiry on his progress was the less-than-encouraging “Fine, I've even bought some manuscript paper”--Diaghilev turned to an obscure young composer, Igor Stravinsky. It was a brilliant choice, and Diaghilev’s remark when he got the score (on time!) shows that he knew the student of Rimsky-Korsakov would be famous. He said, “Mark him well. He is a man on the eve of celebrity.”

Three concert suites were later extracted from the full ballet. The third suite, published in 1945, uses a substantial orchestra but is not as “wastefully large” (Stravinsky’s words) as the first suite. It includes more of the original ballet numbers than either of the first two suites. The music is remarkable for its lush Romanticism, striking melodies, and gorgeous orchestration. In general, the human participants in the story are depicted diatonically while the supernatural beings are given a magical chromaticism characteristic of oriental music. The traditional Russian legend is told as follows:

I. Introduction; Prelude and Dance of the Firebird; Variations. In the ogre Kastchei’s magic garden, the Tsarevich Ivan encounters the Firebird, a strange creature who is half bird and half woman. The composer paints a picture of the fluttering dips and curves of her flight as she dances around a tree that yields the golden apples which are the secret of eternal youth.

II. Pantomime I. A brief depiction of Ivan’s capture of the Firebird.

III. Pas de deux. Once captured, the Firebird becomes a gentle, tender, pleading creature, depicted in beautiful, sustained melodic lines for violas and woodwinds. In return for her release, she gives Ivan one of her fiery plumes as a pledge to come to his aid should he need it.

IV. Pantomime II. A brief orchestral passage depicting the entrance of the thirteen enchanted princesses.

V. Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses. The airy grace of the princesses as they play with the golden apples is portrayed by the quicksilver darting of woodwinds and delicate strings.

VI. Pantomime III. The music describes the sudden appearance of Ivan to the princesses. He immediately falls in love with one of them, named Tsarevna.

VII. Rondo. The princesses, who are prisoners under the spell of Kastchei’s magic, engage in a round dance, which uses melodies in the vein of Russian folk songs. Piccolo and flutes anticipate a theme that is later transformed with glittering pomp for the finale. At the end the music fades into silence like a dream.

VIII. Infernal Dance. A tremendous chord launches the ogre Kastchei and his demons into their final evil gyrations. (Syncopated rhythms and clashing harmonies seem at times to foreshadow the Rite of Spring!) The ogre plans to turn the intruder to stone, but Ivan summons the Firebird with his magic feather, and she drives the monsters into a frenzied dance, exhausting them.

IX. Lullaby. The Firebird sings a berceuse which sends Kastchei and his court into a deep sleep. The bassoon sings a beguiling melody, strings whisper tremolos, and a solo horn echoes the princesses’ flute melody heard earlier.

X. Final Hymn. The Firebird reveals to Ivan the magic egg that is the secret of Kastchei’s immortality and power. Ivan smashes it and Kastchei dies. As daylight returns, the princesses are freed and Ivan takes Tsarevna’s hand. The whole orchestra exults in a song of deliverance, and a mighty procession of brass chords ends the fairy tale.

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Review of Carmina and Gwyneth Walker

A glowing review of the standing-room-only chorus concert this weekend:

By Jim Lowe and appearing in the Times Argus


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VSO Chorus in Concert | April 18, 2009

VSO Chorus in Concert
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Elley-Long Music Center at St. Micahel's College, Colchester
7:30 p.m.

Robert De Cormier and Dawn Willis, conductors
Claire Hungerford, soprano
Roger Grow, tenor
Jonathan Beyer, baritone
VSO Chorus and members of the VSO

CARL ORFF Carmina Burana
GWYNETH WALKER Journey on the Open Road (World Premiere Commission)

Tickets available through FlynnTix at (802) 86-FLYNN or online.

