19-20 Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra Program - Volume 29.2

Proud Printing Sponsor

2019–2020 SEASON VOLUME 29.2

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Program Book Volume 29.2

CONTENTS Yuletide Celebration

Beethoven’s “Eroica”

Pops • Specials

Paulette and Frank Stewart Classics

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Holiday Spectacular:

Folk Rhythms

A Stomper Christmas Carol Pops • Specials

Paulette and Frank Stewart Classics

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Baroque Christmas

Nature’s Awakening

Paulette and Frank Stewart Classics

Paulette and Frank Stewart Classics

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SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS & PARTNERS

Supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council. Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works.

This program is supported in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans.

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

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CALENDAR OF EVENTS Thursday, December 5, 2019 Yuletide Celebration Pontchartrain Center, Kenner 7:30 p.m.

Friday, December 6, 2019 Yuletide Celebration Columbia Theatre, Hammond 7:30 p.m.

Holiday Spectacular: A Stomper Christmas Carol Saturday, December 14, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

Mahalia Jackson Theater, New Orleans

Sunday, December 8, 2019 Yuletide Celebration Municipal Auditorium, Slidell 2:30 p.m. matinee Saturday, December 14, 2019 Holiday Spectacular 610 Stompers Mahalia Jackson Theater 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, December 19, 2019 Baroque Christmas Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Baroque Christmas Thursday, December 19, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

Orpheum Theater, New Orleans Friday, December 20, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

First Baptist Church, Covington

Friday, December 20, 2019 Baroque Christmas First Baptist Church, Covington 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, January 9, 2020 Beethoven’s “Eroica” Pablo Ferrandez, cello Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Friday, January 10, 2020 Beethoven’s “Eroica” Pablo Ferrandez, cello First Baptist Church, Covington 7:30 p.m.

Beethoven’s “Eroica” Thursday, January 9, 2020, 7:30 p.m.

Pablo Ferrandez, cello Orpheum Theater, New Orleans Friday, January 10, 2020, 7:30 p.m.

First Baptist Church, Covington ENCORE Saturday, January 11, 2020,

7:30 p.m.

Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Saturday, January 11, 2020 Beethoven’s “Eroica” Pablo Ferrandez, cello First Baptist Church, Covington 7:30 p.m.

Friday, January 17, 2020 Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone Movie with Orchestra FAMILY CONCERT Mahalia Jackson Theater 8:00 p.m.

Thursday, January 30, 2020 Folk Rhythms Simon Shaheen, oud Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone™ in Concert Thursday, January 17, 2020, 8:00 p.m.

Mahalia Jackson Theater, New Orleans

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Friday, February 28, 2020 Nature’s Awakening with Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Ziang Xu, piano Columbia Theatre, Hammond 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 7, 2020 The Music of John Williams Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 8, 2020 The Music of John Williams Orpheum Theater 2:30 p.m.

Thursday, March 19, 2020 Quint Plays Korngold Philippe Quint, violin Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Friday, March 20, 2020 Quint Plays Korngold Philippe Quint, violin Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, March 26, 2020 Classical Contrasts Jack Peña, bassoon Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 16, 2020 American Virtuosos Benjamin Beilman, violin Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Friday, April 17, 2020 American Virtuosos Benjamin Beilman, violin First Baptist Church, Covington 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 18, 2020 Cyril Neville and Special Guests Orpheum Theater 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, April 19, 2020 Cyril Neville and Special Guests Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

To browse events for the entire 19-20 season, visit LPOmusic.com.

Thursday, February 27, 2020 Nature’s Awakening with Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Ziang Xu, piano Orpheum Theater 7:30 p.m.

Program Book Volume 29.2

DID YOU KNOW ?

Whether this is your first time at the LPO or you are a returning concert-goer, here are a few "need-to-knows" when attending an LPO performance.

What if I arrive late, or have to leave during the performance?

Late arrivals are seated by an usher at the earliest appropriate time (break in the music, applause, etc.). Once a piece has ended, you may move from the late seating area to your ticketed seats.

If you need to depart in the middle of a piece, you will be subject to this late seating policy upon your return.

When do I clap?

Some pieces are made up of multiple sections, or movements.

For these works, it's customary to hold applause until after the very last movement. If you are ever in doubt, it's always safe to clap when everyone else does!

May I take pictures or video?

During the performance, please turn off or silence all devices.

Photography and video recording are prohibited.

You are welcome to take pictures or video before the performance, during intermission, or after the performance.

What about food and drink?

No outside food or drink is allowed at LPO performances. You may purchase drinks at the theater bar before the performance or during intermission, however, refreshments will not be allowed into the performance area unless otherwise noted.

Still have questions?

All FAQ and ticketing policies can be found at LPOmusic.com.

You may also speak with a patron services representative by calling 504-523-6530, option 2, or contacting the Box Office during intermission.

