Program: A Thank You to Frontline Workers

A Thank You to Frontline Workers 10 + 11 September 2021 / 7:30PM Jack Singer Concert Hall

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program Karl Hirzer, conductor Janna Sailor, conductor

Aaron Copland

Fanfare for the Common Man

3’

Joan Tower

Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman

3’

Antonín Dvořák

Serenade for Wind Instruments in D Minor, Op. 44

Arnold Schönberg

24’

I. Moderato, quasi marcia II. Tempo di minuetto - Trio. Presto III. Andante con moto IV. Finale. Allegro molto

Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) (1943 Edition)

30’

Karl Hirzer Associate Conductor

Janna Sailor Conductor

Karl Hirzer, a conductor and pianist from New Westminster, British Columbia, has been Resident/ Associate Conductor with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra since 2016. Active internationally, Hirzer has led performances with ensembles such as the Sczcecin Philharmonic, Symphony Nova Scotia, Regina Symphony Orchestra, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Orchestra Senzaspine, and the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana. He works regularly with new music titans Land’s End Ensemble, most recently in collaboration with American composer John Corigliano, who said: “Mr. Hirzer brought a combination of detailed accuracy and intense musical feeling to the work [Mr. Tambourine Man], resulting in an absolutely marvelous performance.” Hirzer previously acted as Assistant Conductor for the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, and the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble.

He was a faculty member at the 22nd Morningside Music Bridge program in Warsaw. Hirzer has performed with renowned soloists including Evelyn Glennie, Chris Botti, Agata Szymczewska, Jonathan Crow, and Owen Pallett. A trained pianist, he holds bachelor’s (University of Victoria) and master’s (McGill University) degrees in performance, as well as an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto diploma.

Hailed by critics as “charismatic, crisp, precise, and elegant,” Sailor is an emerging conductor and innovator on the Canadian music scene. As founder and Artistic Director of the Vancouver based Allegra Chamber Orchestra, she leads one of the only all-female classical orchestras in the world; an ensemble dedicated to creating opportunities for women and minorities in the classical music industry, with a mandate of social action through music. The orchestra and its unique output and mandate has been featured by CBC Radio, Radio ICI, The Walrus, The Strad magazine, The Violin Channel, The Hub, and public radio stations across Germany and France, amongst other international media. Over its two-year history, the orchestra has commissioned and premiered numerous works

by Canadian female and minority composers, and co-founded a music therapy program for women living on the street on Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. In addition to guest conducting the major orchestras in Canada, Sailor pursues a diverse career as a violinist, delving into contemporary, world and early music, jazz and improvisation, chamber music, and interdisciplinary projects with dancers, visual artists, and electronics.

about the pieces Fanfare for the Common Man Aaron Copland 1900 to 1990 After the United States entered the Second World War in 1941, Eugene Goossens, the British-born conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, commissioned appropriately patriotic fanfares from American composers to open the orchestra’s concerts. Each concert in the 1942/1943 season opened with one of them. Most fanfares are fast and exhilarating, designed to get listeners into the mood for something exciting. Mirroring the seriousness of its origins, Aaron Copland’s fanfare, on the other hand, is slow in tempo and monumental in sound and emotion.

Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman Joan Tower b. 1938 Joan Tower is one of this generation’s most dynamic and colourful composers. In 1986, she and 20 other American composers were commissioned by the Houston Symphony Orchestra for a brief piece to open a concert during a season that marked the 150th anniversary of Texas’s declaration of independence. Her first thoughts were, “What’s a fanfare? The only one I knew was Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. So I started thinking about that piece, and I knew I had to do something about that title.” She calls Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman a “quasi-tribute” to Copland, quoting a “snippet of a theme” from his piece and scoring it for the identical combination of brass and percussion. She dedicated it to “women who take risks and are adventurous.” This stirring, festive and humorous work has received more than 500 performances. Its success has led to Tower’s composing four additional Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman.