The Vermont Symphony Orchestra's statewide chorus presents an exciting program that includes a new work by one of Vermont's best-loved composers, Gwyneth Walker of Braintree, and the piano/percussion version of Orff's earthy celebration of nature, love, freedom (and the tavern!)--Carmina Burana. Keep reading for program notes and a peek at our provocative poster!


Carmina Burana
Carl Orff (1895-1982)

Despite his contributions to music education and his many operas, Carl Orff is known to most audiences for only one achievement, his "dramatic cantata," Carmina Burana. This work has become one of the most frequently performed choral compositions ever written. Composed originally for solo singers, chorus, and orchestra, Carmina has also been produced as a ballet, and is occasionally seen in a stage arrangement with dancing and pantomime. The version being performed this evening--for chorus, three vocal soloists, two pianos and percussion--was adapted by Orff himself in 1956.

The text is drawn from the famous thirteenth-century collection of Goliard songs and poems that was discovered in the ancient Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuren in 1803. (Hence the name: "Songs of Beuren.") These secular songs were written in a mixture of medieval Latin, low German, and French by wandering students, minstrels, vagabond poets, and runaway monks. Their poetry hymns nature and love, the joys of freedom and the tavern, as well as the fickleness of Fortune.

From this extraordinary document of the late Middle Ages, Orff selected twenty-four lyrics, in which earthy humor mingles with moods of rebellion, longing, sorrow, and bittersweet joy. The piece's twentieth-century origin is sometimes betrayed by its harmonies, but never by the compositional form. It has been said that Orff turned his back on seven hundred years of musical development in writing Carmina. The melodies, which are of a folk-like simplicity, are not traditionally developed or treated contrapuntally. Orff achieved his effects through changes of tempo, dynamics, and instrumentation, relying heavily on rhythmic repetition. The piece is divided into three sections: In the Spring, In the Tavern, and The Court of Love, preceded and followed by an invocation to Fortune, Empress of the World.

Orff realized, shortly after its completion in 1936, that he had created something new and wonderful with this work. He even went so far as to write to his publisher and request that all of his previous compositions be withdrawn from publication.



Journey on the Open Road
Gwyneth Walker (1947- )

Journey on the Open Road is based on the familiar Walt Whitman poem, “Song of the Open Road.” The message is timeless, celebratory and powerful: the joy of setting forth on life’s journey. “Afoot and light-hearted, I travel the open road.”

The original poem is quite lengthy. Therefore, in creating this new setting, I edited and focused the text, shaping it into seven distinct sections which alternate between chorus and soloists. In general, the role of the soloists is one of personal expression and reflection. “You road I enter upon and look around, I think you are filled with unseen life. You are so dear to me.” In contrast, the chorus is the voice of Everyman/Everywoman as they celebrate group sentiments such as “From this hour, freedom!”

The soloists and chorus continue in their alternating sections and then begin to merge, to travel together. The chorus adopts and comments upon phrases introduced by the soloists. “The soul travels, ever alive, ever forward.” Chorus and soloists join together for the final statement of “Arise! Let us go! Shall our lives be a journey on the open road!”

The music undertakes a journey of its own, moving along a highway of shifting tonalities, exploring many back roads of diverse textures. Ultimately, the voyage arrives at a heightened version of the opening section, coming full circle, but infused with energy from the adventure.

I selected the Whitman text for this composition due to the evocative and uplifting sentiments expressed in the poetry. Closing lines such as “my friend and companion, the road lies before us...” are a powerful reminder that life is filled with possibilities, both for the individual and for the joining together of souls sharing the journey. The musical interpretation is thus both exploratory and celebratory.

Journey on the Open Road was composed with support from the "Friends of the Music of Gwyneth Walker."

--Gwyneth Walker

Gwyneth Walker, composer
Dr. Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947) is a graduate of Brown University and the Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. Degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. She now lives on a dairy farm in Braintree, Vermont.

