ESO BOARD AND ADMINISTRATION / JUNTA Y ADMINISTRACIÓN
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
R. Bert Crossland Board Chair
Andre Fiebig Immediate Past Board Chair
Robert Chiappetta Treasurer
Rev. Arlyn Tolzmann Secretary
Dr. Patricia Harkin Governance Chair
* Ex Officio members
DIRECTORS
Alexis India Alm
Ross Beacraft*
Carlos Chavez
Michele Clark
Dr. Gene Crume
Joyce Dlugopolski
Jennifer Fukala
Sandra Hagan
K. Eric Larson
Dr. Thomas Long
Mary Maloy
Frank Maxson
Carole Medal
Martin Nobs
Patrick Parks
Timothy Shaffer*
Dr. Savitha Susarla
James Tammi
Marc Thayer, CEO*
Rafael Villagomez
Herman A. Zwirn
HONORARY LIFETIME DIRECTORS
Harry ◊ & Phyllis Blizzard
Edward & Pearle Brody ◊
Dean & Jane Chipman ◊
ADMINISTRATION
Richard Collins ◊
Ed & Karen Schock
Deceased ◊
EXECUTIVE
Marc C. Thayer Chief Executive Officer
Rebecca DeWane Director of Finance & Administration
ARTISTIC
Eric Gaston-Falk Vice President of Artistic Planning & Operations
Macauley Manzano Orchestral Librarian & Digital Marketing Manager
DEVELOPMENT & MARKETING
Chuck Kocal Director of Marketing
Leslie Antoniel Development Consultant
Mitchell Bennett Director of Patron and Community Development
Jonathan Horn Development Coordinator
Donna Lake Public Relations Manager
Erica Warszewik Box Office Manager
Pia Laipert Foundation, Corporate and Government Grants
OPERATIONS
David Goldman Stage Manager
Eric Block Stage Manager
Elsa Jimenez Translator
LaTrisha Williams In Harmony Program Coordinator
DE ESO
MUSIC DIRECTOR / DIRECTOR MUSICAL
Chad Goodman has received widespread praise for thrilling conducting that combines “precision, agility and fervor” (N. Stanić Kovačevic, South Florida Classical Review) and for displaying the “pitch perfect combination of abandon and subtlety” (L. Budman, South Florida Classical Review).
The 2023/24 season marks Goodman’s inaugural season as Music Director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra only the fifth leader in the orchestra’s prestigious seven-decade history. Upcoming concerts include Strauss’ Four Last Songs with soprano Christine Brewer, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Orli Shaham and Beethoven’s Symphonies No. 2 and No. 9.
Goodman also serves as Artistic Director of IlluminArts, Miami’s art song and chamber music concert series. In this role, he curates site-specific classical music programs in collaboration with the leading museums, art galleries, and historic venues of Miami.
From 2019 to 2023, Goodman was the Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony. In addition to leading the orchestra in more than fifty performances, he created the educational program “SPARK: How Composers Find Inspiration,” which blended engaging audience participation with captivating light design and videography.
From 2018 to 2023, Goodman served as an Assistant Conductor to the San Francisco Symphony, working alongside Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck, Daniel Harding, Pablo Heras-Casado, Simone Young, and James Gaffigan, among others. He has recently made debuts with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco
Chamber Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de Puebla (OSEP).
As Founder and Artistic Director of Elevate Ensemble, Goodman’s ambitious vision for concert programming resulted in the pairing of music from Bay Area composers with underappreciated gems of the 20th and 21st centuries. Under his leadership, Elevate Ensemble established a Composer-in-Residence program and commissioned fifteen new works.
Goodman also leads workshops that teach young musicians the business skills needed to successfully navigate the music world. Forbes praised the conductor’s bold strides both on and off stage and hailed him as “An entrepreneur bringing innovation to classical music.” Last year, he published the book "You Earned a Music Degree.
Now What?”
Goodman holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music degree from San Francisco State University. His mentors include Michael Tilson Thomas and Alasdair Neale.
GUEST ARTIST / ARTISTA INVITADO
A consummate musician recognized for her grace, subtlety and brilliance, the pianist Orli Shaham is in demand for her prodigious skills and admired for her interpretations of both standard and modern repertoire. The New York Times called her a “brilliant pianist,” The Chicago Tribune referred to her as “a first-rate Mozartean,” and London’s Guardian said Ms. Shaham’s playing at the Proms was “perfection.”
She has performed with most of the major orchestras in the United States, on stage internationally from Carnegie Hall to
the Sydney Opera House and appeared at music festivals around the world. Since 2007, she has been Artistic Director for Pacific Symphony’s chamber music series and is Artistic Director of the interactive children’s concert series, Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard, which she founded in 2010.
