15 16 ASO Program Book

Kim Allen Kluge • Music Director KIM ALLEN KLUGE, MUSIC DIRECTOR

THE 2015-2016 SEASON OCTOBER 3, 2015

Program #1: The Fantastic

NOVEMBER 7-8, 2015

Program #2: Whimsy & Wonderment

DECEMBER 20, 2015 Family Holiday Concert

FEBRUARY 13-14, 2016 Program #3: The Dramatic

APRIL 2-3, 2016

Program #4: Lushness & Lyrical

MAY 7, 2016

Program #5: The Transformative

(703) 548-0885 www.alexsym.org

2015-2016 SEASON

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Program Book Order

Welcome from the Music Director and President of the Board............ 4 ASO Board of Trustees................................................................................5 History of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra..................................... 12-13 Sponsors of the ASO 2015-2016 Season................................................... 14 Concert 1: THE FANTASTIC (October 3, 2015).............................. 19 2015-2016 ASO Concert Venues................................................................27 Season Musings from the Maestro.............................................................28-29 Biography: Allison Bailey, ASO Concertmaster...................................... 30 Emerging Artist Programs: Mary Graham Lasley Scholarship Competition and Kluge Young Composers Competition...................... 33 ASO Sympatico............................................................................................ 34-35 ASO Corporate Sponsorship...................................................................... 36 Concert 2: WHIMSY & WONDERMENT (November 7-8, 2015)... 37 Biography: Kim Allen Kluge, ASO Music Director.................................46-47 Concert 3: THE DRAMATIC (February 13-14, 2016)..................... 49 Biography: Colleen Fay, Program Commentary......................................57 Adopt a Chair Sponsorship.........................................................................58 Concert 4: LUSHNESS & LYRICAL (April 2-3, 2016) .....................59 Biography: Jenny Oaks Baker, violin.........................................................67-68 Concerto Foundation.................................................................................. 69 Concert 5: THE TRANSFORMATIVE (May 7, 2016)...................... 71 Biography: Thomas Pandolfi, piano...........................................................79-80 Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria (SOLA)............................. 81-82 2014-2015 ASO Supporters........................................................................ 84-89

Concert programming and guest artists are subject to change.

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Welcome from the Music Director

Kim Allen Kluge

Welcome! This season the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra celebrates the universality, timelessness and continued vibrancy of the music that you and I love. We will present the masters, past and present, of the symphonic style - exploring the fascinating connections between them. The music of the living masters will be paired with the composers and music that influenced them. These living masters are ensuring the continued vitality of classical music by creating a vast new global audience that transcends nationality, culture, age and socio-economics.

Now that celebrating!

is

something

worth

Welcome from the Board of Trustees

Ronal E. Butler, President

The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra proudly welcomes you to our 2015 – 2016 concert season. We are only a few years away from our 75th anniversary and this year we’ve continued to produce a magical music program. I thank our supporters, patrons, fellow board members as well as our musicians for participating in yet another great music season. Whether you are a long-time fan, or this is one of your first concerts, we welcome you and we’re sure you’ll enjoy the concert.

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President, ASO Board of Trustees

2015-2016 Alexandria Symphony Orchestra

Board of Trustees

Ronal E. Butler, President Carl D. Behnke, Co-Vice President Miriam F. Browning, Co-Vice President Anne B. Rector, Treasurer Becky B. Siegel, Secretary Linda Bunce Ann Corson B. Ellis Duncan Lisa Flippo Carolyn Fuller Barbara Hayes Stewart Bartley Suzanne S. Brock Dr. John A. Bruno Carla Crawford

Deborah Hall Don Manthey Arthur Peabody Betty Quirk Anne Reed H. Arthur Sauer Advisory Board

Mollie Danforth Pamela De Candio Alex Deringer Margaret Jones O’ Grady

Trustees Emeritus

Dr. Joseph V. Braddock Mr. Waller T. Dudley Capt. W. Ward Lasley (USN Ret.)

Phyllis Sintay Edward Stark Jeanne Warner Melynda Wilcox Judy Williams Cecily Winchell Alan Paez Elizabeth Siegel Robert Vincent Susan Winn Mrs. Richard Reid Mr. James B. Singerling Donnan C. Wintermute

Concerto Foundation Board of Trustees Charles Ballou Miriam Browning

Mary Ann Best Millard Frank J. Quirk Betty Quirk

Thomas Sargeant Forrest Williams

ASO Administration

Jessica Wisser, Executive Director Ryan Jordan, General Manager Melinda Kernc, Marketing and Development Director Asif Majid, Education Program Director Susan Kelly, Personnel Manager Craig Teer, Stage Manager

Alexandria Symphony Orchestra 2121 Eisenhower Avenue, Suite 608 • Alexandria, VA 22314 www.alexsym.org • (703) 548-0885

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History of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1943 under the leadership and vision of Miss Neale Landen, a music teacher at George Washington High School. Initially an amateur group of about 40 musicians, the ASO sought to perform mostly impromptu concerts at a variety of venues around the city.

The Symphony was officially incorporated on August 6, 1954 with an annual budget of around $1200. Dr. Wendell Margrave, Director of the Washington Musical Institute, took over the baton in 1948 and led the group until the mid 1960’s.

In 1966, as demand for a more formal programming schedule arose, the orchestra hired George Washington University professor Dr. George Steiner as Music Director.

Under Steiner’s influence, the ASO introduced its first subscription series along with its Lollipop Children’s series of educational concerts, performing at Albohm Auditorium on the campus of T.C. Williams.

During the 1980’s, in response to the growing need for volunteers, the Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria (SOLA) was founded along with the Mary Graham Lasley Scholarship Competition for college-level musicians. Following the retirement of Dr. Steiner, the ASO held an extensive national search for a new music director. Chosen

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George Steiner, former ASO Conductor

for the position was award-winning Oberlin Conservatory of Music Valedictorian Kim Allen Kluge.

Under Kluge’s direction during the 1990’s, the ASO became a professional orchestra. It rapidly developed a reputation for artistic excellence and innovative programming through its highly successful concerts at the Kennedy Center.

In partnership with the City of Alexandria, the ASO significantly expanded its programs and concerts in the schools and began performing in the annual Alexandria Birthday Celebration outdoor concerts.

In 2001, the ASO gave the inaugural concert at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Center, which became its new home.

In the Schlesinger era, the ASO

finest professional freelance musicians in the Washington DC area, and regularly receives rave reviews from the Washington Post and other regional newspapers.

Musicians warming up at Schlesinger Center

emerged as a leader of the Washington DC inter-arts movement, forging artistic partnerships with many of the region’s leading cultural institutions including the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the Washington Ballet and the Shakespeare Theatre. Crossover concerts featuring visual art, dance, and film have come to symbolize Maestro Kluge’s efforts to engage the regional community in all avenues of artistic expression.

Moving forward into the new millennium, the ASO continues to make education a centerpiece of its mission. In 2003, the ASO introduced the Children’s Arts Festival featuring inter-arts activities, workshops and performances for young children. Maestro Kluge has held a variety of masterclasses in performance, conducting and composition throughout the DC region. He has also instituted side-by-side collaborations, in which local high school students perform with the professional musicians of the ASO. SOLA and the ASO present the Mary Graham Lasley Scholarship Competition and the newly-founded Kluge Young Composers Competition, respectively, underscoring the Symphony’s commitment to nurturing young talent and creativity.

During the Schlesinger era, the ASO has performed with many of the world’s leading musicians including Midori, Peter Serkin, Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg, Richard Stoltzman, Garrick Ohlsson, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Sarah Chang, and Branford Marsalis.

The ASO is comprised of the The ASO performs at the National Gallery of Art in May 2013

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Sponsors of the 2015-2016 ASO Season With gratitude, we acknowledge the following foundations, corporations, and individuals for their sponsorship of our 2015-2016 season:

The Paul M. Angell Foundation The Theodore H. Barth Foundation The Charles Delmar Foundation Mary and Daniel Loughran Foundation, Inc. New Target, Inc. Rotary Club of Alexandria Simpson Properties, LLC The Virginia Florist Wells Fargo Foundation 14

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THE Fantastic October 3, 2015 at 8:00 PM

Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center

Kim Allen Kluge, conductor WILLIAMS

Music from E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

WILLIAMS (arr. Burden)

Star Wars Medley (1977)

BERLIOZ

March to the Scaffold from Symphonie fantastique

WAGNER

Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walk端re INTERMISSION

HOLST

The Planets

I. Mars, the Bringer of War II. Venus, the Bringer of Peace III. Mercury, the Winged Messenger IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity V. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age VI. Uranus, the Magician VII. Neptune, the Mystic

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Program 1 • October 3, 2015

Gustav Holst (1847-1934)

The Planets English composer Gustav Holst grew up in the world of Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Conan Doyle, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Richard Wagner, Peter Tchaikovsky and Giacomo Puccini. Both he and his sister learned piano from an early age, but Holst, stricken with a nerve condition, gave up piano for the trombone, which was less painful to play.

He attended the Royal College of Music in London on a scholarship, where he met lifelong friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose praise was abundant and with whom he shared an interest in the English vocal and choral tradition. Holst was influenced during these years by socialism, attending lectures by George Bernard Shaw and William Morris.

It was during these years that Holst became interested in Hindu mysticism and spirituality; this interest influenced his later works, including Sita (a three-act opera based on an episode in the Ramayana), Savitri (a chamber opera based on a tale from the Mahabharata), and Hymns from the Rig Veda, in preparation for which he taught himself basic Sanskrit to avoid reliance on the “substandard” translations of the day.

During a trip to Spain in 1912, friend Clifford Bax introduced Holst to astrology. Holst continued to read astrological fortunes until his death.

The Planets was meant to be a series of “mood pictures” rather than anything concretely connected with astrology or astronomy, though Holst was known to have been using the book What is the Horoscope and How is it Cast? by Alan Leo as a guide. Holst was also influenced by the 19th-century astrologer Raphael, whose book concerning the planets’ role in world affairs led him to develop the vision for The Planets suite.

Although he had earlier lampooned the stranger aspects of modern music, the new music of Stravinsky and Schoenberg influenced his work on The Planets. This influence was picked up by a critic who called it “the English Rite of Spring.”

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Holst conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first electronic recording of The Planets, in 1926. Although, as his daughter Imogen noted, he couldn’t quite achieve the gradual fade-out of women’s voices and orchestra he had written (owing to the limitations of early recording),

Program 1 • October 3, 2015

it was a landmark recording of the work.

Due to the popularity of The Planets, Holst became something of an anomaly, a famous English composer. He was busy with conducting, lecturing and teaching obligations. He hated publicity; he often refused to answer questions from the press; when asked for his autograph, he handed out prepared cards that read, “I do not hand out my autograph.”

John Williams (b. 1932)

Music from E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial and Star Wars Heralded among the most talented composers of the 20th century, John Williams has been synonymous with film music for four decades. Born during the Great Depression, Williams inherited his gift from his father, a successful studio musician, who encouraged John’s instruction on the piano, clarinet, trombone and trumpet. He moved with his family to Los Angeles at the age of 16, facilitating his tutelage with pianist-arranger Bobby Van Eps. Williams also studied piano under Rosina Lhévinne at Julliard and composition with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco at University of California. Twentieth Century Fox hired Williams as a studio pianist in 1956, which led to regular jobs composing and arranging for television shows, and ultimately, his role as film’s reigning composer.

When Williams composed the score to Star Wars he was standing on the shoulders of giants, and he didn’t hesitate to utilize the techniques of the prime examples at his disposal. Of these techniques he uses what’s known as a leitmotiv (recurring theme), first popularized by Wagner in his operas. Of chief importance for a leitmotiv is that it must be strong enough for a listener to latch onto while being flexible enough to undergo variation and development. For example, Williams uses this with the main theme and Darth Vader’s theme. The creation of a score in the recognizable Late Romantic style was intended to base the foreign visual display in something familiar and identifiable to the audience.

When John Williams took the job, he was given a “temp track” which he used as inspiration for the score he would later create for the film. Many have noted the similarities between Williams’s work and that of his Late Romantic and Neoclassical predecessors Holst, Stravinsky, Dvořák, Walton, and Wagner. But more interesting than these musical similarities is the recognition of Williams as a remixer and reviser who produced one

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Program 1 • October 3, 2015

of the best and most popular scores in film history.

Williams tried to construct something that would have an idealistic, uplifting yet military flare to it. It is heavy in brass instruments, which he used to play as a student and child. It is set in the most passionate register of trumpets, horns, and trombones which gives it a ceremonial air.

Listeners are often inspired to pat their feet or stand up and salute when they hear the music. This style is particularly reminiscent of “Mars, Bringer of War” from Holst’s The Planets suite.

Holst clearly had a deep influence on the score. The Planets has a curious, otherworldly feel to it, even though it has nothing to do with the actual astronomical bodies. It is a swirl of strings to discordant brass and discordant rhythms. “Uranus, the Magician” essentially has the same musical palette as much of the Star Wars score: big on percussion and brass; rhythmic, vigorous and pompous writing.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the Romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionized opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”), by which he sought to synthesize the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama.

The “Ride of the Valkyries” is the popular term for the prelude to Act III of Die Walküre, the second opera from Der Ring des Nibelungen. Wagner builds up successive layers of accompaniment, until the curtain rises to reveal a mountain where four of eight Valkyrie sisters have gathered. As they are joined by the other four, the familiar tune is carried by the orchestra, while, above it, the Valkyries sing their battle cry. The theme has been featured in countless films, including The Birth of a Nation (1915), Apocolypse Now (1979) and The Blues Brothers (1980).

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Program 1 • October 3, 2015

Program Commentary

by Colleen Fay

Music is a natural partner to our imagination, and the more fantastic it is, the better. In fact it would be hard to think of the fantastic in movies without music, whether borrowed from other sources or composed originally for film. Two pieces on tonight’s program that were written before movies existed are certainly embodiments of the fantastic.

Gustav Holst was an enormously talented English composer in the right place at the right time. From a family with no less than three generations of professional musicians before him, his family was able to give him encouragement and moral support, but little in the way of financial support, to pursue his studies. From the time of his first job as a teenaged professional musician to his death, he was never quite able to make a living as a composer. A lesser person would have seen this as handwriting on the wall, but Holst was made of sterner stuff. He was determined to chart his own course as a composer, but that did not blind him from the influence of the music he heard all around him. From Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan fame, to the two German Richards (Wagner and Strauss), to

his life-long friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, Holst drew musical sustenance from his contemporaries.

Holst may have been influenced by others, but his music is all his own.

Holst’s monumental and revolutionary seven-movement work The Planets was composed between 1914 and 1916. It was not given its first full performance until 1920, becoming instantly popular. From our perspective it’s hard to imagine The Planets as much of a revolutionary work, but its subject and the brilliant use of the orchestra in all its various colors was refreshingly new. Yes, it’s possible to dissect the piece and find in it a host of examples of the influence of any composer. But nobody else but Holst could have written it. His genius lay in combining the colors of his musical palette into a harmonious whole.

There are some curious things about The Planets. First of all, there are seven movements: no movement either for Earth or Pluto (it hadn’t been discovered yet). The reason that Earth doesn’t get a movement is because the work is not about the physical planets, but instead their place in astrology.

Holst called his astrology habit his

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Program 1 • October 3, 2015

“pet vice.” The result is an unusual arrangement of the movements, but it works brilliantly in a musical sense. We start with “Mars: The Bringer of War,” a rousing introduction to the following movements; each movement gives the work contrasts – some obvious, others subtle – and produces a cumulative effect that is perhaps The Planets’ greatest strength.

Holst himself said, “the enormity of the universe revealed by science cannot readily be grasped by the human brain, but the music of The Planets enables the mind to acquire some comprehension of the vastness of space where rational understanding fails.”

Richard Wagner thought in big, no, in monumental terms. He possessed a monumental talent that enabled him to create operas that brought those monumental terms to life. Wagner’s largest, and perhaps his greatest, operatic achievement was his four-opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung. The “Ride of the Valkyries” was one of the first sections Wagner composed and received its own premiere in 1856.