Gwyneth Walker is a proud resident of Vermont. She is the recipient of the Year 2000 "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Vermont Arts Council as well as the 2008 "Athenaeum Award for Achievement in the Arts and Humanities" from the St. Johnsbury (VT) Athenaeum.

Walker's catalog includes over 180 commissioned works for orchestra, band, chorus and chamber ensembles. The music of Gwyneth Walker is published by E.C. Schirmer of Boston (choral/vocal music) and MMB Music of St. Louis (orchestral/instrumental music).

In recent years, Gwyneth Walker traveled across the United States working with a variety of musicians as they recorded her works. As a result of these collaborations, several new CDs have been released: A Vision of Hills (piano trios and string works, performed by Trio Tulsa), An Hour to Dance (music for SATB chorus recorded by the choirs at Whitman College), Now Let Us Sing! (with Bella Voce Women’s Chorus, Burlington, Vermont), The Sun Is Love (solo voice and piano works performed by Chicago artists Michelle Areyzaga and Jamie Shaak), and Scattering Dark and Bright (song cycles recorded by the Walker-Eklof Duo).

In addition to the composing of new works, there has also been a special project of creating orchestral accompaniments for many of the choral and vocal works in the Walker catalog. Thus, Songs for Women’s Voices, I Thank You God, I Will Be Earth, and the song cycle, No Ordinary Woman!, have all been orchestrated. Another new work, A Testament to Peace, combines a number of peace-oriented choral works (Tell the Earth to Shake, The Tree of Peace, and There is a Way to Glory) into a set with chamber orchestra. Coming soon will be an orchestral arrangement of Three Days by the Sea, for the Key Chorale and the Florida West Coast Symphony in Sarasota, FL.

Another special project has been the creation of works for orchestra with narrator. Muse of Amherst (based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson) was recently premiered by the Holyoke (MA) Civic Symphony. An orchestral adaptation of the Walker Acquaintance with Nature (with readings of H. D. Thoreau) will be created for the Carson City (NV) Orchestra.

Composing projects for the Fall of 2008 – Winter of 2009 feature a large-scale work for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus, an extended work for organ solo (commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for the National AGO Convention in 2010) and two staged works (which are very special, and details will be made available at the appropriate time). It is always the composer's desire to explore a variety of genres, especially those with dramatic potential.


Claire Hungerford, soprano
Claire Hungerford lives in St. Albans with her husband and sons. In addition to Counterpoint, she is a member of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus and has performed and recorded with the Austrian Radio Choir in Vienna. Claire attended The State University of New York Potsdam Crane School of Music and the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, Austria. Claire has given numerous recitals locally as well as in Vienna and Munich, Germany. She has been a soloist with VSO as well as local choirs in Vermont, with the Dartmouth College Symphony Orchestra and with the East Hampton Community Choir. Claire is a member of "Ah! Capella," a quartet that is part of the VSO's SymphonyKids outreach program.


Roger Grow, tenor
Roger Grow is a singer, composer, and instrumentalist who is a public school choral and general music teacher in Vermont. Mr. Grow sings tenor/countertenor/baritone with Robert De Cormier's Counterpoint, for which he also serves as assistant conductor. He has performed as a soloist several times at Carnegie Hall, singing Carmina Burana, "Shout For Joy,” "Chichester Psalms,” and most recently, "Navidad Nuestra.” With conductor Anthony Princiotti and the Dartmouth Symphony, he performed Carmina Burana, singing both the baritone and tenor solos. He has recorded on the Arabesque label with Mr. De Cormier, including "The Emperor of Atlantis" and "The Jolly Beggars.” Roger also recorded Dennis Murphy's "A Perfect Day,” and Bruce Chalmer's "Berakhot" with the Fyre and Lightning Consort. Mr. Grow is regularly featured on Counterpoint's five recordings on Albany Records, including "Shir La Shalom,” which features some of his arrangements.