Ms. Shaham is on faculty at The Juilliard School and has served on the juries of both the Cliburn and Honens International Piano Competitions. She is Co-Host and Creative for NPR’s “From the Top”, and was host of “America’s Music Festivals,” and “Dial-a-Musician,” a feature series she created, all of which are broadcast nationally. In addition to her musical education at the Juilliard School, Orli Shaham has a BA from Columbia University. She is a member of the board of trustees of Kaufman Music Center, serving as chair through 2023.
Orli Shaham appears by arrangement with Colbert Artists Management, Inc. www.colbertartists.com.
Written by - Daniel Maki
Academic Festival Overture, op. 80
Johannes Brahms (1833-97)
Although Brahms was not a college man, he did have the occasion as a twenty-year old to taste college life on an extended visit to Göttingen with his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. Years later, the experience served him in good stead when, in 1879, the University of Breslau offered him an honorary doctorate. After acknowledging the offer with a postcard (!), he began work on the obligatory composition in honor of the occasion.
Instead of the expected solemn work, he produced what he called “a cheerful potpourri of student songs à la Suppé.” (Franz von Suppé was one of the leading composers of light music of the period being particularly famous for his operettas and comic operas.) The result was a delightful spoof of the solemnities of academia and, despite Brahms’ well-deserved reputation for gravity, a masterpiece of subtle humor.
Much of the humor of the work depends on the contrast between the imposing Brahmsian style and four college songs that Brahms had no doubt heard over innumerable steins of beer at Göttingen, and which were very much a part of German popular culture at the time. Although some of the effect is inevitably lost today because the songs are not as well known, the listener can roughly recreate the impression by imagining the sound of a full, noble Brahms orchestra (the largest that he ever used, by the way) solemnly intoning "99 Bottles of Beer" or some other such ribald piece of under-graduate nonsense.
After a mock serious opening in the weighty key of C minor, the brass proudly proclaim the first of the songs, which was known as Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus ("We Had Built a Stately House"). The next tune, known as the
PROGRAM NOTES
Hochfeierlicher Landesvater ("Most Solemn Song to the Father of the Country"), occurs as a flowing melody in the violins and is followed by what the English critic Sir Donald Francis Tovey called The Great Bassoon Joke. This is a rendition by two bassoons of the notorious Fuchsenritt ("Fox Song"), a freshman hazing song. Finally, in the coda Brahms treats us to a rendition of perhaps the best known of all college songs, Gaudeamus Igitur ("Let Us Now Enjoy Ourselves"), which had symbolized the carefree student life since the late Middle Ages.
The first performance was conducted by Brahms himself at Breslau in 1881 with full academic pomp and circumstance. According to one report, the students burst spontaneously into song when they heard the familiar tunes, adding, no doubt, their own irreverent words, as students will. Thus did Brahms receive his degree Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, and the world a masterpiece which remains as fresh as ever.
Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 54
Robert
Schumann (1810-56)
Although Robert Schumann was not destined to fulfill his early ambition to become a great pianist, he did have the good sense to marry one. Clara Wieck Schumann was one of the most important pianists of the nineteenth century, and a composer in her own right, as well as a devoted wife and the mother of eight children. After her husband’s tragic mental illness and premature death, she became something of a musical dowager empress, serving as the muse of the conservative wing of the Romantic movement, doing battle against the radical Liszt-Wagner faction, and spreading the gospel of her beloved Robert’s music and high artistic ideals. For the rest of her life, so the story goes, she performed in black in his memory with her head bowed almost to the keys.
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Schumann’s only completed piano concerto was first performed in 1845 with his wife, of course, as soloist, and it was largely through her renditions that the work became known. Although public reception was cool at first, the concerto came to occupy a special place in the piano repertoire for its mellow beauty and dignified sentiment. Conspicuously absent is the empty virtuosity that had become popular at the time and which Schumann inveighed against in his critical writings. (He was one of the most important musical journalists of the time.)
The first movement which, incidentally, was written as a separate movement to which the other two movements were added, begins not with an extended orchestral introduction as the concertos of Mozart usually do, but with a single orchestra chord and then a dashing brief piano introduction. Only then does the orchestra state the main theme which begins with the notes C-B-A-A, the Italian spelling of Clara’s name, C-H-I-A-R-A. (If you don’t mind, I’d rather not go into that.) Another feature of the movement is a cadenza for the soloist written by the composer himself which is a model of restraint.