The entire opera, Die Walküre, was given its own premiere in 1870.

Happily for us, this much loved work lives up to the grand scale of its title. He continued to compose and teach for the remainder of his life. He was a great influence on the next generation of English composers, notably Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten. As English composer Edmund Rubbra said, “[Holst’s] influence is lasting in the work of all of us who value directness and who view music not so much as a secret preserve for the leisured few [but] as a vital part of everyday life.”

Brunhilde and her Valkyrie sisters are standing at the top of a mounGustav Holst’s daughter said tain as their other valkyrie sisters his favorite piece of advice fly in each on her magical winged was, “Never compose anything horse. Wagner conveys this by enunless the not composing of it riching the orchestration by buildbecomes a positive nuisance to ing texture to indicate the arrival you.” Holst’s best friend Ralph of each magic sister. Beginning Vaughan Williams said that with the almost whispered tremolo “always ask for advice but nevin the violins to the iconic Valkyrie er take it” was Holst’s real mottheme from the brass section of to. Writing about The Planets, the orchestra, the excitement and 24

Program 1 • October 3, 2015

the tension in the piece build from the very first measure to the last.

As Wagner’s operatic career progressed, he drew a huge number of fans and an equally large number of detractors.

French opera composer Auber stated that “Wagner is Berlioz without the melody.” Mark Twain relayed a quip from a friend, “I have been told that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” Oscar Wilde said, “I like Wagner’s music better than anybody’s. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says.”

Within the opera itself, the “Ride of the Valkyries” comes at a crucial moment. Wotan, father of the Valkyrie warrior princesses, is in a tight spot. His wife, Fricka, the patroness of marriage and family, insists that Siegmund die in battle for the twin sins of sleeping with Sieglinde, the wife of his enemy, (Hunding) and incest (Siegelinde is Siegmund’s twin sister). As the Valkyries arrive, Wotan, their father directs Brunhilde, the eldest to kill Siegmund. Brunhilde initially wants to obey, but she knows it could mean the downfall of ev- When I was a child, you could still erything. see the painted sign on the side of our local theater. The sign, faded The popularity of this recognizable and flaking, read, “Sound and Talktheme has been extended by use in ing Pictures.” Granted, that sign films most particularly in Francis had been there for almost 30 years Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now since sound had come to movies.

(1979). No mention of “Ride of But that sign marked the beginthe Valkyries” would be complete ning of a new era in classical muwithout what critics consider the sic that flourishes even now. The greatest of all the Warner Broth- early years of sound movies gave ers’ cartoons, What’s Opera, Doc? rise to a coterie of fine composers (1957) with Elmer Fudd chasing like Bernard Hermann and Erich Bugs Bunny. No lover of cartoons von Korngold. But great films deor opera can ever forget Elmer mand great music. The names of Fudd’s singing “Kill the Wabbitt” these great composers may not be to the strains of Wagner’s soaring as familiar as Beethoven, with one Valkyrie theme in Elmer’s relent- wonderful exception: John Willess pursuit of Bugs, disguised as liams.

Brunhilde.

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Program 1 • October 3, 2015

While some composers’ careers reach their heights in a decade or two, Williams’s career has spanned nearly six. Jaws, E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones movies, the Star Wars cycle and Schindler’s List only represent a small portion of his compositions. Williams has a very large catalogue; as large as it is, however, it is the consistent, overall quality that distinguishes it. John Williams’s neo-romantic style puts him in a line of succession that stretches back to Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Wagner. But when the mood calls for it, Williams can switch to an idiom reminiscent of a jazz combo or a Leonard Bernstein score. I hope that John Williams has a mantelpiece large enough to hold all the Academy Awards that his movie scores have earned him – and has more space, since I’m sure this musical genius has a few more Oscarwinning scores in him yet.

What makes his music so memorable is that even the musical moments that make up a movie merit the perfect little musical signatures.

In the music of Wagner, critics called these leitmotivs, signifying a person a particular situation, an emotion or some other specific recurring idea. Williams has used this to great effect; often that brief theme signifies an upcoming event 26

in the movie thereby signaling to the audience a sense of impending doom or triumph. If you parse any one of Williams’s scores closely, you’ll see that these little motives are woven into the texture of the music so cleverly that you’re not even aware that they are there until that memorable phrase asserts itself.

Even though the scores for Star Wars and E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial were written more than three decades ago, they still have the power to evoke the poignancy or the grandeur of those films. For a medium as transient as the movies, that’s a high accomplishment.

“So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it’s gratifying to have something you have done linger in people’s memories...[and] There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression.” - John Williams in the original liner notes from E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial.

2015-2016 ASO Concert Venues Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center • Complimentary concert parking is provided by the ASO in the Beauregard Street Garage, located across East Campus Lane from the Schlesinger Center. We highly encourage all our patrons to park in this location, as parking is restricted on campus.

• Our Will Call pickup and On-Site Box Office sales begin 1.5 hours prior to the start of each performance the lobby of the Schlesinger Center.

• Restrooms and drinking fountains are available to the right of the lobby on the first floor, and to the right of the Seminar Room on the second floor.

• An elevator is available for your convenience and can be located around the corner from the restrooms.

• Concessions are sold in the lobby during intermission – choose from a variety of wines, sodas, snacks and bottled water.

George Washington Masonic Memorial • Complimentary concert parking is provided by the ASO in the north parking lot with an entrance directly to the concert hall.

• All patrons should enter the Memorial on the parking lot side of the building, where the handicap ramp can be found as well. This entrance is the closest one to the concert hall and can be accessed without stairs.

• Our Will Call pickup and On-Site Box Office sales begin one and a half hours prior to the start of each performance.

• An elevator is available for your convenience. Please note that the elevator runs slowly, and we encourage you to arrive early if you intend to use it.

• Concessions are sold in the lobby during intermission – choose from a variety of wines, sodas, snacks, and bottled water.

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Season Musings from the Maestro

“Film music is a story conveyed and told in front of your eyes…It’s live classical music of fantastic standard and composition and performance…it adds to the symphonic music canon.”

-Jasper Hope, Chief Operating Officer of The Royal Albert Hall, London, England Where have all the symphonies gone? To the Silver Screen! Contemporary film composers are carrying on traditions of Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky of writing symphony music to accompany theatrical genres. The Old Masters wrote music to accompany opera, plays and ballet; the New Masters are writing music to accompany film.

Cinema has become symphonic music’s new concert hall. Film composers are creating a new global audience for symphonic music that transcends age, ethnicity and socio-economics, linking the old and new symphonic traditions—A CIRCLE UNBROKEN! Each concert in the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra’s 2015-2016 Season focuses on one contemporary film composer and explores the composers and symphonic traditions that shaped that unique musical style.

The season opening concert, “The Fantastic,” features music from John William’s film scores to E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial and Star Wars.

The concert also showcases orchestral masterpieces that clearly influenced these iconic film scores, including Gustav Holst’s The Planets.

When George Lucas first approached John Williams to arrange The Planets for use as the film score to Star Wars, Williams suggested he write an entirely original score that would be much better suited to the movie. He succeeded in writing one of the most celebrated film scores of all time.

The next concert of the season, “Whimsy & Wonderment,” explores the profound influence that Prokofiev and Stravinsky exerted on the evolution of Danny Elfman’s musical style. Fascinated by the macabre, sarcastic and parody-like elements in the music of these two Russian masters, Elfman incorporates this same whimsical quality into his scores for Spider-man and Edward Scissorhands.

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“The Dramatic” explores the influence of verismo Italian opera on the musical style of The Godfather’s composer Nino Rota. Director Martin Scorsese asked Rota to embody the verismo sound in his film score. This emotionally supercharged Italian tradition of realism will be displayed in iconic pieces from the verismo canon. The concert includes other masterpieces from this genre—the Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana featured in Scorsese’s Raging Bull as well as arias from Puccini’s La Bohème and Madama Butterfly.

“Lushness & Lyricism” pairs James Newton Howard’s lyrical setting of Peter Pan with three lushly Romantic masterpieces from the classical canon that influenced his style, including the waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Smetana’s The Moldau. The ASO welcomes back “America’s violinist” Jenny Oaks Baker to headline Scottish Fantasy.

The season finale—“The Transformative”—features the work of composers who were great bridge builders between seemingly disparate styles of music. Aaron Copland bridged the musical styles of American folk music with the European classical style, redefining American classical music. George Gershwin bridged the contrasting styles of jazz and classical music. Today, Hans Zimmer bridges the styles of classical music with electronic music and ethnic traditions.

This American melting pot of musical influences is celebrated in American Concerto for Piano & Orchestra composed by me and my wife, Kathryn. In this world premiere, you will hear folk-like melodies reminiscent of Stephen Foster and Aaron Copland, jazz-tinged echoes of Gershwin and Cole Porter, and references to the great masters of the piano concerto. Our contemporary cinematic approach and distinctive sound bridge all of these styles and traditions.

See you at the concerts!

Maestro Kim Allen Kluge 29

Allison Bailey, ASO Concertmaster Allison Bailey began violin studies at the age of four, developed a love for orchestral playing, and became the youngest member of the Prince William Symphony Orchestra at age ten. Ms. Bailey attended Peabody Conservatory of Music, the University of Oregon, and the Manhattan School of Music, earning a Bachelor’s degree, Graduate Performance Diploma, and two Master’s degrees.

Violin teachers include Erick Friedman, Aaron Rosand, Herbert Greenberg, and Glenn Dicterow.

In addition to serving as Concertmaster of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra this year, Ms. Bailey serves as Concertmaster of the Manassas Ballet Theatre Orchestra, Associate Concertmaster of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, maintains a private violin studio, and is an active freelance mu-

sician in the Washington area. In recent years Ms. Bailey has been a featured soloist with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and the Fairfax Choral Society. She he has also served on the faculty of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts and as guest conductor and adjudicator throughout the state.

Ms. Bailey is currently in her fifteenth year as orchestra director at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where she has also served as Summer School Principal for five years.

Q. Can you describe what it’s like to play with the ASO? A. I have played with the ASO for 15 years, and during that time I have played with many other orchestras. One of the unique aspects of playing with the ASO is the wide variety of repertoire we perform. I enjoy the innovative programming combining great standard literature, movie soundtracks, newly-composed works, and exciting soloists!

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A Tradition of Service CELEBRATING 125 YEARS IN ALEXANDRIA

Fuel Oil n Boilers n Furnaces Air Conditioning n Heat Pumps Water Heaters n Gas, Oil, & AC Service 1200 DUKE STREET, ALEXANDRIA, VA 703-549-5700

www.tjfannonandsons.com In memory of Susan Dau Fannon, a proud supporter of the Symphony.

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Emerging Artist Programs The Kluge Young Composers Competiton (KYCC) celebrates the talent of orchestral composers age 18 and under who reside in Virginia.

The winner receives a cash prize, and the winning composition receives its premiere with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra.

The KYCC was established by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria in recognition of Maestro Kim Allen Kluge’s 25th anniversary as Music Director of the ASO. With this initiative, we proudly acknowledge Maestro Kluge’s outstanding accomplishments as a composer and his interest in community outreach, specifically the development of emerging musical talent.

Application deadline is December 18, 2015. For more information, visit www.alexsym.org/kycc or email kycc@alexsym.org.

2015 MGL Competitions Winners

In its 40th year, the Mary Graham Lasley Scholarship Competition, co-sponsored by the Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria and the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, encourages college-level musicians to pursue classical music careers.

In the 1980s, the late Mary Graham Lasley was a major figure in the musical world of Metropolitan Washington, DC, and was active on the boards of the Washington Opera Guild, the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, and the Alexandria Symphony Guild, predecessor of SOLA. Her friends and family established a trust in tribute to her many contributions.

The 2016 competition will take place March 6, 2016, on the Alexandria campus of the Northern Virginia Community College. An awards ceremony and reception will follow the competition.

Visit www.alexsym.org/education/lasley-scholarship for more information.

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ASO Sympatico ASO Sympatico was born out of a commitment to education, the youth of Alexandria, and social justice. In 2012, members of the ASO staff and board began thinking about the best way for the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra to give back to its community. After learning about the growth of El Sistema-inspired programs around the United States, the ASO began looking for local models that it could learn from. The ASO connected with Daniel Trahey, Artistic Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids program.

The ASO decided to test drive the concept in the Alexandria City Public Schools. Two week-long workshops that engaged music faculty and students at John Adams Elementary School were planned. In December 2013, the ASO held a bucket band workshop led by percussionists Brian Prechtl and Pete Tashjian. In March 2014, musicians from the Londonbased Creative Connections project led John Adams Elementary School students in a workshop, culminating in a performance on stage with the ASO during its March 2014 concert.

Simultaneously, and independent of the ASO, music educators at John Adams were building the school’s musical capacity. A strong foundation was already in place as a result of Wes McCune’s more than twenty year tenure with the Orff Ensemble, which had long been a staple at John Adams. Adding to this rich history, music teachers Emily Smith and Lindsey Serrao established their own ensembles in 2013 – the Singing Eagles and Strings at Sunrise, respectively.

With the 2013-2014 year behind them, the teachers at John Adams and the ASO looked ahead to creating a firm partnership. In October 2014, the ASO hired Asif Majid, a student and practitioner of the performing arts as a social justice practice, as Director. Having worked with Daniel Trahey at OrchKids and studied the El Sistema model, Asif set about crafting and implementing a vision for sustainable program growth while accentuating the uniqueness of the ASO Sympatico program. Two more ensembles, Keetman and JABBA (Bucket Band), were added to Sympatico as the program’s mission was embraced by the John Adams 34

community and developed into a sense of forward-moving momentum.

More information, including concert listings, is available on our website at www.asosympatico.com or www.alexsym.org/elsistema.

“Sympatico has increased my students’ ability to express themselves, be creative, and demonstrate self-confidence.

Through ASO Sympatico, we are creating a music family at John Adams.”

- Lindsey Serrao, Director of ASO Sympatico’s Strings at Sunrise

For more information, contact Asif Majid, Education Program Director at asif.majid@alexsym.org

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Become a Corporate Sponsor

Corporate sponsorship ensures that the ASO reaches increased audiences, serves our students, and enriches our community year after year, while at the same time, promotes our corporate stakeholders. Become a corporate sponsor today by underwriting an ASO guest artist, sponsoring an educational program, providing a program grant, or participating in many other activities!

Corporate sponsorships can include: • Recognition and advertising in the ASO program book • Recognition on signs in the concert hall lobbies • Sponsored emails to ASO ticket buyers • Logo placement on the ASO website • Tickets to ASO concerts, events and fundraisers • Customized private events Contact Jessica Wisser, ASO Executive Director, at 703-5480885 or wisser@alexsym.org to create your sponsorship package or to learn more about sponsorship opportunities.

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WHIMSY & Wonderment November 7, 2015 at 8:00 PM

Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center

November 8, 2015 at 3:00 PM George Washington Masonic Memorial

Kim Allen Kluge, conductor STRAVINSKY

The Soldier’s Tale

ELFMAN

Edward Scissorhands (1990) Music from Spider-Man (2002) INTERMISSION

PROKOFIEV

Kijé Wedding & Troika from Lieutenant Kijé Suite, op. 60

MUSSORGSKY

Night on Bald Mountain

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Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

The Soldier’s Tale Igor Stravinsky, known as one of the most revolutionary composers of his time, was born and raised in a modest home in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Stravinsky’s father was a bass soloist at the Mariinsky Theater and introduced his son Igor to his world of music from a young age. Stravinsky, a shy and withdrawn boy around his peers, was drawn to music as a way to express himself.

He began piano, composition and music theory lessons, and enjoyed live music, including a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty at age eight.

By the 1910s, World War I loomed throughout Europe, with the Russian Revolution not far behind. While Stravinsky intended to continue traveling and working on commissions, he and his family were trapped in Switzerland until 1920 (he did not return to Russia until 1968). During these years, Stravinsky was increasingly strapped for funds – the closing of borders caused commission fees to vanish, and Russia’s lack of adherence to the Berne Convention prevented him from collecting fees owed from his Ballets Russes compositions.