Serenade for Wind Instruments in D Minor, Op. 44 Antonín Dvořák 1841 to 1904 Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s music artfully combines accessibility with solid craftsmanship, frequently flavoured by the folk music traditions of his beloved native land. He composed two serenades: one for strings (1875), and this one (1878), which he scored for pairs of oboes, clarinets and bassoons (plus contrabassoon), three horns, a cello, and a double bass. His friend and mentor, the great composer Johannes Brahms, proclaimed that “a more lovely, refreshing impression of rich and charming creative talent you can’t easily find.”

Dvořák made his conducting debut with its première performance.

Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) (1943 Edition) Arnold Schönberg 1874 to 1951 The Schönberg of atonality and serial composition — the innovative, controversial procedures that demonized him in the minds of many tradition-oriented listeners — still lay ahead when he composed this rapturous, ultra-Romantic piece. Until 1899, his creative output had been confined to songs, piano pieces, and a string quartet. The conservative Romanticism of Johannes Brahms strongly influenced them all. That year, the poems of German author Richard Dehmel (1863 to1920) inspired Schönberg not only to set some of them to music, but also to create an instrumental evocation of Dehmel’s poem, Transfigured Night. He scored it for six strings and cast it in the form of a single, continuous movement. It proved to be his most ambitious and most successful work to date. He prepared this version for string orchestra in 1943. The poem is a dialogue between two lovers, as they walk through a chilly, moonlit forest.

The woman reveals that she is expecting a former lover’s child. Her new lover argues that the depth of their feelings for each other will ensure that they will love the child as their own.

Program Notes by Don Anderson ©2021

Orchestra First Violins Diana Cohen Concertmaster

John Lowry

Associate Concertmaster

Donovan Seidle

Assistant Concertmaster

Edmund Chung Hangyul Kim Olga Kotova Bonnie Louie Genevieve Micheletti Maria van der Sloot Hojean Yoo TBD TBD

Second Violins

Celli

Horns

Arnold Choi Josue Valdepenas Kathleen de Caen Thomas Megee David Morrissey Daniel Poceta TBD TBD

Robert McCosh Jennifer Frank-Umana TBD Maxwell Stein Heather Wootton

Basses Sam Loeck Kyle Sanborn Mathew Heller Trish Bereti-Reid Patrick Staples Jonathan Yeoh

Lorna Tsai Stephanie Soltice-Johnson Erin Burkholder Jeremy Gabbert Hyewon Grillet-Kim Craig Hutchenreuther Minnie Min Kyung Kwon Theresa Lane Adriana Lebedovich Steven J. Lubiarz

Flutes

Violas

David Sussman

Laurent Grillet-Kim Marcin Swoboda Arthur Bachmann Jeremy Bauman Peter Blake Michael Bursey Alisa Klebanov Jesse Morrison

principal associate principal assistant principal

Sara Hahn-Scinocco Gwen Klassen

Piccolo Gwen Klassen

Oboes Alex Klein David Sussman

English Horn Clarinets Slavko Popovic Jocelyn Colquhoun

Bassoons Antoine St-Onge Michael Hope

Trumpets Adam Zinatelli Miranda Cairns

Trombones James Scott TBD

Bass Trombone David Reid

Tuba Tom McCaslin

Timpani Alexander Cohen

Percussion TBD

Harp Tisha Murvihill

Librarian Rob Grewcock

Assistant Librarian TBD

Personnel Manager Michael Thomson

About the Calgary Phil The Calgary Philharmonic celebrated 65 years as a pillar of Calgary’s vibrant arts community in 2020 and has grown to be one of Canada’s most celebrated live music ensembles.

Led by Music Director Rune Bergmann, the Calgary Phil presents classical standards, pop favourites, bold collaborations, and cutting-edge new works, and attracts world-renowned guest artists and conductors. In a typical Season, the Orchestra welcomes over 100,000 visitors to the concert hall and reaches audiences around the world through its free and accessible digital programming and live-stream initiative —an immersive, online concert experience that launched in 2017.

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