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Staff, Board, and Councils Administrative Staff

Board of Trustees

James William Boyd, D.M.A.

Dwight McGhee

Chief Executive Officer

Board President

Amanda Bohren

Hannah Yim

Director of Education and Community Engagement

Mimi Kruger Director of Philanthropy

Leah Oby

R. Ranney Mize, Ph.D.* Immediate Past President

Jim Atwood Immediate Past Orchestra President

Director of Audience Development and Communications

Bruce Soltis

Diane Stengle

Jacob Powers

Director of Production

Orchestra Vice President

Marilyn Dittmann

Hugh Long Treasurer

Lindsay Calmes

Assistant Treasurer

Patron Services Manager

Benjamin Hart

Personnel Manager

* Life Trustees

Northshore Advocacy Council Chapter Michelle Biggs Chair

Michael Matushek

J. Scott Chotin, Jr.* Benjamin H. Motion

Secretary

*Life Trustees

Charlotte Lewis

Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin* Valerie Besthoff Julie F. Breitmeyer J. Scott Chotin, Jr. Evan Conroy Anne Gauthier Ana E. Gershanik Stephen W. Hales, M.D.* William Hess Angela Hill Dorothy S. Jacobs Bernard Jaffe, M.D. Timothy Kelly Paul J. Leaman, Jr. Charlotte Lewis Edward F. Martin Cameron Mayer Jonathan McCall Stephen Orejudos Elizabeth Overweg Bruce Owen Ann Owens Courtney-Anne Sarpy Sarah Schettler Josette Seifert Richard L. Strub, M.D. Susan Talley Catherine Tremaine Kevin Winter

LPO Office Volunteer

* Life Trustees

Aileen Miller Finance and Administration Manager

Cosimo Murray Stage Production Manager

Candice Perkins Audience Development Manager

Antine Rieger Philanthropy Manager

Lyle C. Wong Orchestra Librarian

Jack Clark Stage Production Asst. Manager

Shantrell Green Patron Services Coordinator - House Manager

Joyce Park Artistic Programming Manager/ Coordinator

Larissa Powers Associate Orchestra Librarian

Allison Gomer Patron Services Coordinator

Rebecca Crenshaw LPO Education Consultant

Larry Gay Slidell Advocacy Council Chapter Chair Betty Speyrer LPO Volunteers President Christopher Hines Prelude Council Chair Of Counsel: Julie Livaudais

Board Vice President

Associate Director of Philanthropy

Hsing-I Ho

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Orchestra President

Michelle Biggs Northshore Advocacy Council Chapter Chair

Ex Officio: James William Boyd, CEO Carlos Miguel Prieto Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin Music Director and Principal Conductor

Slidell Advocacy Council Chapter Larry Gay Chair

Alex Carollo Sam Caruso, Jr. John Cool Carole Neubauer Charles H. Neuman Michael Rich William Stadler

Prelude Advocacy Council Chapter Christopher Hines Chair Josiah Bullach Matt Haines Lisa Kurtz Paul Macres Julia Milrod Eric Mund Antine Rieger Jessica Roberts Camille Rome Skylar Rosenbloom Sarah Vandergriff Robert Warren Kevin Winter

Program Book Volume 29.2

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra Carlos Miguel Prieto

Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin Music Director and Principal Conductor

Thomas Wilkins

Principal Guest Conductor Violins Vacant, Concertmaster The Edward D. and Louise Levy Concermaster Chair Benjamin Hart, Associate Concertmaster The LPO Volunteers Associate Concermaster Chair Hannah Yim, Assistant Concertmaster Byron Tauchi, Principal Second Violin The Helen W. Burns Principal Second Violin Chair Xiao Fu, Assistant Principal Second Violin Zorica Dimov Judith Armistead Fitzpatrick Eva Liebhaber Janeta Mavrova Kurt Munstedt Elizabeth Overweg Gabriel Platica Yaroslav Rudnytsky Yuki Tanaka Benjamin Thacher Kate Withrow Sarah Yen Guangnan Daniel Yue vacant Violas Richard Woehrle, Principal The Abby Ray Catledge and Byrne Lucas Ray Principal Viola Chair Bruce Owen, Assistant Principal Amelia Clingman Peter Dutilly^ Valborg Gross Ila Rondeau* Catherine Schilling Carole Shand Tyler Sieh Cellos Jonathan Gerhardt, Principal The Edward B. Benjamin Principal Cello Chair Daniel Lelchuk, Assistant Principal Rachel Hsieh Jeanne Jaubert Kent Jensen The Paula L. Maher Section Cello Chair David Rosen Dimitri Vychko

Basses David Anderson, Principal William Schettler, Assistant Principal Timothy Chen Paul Macres Benjamin Wheeler