Needing funds to continue composing, Stravinsky turned to Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart to support his latest composition, Histoire du soldat (“The Soldier’s Tale”). Stravinsky purposefully composed a smaller work, incorporating dance, acting and music in a chamber music setting, thinking that a small, transportable troupe of performers might be able to generate income throughout the Swiss countryside. To show gratitude to his sponsor, Stravinsky dedicated the work to Reinhart and gifted him with the original manuscript of the work. The first performances took place under much grander circumstances than his original vision of a small country performance; the premiere was a highly fashionable event conducted by Ernest Ansermet. Stravinsky debated thought of dancing the final “Triumphal Dance of the Devil” himself, although later opted not to do so. The performance was well-received but subsequent performances were quickly cancelled as Spanish influenza forced all the theaters in Lausanne to close.

In Expositions and Developments, one of his books of conversations 38

Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

with Robert Craft, Stravinsky said: “The shoestring economics of the original Histoire production kept me to a handful of instruments, but this confinement did not act as a limitation, as my musical ideas were already directed toward a solo-instrumental style. My choice of instruments was influenced by a very important event in my life at that time, the discovery of American jazz. . . .The Histoire ensemble resembles the jazz band in that each instrumental category—strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion—is represented by both treble and bass components.

The instruments themselves are jazz legitimates, too, except the bassoon, which is my substitution for the saxophone. . . .The percussion part must also be considered as a manifestation of my enthusiasm for jazz. I purchased the instruments from a music shop in Lausanne, learning to play them myself as I composed. . . .My knowledge of jazz was derived exclusively from copies of sheet music, and as I had never actually heard any of the music performed, I borrowed its rhythmic style not as played, but as written. I could imagine jazz sound, however, or so I liked to think.

Jazz meant, in any case, a wholly new sound in my music, and Histoire marks my final break with the Russian orchestral school in which I had been fostered. . . . If every good piece of music is marked by its own characteristic sound . . . then the characteristic sounds of Histoire are the scrape of the violin and the punctuation of the drums.”

Danny Elfman (b. 1953)

Music from Edward Scissorhands and Spider-Man Daniel Robert Elfman is a California-based composer, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor and voice actor best known for his score to Batman (1989) and The Simpsons main theme title. He spent much of his young life in his local movie theater where he grew to love the film scores of Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman.

In 1985, Elfman worked with Tim Burton and Paul Reubens to write the score to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Although Elfman was unsure of his abilities due to his lack of formal training, he worked to bring his world music and other composers’ influences (notably Nino Rota and Bernard Herrmann) to the score. Burton was particularly drawn to Elfman’s work and has since partnered with Elfman for all but two of his major studio films.

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Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

Edward Scissorhands (1990) was Elfman and Burton’s fourth collaboration, and garnered Elfman a Grammy Award nomination for the score.

Elman often cites this work as his most personal and favorite piece.

He also notes the influences of composers such as Béla Bartók, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel had on this and many of his film scores.

Similarly to his relationship with Tim Burton, Danny Elfman has collaborated multiple times with film director Sam Raimi, including Spider-man. When asked about the difference between working with Burton and Raimi, Elfman said: “They’re very different. Sam is very easygoing, when it comes to the studio and the music. He just seems really to fit into it and enjoy it. Tim doesn’t enjoy it. He’s much more intense during the process, figuring out what his movie is. Sometimes he has to go on a journey himself with music, and discover where the center of it is.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Wedding and Troika, from Lieutenant Kijé Suite Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, now identified as part of Eastern Ukraine. Prokofiev’s mother, Maria, was born into serfdom to the Sheremetev family, wealthy landowners under whom all serfchidren were taught theater and arts from a young age. Maria devoted her life to her children and music, even taking piano lessons for two months every year before Prokofiev turned three in order to better teach him music. Prokofiev often cited his mother’s piano practice in the evenings – mostly Chopin and Beethoven – as the inspiration for his first piano concerto, written at age five. Titled Indian Gallop, the work was transcribed by Maria, and was written in F Lydian mode so as “to avoid the black notes.”

Upon entering conservatory in 1904, Prokofiev was shunned by his classmates – he was several years younger and labeled eccentric and arrogant, perhaps due to his running statistics on all the errors made by his peers. Despite his social difficulties, he thrived musically, studying piano, harmony and counterpoint, and conducting, as well as orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov. In the evenings, Prokofiev performed his 40

Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

original compositions throughout Saint Petersburg, developing a reputation as a rebel while building a name for himself. When his father passed away in 1910, Prokofiev turned to performing and composing as his sole source of income.

In 1913, Prokofiev traveled abroad for the first time. World War I interrupted Prokofiev’s plans, sending him back to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study organ and avoid conscription. During this time, Prokofiev produced his first symphony, the Classical Symphony as well as his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major. Although both works were scheduled to premiere in 1917, they were not presented publicly until 1918 and 1923, respectively due to the beginnings of the Russian Revolution.

Prokofiev was distraught over the state of music, saying that Russia “had no use for music at the moment,” and spent the next 12 years traveling throughout America and Europe. Repeated invitations to return to the Soviet Union were offered, and ultimately, Prokofiev returned to conduct his first concert tour through his homeland in 1927.

As the 1930s began, Europe and American were suffering from the Great Depression, and Prokofiev was very discouraged that he was supporting himself as a performer and not a composer. He returned to the Soviet Union after a 10-year stay in Paris, and became an emissary for Russian music in Western Europe. Prokofiev’s first composition back in the Soviet Union was a commission to score the film Lieutenant Kijé (1934), a thinly-veiled satire about bureaucracy through the story of the fictional Lieutenant Kijé during the reign of Emperor Paul I of Russia. Prokofiev’s biting humor and fondness for the grotesque were perfect for the story of the film. Three years later, he compiled a suite of the music from the film, revising the original orchestration to create a more colorful and “visual” score. The work, especially the fourth movement of the suite called “Troika,” has been cited in popular music since its premiere in Paris during 1937, most notably in Woody Allen’s 1975 film Love and Death.

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

Night on Bald Mountain Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was an innovator of Russian music during the Romantic period. He is celebrated as a uniquely Russian composer 41

Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

despite the influence of Western music conventions during his life. Born in a town south of Saint Petersburg, Mussorgsky was from a wealthy, land-owning family. He received his first piano lessons from his mother, who was also a trained pianist. He was so adept at performance on the piano that he gave his first recital of works by Franz Liszt at age nine.

From 1858 to 1863, Mussorgsky lived the stressful life of a new composer, often living on the edge of impoverishment.

He gained experience assisting in the production of opera and theatrical works, and beginning his own takes on Western styles, including a four-hand piano sonata, incidental music for two plays, and piano solos. In 1863, Mussorgsky began writing an opera, which he toiled over for three years, finally losing interest in the project entirely. He began working as an entry-level civil servant and living in a self described “six-man commune.” Within this artistic and intellectual environment, Mussorgsky enjoyed wide-ranging discussions of artistic and scientific ideas, beginning to embrace the idea of artistic realism. By 1966, Mussorgsky began writing his first “realistic” songs and in 1867, he completed the original orchestra version of Night on Bald Mountain.

Although considered one of Mussorgsky’s best works, Night on Bald Mountain was never performed during Mussorgsky’s lifetime, as his mentor, Balakirev, refused to perform the work. In an attempt to use what he considered the best material from the piece, Mussorgsky used themes and small excerpts in two subsequent compositions – Mlada, an opera-ballet performed in 1872, and The Fair at Sorochyntsi, an opera performed in 1880. In 1886, five years after Mussorgsky’s death, Rimsky-Korsakov published an arrangement of Night on Bald Mountain and described the work as a “fantasy for orchestra.” Although there was controversy over how much of the material was original to Mussorgsky and how much was newly composed by Rimsky-Korsakov, the work became an immediate concert favorite. The work achieved even greater fame in 1940, when Walt Disney featured an arrangement of the work in its film Fantasia.

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Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

Program Commentary

by Colleen Fay

We don’t associate the early 1930s as a time of frivolity. In America, the Great Depression was just taking hold and the worst was yet to come. But if we look at the theater and the movies of the time, the “doom and gloom” scenario is almost absent. “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” Ray Henderson’s popular hit from George White’s Scandals of 1931 was typical of the time. The great Marx Brothers’ movies, Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera, were the perfect light entertainment. In the Soviet Union the same attitude prevailed.

A 1934 movie, Lieutenant Kijé, was a spoof on the old Russian monarchy under the Tsars and a thinly veiled satire.

on them. The film was a piece of light-weight frippery with a musical score that far surpasses it in quality.

Prokofiev created his own distinct style even as a young graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory just before World War I and the Russian Revolution. After trying his hand at the atonal styles all the rage in the 1920’s, Prokofiev settled on a style he called the “new simplicity.” The pieces he wrote were not without dissonance, but they included strong melodic elements that made them enormously appealing while retaining their musical integrity.

In a nutshell, Prokofiev never pandered to the audience, but In the movie, Lieutenant Kijé is instead drew them into his richly a fictional character devised by complex musical world by means the Tsar’s palace courtiers to be of appealing melody. the focus of the monarch’s wrath.

In order to keep the Tsar from Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky discovering their own ineptitude, begged Prokofiev to write these desperate bureaucrats devise a Cello Concerto. “I don’t a “biography” for the hapless lieuknow your crazy instrutenant, including a wedding and a ment,” Prokofiev protested. wild ride in the three-horse driven He finally composed the work sleigh, the troika. Prokofiev writes and Piatigorsky played the in a tongue-in-cheek style that world premiere in Boston. borders on the sardonic. He and It has since been recognized the filmmakers knew you could as one of the finest works for only push the bureaucrats so far cello and orchestra. before they realized the joke was

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Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

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While both Prokofiev and Stravinsky were Russian-born and Russian-educated, their paths crossed and then diverged both in the physical sense and stylistically as well. Their involvement with the Ballets Russes, the Parisbased company composed of some of Russia’s finest stage artists, gave them a shared platform for a time, but then each composer took off in his own direction. Each composer had explored some of the “modern” sounds in music.

Stravinsky’s most notable contribution in this area was his score for the ballet The Rite of Spring (1913).

Dissonant and modern sounding today as it was a century ago, the piece was grounded in tonal music.

No sooner was the ink dry on that score than Stravinsky was off in a new direction.

become rich. For a time the soldier is beguiled, but eventually realizes that “you can’t have everything.”

For a time he outwits the devil, but he comes to understand that true happiness comes from being content with what he has.

While it wouldn’t be correct to call The Soldier’s Tale a ballet, dance was a part of the original performance.

Requiring seven instrumentalists, three actors and one or more dancers, the instruction on the score reads that the work was “to be read, played and danced.” It is a reworking of a Russian folk tale about a soldier on leave returning to his village. On the way, the soldier meets the devil who tricks the soldier into exchanging his violin for a magic book that will allow him to know the future and

In the 1940s Broadway producer Billy Rose commissioned Stravinsky to write a ballet score for his show Seven Lively Arts. After the opening, Rose sent Stravinsky a telegram, “Ballet great success, would be greater if you re-orchestrate it.” Stravinsky wired back, “Content with great success.”

Stravinsky’s musical style is eclectic to say the least. He writes in a modern idiom one minute and then in a more lyrical style the next. He even manages to insert a dance in ragtime. (Remember this is 1918; ragtime was something of a daring innovation.) Ragtime and early jazz were being heard in Europe for the very first time as World War I ended in that same year. Whether daring for 1918 or not, The Soldier’s Tale remains as lively and fresh as the day it was written.

Program 2 • November 7-8, 2015

It doesn’t hurt having a bona fide Hollywood pedigree, but that’s no guarantee of success in such a competitive industry. Talent is the absolute sine qua non, as my high school Latin teacher used to tell us. It’s the essential requirement without which all the rest is superfluous. Fortunately for Danny Elfman he has talent in spades. His resume as a film composer would make a lesser person drool. To say that he’s in constant demand would be an understatement. Fortunately for us film-goers, Elfman has both the talent and the stamina to rise to the challenge.

In the Spider-Man films and in Edward Scissorhands, Elfman has successfully translated the wishes of directors Sam Raimi and Tim Burton into reality. From the first days of sound on film until today, that melding of mood and music has been an essential part of the film composer’s art. What I find particularly interesting is how well this music translates from the screen into the concert hall. Even as a particular musical moment may perfectly match the mood of the film, the best film scores possess a richness that transcends the on-screen vision. Just as a great ballet score by Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky delights concertgoers as well as balletomanes,

Elfman’s music has been noted for combining electronic and acoustic or “analog” sounds particularly seamlessly. That’s not easy to achieve. No matter how sophisticated electronic sounds become (with each passing day they progress by leaps and bounds), blending them with their traditional sisters and brothers requires considerable skill. The Spider-man movies and Edward Scissorhands are vastly different in character. Wisely Danny Elfman doesn’t impose a trademark “Elfman Sound” on these movies, but rather bends his talents to make his music an integral part of the cohesive whole.

On working with Tim Burton, Elfman told Rolling Stone, “{Tim Burton says}... very little. Less than most directors. He’ll tell me how he feels about a movie, but until I have music to play back, he’s not gonna say, ‘Do it like this or like that.’ But then, as intense as it can be developing the music, when we’re actually recording, he can be hysterical and funny.

It’s almost like the pressure of the whole thing is now on my shoulders...”

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Maestro Kim Allen Kluge, ASO Music Director Kim Allen Kluge brings an epic sense of drama to his music-making, from composing to the podium, and has been praised by The Washington Post: “Maestro Kluge is a brilliant composer, conductor and visionary of our time. Epic performance!”

Distinguished by his powerful musicmaking and its dramatic impact, he has been likened to the great poetic musicians of our time. “Kluge’s sense of drama was evident...relentless pressure I associate with Arturo Toscanini,” hails The Washington Post. The Alexandria Journal has lauded Mr. Kluge’s passionate style, commenting, “In its power, Kluge’s performance bore the hallmarks of the work of such mesmerizing artists as Artur Nikisch and...Leonard Bernstein.”

In 2012-2013, Maestro Kluge celebrated 25 years as Music Director of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra.

During that season, Maestro Kluge led a historic performance at the National Gallery of Art in honor of the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The Washington Post raved, “Kluge is superb at high-voltage works like this—if you haven’t heard him conduct, you’re missing a great musical experience— a taut, visceral reading, perhaps the most exciting heard here in years.”

Maestro Kluge is a Valedictorian of Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he served as Concertmaster of the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra and received the coveted Arthur Dann Award for Outstanding Pianist and the Pi Kappa Lamda Scholarship for

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Musical Excellence. Maestro Kluge pursued two doctorates in Music from the University of Maryland and received a Conducting Diploma from the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena where he studied with Valery Gergiev. He participated in the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center Program where he was a protege of Seiji Ozawa and Sir Simon Rattle.

Maestro Kluge has appeared as guest conductor with the Sinfonietta de Paris, the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Baltimore Lyric Opera and the Kennedy Center National Opera Orchestra. In 1997 Kluge co-founded Capital City Opera which partnered and presented with George Mason Center for the Arts, The Washington Performing Arts Society and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

A passionate advocate for music and arts education, Maestro Kluge believes education should be integrated into every concert experience regardless of format or audience

demographic. Upon his appointment as ASO Music Director, Kluge instituted a comprehensive year-round inter-curricular music program that included ensemble and full orchestra experiences for public and private schools. In 2003, Maestro Kluge founded the Children’s Arts Festival.

He has developed mentoring programs and side-by-side concerts—pairing aspiring young musicians with ASO professionals.

This season, he will work closely with Alexandria’s music students through ASO Sympatico. The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra has honored Maestro Kluge’s commitment to arts education by instituting the Kluge Young Composer Competition.

dedicated to the Kluge’s daughter.

Maestro Kluge composes for a wide range of clients ranging from Academy Award-winning producers to The National Gallery of Art. He composes with his wife Kathryn for music icons ranging from pop stars to jazz legend, Branford Marsalis (Vocalise, a concerto) and classical virtuoso, Midori (Meibuki, a concerto written for the violinist’s Orchestra Residencies Program with the ASO).