As a composer, Mr. Grow received the commission for the 75th Vermont All-State Chorus Festival. His piece "Atom Spin" was performed in May 2002 at Burlington's Flynn Theatre. Warner Bros. has published his "Short Mass.” Mr. Grow also served as Musical Director of The Voices Project, which toured Vermont in 2005 and will be filming in the summer of 2007. Mr. Grow plays piano, bass, and drums, and composes
for various jazz groups in central Vermont.

Roger lives in Plainfield, VT with his son, Chellis.


Jonathan Beyer, baritone
Jonathan Beyer is a 26-year-old baritone who has performed with several opera companies including Chicago Opera Theater, Fort Worth Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, The Chautauqua Institution, Accademia Verdiana, and Teatro di Verdi. He performs a wide variety of repertoire including Marcello in La Boheme, Germont in La Traviata, Musiklehrer in Ariadne auf Naxos, Papageno in Die Zauberflote, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Richard Nixon in Nixon in China. He has also appeared with the Indianapolis Symphony, Lorin Maazel's Châteauville Foundation, Chatam Baroque, the Erie Philharmonic and the Mozart Acadamie at Aix-en-Provence.

Mr. Beyer was a National Finalist in the 2006 Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition. He was the 2007 1st Place Winner at the Marian Anderson Prize for Emerging Classical Artists. He has also won the American Opera Society Competition and the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Competition. In 2004, he was the Grand Prize Winner of the Bel Canto Foundation and studied with Carlo Bergonzi as a direct result. Prizes have also been awarded to him through the Anna Sosenko Foundation, Mario Lanza Foundation, Irma M. Cooper, Chicago NATS, Palm Beach Opera and Neue Stimmen competitions.

An avid recitalist, Mr. Beyer has performed in recital with Craig Rutenberg, Mikael Eliasen, and Brian Zeger. He has given recitals through the Chicago Cultural Center, Judith Raskin Foundation, and the Marian Anderson Foundation. Currently in his final semester of vocal studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, Mr. Beyer is a student of Marlena Malas. While acquiring his Bachelors and Masters Degrees at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, he studied with Judith Haddon, David Holloway, and Richard Stilwell.

Jonathan is currently a young artist with the Pittsburgh Opera Center and will perform in this season's productions of Madame Butterfly, Flight, I Capuletti e I Montecchi, and cover Belcore in Elixir of Love.


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Program Notes: March 21 & 22

The VSO is gearing up for two concerts this weekend, the fourth Masterworks Series installment and the final concert of the Sunday Matinee Series. We'll be playing more repertoire written in our time, all of it by American composers. Barber's Capricorn Concerto features two of our principal players, Nancy Dimock on oboe and Mark Emery playing the trumpet, plus a last-minute substitute on flute, Melissa Mielens, who was able to jump in when our principal, Albert Brouwer, was called away on family business. Listen carefully for the presence of three singing bowls (in A, C#, and E) in Richard Danielpour's Rocking the Cradle. We searched high and low for these bowls, but thankfully Mr. Danielpour came through with a loaner set. Keep reading for the complete program notes for this "All-American" program.

Overture to Candide
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Candide, a musical based on Voltaire’s short, satirical novel, opened on Broadway on December 1, 1956. It closed after only 73 performances. The score became an underground favorite, which led to the popular success of a completely retooled version twenty years later. The show combined a wide range of styles, witty parodies, and sheer technical brilliance. The bright and sassy overture has become one of the most frequently performed orchestral compositions by a 20th century American composer. In its current incarnation for full orchestra (which incorporates changes made by Bernstein in December 1989), it includes tunes from the songs “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” “Battle Music,” “Oh Happy We,” and “Glitter and Be Gay.” An edited version was used as the theme music for TV’s Dick Cavett Show.


Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 3
Henry Cowell (1897-1965)

The composer wrote: “I believe in music, in the force of its spirit, in its exultation, its nobility, its humor, and in its power to penetrate to the basic fineness of every human being. I believe that a truly devoted musical work, dedicated to human integrity, into which the composer has put the best of himself, acts to humanize the behavior of all hearers who allow it to touch their innermost being.”