Josiah Bullach, Assistant Principal The J. Robert Pope Assistant Principal Horn Chair Jamie Leff Kevin Winter Mark Trotter^

Flutes Ji Weon Ryu, Principal The Mary Freeman Wisdom Principal Flute Chair Patti Adams, Assistant Principal The Richard C. and Nancy Link Adkerson Flute Chair Sarah Schettler

Trumpets Vance Woolf, Principal The Gauthier Family Foundation Principal Trumpet Chair David Sterrett, Assistant Principal Stephen Orejudos The Pete Wolbrette Section Trumpet Chair

Piccolo Patti Adams The Richard C. and Nancy Link Adkerson Flute Chair Oboes Virginia McDowell^, Principal The Ranney and Emel Songu Mize Principal Oboe Chair Jane Gabka, Assistant Principal Michael McGowan English Horn Michael McGowan Clarinets Daniel Parrette, Principal Stephanie Thompson, Assistant Principal John Reeks E-flat Clarinet Stephanie Thompson Bass Clarinet John Reeks Bassoons Jack PeĂąa, Principal Benjamin Atherholt, Assistant Principal Michael Matushek

Trombones Greg Miller, Principal * Vacant, Principal Matt Wright Evan Conroy, Bass Trombone Tuba Robert NuĂąez, Principal Timpani Jim Atwood, Principal Percussion Jacob Powers, Principal Dave Salay Harp Rachel Van Voorhees Kirschman, Principal

* denotes musicians that are on leave for the 2019-2020 season. ^Acting member The string section of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra is listed alphabetically and participates in revolving seating.

Contrabassoon Benjamin Atherholt French Horns Mollie Pate, Principal The Jerry W. Zachary and Henry Bernstein Principal Horn Chair

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Program Book Volume 29.2

carlos miguel prieto Carlos Miguel Prieto’s charismatic conducting and dynamic, expressive interpretations have led to major engagements and popular acclaim throughout North America, Europe and internationally.

The 2019/2020 season marks his fourteenth season as Music Director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), where he has been a part of the cultural revitalization of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

On February 27, 2018, Prieto led the LPO in its Carnegie Hall debut in a concert celebrating the 80th birthday of composer Philip Glass.

A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, Prieto is a highly influential cultural leader as well as the leading Mexican conductor of his generation. Prieto has been the Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México (OSN), the country’s most important orchestra, since 2007. In 2008, he was appointed Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, a handpicked orchestra which performs a two-month long series of summer programs in Mexico City. Having conducted over 100 world premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, Prieto is renowned for championing and commissioning the music of Latin American composers. In November 2016, he led the OSN on a critically-acclaimed nine-concert tour of Germany and Austria performing the works of Mexican and Latin American composers in halls such as the Wiener Musikverein.

In the 2017-2018 season, Maestro Prieto made debuts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and returned to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Beijing Symphony, The Hallé, Frankfurt Radio Symphony and the Royal Scottish National Symphony, among others. He began 2018 conducting the LPO, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, and an all-Ginastera program with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. In Spring 2018, Prieto returned to Spain to conduct the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Orquesta de Valencia and Orquesta del Principado de Asturias.

Prieto’s recent recordings include works by Bruch, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, with violinist Philippe Quint and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería on Avanticlassic, and Korngold’s Violin Concerto on Naxos, which received two Grammy nominations. In Spring 2013, Prieto released a 12-DVD set of live recordings of the complete symphonies of Mahler as part of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería’s 35th Anniversary season. A passionate proponent of music education, Prieto served as Principal Conductor of the Orchestra of the Americas from its inception until 2011 when he was appointed Music Director. In early 2010 he conducted the ensemble alongside Valery Gergiev on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the World Economic Forum at Carnegie Hall. In the Summer 2018, Prieto led the Orchestra of the Americas on its 2018 European tour with concerts from Lviv, Ukraine to Edinburgh, Scotland. Prieto was also tapped by Carnegie Hall to lead its NYO2 initiative, which featured concerts at Carnegie Hall and Miami’s New World Music Center in July 2018. In April 2018, Prieto was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music by Loyola University New Orleans.

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ad

E X P ERI E NC E N EW OR LEAN S’Jazziest H OTE L

LPO patrons receive food and drink specials in the Clarinet Lounge on concert nights. Our welcoming staff will show you what true southern hospitality is all about!

A quick streetcar ride to the French Quarter, Aquarium, Harrah’s Casino & more right outside our front door Three blocks from the French Quarter Free, 24 hour business and fitness centers Rooftop heated swimming pool and sun deck On site restaurant and lounge For more information contact Aimee Wilmette at 504.581.1600 ext. 4210 or awilmette@hi-neworleans.com 330 Loyola Avenue . New Orleans, LA 70112 | www.hi-neworleans.com

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Program Book Volume 29.2

BEYOND THE STAGE LPO IN THE COMMUNITY 2019-2020 SOUND EDUCATION Sign up today to hold your seats at our education events this school year. Contact the education department at education@lpomusic.com .