Maestro Kluge has recently been named Music Advisor for The Hollywood Film Festival. He produced and moderated a music panel for the Topanga Film Festival in 2014 with film director/producer Alexander Payne. Additionally, Kluge is on the Advisory Board for Digital Hollywood and serves as Music Advisor for CineCause, a global organization dedicated to filmmakers and change agents who want to have a positive social impact on the world.

In 2012, The Kennedy Center presented the Kluge’s Haiku Suite, choreographed and performed

by Bowen McCauley Dance. The National Gallery of Art commissioned them to compose and perform film scores for their historic 2012 Alice Guy-Blache Retrospective. In 2013, the Kluges were commissioned to write River Poem for orchestra, chorus and bells, in dedication to the City of Alexandria. The Kluges composed and Maestro Kluge performed Rhapsody for Lily in 2014,

The husband and wife team continue to write scores for film and live performance. Their work ranges from composing for Academy Awardwinning producers to a commission from the National Gallery of Art that will benefit imprisoned writers throughout the world. They will compose the score for a film version of Eckhart Tolle’s Milton Secret starring Peter Fonda. This season the Kluges will be offering to the ASO the world premiere of their American Concerto for Piano & Orchestra.

Repeat performances are in high demand and have been slated with orchestras from around the world.

Hear compositions by Maestro and Kathryn Vassar Kluge at www.kimallenkluge.com.

Maestro Kluge’s creative work derives from his passion and conviction that people of different backgrounds can share the essence of their humanity through artistic expression. The common denominator in all Kim Allen Kluge’s work is his desire to reach audiences in a visceral manner, often through the juxtaposition of disparate styles or genres.

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THE Dramatic February 13, 2016 at 8:00 PM

Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center

February 14, 2016 at 3:00 PM George Washington Masonic Memorial

Kim Allen Kluge, conductor MASCAGNI

Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana

PUCCINI

Selection of Duets from La Bohème & Madama Butterfly INTERMISSION

ROTA (arr. Longfield)

Music from The Godfather (1972)

RESPIGHI

Pines of Rome I. Pines of the Villa Borghese II. Pines Near a Catacomb III. Pines of the Janiculum IV. Pines of the Appian Way

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Program 3 • February 13-14, 2016

Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945)

Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer at the turn of the 20th century who ushered in the verismo (“realism”) movement in Italian dramatic music. The son of a family of bakers, Mascagni was born in Tuscany. He began musical studies at age 13 and began composing shortly thereafter; his first premiere, In Filanda, a prize-winning cantata, premiered in February 1881.

In July 1888, Edoardo Sonzogno, a Milanese music publisher, announced an opera composition competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet premiered an opera on stage. Operas were to be in one-act format and would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and opera composers. Sonzogno would choose three winners to produce on stage in Rome. Unfortunately, Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the deadline for submission. He immediately contacted lifetime collaborator Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti about a one-act libretto; the two settled on a rendition of Cavalleria rusticana, a popular Italian short story by Giovanni Verga. Due to the rushed nature of the project, Mascagni often received the libretto in fragments – sometimes only a few verses, and often on the back of a postcard.

Mascagni submitted the completed work on the final day of the deadline; his submission was one of 73 total operas submitted, including two other operas based on the same short story. In March 1890, three finalists were selected, Niccola Spinelli’s Labilia, Vincenzo Ferroni’s Rudello, and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana.

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Mascagni’s work premiered in May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Although the house was half-empty, the reaction was strong; it is said that the audience lept to their feet with thunderous applause and Mascagni was called upon to make 40 curtain calls. Before the end of 1890, the work premiered at multiple theaters in Italy and Berlin, with premieres in London, Philadelphia, and New York before the close of 1891. The New York premieres were especially contentious – two rival performances occurred on the same day, with an afternoon performance at the Casino (conducted by Rudolph Aronson) and an evening performance at the Lenox Lyceum (conducted by Oscar Hammerstein).

Cavalleria rusticana is now a staple of the Italian and international opera canon and has been performed more than 14,000 times in Italy alone.

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The Intermezzo is in many ways the calm before the storm as the second part of the story transitions into its climactic finish. The work has been used in isolation in numerous films, most notably the opening of Raging Bull (1980) and the finale of The Godfather Part III (1990).

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Duets from La Bohème and Madama Butterfly Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was one of nine children born into the musical dynasty of the Puccini family. His great-great-grandfather was the maestro di cappella (choir master) of the Cattedrale di San Martino in Lucca, a position that was passed down within the family to Puccini’s father and stayed in the family for 124 years. However, Puccini’s father passed away when the young boy was age 6 and although he participated in the musical life and studies of the Cattedrale, he never assumed the position.

Puccini was known in Italy for moderate successes in orchestral pieces, as well as his early operas Le Villi (originally entered into the same competition as Mascgani’s Cavalleria rusticana) and Edgar. It was Manon Lescaut that catapulted Puccini as a worldwide name in opera; the work premiered just a week before Verdi’s final opera, Falstaff, and comparisions abounded. Following the London premiere in 1894, George Bernard Shaw was noted as saying, “Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals.”

Following this success, Puccini composed a string of operas that now serve as the foundation of international opera canon – La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). La Bohème, boosted by the success of Manon Lescaut, was performed internationally within a few years of its premiere. While the story of the opera is based on the 1851 book La Vie de Bohème by Henri Murger, Puccini’s own life as a young man in Milan also served as a source of inspiration for the libretto. Familiar with poverty and chronic shortages of food, clothing and rent money, Puccini frequently pawned his possessions to cover basic expenses. Puccini noted, “I lived that Bohème, when there wasn’t yet any thought stirring in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera.”

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In February 1903, Puccini was in a significant car accident while in Italy. Although his wife and son escaped with minor injuries, Puccini was pinned under the car, resulting in a severely fractured right leg. Puccini struggled to heal from the injury, resulting in significant delays to his upcoming debut, Madama Butterfly. The work premiered at La Scala in February 1904, but the performance garnered disappointment due to the rushed nature of the work and inadequate rehearsal time. Puccini withdrew the opera and greatly revised it for subsequent performances in Italy, Buenos Aires, London, the United States and Paris. By 1907, Puccini undertook a fifth revision to the opera, creating what is now considered the standard version performed throughout the world.

Nino Rota (1911-1979)

Music from The Godfather Giovanni “Nino” Rota enjoyed a long career as a prolific composer, pianist, conductor and academic. He is best known for his film scores; he wrote more than 150 for Italian and international productions (an average of three film scores each year for more than 46 years). Despite his fame as a film composer, he composed a significant number of operas, ballets, orchestra, choral and chamber works. However, his work on The Godfather trilogy remains his most celebrated collaboration.

Rota was considered a child prodigy, composing his first oratorio at age 11, performing in Milan and Paris by age 12, and composing a three-act lyrical comedy by age 13. Rota was encouraged and mentored by Arturo Toscanini, who pushed Rota to move to the United States. He accepted a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia where he studied conducting and composition.

Francis Ford Coppola hired Rota to compose the score and main theme (“Speak Softly Love”) for The Godfather (1972) because he was seeking an authentic Italian feel. Although Rota could not relate to the specific situations and characters in the film, he believed that the emotions and drama were universal. When the score was presented to Paramount executive Robert Evans, who had a prickly relationship with Coppola throughout production, he called the score “too highbrow” and refused to use it. However, after a lengthy closed-door meeting between just Coppola and Evans, Rota’s score was used in its entirety.

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The Godfather broke box office records and became the highest grossing film of 1972. Rota’s score won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for a Grammy Award and Best Original Score at the 45th Academy Awards. However, the Academy later questioned Rota’s use of a similar score for Eduardo De Filippo’s 1958 film, Fortunella. This led to a revote for the final nominee, and Rota’s score was replaced by John Addison’s score to Sleuth. Rota would go on to win the Academy Award for his score to the sequel film, The Godfather Part II (1974).

Ottorini Respighi (1879-1936)

Pines of Rome Ottorini Respighi was born into a musical family; his father taught him to play piano and violin. Following his studies, he departed his hometown of Bologna for Russia to become the principal violist with the Russian Imperial Theater in Saint Petersburg. This year-long appointment, during a season of Italian opera, allowed Respighi to study composition with Rimsky-Korsakov for five months before returning to Bologna to finish his composition studies. After graduation in 1908, Respighi toured through Europe as a performer, but knew his passion remained in composition. In 1913, Respighi settled in Rome, taking a position as a teacher of composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia and focusing on composition for the remainder of his career.

Pines of Rome (1924) is the second work in his orchestral “Roman trilogy,” preceded by Fountains of Rome (1917) and succeeded by Roman Festivals (1928). The work, a love letter to Rome told in four movements, depicts pine trees in different locations throughout Rome at different times of day. The work received a positive review following its premiere in December 1924 as conducted by Bernardino Molinari. On January 14, 1926, Arturo Toscanini conducted his first concert with the New York Philharmonic and included the American premiere of Pines of Rome on the program; he later programmed the work again at his final New York Philharmonic concert in 1945. Respighi also conducted performances of the work in the United States, most notably with the Philadelphia Orchestra on the day after Toscanini’s premiere. The popularity of Pines of Rome continued today, and the piece is often cited in film scores, perhaps most famously, in Walt Disney’s Fantasia 2000.

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Program Commentary

by Colleen Fay

By his mid 30s, Puccini was already an established opera composer. Puccini and his circle of composer friends, colleagues and rivals hit upon a new approach to opera which they termed verismo.

It’s often translated from the Italian as “realism,” but I think that’s a mistake. To me, verismo operas are “realistic;” the characters and the situations they find themselves in behave more as ordinary people would. In fact those circumstances are more close to home in some cases. That’s certainly true of La Bohème. Maybe you’ve had college-age children living off campus in apartments you’ve not seen and they’ve assured you, “Mom and Dad, everything’s fine; we’ve got all that we need and we pay the rent on time?”

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sings, “your hands are frozen,” and she counters with “they call me Mimi, but that’s not my real name.”

Trivial stuff, but Puccini turns it into one of the most powerful love duets of all time.

Lieutenant Pinkerton turns out to be a jerk and a coward. But for a few moments, he is as desperately in love with Cho-Cho San (Madame Butterfly) as she is with him. The morning was filled with wedding activities, but tonight, no relatives, no servants will disturb them and they take the chance to declare their undying love for each other. What does it matter if future circumstances dash their hopes? For now they are together and nothing else matters. Puccini’s music captures those sublime moments when lovers basking in Rodolfo is lagging behind his each other’s love don’t care what friends who are off to celebrate they say or what the world may Christmas Eve in a local cafe, think of them. That is the essence when he hears a knock on the door of verismo, a realistic sense of the from the waif-like girl Mimi who first blush of love when we can say, lives downstairs. Her candle’s gone “Ah, yes, that’s just the way it feels.” out; Rodolfo lights it for her, and Puccini forgot to eliminate the two search for Mimi’s dropped the name of Toscanini before house key. They sing to each othgiving the order for sending er, almost babbling really, saying panetone for Christmas (a anything to prolong the moment Christmas tradition among as each realizes they are falling friends in Italy) at a time in love. It starts when he says, or

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when the two weren’t on speaking terms. When the composer noticed that the panetone had already been sent, he wrote to the conductor, “Panetone sent by mistake.” Toscanini wrote back, “Panetone eaten by mistake.”

Some composers are known to us by long lists of their compositions, others by just a few gems. Ottorino Respighi falls into the latter category. In this regard, he resembles Gustav Holst whose work, The Planets, we heard on our first concert back in October. Whether a composer’s output is great or small, it is the quality that matters.

Respighi easily clears that hurdle.

He wrote three multi-movement tone poems honoring his adopted city of Rome: Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924) and Roman Celebrations (1928). These three pieces are hard to put into any musical category. Respighi was a thoroughly-taught and highlytrained performer and composer; he was later an active teacher and musicologist, specializing in Italian composers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. His musical style is often compared to his French contemporaries Debussy and Ravel. But in the end he is, as

the ancient Romans would have said, sui generis, one-of-a-kind.

In each of four movements, Respighi describes the pine trees in different parts of his beloved Rome.

In the first movement, “Pines of the Villa Borghese” one can almost hear children frolicking among the pines in the Borghese Gardens.

The third movement, “The Pines of the Janiculum,” is a night scene; the full moon is shining and all is calm and still, but without the foreboding of the previous movement, “Pines near a catacomb” that is filled with grief and melancholy.

In “Pines of the Janiculum” all is serenity and to cap it off, Respighi came up with an innovation for the work’s premiere in 1924 – the first time that a recorded sound was specified by a composer in a “live” performance. He includes the recording of the song of the nightingale; its calm beautiful song is associated with lovers meeting in secret or with unspoiled nature.

As its name suggests, the nightingale only sings when it is dark and Respighi uses it at the very end of the third movement. To me that little touch gives this work an enduring freshness that adds to its continuing popularity. Pines of Rome ends with a flourish: Roman legions marching down the Ap55

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pian Way. We can almost hear this ghost army when the wind is blowing just right, stirring the pines along that ancient highway.

When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini rose to power in 1922, some of his outspoken critics, including conductor Arturo Toscanini, had trouble. Fortunately for him, Respighi used his increasing fame as a respected classical composer to protect Toscanini from Mussolini’s thugs.

Composers are a funny lot. They toil away with huge sheets of ruled paper, perhaps with a piano nearby to check a sound that’s been rolling around in their heads and to make sure that what they’ve written is a fair reflection of the music in their mind’s ear. For some, like Beethoven, it was a struggle, not so much because he was deaf, but because he was a perfectionist.

Others find joy in the activity as if this were the most pleasant of hobbies. Some composers like Bach and Schubert have so much music in them that it’s a struggle to get it all out.

Italian composer Nino Rota was best known for his film scores. His greatest collaborator was his fellow 56

Italian, Federico Fellini; from their first effort together in 1952 until the time of Rota’s death, they were inseparable collaborators. But Rota partnered with many directors. In the Godfather movies, he cleverly wove together a distinctive sound in which Italian street songs blend effortlessly with the gritty reality of a crime family’s life. In lesser hands the contrasts would have been too jarring, but Rota handled the combination seamlessly. It’s that combination of ordinary domestic life with the sinister world of the criminal mafia that knits these movies together.

Federico Fellini said, “The most precious collaborator I have ever had, I say it straightaway and don’t even have to hesitate, was Nino Rota — between us, immediately, a complete, total, harmony ... When I asked him about the melodies he had in mind to compliment one sequence or another, I clearly realized he was not concerned with images at all. His world was inner, inside himself, and reality had no way to enter it.”

Colleen Fay, Program Commentary Ms. Fay was the head of the former Performing Arts Library at the Kennedy Center, a joint project with the Library of Congress. As Director of the Library from 1978 to 1992, Ms. Fay fashioned it into an incomparable resource for information in the performing arts, film and broadcasting. Prior to her tenure at the Kennedy Center, she was a music librarian at the Library of Congress.

Since 1986 she has been the music critic on public television’s arts panel program, “Around Town,” WETA-TV’s Emmy award-winning weekly television show devoted to the performing arts, visual arts, and motion pictures. Ms. Fay is also the Arts Editor and Contributing Editor to WAMU FM’s “Metro Connection,” a weekly radio program covering events in the Washington, D.C. area.

Ms. Fay writes regularly for the Washington Opera Magazine, Washington Review and WETA Magazine.

She has lectured regularly for the Washington Bach Consort since 1993 and gave a series of lectures for that organization in Germany in July, 2000. She has lectured on the music of Bach, Monteverdi and Mendelssohn, and on the subject of criticism itself at Mount Vernon College, the Folger Library, George Mason University, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Cathe-

dral and the Kennedy Center.

Ms. Fay is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Composer Forum. She is also the Past-President of the Washington Area Performing Arts Video Archive. She is a current or former member of the Boards of several arts organizations in the Washington area.