The beautifully tender Intermezzo is connected to the finale by a passage containing a partial statement of Clara’s theme from the opening of the work. This movement brings the movement to a close with brilliant but purposeful virtuosity and some daringly modern rhythmic devices.
Symphony No. 2 in C minor, op. 17, "Ukrainian"
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-93)
That venerable saying, “everything is political," seems truer than ever in these turbulent times, making its way even into the exalted realm of the arts. As the reader will notice, on the program page of today’s concert Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony is called the "Ukrainian." However, a listener looking for a recording of this wonderfully exuberant work will
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most likely see it identified with its traditional title, which is the "Little Russian," a name given not by the composer but by the critic Nicolai Kashkin several years after the composer’s death. That title refers neither to a short person nor a short symphony but to the place we call Ukraine and was used because of the symphony’s extensive use of Ukrainian folk music. Tensions between Ukraine and Russia go back much farther than the current horrors and Malaya Rossiya (“Little Russia”) was a standard term for Ukraine. It did not did not sit well with Ukrainians, being both embarrassing and shameful. As was the case with many oppressed ethnic groups in the late nineteenth century, Ukraine underwent a nationalist movement. Russia reacted in various repressive ways including the actual banning of the term “Ukraine“ between 1863 and 1905. Given the present situation, it is safe to say that the term “Little Russia “will never be used on the streets of Kiev again and the designation "Ukrainian" is now replacing the older one as a subtitle for the symphony.
Tchaikovsky considered himself Russian but had close ties to Ukraine. His beloved sister Alexandra lived with her husband on an estate near Kiev, which became a refuge for the peripatetic composer and gave a sense of much needed family life. It is there that Tchaikovsky heard Ukrainian folk tunes sung by servants. He began the symphony in the summer of 1872 and completed it in Moscow the following winter.
At Christmas time, Tchaikovsky was invited to composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s home to play his new symphony on the piano and that brings us back to musical politics. Tchaikovsky described the event as follows: "The whole company nearly tore me to pieces in rapture and Mme. Korsakov, with tears in her eyes, asked if she might arrange it for piano duet.” Russian music at the time was divided into two camps, one led by conservatory trained composers who looked westward to the German model of symphonic writing. Tchaikovsky was by far the most important of this group. The other camp was represented by the group of five composers who were represented at the party and known as the kuchka,
“The Mighty Handful,” including Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Cui, and Balakirev. This group was dedicated to creating a truly Russian musical style with considerable use of Russian folk music. The two groups often regarded each other warily, Tchaikovsky’s view being that the kuchka were amateurs. (Actually, despite their achievements there was truth to that: Borodin was by profession a chemist, Mussorgsky a civil servant and Rimsky-Korsakov a naval officer.) The Second Symphony, which brought a period of rare collegiality between the two factions because of the symphony’s extensive use of folk music, is to a degree unusual in Tchaikovsky’s output. Although his love of folk music was genuine, for most of his work it would serve as “condiment," as one critic has put it, serving as spicing rather the substance of his style.
The first public performance of the symphony took place in Moscow on February 7, 1873, and was a great success. Tchaikovsky had reservations about certain aspects of it, however, and in 1880 completed a revision which has become the standard edition. That is the version heard today.
The symphony begins with an introduction based on the folk song, "Down by Mother Volga," played by a solo horn. The main body of the movement introduces other thematic material but, as happens throughout the work, even the original themes have a folk flavor. The movement closes with another statement of the opening horn melody.
The second movement of a symphony is typically a slow movement but that is not the case here. Tchaikovsky instead gives a march theme which he had written for an opera which he ultimately destroyed. There is a contrasting more lyrical theme, a Ukrainian folk song entitled "Spin, O my spinner," but it is the steady beat of the timpani that dominates the movement.
The third movement is a scherzo ("joke” in Italian: a playfully fantastic piece). Like most scherzos, this one is in three-part ABA form, the outer sections being in a galloping
rhythm in 3 to a bar, and the middle B section in 2. The middle section is apparently original material but has a definite folk flavor.
The finale is based on the Ukrainian folk song "The Crane." This movement was especially loved by RimskyKorsakov’s kuchka group, because its folk theme is not mere decoration but the primary substance of the movement, giving it the most thoroughly Russian flavor.
A political postscript: the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kiev has been named after Tchaikovsky since 1940. Because he was seen as a tool of the Kremlin, after the Russian invasion in 2022 students at the conservatory lobbied for the removal of his name and were backed by the Ukrainian government. To this point, faculty members have resisted. Incidentally, although streets named after the great Russian writer Alexander Pushkin have retained, some statues have been removed.
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