EARLY EXPLORERS SOUNDS & SHAPES OF THE ORCHESTRA

YOUNG PEOPLE’S CONCERTS LET’S GO LPO! This season the LPO team is tackling what makes the LPO go and exploring how an orchestra concert is like a football game!

In partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Link Up program, students in 2nd-8th grades will be learning the Orchestra Rocks curriculum and playing recorder or string instruments along with the LPO from their seats in the audience.

Wednesday, January 15 Lafon Performing Arts Center, Luling Tuesday, January 21 St. Paul’s School Covington Wednesday, January 22 Ponchatoula High School Thursday, January 23 Chalmette Cultural Arts Center Friday, January 24 Slidell Municipal Auditorium Tuesday, February 11 Jefferson Performing Arts Center Wednesday, February 12 Mahalia Jackson Theater

This concert series is created for students in Pre-K through First grade and provides an interactive way for students to learn about the families of the symphony orchestra. This season we’ll organize the instrument families of the LPO by their shapes with the help of our elementary audience members.

Tuesday, December 3 Lafon Performing Arts Center Wednesday, December 11 Ponchatoula High School Tuesday, February 18–21 First Baptist New Orleans

OPEN REHEARSALS Join the LPO and LPO Volunteers for coffee, cookies, and great music. Rehearsals are held at the Orpheum Theater, start at 10AM, and the cost is $10.

January 9 Beethoven’s “Eroica” January 30 Folk Rhythms February 27 Nature’s Awakening

A SPECIAL THANKS TO THESE LPO EDUCATION PARTNERS & SPONSORS

Programs are supported in part by a grant from the the Louisiana Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation witht he Louisiana State Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

Edwin and Barbara Beckman Collins C. Diboll Private Foundation Downman Family Foundation Edward Wisner Donor Advised Fund Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Bruce H. Heim Foundation Kabacoff Family Foundation Keller Family Foundation The Theresa Bittenbring Marque and John Henry Marque Fund J. Edgar Monroe Foundation Gia Maione Prima Foundation Mary Freeman Wisdom Foundation

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Through its numerous events, activities, and membership options, LPO Volunteers provide a way for anyone to show their support for the great contribution the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra makes to the Greater New Orleans community.

In addition to fundraising, LPO Volunteers members donate their time directly to the orchestra, its staff, and guest artists. From guest lodging to stuffing envelopes at the front office, LPO Volunteers members help the orchestra reduce administrative and programming costs. In return, our members have exclusive, personalized interaction with the artists.

Proudly Supporting the LPO for 29 Seasons!

SALONS & MUSIC IN THE MORNING Enjoy music by one or two LPO musicians in a private home setting! The LPO Volunteers Salon Concert Series is a delightful chance to get to know LPO musicians better. There is time for conversation, and a light meal with wine is provided.

Upcoming Salons Sunday, January 26, 2020—Uptown, 3 p.m.

Patti Adams, flute Sunday, March 1, 2020—Covington, 3 p.m.

Danielle Parrette, clarinet Sunday, March 29, 2020—Chateau Estates, 3 p.m.

Elizabeth Overweg, violin Friday, May 8, 2020—Metairie, 10:30 a.m.

Mike Matushek, bassoon Catherine Schilling, viola

THE ENCORE SHOP The Encore Shop is an upscale consignment store exclusively owned and operated by LPO Volunteers. The store has offered women high quality designer clothing at reduced prices for over 50 years. All net proceeds go to the LPO! 7814 Maple Street New Orleans, LA 70118 504.861.9028 Tues.–Sat., 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

Cost is $35/person. For more information, or to register for one or more salons, email membership@LPOvolunteers.org or call 504.523.6530, ext. 204.

Join us!

Fun, friendship, and a fabulous cause.

Contact Membership Chair Gretchen Bosworth at 504.491.7271 or visit LPOVolunteers.org to become a member and help us support the LPO.

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SYMPHONY BOOK FAIR Each year, the LPO Volunteers holds the largest book, sheet music, CD, and art sale in the city to benefit the LPO! The next big annual sale will be held May 29 thru May 31, 2020, at the UNO Lakefront Arena.

Program Book Volume 29.2

Musician Chair Naming Naming a musician chair provides reliable ongoing funding to recruit, underwrite, and retain outstanding LPO musicians. Naming a chair also offers a tremendous opportunity to recognize or honor a person or cause in a most caring and prestigious manner. Depending on the size of the gift, musician chairs may be named for a period of five years, ten years, 25 years, or in perpetuity. For information, call 504.523.6530, ext. 301.