As a singer, Ms. Fay has appeared with the Washington Opera, the Wolf Trap Opera, and Summer Opera Theatre. Ms. Fay is also a composer whose works have been performed in churches and synagogues and on national television; her most recent work has been published by Augsburg-Fortress Press of Minneapolis. A recording of Ms. Fay’s compositions is supported by a grant from the D. C. Commission on Arts and Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Adopt a Chair Sponsorship

ASO warmly welcomes the following Adopt a Chair sponsors for a three-year commitment starting in the 2015-2016 Season: Concertmaster: Sponsored by Loti and Stewart Dunn Violin, third chair: Sponsored by Deborah A. Hall Viola, third chair: Sponsored by Richard and Sandra Toye Principal Cello: Sponsored by Teresa Guzman and Antonio Cafoncelli Cello, third chair: Sponsored by Margaret Hodges Principal Flute: Sponsored by Benjamin and Emily Tsai Principal Clarinet: Sponsored by Ann D. Corson Assistant Principal Clarinet: Sponsored in Honor of Akiko Lloyd Principal Horn: Sponsored by Gerry and Diana Dreo Principal Trombone: Sponsored by Bob and Erin Vincent Principal Timpani: Anonymous

“Adopt a Chair” is a new signature ASO giving program designed to provide full funding for each musician’s salary and long-term sustainable funding for our orchestra. Launched in spring 2015, “Adopt a Chair” has already underwritten eleven musician chairs for the next three concert seasons. ASO is a community supported orchestra that requires the ongoing support of individuals and corporations willing to invest in the future of live music performance. As a part of the Washington metropolitan region, ASO concert-goers demand and expect the highest quality music offered by world-class musicians. Through this program, contributors endorse and ensure that artistic quality through multi-year sponsorship.

Sponsors have the opportunity to choose a specific instrument, receive special program recognition, and invitations to attend post-concert receptions where they can meet and get to know the musician holding the chair they have sponsored. This program provides an opportunity to learn about the orchestra from the inside out and to draw a closer connection between the players and the audience.

New chair sponsorships are accepted at any time during the season.

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To “Adopt a Chair” or for more information, call 703-548-0885 or visit www.alexsym.org.

LUSHNESS & Lyrical April 2, 2016 at 8:00 PM

Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center

April 3, 2016 at 3:00 PM George Washington Masonic Memorial

Kim Allen Kluge, conductor Jenny Oaks Baker, violin TCHAIKOVSKY

Waltz from Swan Lake

BRUCH

Scottish Fantasy

I. Introduction; Grave, Adagio cantabile II. Scherzo; Allegro III. Andante sostenuto IV. Finale; Allegro guerriero

INTERMISSION

SMETANA

The Moldau from Mรก vlast

HOWARD

Peter Pan Suite (2003)

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Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Waltz from Swan Lake During the late 19th Century, composing music for the ballet was seen as a specialized field. Many felt the aesthetic of ballet music required a strong familiarity with choreography and staging practices of the day.

Still, when Tchaikovsky was approached to write a ballet for the Bolshoi Company, he relished the opportunity – he admired the ballets of French composer Leo Delibes and felt well-suited for the genre.

Swan Lake premiered during March 1877 in Moscow. Reviews were negative - critics complained about “clunky” staging, uninspired set design and awkward choreography, supporting concerns about Tchaikovsky’s commission. Ballerina Anna Sobeshchanskaya, who performed the lead role of Odette, requested that the material for her pas de deux (duet between two dancers) be substituted with music from another composer.

Over twenty years, varying versions of the production were staged; it was not until a revival by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov for the Imperial Ballet that all the versions were unified. Today, their revival serves as the foundation for most modern productions.

The story of Swan Lake was adapted from German author Johann Karl August Musäus, Der geraubte Schleier (The Stolen Veil), although historians speculate that the narrative also draws inspiration from the Russian folk tale “The White Duck.” Tchaikovsky’s work tells the story of Prince Siegfried, whose mother, weary of her son’s carefree lifestyle, demands that he choose a bride at the upcoming royal ball. Distraught, Siegfried sets out on a hunt where he stumbles across the swan queen Odette, cursed by the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart. Odette appears in human form during the night and transforms into swan by day. In order to break the curse, someone must confess his undying love to Odette.

The Waltz, which is heard in the early in Act I, plays over a birthday gathering for Prince Siegfried. The piece features Tchaikovsky’s trademark lyricism along with alternating heavy and light orchestration.

James Newton Howard 60

Peter Pan Suite James Newton Howard never took a traditional musical path. A talented

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young pianist, Newton Howard began studying at USC after high school but dropped out after two years to become a touring musician for some of the top rock acts of the 1970’s including Ringo Star, Diana Ross and Elton John. He composed the string arrangements for several of John’s best known songs including “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” and “Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word.” He continued to play piano and synthesizer on several of John’s 1980’s albums including Blue Moves (1976), 21 at 33 (1980), and The Fox (1981).

Howard’s first film score was in collaboration with Alan Howarth for Head Office (1985). He has since gone on to compose scores for a variety of studio and independent films films and received Academy Award nominations for The Prince of Tides (1991), The Fugitive (1992), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), The Village (2004), and Michael Clayton (2007).

He also received a Primetime Emmy Award in 1994 for his theme to the TV show ER (1994-2009). Howard has been closely associated with director M. Night Shyamalan, composing scores for several of his studio films including The Sixth Sense (1999).

The Peter Pan Suite is based on the score Howard wrote for the 2003 film which was the first adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s classic play since the 1953 version by Walt Disney and the first to feature a young boy in the lead role. This arrangement is by Patrick Russ and features selections from the movie as a narrator tells the story.

Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)

The Moldau from Má vlast Using art to make a political statement is a theme throughout musical history. This was again true in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) towards the mid-19th century as a pro-democracy movement swept through country and hoped to bring an end to the Habsburg rule. Supporters enlisted the help of various artists, particularly Bedřich Smetana, whose music would come to symbolize Bohemia’s new nationalistic musical identity.

From an early age, Smetana yearned for musical perfection, striving for the compositional skills of Mozart and the performance abilities of Franz Liszt. Young Smetana showed acumen for music; it was a familial 61

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trait, as his father, although technically uneducated, played in a variety of string quartets. Smetana spent his teenage years moving between different schools until he eventually landed a post teaching music to the children of a wealthy noble family. As the pro-democracy movement gained momentum towards the late 1840’s, it also took hold of Smetana; he composed several patriotic songs and marches for the movement and barricaded the Charles Bridge when it came under attack from Austrian forces in June 1848.

The conflict forced many artists into exile, including Smetana, who left Bohemia for Sweden to conduct the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral Music. It was in Gothenburg that Smetana began composing large-scale works, including the symphonic poems Richard III, Wallenstein’s Camp and Hakon Jarl. The weakening of the Austrian monarchy along with the construction of a new national opera house (called the Provisional Theatre) convinced Smetana to return to Prague in the early 1860’s. He premiered his first opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia in this venue along with his comic masterpiece The Bartered Bride. Smetana continued his relationship with the Provisional Theatre throughout his life, and his operas became a symbol of Bohemia’s evolving cultural identity. This is perhaps most true of Smetana’s last and most famous symphonic poems Má vlast (“My Homeland”).

Composed between 1874 and 1875, Má vlast is a collection of six symphonic poems depicting the history and landscape of Bohemia. The Moldau (Vltava) is one of the most famous of the collection, inspired by the long Czech river that rolls though much of the country (sometimes called the “Czech National River”). The work is structured in a rondo form. Using the popular 16th Century song “Il Ballo di Mantova”, Smetana manipulates original material several times, using the large orchestra to highlight the vast reach of the Vltava.

Max Bruch (1838-1920)

Scottish Fantasy By the 1880’s, Max Bruch had established an impressive musical resume. A noted composer, conductor and teacher, Bruch’s compositional output remains tied to many of the great performers who championed his music. His concert pieces for violin and orchestra remain popular 62

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today, including three concertos, two single-movement pieces and the evocative Scottish Fantasy.

Composed in 1880, Scottish Fantasy has four movements, each highlighting a different Scottish folk tune. The inclusion of the Scottish folk elements drew disapproval from critics and questions about whether Bruch, who was not a musicologist, could properly translate Scottish folk melodies. He responded that the folk melodies served as inspiration for the color and character of the work. Bruch debated whether to title the work Violin Concerto No. 3, but instead settled on Scottish Fantasy (his third violin concerto in D minor would later be completed in 1891). Bruch conducted the world premiere with soloist Joseph Joachim alongside musicians from the Liverpool Philharmonic Society.

Surprisingly, the piece was dedicated to Pablo de Sarasate, a rival of Joachim who also shared a common love for Bruch’s music.

The opening of the first movement is recitative-like and reminiscent of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. The orchestra provides very minimal accompaniment while the solo violin floats above, delivering passages of technical virtuosity, a common trait in Bruch’s works. A more traditional ballad interjects as the violin moves in and out of more lyrical material, while the harp provides accompaniment and a feeling of traditional folk instruments.

The second movement opens with a deliberate feeling, as Bruch uses the winds to mimic bagpipes, while the violin whisks over them with fiddle-like passages. An upbeat dance theme enters as the violin and flute engage in several duets before being interrupted by a forceful statement by the full orchestra. The third movement highlights the violin - the orchestration is very static, allowing the violin to play freely without interference from intervening instruments.

A distinctive violin and harp duet opens movement four – the harp accompaniment is “plucked” rather than “strummed.” The violin is at its most virtuosic, jumping between the high and low register as the full ensemble echoes earlier material from the opening duet.

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Program Commentary

by Colleen Fay

For a work as well known and much beloved as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, surprisingly little is known about how the ballet came into existence. As audience members, the important thing to note is that Tchaikovsky virtually singlehandedly lifted the genre of ballet music to new heights. Before his three great ballet scores, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, ballet music was in the doldrums. You wouldn’t think of going to a concert of ballet music because it simply couldn’t hold your attention without the activity of the dancers. Tchaikovsky changed all that; without Tchaikovsky’s ballets, we wouldn’t have Stravinsky, Prokofiev or Copland, to name but three.

he brought some important elements to that table as well. In spite of his on-again, off-again relations with his contemporary Russian composer colleagues, Piotr Ilyich never lost his strong ties to Russia and its great folk music traditions.

As much as his music may sound pan-European to many ears, there are elements of those Russian folk idioms in virtually everything he wrote. At the same time, it is important to note that Saint Petersburg was a city created by Tsar Peter the Great at the beginning of the 18th century and brought to completion by Catherine the Great at the end of that century. It was a window through which Russians could glimpse the rest of Europe, and Europe, the rest of Russia.

Through both Saint Petersburg and the music of Tchaikovsky, people saw what they wanted to see. One thing was clear and indisputable, however, and that was Tchaikovsky’s genius as a composer. It may have made his rivals grind their teeth in frustration, but they couldn’t deny it.

Tchaikovsky was a man of many firsts. He was the first of the conservatory-trained Russian composers. That meant more than simply he had a good musical education. In the brand new Saint Petersburg Conservatory, he was exposed to the best new music being written all over Western Europe.

Combined with his own formidable talents as both conductor and According to his friends and his ricomposer, this was a rich feast that vals, Tchaikovsky was a force to be he was well prepared to enjoy. But reckoned with in music. Sympho64

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nies, operas, and chamber music all came flowing from his pen, so many of them gems, beloved today as when they premiered.

At their first meeting, tall Tchaikovsky could not have been more different from stout Brahms. “I hope I do not disturb you,” Tchaikovsky nervously offered as he entered Brahms’s rehearsal. “No, not at all,” Brahms replied, “but why are you here to listen to this? It’s not that interesting.”

It was awkward until Edvard Grieg was seated between the two other composers. He managed to break the ice with his admiration for his colleagues and his easy social graces.

When is a concerto not a concerto? Sometimes that’s a difficult question to answer, but not in this case. Although Max Bruch did write three other violin concertos, his Scottish Fantasy is a violin concerto in everything but name.

Bruch also wrote two other single movement pieces for violin and orchestra. Although Bruch’s fame has waned, that is a bit unfair since his compositions are inventive and well-crafted. His only mistake, if it can be called that, was to side with the more traditionalist view of the musical lineage of Schumann and Mendelssohn and even his con-

temporary, Brahms. Musical tastes can be fickle, and this beautifully written Scottish Fantasy was virtually lost to the world until it was revived in a ground-breaking 1947 recording by Jascha Heifitz. Today, it is a staple of the repertoire of every first-rate violinist.

Like his predecessor, Felix Mendelssohn, and many other continental Europeans, Bruch was fascinated by Scotland. His interest was focused more on the distinctive nature of the Scottish folk song than on the country itself.

The Munich library contained a collection of Scottish folk songs that first sparked Bruch’s interest.

That fascination not only led to the composition of the Scottish Fantasy, but to a life-long interest in the folk music of Scotland. The wilds of the highlands, the untamed Scottish moors and the fiercely independent Scottish clans all appealed to the Europeans. Although many would never dream of going there, Bruch did visit Scotland after completing his Scottish Fantasy.

Although Bruch doesn’t identify the Scottish folk songs he uses, the last movement is built around the unofficial Scottish National Anthem “Scots Wha’ Hae Wi’ Wallace Bled,” an ancient melody with 65

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words by Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns. The score carries the direction Allegro guerriero (fast and warlike) as if to emphasize the movement’s vigorous character.

It would be hard for any composer to write a new score to a Peter Pan movie when the 1953 Walt Disney film dominated people’s thinking; even the televised version starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard from 1960 was fresh in many minds. The 1991 Hook with Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams, was a retelling of the familiar J. M. Barrie tale. Or the Johnny Depp/Cate Winslett Finding Neverland (2004) would seem to suggest that the subject had been exhausted. But that is not the case.

Director and screenwriter P. J. Hogan added bits and pieces to the J. M. Barrie original, darkening it considerably, especially from Wendy’s perspective. She’s the eldest of the three Darling family children who beguiles her younger brothers with swashbuckling stories of pirates and sunken treasure. It is the sudden appearance of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell (in this version called Tink) who change the course of the Darling childrens’ lives. It may be the special effects that dazzle the eye, but it is James 66

Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard

Newton Howard’s delightful score that knits the whole together. Although this film’s score may not have garnered a shelf full of award nominations, it is clever and enticing and shows wide-ranging skill.

“All children, except one, [Peter Pan] grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”

- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Program 4 • April 2-3, 2016

Jenny Oaks Baker, violin

America’s Violinist, Jenny Oaks Baker, is a Grammy-nominated, Billboard No. 1 recording artist, and performer. Whether her music is experienced live or through one of her many recordings, it is impossible to escape the magic of her artistry.

Jenny began playing the violin at age four, and made her solo orchestral debut in 1983 when she was only eight years old. She received her Master of Music degree from the renowned Juilliard School in New York City and her Bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Jenny Oaks Baker has released

twelve albums as a Shadow Mountain Artist, having sold nearly half a million copies since 1998. Her album Wish Upon a Star: A Tribute to the Music of Walt Disney earned a nomination at the 54th GRAMMY Awards for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Jenny’s albums consistently chart on Billboard, with her 2010 album Then Sings My Soul hitting the #1 spot on the Top Classical Albums chart two weeks in a row. Her next project, Noël: Carols of Christmas Past was produced and arranged by Emmy awardwinning composer Kurt Bestor and features former Celtic Woman star Alex Sharpe. Her most recent CD, Classic: The Rock Album has also been met by critical acclaim and is yet another Billboard charttopping album.

Jenny Oaks Baker’s performance career is equally impressive. She has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Strathmore Hall, the Library of Congress and as a guest soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Utah Symphony, and the internationally 67

Program 4 • April 2-3, 2016

acclaimed Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She has also been featured in television and radio broadcasts nationwide. Her In Performance BYUTV Special Silver Screen Serenade, features Jenny performing music from her album of the same name.