Born in California and raised by leftist writers who encouraged him to study violin and piano, even after the 1906 earthquake which left the family impoverished and living a nomadic existence, Cowell was tremendously well-read. His interest in music of the Pacific Rim resulted in an oeuvre which John Cage called “occidental and oriental at one and the same time.” Cowell was a passionate advocate of new music, and upon achieving attention for his piano compositions, shocked the world with techniques which included playing with his forearms and stroking the strings. He had a prodigious intellect but also a social impulse and generous idealism. He lived to share his music.

Of his third Hymn and Fuguing Tune, Cowell said: “This Hymn is a sustained piece in the Dorian mode, and was borrowed from southern revival meetings rather than New England anthems; it adopts the dance rhythms that have been taken over by the big singing gatherings in the south. It is a modern development of the southern Fuguing Style, in which popular minstrel show rhythms and tunes were turned to religious purposes in revival meetings. The general effect I hope is one of good nature and enthusiasm. The tunes are of course my own, but both tunes and treatment were suggested by the music of the singing schools. I have tried to develop them in ways suitable to the modern orchestra without abandoning their essential character.”


Rocking the Cradle
Richard Danielpour (1956- )

Richard Danielpour is a composer whose distinctive American voice is part of a rich neo-Romantic heritage with influences from pivotal composers like Britten, Copland, Bernstein, and Barber. The New York Times says of his music, “Mr. Danielpour’s soothing eclecticism is like an attentive host seeing to his guests’ every need,” and the San Jose Mercury News calls him “a brilliant composer who is unafraid to let his emotions show and who possesses the skill to bring off grand orchestral effects.”

Danielpour has received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, five Macdowell Colony Fellowships, and a Rockefeller Foundation grant. Danielpour serves on the faculties of both Curtis Institute and the Manhattan School of Music; he himself studied at New England Conservatory and the Juilliard School.

“I have a hot-blooded relationship to music. I tend to write works of necessity rather than works focused on the creation of beauty, art, and artifice. I never write abstract works; I always need an internal or extra-musical scena involved in order to create a work. I’m really a theater or opera composer in disguise.”

Rocking the Cradle was commissioned and premiered by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007. With its double reference to the Cradle of Civilization and the upbringing and nurturing of our children, it continued Danielpour’s musical/political activism. About his motivations for composing the piece, he wrote, “One of the things that propelled this piece into being was the sense that we had come to a point where what was once a political issue, has become a humanitarian one. Gandhi said, ‘An eye for an eye makes everyone blind.’ I feel that the United States is going through a period of temporary blindness. As an artist, I can’t do much, but I can speak out through my music.” He continued: “The second movement is a kind of large-scale eulogy not only for the death of our young in Iraq, but also for an America that is no longer in existence—that is dead, or maybe only asleep.”

According to Danielpour, the two movements “contain the same material and yet are opposites of each other. The first is rhythmically driven, relentless. The second is more tender, gentle, rounded, and melodically driven. I believe that if I need to explain the piece and it can’t be heard, I’ve failed. A surgeon doesn’t need to talk about the tools he uses in open-heart surgery—what matters is that the patient lives!”


Capricorn Concerto
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Samuel Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, began piano lessons at age six, and made his first forays into composition by the time he was seven. At fourteen he entered the Curtis Institute of Music as part of its inaugural class, studying piano, composition, conducting, and voice. He won many awards, including the Bearns Prize of Columbia University in 1928 and 1933, a Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship, and the American Prix de Rome, all of which helped him to travel and study in Italy, where he met Toscanini, one of the early and important champions of his music. Barber was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received two Pulitzer Prizes, in 1958 for the opera Vanessa, with a libretto by his partner Gian Carlo Menotti, and in 1962 for his Piano Concerto. Barber’s musical language is clearly rooted in tonality and the tradition of lyrical romantic expressiveness. In fact, he was often criticized or dismissed for being unoriginal and backward-looking, but his angular melodic lines, effective use of dissonance, and rhythmic energy place him firmly in the twentieth century, with a uniquely expressive voice that has always communicated directly and immediately with concert audiences.