Honorary Campaign Chair

Campaign Chairs

Mrs. Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin

Drs. R. Ranney and Emel Songu Mize

Principal Ten Years

Five Years

The Ranney and Emel Songu Mize Principal Oboe Chair

The LPO Volunteers Associate Concertmaster Chair

The Jerry W. Zachary and Henry Bernstein Principal Horn Chair

Gauthier Family Foundation Principal Trumpet Chair

Assistant Principal Five Years The Helen W. Burns Principal Second Violin Chair In memory of Catherine Tremaine's mother, Helen W. Burns, who introduced her to the Philharmonic when she was 12 years old.

"It is to her that I attribute my enduring love of music." - Catherine Tremaine

The J. Robert Pope Assistant Principal Horn Chair

Section Five Years The Paula L. Maher Section Cello Chair The Pete Wolbrette Section Trumpet Chair With Gratitude to the following: The Edward D. and Louise L. Levy Concertmaster Chair The Abby Ray Catledge and Byrne Lucas Ray Principal Viola Chair

The Edward B. Benjamin Principal Cello Chair Mary Freeman Wisdom Principal Flute Chair Richard C. and Nancy Link Adkerson Flute Chair

Special thanks to these donors who made the LPO Volunteers Associate Concertmaster Chair possible Anonymous Bethlehem K. Andrews Cathy and Al Beshel Gretchen W. Bosworth in honor of Annie Cohen Diane A. Butler in memory of John H. Butler Marsha Cutler in memory of Zac Sotman Pauline E. Dickey in honor of Charlotte Lewis Marilyn V. Dittmann Sandra Doty-Gotkowsky Ann R. Duffy Dr. & Mrs. Charles L. Dupin Jean E. Faia Lyle & Linda Ferguson Mrs. Francella Flurry Ana & Juan Gershanik Melissa & Bruce Gordon in honor of Charlotte Lewis Richard & Linda Grillot Mr. & Mrs. Calvin J. Grisafe

Peter & Betsy Harrison Lorene Holbrook John & Donna Howland Dr. Bernard Jaffe in memory of Marlene Jaffe Phyllis Jordan Beverly Katz Lou Lane in memory of Hallam L. Ruark Bob & Charlotte Lewis in memory of Claude Kohler and Joel Myers John & Elise Lewis Shirley RabĂŠ Masinter Mr. & Mrs. Charles B. Mayer Drs. Emel & Ranney Mize Lee Roy and Kathleen Morgan Joel Myers Mr. & Mrs. Arthur W. Nead Magda G. Pelias Laura Walker Plunkett in memory of John Yarborough

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

Nancy Pomiechowski in honor of Charlotte Lewis Evelyn Pugh & Richard Thompson Aurelie Puig Jean Rice Courtney-Anne Sarpy Louise Schreiner in memory of Sylvia Schreiner Betty & Greg Speyrer Paulette & Frank B. Stewart, Jr. Philip & Eleanor Straub Mr. & Mrs. William Tebow in memory of Nancy Carruth Lorraine Thien Anna H. Weidenhaft Cornelia M. Whitlow in honor of Ben Hart Jim & Sarah Wilkinson Margot Wilkinson

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Yuletide

Celebration

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Program Book Volume 29.2

Yuletide Celebration December 5, 2019, 7:30 p.m. • Pontchartrain Center, Kenner December 6, 2019, 7:30 p.m. • Columbia Theatre, Hammond December 8, 2019, 2:30 p.m. • Slidell Municipal Auditorium, Slidell

William Waldrop, conductor TRADITIONAL / Arthur Harris (1908-1975) LEROY ANDERSON (1908 - 1975) IRVING BERLIN / Robert Russell Bennett (1888 - 1989) VICTOR HERBERT / Otto Langey (1859 - 1924) FRANZ GRUBER / Calvin Custer (1787 - 1863) PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 - 1893) RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS / Ralph Greeves (1872 - 1958) JOHN PHILIP SOUSA / Robert W. Smith (1854 - 1932) VARIOUS / Jerry Brubaker MEL TORME / Bob Lowden GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL / Arthur Harris (1685 - 1759) NIKOLAI RIMSKYKORSAKOV (1844 - 1908) VARIOUS / Bob Phillips VARIOUS / John Finnegan

Adeste Fidelis

Sleigh Ride White Christmas

“March of the Toys” from Babes in Toyland

INTERACT WITH US! #LPOclassics

Stille Nacht /LPOmusic

Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker, Opus 71a

@LPOmusic

Fantasia on Greensleeves LPOmusic

Jingle Bells Forever

LPO_Music

How the Grinch Stole Christmas The Christmas Song Joy to the World

Polonaise from Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve/ Sarajevo 12/24 Christmas Singalong

Guest artist travel and accommodations provided by:

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

Presented with support from:

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Holiday SPECTACULAR

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Program Book Volume 29.2

Holiday Spectacular A STOMPERS CHRISTMAS CAROL December 14, 2019, 7:30 p.m. • Mahalia Jackson Theater, New Orleans LEROY ANDERSON (1908-1975) VARIOUS/ Jerry Brubaker DON COVAY/ Doug Adams (1936-2015) VINCE GUARALDI/ Robert Sterling (1928-1976) NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908) MEL TORME/ Bob Lowden (1925-1999) TRADITIONAL/ Robert Wendel

A Christmas Festival How the Grinch Stole Christmas Chain of Fools Arsène DeLay, vocalist 610 Stompers, Inc. Karen Hebert

Christmas Time Is Here

Raúl Gómez-Rojas, Conductor

Lusher Charter School Choirs

“Flight of the Bumblebee” from The Tale of Tsar Saltan The Christmas Song Arsène DeLay, vocalist

A Chanukah Overture 610 Stompers, Inc. Karen Hebert

Stand Up and Get Crunk

The 610 Stompers

Roots of Music, brass band

CAROL HALL (b. 1936) FRANZ GRUBER/ Calvin Custer (1787-1863) TRADITIONAL/ Mike Esnault JOHN WILLIAMS (b. 1932)

Hard Candy Christmas Arsène DeLay, vocalist

Stille Nacht

Twelve Days of Christmas 610 Stompers, Inc. Karen Hebert

Somewhere In My Memory from Home Alone

Arsène DeLay

Lusher Charter School Choirs

VICTOR HERBERT/ Otto Langey (1859-1924)

“March of the Toys” from Babes in Toyland 610 Stompers, Inc. Karen Hebert

INTERMISSION (20’)

ALAN SILVESTRI/ Jerry Brubaker (b. 1950)

Concert Suite from The Polar Express

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

Lusher School Choir

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JAY UNGAR/ I’ll Be Home For Christmas William Grimes Arsène DeLay, vocalist (b. 1946) LUDWIG VAN Marcia funebre from Symphony No. 3 BEETHOVEN in E-Flat major, Opus 55, “Eroica” (1770-1827) VARIOUS Wizards in Winter

Roots of Music

610 Stompers, Inc. Karen Hebert

TRADITIONAL/ St. James Infirmary/Second Line Roots of Music Roots of Music, brass band GEORGE FREDERIC Hallelujah Chorus HANDEL Lusher Charter School Choirs (1685-1759) Meg Frazier, conductor LEROY ANDERSON Sleigh Ride (1908-1975)

Guest artist travel and accommodations provided by:

INTERACT WITH US!

/LPOmusic

@LPOmusic

LPOmusic

LPO_Music

#LPOclassics

Special thanks to Southern Costumes

Artist Bios Raúl Gómez-Rojas is in his third season as Music Director of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony (Portland, OR), where he enjoys working with a vibrant community of conductors, coaches, staff, families and over 500 students in 15 orchestra, band and jazz ensembles.

Mr. Gómez was recently selected as one of six conductors to be featured in the League of American Orchestra’s 2018 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, after competing for the honor with nearly 150 applicants from around the world.

Conductors were selected for their “experience, talent, leadership, and commitment to a career in service to American orchestras.”

A sought-after guest conductor for professional ensembles, Mr. Gómez’s recent and upcoming engagements include multiple appearances with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio and Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, as well as engagements in Mexico, Brazil and Costa Rica.

Mr. Gómez has previously served in artistic and musical leadership positions with the Orchestra of the Americas, Mississippi Youth Symphony Orchestra,

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Program Book Volume 29.2

Premier Orchestral Institute, Louisiana Sinfonietta and Kids’ Orchestra (Baton Rouge, Louisiana). A native of Costa Rica, Gómez holds masters and doctoral degrees from Louisiana State University, where he studied with Carlos Riazuelo (conducting), Kevork Mardirossian and Espen Lilleslåtten (violin/viola). Additional conducting training includes a fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and numerous masterclasses with leading conductors.

The 610 Stompers are many things but, first and foremost, we are Ordinary Men with Extraordinary Moves. Since our birth in New Orleans in 2009, we have evolved and grown into a 100-man strong, all male dance group whose bold mission is to return the ordinary man to the glory of dance. Men from their 20s to their 80s now proudly call themselves 610 Stompers, drawn from all walks of life and from across the country. As diverse as we are, we each share a passion for dance that fires when we see the faces of our fans light up as we dance by.