Over the years Jenny has collaborated with such luminaries as Gladys Knight, Kurt Bestor, Alex Boye, Marvin Hamlisch, and the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Jenny’s emotionally stirring music has been featured on the soundtracks of many films, including Helen Whitney’s 2007 PBS documentary, The Mormons, TC Christensen’s films 17 Miracles and The Cokeville Miracle, and alongside music by The Killers in Mitch Davis’s new film, Christmas Eve. Additionally, Jenny will be making her acting debut as the violinist character Mandy in Christmas Eve, a film starring Patrick Stewart to be released in Dec 2015.

Recently, Jenny teamed up with Director Danny Drysdale to create music videos to enable more people throughout the world to experience the thrill of her artistry. These videos, filmed throughout the world, 68

are exclusively available on Jenny’s YOUTUBE CHANNEL: w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / u s e r / JennyOaksBaker. With her extensive performing and recording careers in addition to her superlative education, Jenny is an esteemed expert and served as a judge for the 2007 Stradivarius International Violin Competition. In April 2008 Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah awarded her the Governor’s Mansion Artist Award for excellence in artistic expression.

For seven years, Jenny Oaks Baker performed as a first violinist in the National Symphony Orchestra before resigning in 2007 to devote more time to her young family. Jenny, her husband, and their four children reside in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Concerto Foundation

Ensuring the long-term stability of the ASO The Alexandria Symphony Concerto Foundation was established in 2005 to create an endowment fund providing long-term financial support to the ASO. The Foundation’s goal is to build a significant capital fund, with the income from that fund providing annual income to the Symphony. The Foundation is a “supporting organization” under section 509(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and gifts made to the Foundation are tax deductible as charitable donations. As of the end of the first quarter of 2014, the fund had approximately $400,000 in assets.

The following individuals contributed gifts of $5,000 or more to meet the $100,000 Challenge sponsored by Frank and Betty Quirk, which was completed in May 2007: Anonymous

Ruth Kotler

C. Maxine Baustian

Eva and Frank Manning

Suzanne S. Brock

Mary Ann and David Millard

Miriam and David Browning

Reae and Thomas Sargeant

Penny and Tim Bryan

Molly and Jim Singerling

Linda and Elliott Bunce

Ann and Roy Snyder

Agnes and Jack Dover

Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria (SOLA)

Gerhard and Diana Dreo Loti and Stewart Dunn Julie and Edward Dyson Anne and Caswell Hobbs

Judy and Forrest Williams Stuart and Robert Wineland Susan and Allan Winn

A donation or bequest to the Alexandria Symphony Concerto Foundation will go toward insuring long-term support of the ASO. Gifts can be a specific dollar amount, a specific piece of property, a percentage of an estate, or all or part of the residue of an estate. You can also name the Foundation as a contingent beneficiary if someone named in your will is no longer living.

For more information on the Concerto Foundation or making a bequest, please contact Jessica Wisser, ASO Executive Director, at 703-548-0885.

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MURPHY & ASSOCIATES CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS CONGRATULATES

THE ALEXANDRIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ON

72 INSPIRING SEASONS 3319 DUKE STREET 703-370-9100

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THE Transformative May 7, 2016 at 8:00 PM Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center

Kim Allen Kluge, conductor Thomas Pandolfi, piano ZIMMER

Suite from The Dark Knight (2008)

GERSHWIN

An American in Paris

COPLAND

Rodeo INTERMISSION

KLUGE & KLUGE

American Concerto for Piano & Orchestra* *World Premiere

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Program 5 • May 7, 2016

George Gershwin

An American in Paris

George Gershwin, the son of Russian immigrants originally named Gerhovitz, was not interested in music until his parents bought a piano for his older brother, Ira, in 1910. By 1912, George’s talent at the piano was unmistakable and he dropped out of high school to work for a Tin Pan Alley music publisher earning $15 per week “plugging” songs (selling sheet music to dealers by playing it).

Gershwin moved on to become a Broadway rehearsal pianist and accompanist by the end of 1917. His composing talents soon came to the attention of the Harms publishing house; in 1918, they agreed to pay $35 a week for the rights to any songs he wrote.

Swanee, recorded by Al Jolson in 1920, become Gershwin’s first big hit, earning him $10,000 in royalties during within the first year.

The orchestral poem An American in Paris was inspired by Gershwin’s visit to Paris in the mid 1920’s. He often described the work as a rhapsodic ballet, one-person’s observations of the city. The piece is divided into three sections that freely combine the virtuosic elements of jazz and classical music. The musical themes of An American in Paris, along with selected songs from Gershwin catalogue, later inspired the Academy Award-winning film of the same name starring Gene Kelly. Most recently, a musical version was adapted for the Broadway stage in 2014.

The piece opens with what Gershwin called the “walking theme,” interrupted by the “taxi horns” motif that is passed around the ensemble.

Gershwin brought home several taxi horns from Paris to use in the initial performance of the work. The second section is blues influenced, evoking the sound of a more traditional “jazz ensemble.” Gershwin decided to include saxophones in the instrumentation feeling he could not replicate the sound in any other way. The final section is livelier, introducing a short two-measure theme that is repeated constantly. As the piece draws to its conclusion, Gershwin recalls the themes from throughout the piece; short bursts of the “taxi horns” motif appear until it closes with the “walking theme” from the beginning.

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Hans Zimmer

Suite from The Dark Knight Hans Zimmer was born in Frankfurt, Germany and relocated to London with his parents when he was a teenager. He showed interest in music at a young age, but did not take formal music lessons, choosing to “experiment” on instruments rather than learning to play them. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, Zimmer played in a variety of pop bands, including the group The Buggles (whose greatest hit was “Video Killed the Radio Star”). While living in London, Zimmer began composing jingles for an ad agency and working with composer Stanley Myers on a number of his film scores. Zimmer’s music was discovered by director Barry Levinson, who hired him for his 1988 film Rain Man, Zimmer’s first Academy Award-nominated score. He has since gone on to compose music for over 100 Hollywood films, including The Dark Knight trilogy.

As Zimmer (along with co-composer James Newton Howard) began work on The Dark Knight score, Christopher Nolan was adamant the material needed to represent the film’s most important character, the Joker. As portrayed by the late Heath Ledger, the personality of the Joker was the movie’s central touchstone, a character Nolan described as seeking “pure anarchy.”

Zimmer collected and recorded audio samples from a variety of traditional and homemade instruments. The more exotic elements included short audio files of plucked and bowed strings, prepared piano and percussive fragments played with common household products such as pencils and spoons. All three men gravitated to a specific experiment featuring an elongated string glissando, feeling that the slowly rising tension conveyed the type of attitude the score needed. Ultimately, several of those raw elements were inserted into the final film score.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Rodeo Brooklyn-born Aaron Copland cultivated a distinctly American, modern style of music. Initially, Copland studied piano with his older sister, but at the age of 13, he began formal studies. In lieu of university, he pursued theory and composition under Rubin Goldmark. In 1921, Copland studied at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. Despite unfounded communist accusations leveled against him by the House

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Un-American Activities Committee, Copland’s reputation as a classic American composer is strong today.

Rodeo is the middle of his series of American ballets that includes Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring. Commissioned by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and choreographed by Agnes de Mille, Copland was hesitant to take on this commission initially, feeling that the theme was too similar to Billy the Kid. The work premiered on October 16, 1942 at the Metropolitan Opera. Copland later extracted music for a large-scale concert suite entitled Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, including “Buckaroo Holiday,” “Corral Nocturne,” “Saturday Night Waltz” and “Hoe-Down.”

“Buckaroo Holiday” begins with a rousing fanfare which is interrupted by the first folk tune, “Sis Joe.” Copland passes the melody through the ensemble in miniature solos and it slowly begins to blur together as Copland uses the full ensemble to evoke a dance-like feeling by the end.

A more somber mood permeates “Corral Nocturne,” which features alternating solos in the woodwinds while the brass punctuate with interjections. The strings remain present, supporting the woodwinds.

“Saturday Night Waltz” begins with the feeling of a late night barn dance.

The strings, in intervals of fifths, give away to the full ensemble which begins slowly winding down for one final waltz. The song “I Ride an Old Paint” is heard as Copland keeps the instrumentation light, allowing the strings and woodwinds to “sing” without much resistance. The sound of the harp is constantly present, providing a distinct accompaniment.

The “Hoe-Down” opens with one of the most recognizable phrases in the cultural zeitgeist. Featuring the tunes “Bonaparte’s Retreat” and “McLeod’s Reel,” the large final movement is lighter in comparison to the “Buckaroo Holiday.” Copland closes by combining the fiddle dance from the opening of “Saturday Night Waltz” and new material in smaller combinations of instruments.

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Program Commentary

by Colleen Fay

In that heady, “anything was possible” mix, Copland, was writing “modernist” dissonant, atonal music. Both while in Europe and after his return to the US, Copland echoed the sentiments of many who felt that although the audiences found this music difficult to listen to, they would come around and hail its supporters as the visionaries they were. It never happened. It was one thing to get the approval of your composing friends and perhaps their friends Aaron Copland was a man very as well, quite another to gain acmuch of his own time. He had the ceptance from a wider audience. good fortune to study with the leg- Proponents of the “new” blamed endary teacher Nadia Boulanger the audiences for their hidebound in Paris in the 1920s. He later re- ways and their conservative views, marked, “How fortunate to be in but there was also the emergence your 20’s in the 20’s.” That post- of a different attitude.

World War I period was a time in which most people, or at least most A new movement was developyoung people, thought that any- ing in Germany that advocated for thing was possible. It was a wild gebrauchsmusik (roughly “useful” time in classical music as well. It music), music that ordinary people was as if the old rule books, if they wanted to listen to. Also, in the US had ever existed, were thrown out and many other countries, there the window. The sense of excite- was a resurgence of interest in folk ment was coupled with an equally songs. For centuries folk songs had heady sense of experimentation. been the bedrock of classical muNew styles were in, old styles were sic. Generations of composers had out, and no style was the best style gone back to their native songs of all. for inspiration. Suddenly Copland found himself on the horns of a diThree composers dominated the American musical landscape for much of the 20th Century: George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. There were a host of other American composers who produced works of true and lasting value, yet those three drew the most attention. No one can deny that each of these three composers produced a body of work that justly earned them a place in the musical pantheon.

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lemma: his “modernist” colleagues were pulling him in one direction and yet the music of America’s own native traditions was pulling him in another. Wherever he traveled Copland heard the music of ordinary people – a robust, flexible music that may have had its roots in ancient European culture, but once it crossed the Atlantic, it took on a character all its own. This was music that no serious composer of classical music had yet tapped into.

Copland was the right person for the right time. An earlier ballet, Hear Ye, Hear Ye (1934) was a cautious step in the direction of folk tradition. He truly began with a piece inspired by a series of visits to Mexico and his friendship with Mexican composer Carlos Chavez - El Salòn Mexico (1936) was the result. Work after work soon followed. The ready acceptance of El Salòn Mexico, the success of the ballet Billy the Kid (1939) and two film scores for Of Mice and Men and Our Town, also in that same year, truly put Copland on the map.

Rodeo (1942) was the second of his “signature” ballets. Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring were the centerpieces of the “new” Aaron Copland, forever redefining him in the minds of listeners 76

not only in America, but the world over. He would continue to write music in a variety of styles and embark on a new career as a conductor of his own compositions and those of other composers. But for the rest of his career, those ballets and the other works, composed in what he called his “vernacular” style, would define him and endear him to audiences forever.

While Copland was in Hollywood in 1943 writing tuneful music for a Sam Goldwyn movie, he met Groucho Marx at a contemporary music concert at which his dissonant piano sonata was being played. “I have a split personality,” explained Copland. “Well, it’s O.K.,” said Groucho, “as long as you split it with Mr. Goldwyn.”

In his late 20’s and early 30’s, despite his enormous popularity, George Gershwin was a self-conscious composer. The best composers of his day recognized his genius even if Gershwin was insecure about compositional shortcomings. He needn’t have worried. During a second extended stay in Paris, Gershwin met with the legendary musical pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Gershwin had been sent to her at the behest of his

Program 5 • May 7, 2016

friend, composer Maurice Ravel.

“Don’t copy others; be yourself,” was her advice. “Why try to be a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?” She paid him the further compliment of telling him that there was nothing more she could teach him.

Gershwin told Boulanger that he wanted to write another rhapsody for orchestra to follow up the highly successful Rhapsody in Blue (1924). Although Gershwin first worked on a version of the piece as early as 1926, calling it a “rhapsodic ballet,” it didn’t reach its final form until 1928. It is essentially a tone poem for orchestra that describes an American tourist’s impressions on a first visit to the City of Light. For the first performance, Gershwin imported French taxi horns to give the piece an authentic sound. But never one to let a single impression rule the day, Gershwin indicates the tourist feeling homesick with a jazzy blues-inspired section, and then deftly returns to a more Parisian feeling. The piece concludes with a clever blending of several musical ideas indicating that the tourist, while falling in love with Paris, never forgets where he or she came from.

Pianist and sometime actor Oscar Levant was a good friend of Gershwin’s. He asked him one time, “George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?” Gershwin was able to take Levant’s ribbing good-naturedly. Another time Levant complained that when they traveled together by train, he always had to take the upper bunk, but Gershwin had the lower. “Well, Oscar,” George shot back, “that’s the difference between talent and genius.”

Happily the world of music has several examples of husband and wife or brother and sister teams of composer/performers. The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra is proud to be the ensemble that performs a work from one of the newest musical duos. Our own Maestro Kim Allen Kluge teams up with his wife the talented pianist, teacher and composer in a new joint compositional venture. I am happy to say that through the marvels of electronic reproducing from musical scores, I was able to hear an earlier draft of their latest effort, American Concerto for Piano & Orchestra.

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The three movement concerto is truly American in that it is a celebration of our musical melting pot. It stretches back with hints of the music of Stephen Foster through the music of Aaron Copland and yet is a deft exploration in the idiom of the piano concerto.

We can hear folktales sung like melodies as well as the jazz-tinged harmonies and even a whiff or two of songs from the Broadway musicals of Cole Porter. In the second movement, it is as if the concerto returns to the land itself. Their inspiration is the native genius of the American people, both the Native Americans and the waves of immigrants who have been drawn to America’s sense of renewal and reinvention. Especially touching is the perspective of the yearning of a political prisoner, Greek poet Yannis Ritsos. His Night (1968) is one of the inspirations behind the tone poem-like second movement. The poet’s intense longing for freedom as expressed in this movement sets the stage for the final epic and cathartic third movement.

Tall eucalyptus with a broad moon.

A star trembles on the water.

The sky white, silver.

Stones, flayed stones all the way up.

Near the shallow water you could hear a fish jump twice, three times.

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Ecstatic, grand orphanhood – freedom.

Finally, the last movement is a paean to the land itself in all its majestic variety. The beauty and expansiveness of the American landscape is also a metaphor for freedom itself and is expressed in all the rivers, the plains, the mountains and the near infinite variety “from sea to shining sea.” It’s all in this movement culminating in triumphant fanfares and bell peals proclaiming that this grandeur and freedom is ours, ours to appreciate, ours to share.

It has been my privilege to know both Kim and Kathryn Kluge over the course of more than a decade and a half. I’ve had a ring-side seat, as it were, to see them grow and deepen not only in their love for the ASO and for each other, but also for their wonderful daughter, Lily. She’s a beautiful joint creation and so is American Concerto for Piano & Orchestra. May their joint creative efforts continue to flourish wherever they go – we’re all the richer for them.

Program 5 • May 7, 2016

Thomas Pandolfi, Piano

The young American pianist Thomas Pandolfi is an exciting virtuoso sought after by audiences worldwide and showered with superlatives by critics for his passionate artistry and amazing technique. His orchestral appearances often feature not only the beloved masterpiece concerti by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Liszt, but also the equally brilliant ones by Paderewski, Rubinstein and Moszkowski. Additionally in the “Pops” genre, Thomas is considered a leading interpreter of the works of George Gershwin.