Barber served in the army during the Second World War, but was given much time and freedom to compose, and the Capricorn Concerto was completed in 1944. It was named for the home he shared with Menotti in Mount Kisco, New York, purchased the year before with the help of his patron Mary Curtis Bok. “Capricorn” soon became a haven for artists and intellectuals from many disciplines. It is said that each member of the household – Menotti and his adopted son Chip as well as Barber himself – is represented with thematic material in the score. The instrumentation is the same as Bach’s second Brandenburg Concerto, and the homage to Bach is also apparent in the contrapuntal writing and form reminiscent of a Baroque Concerto Grosso.

--Gabriel Langfur


Melissa Mielens, flute

A native of East Greenbush, New York, Melissa Mielens received her B.M. and M.M. from New England Conservatory, both with distinction in performance. As one of the youngest recipients of a Fulbright grant, she had the opportunity to study in Paris with Alain Marion.

Mielens has traveled throughout the world playing with various orchestras, including a tour of Japan with the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra; the United Kingdom with the New World Symphony; and tours of Europe and South America with the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra. She was principal flutist with the New Hampshire Symphony and is currently principal flutist with the Indian Hill Symphony. She has also played principal with the Portland Symphony, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra.

A prizewinner in several national and regional competitions, including the James Pappoutsakis Flute Competition and the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition, Mielens has performed live on WGBH’s “Boston Performances,” and “Morning Pro Musica.” She teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and at Phillips Exeter Academy, and her students have been accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music, Tanglewood Institute, and the Interlochen Performing Arts Academy.


Nancy Dimock, oboe

Nancy Dimock, principal oboist of the VSO, has been a frequent soloist with the orchestra, performing the Bach Double Concerto with music director Jaime Laredo, the Haydn Symphony Concertante, the Barber Canzonetta and David Ludwig’s Radiance. In addition, she is a member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva and the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, and a former member of the Albany Symphony. She frequently performs as a guest with the Boston Lyric Opera, Portland Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic and the Boston Pops. She has been the principal oboist of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and can be heard performing with the HSO on the Grammy-nominated CD, “Rosemary Clooney: The Final Concert.”

Ms. Dimock has been on the Prairie Home Companion radio show and PBS’s Great Performances television broadcast. She has recorded for the Concord, Albany and Chandos labels. She has been singled out for mention in numerous reviews, among them one by Susan Larson from the Boston Globe, who wrote: “The Chameleon Arts Ensemble opened with Joan Tower's lovely 1989 Island Prelude in its wind quintet incarnation. Lush, serene wind chords create an opalescent soundscape over which the oboe, gorgeously played by Nancy Dimock, soars and swoops in increasingly active volutes and trills; the ensemble joins the oboe in a final orgy of birdcalls and trills.”

Ms. Dimock lives in Stoneham, Mass., with her husband Joel and their son Marco


Mark Emery, trumpet

Mark Emery grew up in Ojai, California and Portland, Oregon. In his family, it was mandatory that he and his three brothers play in band for at least one year. After seeing a brass quintet perform an instrument demo at his school, Mark fell in love with the trumpet, and began learning how to read music while singing hymns in church. He attended Portland State University in Oregon where he earned his B.M. in 1998. His primary teachers were Fred Sautter, Gerald Webster, and David Bamonte. During that time, Mark performed and toured as a substitute with the Oregon Symphony. He is also on their recording under James DePreist “Respighi’s Rome” (Delos Label).