Students from Lusher Charter School Choirs have been singing at Lusher since it was founded in 1917. The program has grown to include nearly 130 singers across three campuses, including Lower School Honors Choir, Middle School Choir, High School Elective Choir, Certificate of Artistry Choir, and Certificate of Artistry Musical Theater. Lower School Choir is an auditioned ensemble; Middle School Choir and High School Elective Choir are open to all students wanting to explore the art of singing. Students seeking a challenging and rigorous vocal music program audition for the Certificate of Artistry (CA) programs in their 8th-grade year. The CA program begins in ninth grade with a foundational program of music theory and vocal technique and progresses over the years to an advanced level through challenging repertoire.

Performances include fall and spring concerts, chamber music recitals, middle school musicals, high school musicals, high school cabaret, holiday caroling, and various community events. Lusher singers are consistently chosen to perform in ACDA and LMEA honor choirs at the district, state, regional, and national levels.

Singers also consistently receive superior ratings at LMEA Solo & Ensemble Assessment and LSU State Rally. This year, Lusher had three finalists in the Donald W. Wood, Sr. Vocal Competition--a collaborative event with New Orleans Opera Association, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Tulane University, and Loyola University New Orleans.

Lusher Choirs are under the direction of Fritzgerald Barrau, Kathryn Matherne, and Dr. Beth Rota.

Arséne DeLay is a local singer and songwriter you’ll often find in several of the city’s finest clubs and music hotspots. DeLay is the youngest of the Boutté Family, one of the musical dynasties of New Orleans, but is also a veteran of the theatre and film world for over 20 years. Recent credits include Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger, NFL’s Battle of the Bands: Saints versus Cowboys, and NCIS New Orleans, which used the title track of her freshman award-nominated album, “Comin’ Home.” Other credits include Tremé, Gulf Coast Theatre On Tap’s Love Taps, Neutral Ground, Hoofing for Heroes, Helen of Troy at the Getty Villa (Los Angeles), and is an alumni of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She holds a BFA in Theatre Arts from Marquette University, and MFA in Acting from California Institute of the Arts. You can catch her performing around town solo, with Funk Monkey, Antoine Diel & Misfit Power, or every Monday at Buffa’s often with Charlie Wooton, whom she just collaborated

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with on their recent release, Blue Basso.

The Roots of Music empowers the youth of New Orleans through music education, academic support, and mentorship while preserving and promoting the unique musical and cultural heritage of our city. Our goal is to provide our kids with the resources they need to lead positive, productive, self-reliant lives. Our program provides instrumental instruction and ensemble performance preparation as well as music history and theory. We serve kids ages 9-14 from low-income households, and provide our students with hot meals and round-trip transportation to reduce common barriers to participation. Five days a week, 12 months a year, our program delivers over 2,500 hours of music education and other academic tutoring, over 30,400 nutritious hot meals, 1,400 bus journeys, and supplies over 150 instruments for student use.

Roots of Music students maintain high acceptance rates to the auditionbased Jazz and Classical programs at Louisiana’s performing arts high school (NOCCA) and participate in prestigious band programs at the college level. In the past two years three of our alumni secured full tuition scholarships to attend Berklee College of Music’s 4-year undergraduate program. The Roots of Music students perform regularly throughout New Orleans and have had the opportunity to perform internationally at the North Sea Jazz Festivals in Rotterdam and Curacao, The Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Canada, and the French Jazz Sous Les Pommiers Festival to celebrate the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Please visit www.therootsofmusic.org to learn how you can support the students and The Roots of Music.

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Program Book Volume 29.2

T H E S TO R I E S B E G I N H E R E

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70 1 1 2

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Baroque

CHRISTMAS

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Classics presented by Paulette and Frank Stewart This concert is presented by Catherine B. Tremaine

Baroque Christmas

December 19, 2019, 7:30 p.m. • Orpheum Theater, New Orleans December 20, 2019, 7:30 p.m. • First Baptist Church, Covington JOHANN Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (38') SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Part I: Christmas Day

1. Chorus: Shout ye exultant this Day of Salvation 5. Chorale: How can I fitly greet Thee

Part II: Second Christmas Day 10. Sinfonia 15. Aria (Tenor): Happy shepherds, haste, ah, haste ye Part III: Third Christmas Day 24. Chorus: Ruler of Heaven, tho’ weak be our voices 28. Chorale: That God has blessed His people thus Part IV: Feast of the Circumcision 39. Aria (Soprano): Say, my Saviour, tell me rightly 41. Aria (Tenor): Thy Name I live to praise and honor Part VI: Feast of Epiphany 57. Aria (Soprano): He whom God has not befriended 59. Chorale: And I stand beside Thy cradle here 64. Chorale: The triumph is completed

INTERMISSION (20’)

GEORGE Messiah, HWV 56 (31') FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685-1759) PART I

1. Sinfonia 2. Accompagnato (Tenor): Comfort ye, my people 3. Air (Tenor): Ev’ry valley shall be exalted 4. Chorus: And the Glory of the Lord Recitative (Soprano): There were shepherds abiding; 13. Accompagnato (Soprano): And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them Recitative (Soprano): And the angel said unto them 14. Arioso (Soprano): And suddenly, there was with the angel 15. Chorus: Glory to God in the Highest 16. Air (Soprano): Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion

PART II 28. Accompagnato (Tenor): He was cut off out of the land of the living 29. Air (Tenor): But thou didst not leave His soul in hell 21. Chorus: Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows 22. Chorus: And with His stripes we are healed 23. Chorus: All we like sheep, have gone astray 39. Chorus: Hallelujah

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Artist Bios Hailed by Opera News as a “fresh voiced” tenor, Kameron Lopreore has delighted audiences all over the United States.