Philharmonic, The Oltenia Philharmonic (Craiova), The Moravian Philharmonic, The National Philharmonic of the Republic of Moldova, and The Aberystwyth Symphony in Wales, as well as the American symphony orchestras of Mississippi, Cedar Rapids, Asheville, Princeton, San Angelo, York, Fairfax, Northbrook, Great Falls, and Owensboro. He has collaborated with conductors Dimitru Goia, Sabin Pautza, Emil Seigbert Maxim, Peter Schmelzer, Mihail Agafita, Grigori Moseico, David Russell Hulme, Murry Sidlin, Michael Luxner, Andreas Delfs, Christian Tiemeyer, Ron Spigelman, William Hudson, Kirk Muspratt, Kim Allen Kluge, Robert Hart Baker, Crafton Beck, Lawrence Rapchak, Gordon Johnson, Philip Bauman, Anthony Maiello and Vincent Zito.

Following a performance of MacDowell’s D Minor Piano Concerto with The George Enescu Philharmonic, The Bucharest Cultural Observer lauded Pandolfi’s “virtuosity, beautiful touch, sensitivity and broad scope...logical phrasing and expressive percussiveness...a soloist whom we would like to hear again.” Of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Asheville SymphoThomas’s career has already in- ny, The Asheville Citizen-Times cluded performances with such remarked, “Pandolfi is a standout European orchestras as The George among today’s young pianists, Enescu Philharmonic, The Cluj demonstrating a great technician’s 79

Program 5 • May 7, 2016

grace, finesse and polish...his virtuosity and strength might have had some believing that Liszt himself had taken over the keyboard.”

Equally popular as a recitalist, Pandolfi has appeared in concert halls nationwide. The Washington Post has described him as “an artist who is master of both the grand gesture and the sensual line. Pandolfi possesses first-rate technical skills, an unerring comma and of phrasing, a quicksilver touch and cunning legerdemain when it comes to pedaling...etched with calm and crystal clarity...outstanding.” New York Concert Review has characterized Pandolfi’s interpretations as containing “high level pianism and tasteful, diversified musical ideas...crystalline texture and deft coloration...charm and bracing elan.”

ist Emil Altschuler.

Audiences during 2014-15 enjoyed his artistry in an expanded 21 state recital tour to include the states of New York, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Indiana, Connecticut, New Jersey, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Florida, Washington, DC, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, California, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Kentucky.

Thomas made his debut with the Lafayette Symphony and Nicholas Palmer in The James Bond Concerto and Warsaw Concerto, and his debut with The McLean Orchestra in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 under Miriam Burns on their Gala Opening Night. He also returned as guest soloist with both The Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic and Ulysses James During 2015-2016, he will appear in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. as guest soloist with the National 1, and The Owensboro SymphoPhilharmonic, the Ohio Valley ny under Nicholas Palmer in The Symphony, the Maryland Sym- James Bond Concerto and Warsaw phony, the Cheyenne Symphony, Concerto. the North Charleston Pops, the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, A graduate of The Juilliard School, the Wilson Symphony and the Pandolfi earned both his Bachelor’s Amadeus Orchestra. His recital and Master’s degrees as a scholartouring schedule will take him to ship student. He is the father of California, Wisconsin, Massachu- two beautiful children, and resides setts, Virginia, Maryland, South in Washington, DC. To keep inCarolina, Idaho, Pennsylvania, formed of the latest updates, please Tennessee, Wyoming, Oregon, visit www.thomaspandolfi.com. and British Columbia. He will also appear in duo recitals with violin80

Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria The Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria (SOLA) is comprised of a dedicated group of volunteers who serve as a major source of financial support for the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra (ASO). The members of SOLA are integral to the success of the ASO by hosting a number of fundraising events throughout the year. Highlights of the upcoming season include: our annual peanut sales; a concert by renowned pianist Thomas Pandolfi on October 9th; SOLA Uncorked VI, a fabulous wine, cheese and chocolate tasting which will take place on October 28th; and, the 29th Annual Symphony Ball and Auction to be held on February 27, 2016 at the Alexandria Westin Hotel.

If you are not a member of SOLA, we would like to invite you to join us. In addition to our fundraising efforts, SOLA hosts a number of enjoyable social activities throughout the year, including General Membership Meetings and the annual Spring Luncheon at Belle Haven Country Club. On March 6, 2016, SOLA and ASO will co-sponsor the 40th annual Mary Graham Lasley Scholarship Competition for college level music students.

If you would like more information about joining SOLA, please contact our membership chair, Fran Vaughan at 703-765-0063 or stop by our SOLA table at one of the concerts. We welcome new members who wish to contribute toward the ongoing achievements of the ASO! Phyllis Sintay SOLA President psintay@mcenearney.com 703-472-3563 81

Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria (SOLA) 2015-2016 Membership

Sue and David Aland Kate Armstrong Barbara Bankert Leef Smith and Paul Barnes Mason and Clark Bavin Regina Begliutti Susan and Carl Behnke Shirley and Charles Bisselle Bertha and Joe Braddock Suzanne Brock Rosann and Michael Brodie Miriam and David Browning Marcia and Jim Buchanan Hilda Burcher Ronal Butler and Martha Lloyd Jan Campbell Jane Hughes Carlson Susan Knighton and David Cavanaugh Bill and Teddye Clayton Harlene and Bill Clayton Donna Cramer Betty Cranwell Kate and John Crawley Meaghan Curry and Anthony Jamberdino Carola Czernik Mollie Danforth and Steve Colangelo Rebecca Davies Pat and George Day Sandra and Nicholas Fleischmann Amrita Frederick Muriel Freeman Yolande Frommer Rosa Fullerton

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Amy and Bill Furr Barbara Glover Patricia Gill Sue and Marty Goodhart Lynn and Charles Gorton Gila Harris Marjorie Harris Janet Hawkins and David Wormser Ann and Michael Hobbs Margaret Hodges Pauline and Bob Hurd Monette Imlay Mike Ippolito and Elaine Macchio Erwin Jacobs Jon Jaeger and Ann Corson Barb and Ted Jonas Shine Kang Ann Kavaljian Kim and Kathryn Kluge Jacque and Ed Knight Adron Krekeler and Rebecca Mahood Ruth Kupperschlag Patricia Laane Ward Lasley Kit Leider Mary Frances Lewis Doris Lindsey Isin Ludlow Marie Malone Eva Manning Ann and James McCrery Harriett McCune Cassie and Shawn McLaughlin Susan Montague Genevieve Moorhouse and Joshua Compton

Michele and Richard Moorhouse Suzanne and James Morrison Melinda Mount Diane Murphy June and Bruce Nagler Margaret and Bill O’Grady Kate Patterson Annmarie Pittman Tanya and Jack Pitzer Fran and Gant Redmon Carol Reese Helen Reid Jane and Connie Ring Lori and Rusty Ring Audrey and Robert Routier Nancy Rowe Jo-Ann and Robert Royer Anna Russi Ilona Savage Patti Schmid Claire and Ted Schwab Janet Shipko Phyllis Sintay Ann and Roy Snyder Ann and Glenn Spitler Emma-Jo and Bob Staton Jennifer Van Goethem Fran Vaughan Joan Vogel Sharon and Ken Walker Trudie Williams Eleanor Wilson Cecily and Stephen Winchell Stuart Wineland Margaret Wohler Ruth Wong Margherita Woods Susan Yonts-Shepard

WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN PHILHARMONIC

Providing high quality classical music performances and educational experiences to our Alexandria community!

Join WMP for our Concerts in Alexandria The George Washington Masonic National Memorial 3pm • 101 Callahan Drive, Alexandria, VA 22301 October 25, 2015 • December 5, 2015 February 14, 2016 • April 17, 2016 • June 5, 2016 .........................................

The Church of the Epiphany

3pm • 1801 N. Quaker Lane, Alexandria, VA 22302 October 18, 2015 • December 6, 2015 February 7, 2016 • April 10, 2016 • June 4, 2016 For more information and to purchase tickets visit our website www.wmpamusic.org

Great things happen when we come together as a community.

Please patronize businesses that support the ASO!

If you’re planning to buy, build or refinance, talk to Frank Fannon at SunTrust Mortgage. We proudly support the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra.

Frank Fannon, NMLSR# 20403 Senior Loan Officer, Branch Manager 703.838.2519 Office 703.861.1864 Cell frank.fannon@suntrust.com suntrust.com/frank.fannon

Equal Housing Lender. SunTrust Mortgage, Inc. - NMLS #2915, 901 Semmes Avenue, Richmond, VA 23224. ©2015 SunTrust Banks, Inc. SunTrust, SunTrust Mortgage and How can we help you shine? are federally registered service marks of SunTrust Banks, Inc. VA residents only. Rev: 8.28.15

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2014-2015 ASO Supporters

Includes contributions made to the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria as of June 30, 2015

Foundations, Government, and Corporate Supporters ACT Community Foundation

King’s Jewelry

Alexandria Commission for the Arts

Krekeler Bower Wealth Advisors

The Robert Alves Family Foundation The Theodore H. Barth Foundation Belle Haven Women’s Club Boeing Gift Matching Program

McEnearney Associates, Inc. National Endowment for the Arts New Target

Braswell Design and Build

Overwood Wood-fired American Kitchen

Burke & Herbert Bank

Rotary Club of Alexandria

Clark Construction

Shell Oil Company

Clarke & Sampson, Inc.

Simpson Commercial

Concerto Foundation

Real Estate Properties

Connection Newspapers

SOLA (Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria)

Donnan Chancellor Wintermute, Coldwell Banker

Unalane Foundation

Focus Data Solutions

United Bank

GEICO

Virginia Commission for the Arts

Global Printing, Inc. The Goodhart Group

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The Mary and Daniel Loughran Foundation, Inc.

The Virginia Florist

Eugene W. Zimmerman Corp.

Wells Fargo Advisors

Jack Taylor’s Alexandria Toyota

Wells Fargo Foundation

The KBR Foundation

W.S. Jenks and Son

Conductor’s Baton Circle (over $20,000)

Suzanne S. Brock

Conductor Circle ($10,000-$19,999)

Mr. & Mrs. Elliott Bunce Ronal Butler & Martha Lloyd Mr. & Mrs. Stewart Dunn

Platinum Circle ($5,000-$9,999)

Christa Annett Miriam & David Browning G. Jack & Agnes Dover Mr. & Mrs. Charles Holden Ann D. Corson & B. Jon Jaeger Linda W. Windsor Golden Circle ($2,500-$4,999)

Carl & Susan Behnke Dr. & Mrs. Joseph V. Braddock Amoret Bell Bunn Richard Downs Nick & Vicki Coward Diana & Gerry Dreo Mr. & Mrs. Jack Fannon Carolyn Fuller Capt. & Mrs. Robert C. Hurd Mr. & Mrs. Edward Knight

Adron Krekeler & Rebecca Mahood Dr. & Mrs. William P. O’Grady Anne B. Rector & Tim Allen Mr. & Mrs. Gant Redmon Mr. & Mrs. Carlyle C. Ring Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Siegel Edward & Christine Corcoran-Stark Ken & Sharon Walker The Hon. & Mrs. John Warner

Patrons Circle ($1,000-$2,499) Mollie Danforth & Steve Colangelo Tom Depasquale B. Ellis Duncan Mr. & Mrs. Fred S. Dunning, Jr. Lisa & Brian Flippo Yolande Frommer Teresa Guzman & Antonio Cafoncelli Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Hayes

Margaret Hodges Mark & Ann Kington Capt. William Ward Lasley, USN (Ret.) Ms. Karen Leider Bonnie Matles Harriett McCune Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Meyer Robert Latane Montague III

85

Patrons Circle ($1,000-$2,499) Dr. & Mrs. J. Bernard Murphy Alan & Laura Paez Mr. & Mrs. Frank Quirk Anne & Steve Reed Greg & Nancy Saunders Lucy Thomson & Arthur Peabody Mr. & Mrs. Forrest Williams Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Winchell Dr. & Mrs. Robert Wineland Donnan C. Wintermute Oscar Wiygul

Donors ($500-$999)

Tom Bradley & Judith Starr Harry Braswell Mr. & Mrs. Hugh Campbell Thomas & Betty Cranwell Dorothy Cosby Dr. & Mrs. John B. Davies Pat & George Day Mr. & Mrs. Grady Frank Mr. & Mrs. William L. Furr Stevie & Gardner Gillespie Lynn & Charles Gorton Maryanna Henkart John and Diane Hynes Margaret Kenna Mr. & Mrs. David Lacey Chris & Maura Lindsay Keith Love Jean & Jim McGuiness Craig Miller & Lisa Brock Chuck & Linda O’Connor Mrs. Anne S. Paul Laura Peebles & Ellen Fingerman Phyllis Sintay Currie Smith & Bruce Batten Marcia & David Speck Eugene Steuerle Craig Stewart Ms. Maureen Sullivan Jack Sulser & Sally Ann Green Mrs. James W. Vaughan, Jr. Linda and Donald Westfall John & Pat Wilson

Sustainers ($100-$499) 86

Anonymous (1)

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Carolyn & David Abshire Carol & Steve Ackerman Amy & Larry Alberson Henry & Billie Anderton Mrs. Dewitt Armstrong III Dr. Leonard Bachman Joshua & Wendy Band Walter & Roberta Barbee Kenneth & Janet Barnett Mia & Tim Bass Margaret Batko Clark & Mason Bavin Deborah Best Shirley & Charles Bisselle Henry Chad & Amy Ford Bradley Alaina & Garrett Breton Susan & Kelly Browning Mrs. Hilda Burcher Reba Burns Raymond & Quincy Butler Donald & Patricia Calloway Anne Caputo Edward & Virginia Caress Evalyn Carter Howard Clark Mr. and Mrs. William E. Clayton Mr. and Mrs. William F. Clayton Karen Coda John Coffey Mr. & Mrs. Brian Coupe Courtney & Chris Cox Frances Crutchfield Carola Czernik Elaine Dauphin Stanley & Thelma F. Deutsch Paul & Leigha Doerrer Paul & Joanne Domson Daniel & Mary Taylor Dosé Timothy Doyle Julia Duncan Nancy Duncan Yvonne Duvall Jane Edwin David Ellerbe Helen Esserian Robert C. Evans Robert & Helen Fall

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Joan Ferrell Jeffrey Ferrill Susan & Timothy Ferris Nicholas & Sandra Fleischmann Oliver & Carol Flint Carol & Matthew Flynn Michael Fogarty E. Ripley Forbes Robert & Maureen Franks Lawrence Franks Richard Gilfillan Marion & Patricia Goodyear Wiley & Caryl S. Grant Rita Grazda Deborah A. Hall Mrs. Marjorie A. Harris Mr. & Mrs. James Hauhart Ross Heasley Hugh & Barbara Heishman Lisa & Phillip Herget Cobina Higgins Mr. & Mrs. Caswell O. Hobbs Michael & Ann Hobbs John Hooff William & Julie Howard Pam & Paul Hunt Richard & Nancy Hunt Raymond & Irene Husson Margo Jackisch Mr. Philip John Ryan Jordan Mary Louise & James Keightley Richard & Melissa Keiser Alan Kernc & Karen Smith-Kernc Richard & Justine Kingham Rosemary & Ed Kley John & Lee Klousia Kim Allen Kluge & Kathryn Vassar Kluge Robert Koebele Jeannie Kowalski Stanley & Gail Krejci Ruth Kupperschlag Richard & Barbro Laaken Mr. & Mrs. Phillip E. Lantz Robert Larke Laura & Thomas Lawler

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Michael Lewallen William & Elizabeth Livingston Roye Lowry Janet Luger Mary Lunger George & Jane Lukes Nan Lukmire Mr. & Mrs. John M. Maloney Ms. Marion Mangus Eva Manning Susan Maslanka Stuart & Kaye Matthews Claride W. Mayo Libby McClary Regina & Michael McCormick James & Ann McCrery Mr. & Mrs. Bowman H. Miller Temple Moore Nicole Morell James & Suzanne Morrison Patrick & Marjorie Mulloy Lauren & Thomas Murray Susan Merritt Nelson Christena Nielsen Jackie Noyes Kevin Odonovan Judy Parker Kate Patterson Greg & Diane Beyer-Perett Jane Perkinson Marybeth Peters Nancy Phillips Mr. & Mrs. Jack Pitzer Geraldine Prefontaine Herbert & Barbara Quarmby Susan Montague-Reese Mary Ann Rehnke Richard & Helen Reid Lola & Almont Reinsch Elizabeth & Nicholas Reynolds Michaela Robinson Bob & Jo-Ann Royer Richard Ryan Ilona Savage Elizabeth S. Schepps Dale Schmidt Robert & Barbara Seraphin