In 1998, Mark moved to Boston to attend the New England Conservatory where he studied with Charles Schlueter. At that time he joined the Huntington Brass Quintet and at the conclusion of the year, the group won an NEA grant through Chamber Music America. The members suspended their educations in order to bring musical education to a small rural area of Stephenville, Texas. This area had raised half of the grant money needed over many years. During 1999-2000 the Huntington Brass Quintet performed for over 60,000 students in 325 concerts. They also taught academic subjects like math and history in classrooms using an NEC based program called “Learning Through Music.” Mark has been featured on NPR, and as a speaker at two Chamber Music America National Conventions, New England Conservatory, University of Texas, and Tanglewood Music Center. The residency year led Mark to two years of work in the chamber music department of the University of Maryland where he helped start an outreach program. Most importantly, Mark met Stephanie Peacock in Stephenville, Texas. They have been married for four years.

Mark returned to Boston and while completing the second year of his masters degree, he began playing as a substitute with the Boston Ballet and with many regional orchestras throughout New England. He spent two summers as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center where in 2002 he won the Roger Voisin Trumpet Award. At this time, Mark also began singing as a cantor at St. Anthony Shrine in downtown Boston, where he still sings seven masses each weekend he’s not in Vermont. Mark’s current teachers and mentors are Tom Rolfs, Benjamin Wright, and James Pandolfi.

Mark performs frequently as a substitute with the Boston Symphony, and has appeared with the group three times in Carnegie Hall. He has also performed extensively with the Boston Pops Orchestra, including a tour with celebrated tenor, Andrea Bocelli. Mark teaches at the Winchester Community Music School in Winchester, MA. The life of a musician is made up of lots of layers and affiliations. One of the most signifigant of those for Mark is the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. Performing as a substitute during several seasons, then winning the job of principal trumpet was a dream come true. Touring the state, forming strong relationships, and sharing artistry with affluent audiences are truly treasured experiences. Mark resides in Boston.


Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

In all that Shakespeare penned on the theme of love, nothing has proven more enduring than his Romeo and Juliet. This story, in modern garb, is told through Bernstein’s brilliant score for the Broadway musical West Side Story. Tony and Maria are the star-crossed lovers, and their warring clans are teenage gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. In a rapidly changing America, two themes of the 1957 musical remain contemporary, much to our regret: racial disharmony and urban violence.

Before West Side Story, Bernstein had copiously illustrated his love for the many facets of New York City with the ballet Fancy Free and the related musical On the Town in 1944; the film score for On the Waterfront, and the 1952 musical Wonderful Town. West Side Story was a subject suggested to Bernstein which he adopted as an experiment to see if it was possible to write a serious musical. After 973 performances on Broadway and a screen version which won ten Academy Awards, little doubt was left as to the viability of his goal.

The original pit orchestra numbered 25. Scoring for the movie version demanded up to 70 players for some sequences. The use of the word “symphonic” in the title of these collected excerpts does not refer to the size of the performing group but rather to the way the dances were originally conceived. Most of the score was derived from a few basic themes which were altered or combined to provide for a variety of moods and situations. The work is performed continuously, without pause.

1. Prologue: Allegro moderato. The scene is set with music that suggests the simmering tensions between the Jets and the Sharks.
2. Somewhere: Adagio. In a dream sequence, the two gangs enjoy a brotherly comradeship.
3. Scherzo: Vivace leggiero. The teenagers escape the city confines to find sunlight and fresh air.
4. Mambo: Presto. Sharks and Jets turn a neighborhood dance into a dance-floor competition.
5. Cha-Cha: Andantino con grazia. Tony and Maria dance together.
6. Meeting Scene: Meno mosso. The lovers exchange their first words.
7. Cool, Fugue: Allegretto. The aggression of the Jets is expressed in a contrapuntal dance.
8. Rumble: Molto allegro. The inevitable conflict takes place and both gang leaders are killed.
9. Finale: Adagio. Tony has died in Maria’s arms and the “Somewhere” motif of the dream sequence accompanies his funeral procession offstage.

--Hilary Hatch


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