87

Sustainers ($100-$499) Wayne & Linda Sharp Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Shepard Edwin Sheridan Jen Sheridan Alex & Ivy Sinaiko Allen & Jan Smith Glenn & Ann Spitler Carol & Gerald Stalun Janet Von Sternberg Paul & Susan Sticha Thomas & Mary Kay Stimson Ann Snyder Emerson & Allison Teer Miriam Thompson Bradley & Elizabeth Todd Peter & Helen Toepffer Mr. & Mrs. Richard Toye Amelia Turcotte Patricia Vanherhyde Kevin & Chella Vaughan George Vercessi John & Bridget Weaver Marianne Weitz Sandra Welch Mrs. Dorothy Wheeler Mr. Rance Willis Elizabeth Wilmot & Pete Adlen Cynthia Wilson Eleanor Wilson Corinne Winburn Evan & Jessica Wisser Jamie & Natalie Wisser David Wormser & Janet Hawkins Dr. & Mrs. Brett Wohler Margherita Woods Walter Woolwine Madeleine Wyss Lillian & Dan York Kay & Terry Zerwick Nancy Ziegler

Friends ($1-$99)

88

Anonymous (5) Paul & Ana Anderson George Ball Philip Barbour Walter & Andrea Baumann

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Laura & William Bennett Fred Best Lauren Bishop Paul & Elizabeth Bollinger Joan Bondereff & Herb Zucker Mary Bourke Mikel A. Braatan James & Virginia Bradley Mary Browning Tony & Judith Brush Carolyn Carmack Jennifer Ciardelli Gwendolyn Cohen Amelia Cohn Cheryl Anne Colton William Colosimo Stephen Cornwell Anne Ashley Croker Nancy Deiss Alice DeKany Christopher Drayton Amelia Dyer Priscilla Escajeda Barbara Ann Eversman Helen Fall Cora & Donald Fosdick Kristin Frykman Norma & Robert Gants Ronald & Jeanne Garant Nancy Garber Jeffrey Gathers John & Ann Glennon Barbara Glover Andrianne Goins Adam Goldberg Jerome Gordon Susan Amber Gordon Dan Grauman James & Emma Grimes Gloria Haher Jane Harter Geoffrey Henderson Walter Holton Mary Ann Hoffer Susan Hoffman James & Suzanne Jacoby Jacqueline Jones

Friends ($1-$99)

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William Jordan David Jourdan Shelia & Boyd Kennett Melinda Kernc Ryan & Jamie Kernc Bradley Kintz Erica Kissinger Jerry Kluge Sheila Kolb Sasha Krebsbach Bill Kuhl Howard & Susan Lamb Christina Lepore Ezster Major Phillip & Cynthia Major Robert Malinowski Jane Maliszewski Robert Martini John McCarthy Sarah McClendon William & Joan McCulla Patrick McGreevy Anita & Robert McSwain Ellen Miles Robert & Vivian Miller James & Sarah Mills Brandon Moss Lauren & Thomas Murray Jennifer Nicholson James & Leslie O’Sullivan Lilla Ohrstrom Susan & Robert Orttung Vaughn Schmidt-Pauli Nancy Lavelle Perkins Kristina Petersen Irene Pigara Charlotte Plasan Kathy Prendergast Florence Priebe Kay Quirk Samantha Rich Beth Roberts Penelope Roberts Laura Rodin Diane Rozier James & Kathy Rozier Ms. Jackie & Ms. Loriann Rustigian

Mary Lou Sage Paul Schultz Robert Bo Schurr Caroline & Geoffrey Short Frances Simms Brian & Jeanette Skow Peggy Smith Debra Snyder Susan Sonley Heidi Steiber Matthew J. Stensrud Gregory Stieber Jean Storch Richard Szabo Karen & Lennert Thunberg Nina Tisara Sarah Vershggi Elizabeth Wadium Mason Ward Patricia Washington Robert Watkins Bethany Wenstein Converse West Michael & Priscilla Wiener Melynda & David Wilcox Brett & Margaret Wohler Nancy Woodford Barbara & John Yentzer Gifts were given in Memory or in Honor of the following, as of June 30, 2015: In Honor of Miriam and Ben Browning In Memory of T. Sills Bunn In Honor of Ronal Butler In Honor of Diana Tabler Forbes In Memory of Boykin Alan Glover In Honor of Mary McAuliffe In Honor of Paul Patton In Honor of Betty Quirk In Honor of Anne Rector In Honor of Col. & Mrs. Madison C. Schepps In Honor of Mrs. James W. Vaughan, Jr. In Honor of Donnie Wintermute

If your donation listing is incorrect, please contact Jessica Wisser 89 at (703) 548-0885.

August 13,

Alexandria’s Vol. 11, No.

33

AlexAndriA Subjects English: Reading English: Writing History and Social Studies

Pass rate 2013 - 2014 66% 71% 76% 64%

Pass 2014 - 2015 71% 70%

2015

dria Mi ssi ng Aletoxan join teen’s face pa ign billboard cam

n newspaper

ent hometow

only independ

Ce PerformAn C SChoolS’ City Publi Change rate 5% -1% 1%

77%

5%

69%

2%

and other Alysha Howardchildren are area missing r effort part of summe teale

By Chris

Alysha Alexandria teenager since been missing Howard has hope but officials October 2014, displaying her a new initiative bus billboards at ton face on digital the Washing shelters across areas will jog e and Baltimor as police ’s memory someone disAlexandria’s only independent hometown August 20, 2015 te investiga her newspaper continue to even though appearance. les a chronic runas d the juveni Describe from told reown disappeared Alvin Crawley away, Howard year and is the have left by their last accredi- intendentat a briefing. “Jeffersonstill care state shelter gain g missing choice, they are porters steam year plan to les. been set bench- Houston is moving full up across city’s only remainin ic out of a total missing juveni tation. Having 2014-15 scores ent, ACPS e es we’re very optimistce child from 2014 improvem becaus disciplin for ahead; ant core marks all four it’s import Jefferson-Hous- with the continued persisten to of 261. ld’s face officials said done] teale Now, the 16-year-o there are many nts out two years’ worth of the work [being

By Chris has met “Summer for a relevant, year, and into 500,000 square isfeet of ex- already arepart in of thethe works.

Federalton tenant tojust move one into n, criminal eleme will be way in which in make sure there program there d campaig It is only one d, of goals long-vacant VictorytoCenter isting officeand space Stephanie Landrum, CEO of rich at Victory be on track to that they are is measure Hope” billboar rigorous between The there would appear student progress Center in the Eisenhower Economic De-Houston.” Westof the aAlexandria collaboration in Al2017fulfill its timeline.

Miss- vulnerable to.” indisputable: at Jefferson but the data is l Center for pass rate for neighborhood in 2017. unheard The news velopment said seNationaPartnership, Public Schools By eriCh Wagner “It’s almost The school’s - Crystal nosal, from gains with exandria City Exploite d Children anddiChris tealenearly doubled ingtheand in the right came for at the endkind of aofmulti-year curing TSA was among her spokeswoman those rks that Channel Outdoor alexandria police appears headed the pass rates science by 26 perbenchma and Cleartop priorities state and on City officials and rising business bidding more than out, a 11,organization’s for shelters 2015, theprocess, No.America yearsVol. rection based s of 2014 to 35 s. On 50 bus 60 percent and and feared 5 Standard points to with leaders are brimming decade sinceput the three Victory Center many months. they region don’t t. ton centage who are missing hands of of the 2014-201 Tuesproficien es districts in the Washing released sometim the re, the Md., atAlexandr excitementof following last hadand an active tenant.

“Because of s[Victory Centhe an- -Housstudents testing in Baltimo ia’s only independ Learning tests, dead, allegedly Departit in three years,” 14 billboard ile, Jefferson ent hometown Virginia nouncement even make children chair-ter’s] size last week that the are hopeful the and location, and evenfrom their schizophrenic mother.being dOfficials Meanwh day by the newspaper board missing increase of , as school scores faces n. g Howard ton’s math Security — added Transportation of a large federal ten- Ithe way it’sarea, situated on the lot, “What includin ment of EducatioshowU.S. Howard is describedweighing overall ge pointsadvent Karen Graf. the percenta four minPhoto/AlexAndriA eConomiC develoPment PArtnershiP tall and 18 will for going The SOLs andwillwoman Administration relocate spark amazing new economic likely tenant was —ant is about notthe only feet 9 inches 5officials all four by be displayed passing black hairlauded the announcement last week will is across beginLocal and business percent the until to 58 160 pounds with leaders scores improvement Alexandria. activitythink in the Eisenhower government,” scores but aboutto be the every hour utes federal that about the U.S. Transportation Security Administration would move into es — toEnglish The NCMEC only all the English Reading er. its will ge corridor, specifically core disciplin HistoryThe brown eyes. andagency percenta West a-Houston neighborhood and dormant 12 apthatinshe ning of Septemb Howard, the the long Victory Center Alexandria. They said the relocation by its dmove profile Math, p Jefferson , brief increase to its pass leadershi in Reading 6, Eisenhower West neighborhood. of 16 notes SEE tsa | face 5 will proximately 3,400 employees foreven redevelopment with the In addition economicdate development in the of spur 57 percentwhere plans with 14 of birth June points to a show the s to is that, use the Science — school and some displays will her actual who may increased pass rate. The school continue change at the opposed to the last a D.C. youth as of schools seeing Writing s Rudd, Math.

1999, same and Relisha on English Genthe challenge June 5 of that from the D.C. rates in Reading increases in lag behind given at the mid- of birth date of that we’ve faced went missing saw only — three years shelter in March to see this Nine schools 12 — a test school levels eral homeless ard | 10 rates, while and Sarah with that school, whatever dle and high SEE BillBO History pass 2014 and Jacob proficient. means that urg, s in science. at just 28 percent n specifi- growth had increase Hoggle of Clarksb encoura ging “Jefferson-Housto 9 The most SEE sOl | a wonderful story made at Jefferson cally I think is Derrick Davenport secures the Year at a gruelling contest U.S. Navy Culinary School at Superstrides were which is at the of movement,” Schools Chef of the Year award in in Florida.

Fort Lee and then as a chef at the Houston School, year of a threeend of its first Mathematics

66%

Science

68%

t of eDucation

g gains ACPS seesstbiresults L te laud advent of in SOLeaders TSA in Eisenhower West Source: Virginia

Departmen

Vol. 11, No. 34

Al ex an dr ia’s ne we st io na l H Standing aboveN theatrest Landmark is to ric

August 27, 2015

e 13 her e - pag results Davenport first began the Pentagon, the experience was indri a gruelling competition qualification process for the fi- credibly educational.

Of ale xan T.C. WilliamsBy Chris teale george“The Washing nal in January, when he won the wholetonprocess, the Masonic ed! Bes t football program Nationa Photo/Chri the press box When Gen. l Memori Dempsey, regional scompetition, journey of this, was greater than yOu VOt teale haveNortheast al owns at Parker-GrMartinleaders raised concerns

special Stadium, safe for useChairman of theayJoint Chiefswhich of which required theabout use of rabbit the destination,” Davenport said. place in history

by Alexandri has been declared City Public placed as part un-advance Staff, hisaforeign counterin four with no “The destination was just the icSchools

By Chris of ahosts and entrees wider is set to be teale renovation plan parts at his official residence atfor the preparation only one ing on the cake as far as winning stadium.time andreFort Myer, executive chef and hour to complete the dish. the Year and being the It Chef had of been 30 years since household manager Derrick Then, he traveled to Orlando firstria member of the armed forces Alexand last onehas of taught Davenport is responsible for for the final against three other to win. The had journey historic sites designated its me a lot about myself, areas planning the menu at official chefs from other regions and had as athat National Historic Landma dinners and functions. to prepare four courses, of which improve in, cooking rkand by theI could National Park However, in addition to two used squab — young pigeon logistic-wise.

Service, and “Driving4two hours down that and a litany of other du- — and two used frog legs. Dav- the August designat ion [to ties that come with serving enport is the first member ofofthethe George Fort Lee], practicing then Washing ton and Masonic the armed forces’ top-ranked armed forces to win the Chef of National cleaning Memoria up and driving back l came onre-an on some connec military Davenport the Year award, for which he my off-days and the weekauspicio ted to official, us date of its t.C. and coaches, own: football criticize finds time to compete with ceived a $5,000 cash prize and a the end262nd then working a normal job, and some annivers ongoing of those involved George itWashing other chefs from across the with gold medallion. was a juggling act.ary Butofin the press box closure the ton becomin Titans pro- culinarian, end it’s personal Courtesy Photo g decountry. Earlier this month, For the military growth and gram a Master Mason. are displease

By Chris Derrick Davenport celebrates winning the American Culinary Foundad, erroneteale velopment that I really cherish.” who has spent time as a cook on ously won The accusing tion’s Chef of the Year award in Orlando, Fla. Davenport is executive the Alexandria resident towering the city oftraining 333-foot struccon- military Foun- a submarine, chef and household manager for the Chairman of the Joint of the American Culinary demning ture joins the Old AsChiefs the players, the structure. coaches, dation’s top paraward of Chef of chefs in Afghanistan andDistrict, at the Historic | 6 Staff, and lives in Alexandria.

SEEand davenport ents

A pressing proble m at T.C . Wi llia ms sports stadiu m?

and boosters of T.C. Williams prepare for another high school

A report prepared in September 2014 for ACPS and provided to

Christ Church, Gerald R. Ford House, Freedom House and

the Times states Gadsby’s Tavern football season, as 14 there footBall the Bishop ir eton gear s up for season - page nableachers and press that stands a structure tional historic landmark at the top of the bleachers at Parker-Gray Stadium deemed unsafe for use by Alexandr ia City Public Schools and locked: the stadium’s press box.

Not just a workspac e for reporters covering games at the school, the press box has a number of other functions during football season for teams

box suffer from a number of structural deficiencies in the foundations and steel framing supports.

The report goes on to say that a number of bolts that attach the steel frame to the foundation have corroded , while crossbracing has also been damaged, likely by vehicle damage.

SEE Press Box | 6

s, and while the date of its designation was a coincide nce of history, it came at the end of a application process. years long

The memorial was funded entirely by donation Masonic commun s from the ity, with every Lodge in the United States contributing to the costs of construction, and it was dedicated at a lavish ceremony on May 12, 1932, less than three

months after Photo/Chris teale the 200th anniversary of Washing spectators turning out to watch ton’s birth the — February 22. parade instead of an anticipated 150,000, At the time, The the memorial Washing- was ton Post reported received enthusias that in spite tically by of rain that day and just 20,000

GRAND OPENIN ~ G Coming soon 4 POtO

SEE MeMor ial

Friday, Septembe r

90

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Is proud to sponsor the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra this 2015-2016 Season.

David G. Speck, Managing Director - Investments Tristan M. Caudron, Managing Director - Investments Laurie J. Blackburn, Vice President - Investments Matt Megary, Senior Vice President - Investments Our nationally recognized team has more than 150 years of combined investment experience serving individuals, companies, and nonprofit organizations with investments, planning and portfolio management.

101 N. Union Street, Suite 220 Alexandria, VA 22314

www.SpeckCaudron.com Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC, Member SIPC, is a registered broker-dealer and a separate non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Co

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THE 2015-2016 SEASON OCTOBER 3, 2015

Program #1: The Fantastic

NOVEMBER 7-8, 2015

Program #2: Whimsy & Wonderment

DECEMBER 20, 2015 Family Holiday Concert

FEBRUARY 13-14, 2016 Program #3: The Dramatic

APRIL 2-3, 2016

Program #4: Lushness & Lyrical

MAY 7, 2016

Program #5: The Transformative

(703) 548-0885 www.alexsym.org

2015-2016 SEASON