Most recently, he sang the challenging role of Riccardo Fenimoore in the American premier of Pacini’s Maria, regina d’Inghilterra with Odyssey Opera in Boston. He looks forward to performing the role of Raimond in New Orleans Opera’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Joan of Arc in February. Last summer, he sang the role of Gastone in La Traviata and Sheriff Vallon in Show Boat as a part of The Glimmerglass Festival’s prestigious young artist program. In November, he travelled with The Glimmerglass Festival to perform the role of the Marquis in Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles at the Château de Versailles in France. He has enjoyed a two year resident artist position with Shreveport Opera where he performed roles such as Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and Joe the sexy robot in Paterson’s new risqué opera, The Companion. In April, he sang the the role of Simon Peter in Bach’s Easter Oratorio with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in their “Outside the Bachs” concert. A New Orleans native, he holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in voice from Loyola University New Orleans and he is the recipient of the first Italian American Scholarship Award as well as a Metropolitan Opera National Council district winner award. In the summer of 2017, he performed in Chautauqua Opera’s studio artist program. Some more of his recent roles include Roméo in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Motel in Bock and Harnick’s Fiddler on the Roof, Rinuccio in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Candide in Bernstein’s Candide.

Haley Whitney, a rising soprano from New Orleans, has enthralled audiences with her elegant lyric singing and sparkling theatricality. This summer, Haley will join Opera Saratoga’s 2020 season as a festival artist, where she will cover Winnie in the New York premiere of Lembit Beecher’s poignant opera Sky On Swings, as well as cover Aunt and Mother in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. She most recently performed with the New Orleans Opera Association as Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen. Other recent roles include performances with New Orleans Opera’s chamber opera ‘detour’ series as Woman I in the regional premier of Lera Auerbach’s The Blind, and as Céphise is Rameau’s Pygmalion. Ms. Whitney’s eclectic repertoire also includes roles such as Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites,

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the Youth in Tom Cipullo’s After Life, a featured performance for the National Opera Association convention, as well as Rose Maurrant in Weill’s Street Scene, Michaëla in Bizet’s Carmen and Suor Geniovieffa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica. As a concert soloist, she performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018 as Mary Jacobi in Bach’s Easter Oratorio. Past performances of sacred works include Poulenc’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, and Kodaly’s Missa Brevis, in which she was a featured soloist in a stirring collaboration with New Orleans Opera and New Orleans Ballet. She is a proud NOCCA graduate, where she studied with Phyllis Treigle, and recently received a Bachelor’s in Vocal Performance in the studio of renowned mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee.

Program Notes

by Susan Halpern

Christmas Oratorio Bach J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, one of his most joyful and positive works, consists of six musically self-contained cantatas, each having a subject from a scene from the New Testament Gospel of St. Luke’s narrative of Jesus Christ’s birth. The six parts are: The Birth of Jesus; Annunciation to the Shepherds; Adoration of the Shepherds; Circumcision and Naming of Jesus; Journey of the Magi; and Adoration of the Magi.

Bach composed the Christmas Oratorio in 1723 and 1724 but it was not performed in its entirety until the Christmas season of 1734-1735. It was never intended that the lengthy work be performed on a single day; rather, it was a “serialization” of the Christmas story in cantatas with dramatic content similar to that of his Passions.

The six cantatas were intended for performance on six separate occasions between Christmas Day and Epiphany, January 6. Bach gave the work the title Weinachts-Oratorium (Christmas Oratorio) to indicate that the six cantatas are musically and textually related, although they are individually complete and self-contained. Although Bach thought of his creation as one large work, he never conducted it in one performance, rather choosing to present one cantata at a time. He divided its first performances between

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his two Leipzig churches: Parts I, II, IV and VI were performed at the Thomaskirche, and Parts III and V at the Nicolaikirche.

The Christmas Oratorio is a work of joyful optimism as befits its hopeful subject. The choruses are particularly exultant, and although the first, third, and sixth cantatas’ are brilliant and festive, enhanced by the trumpetand-timpani orchestration, a quieter, more personal warmth exists in several parts of the oratorio. The opening Sinfonia of Part II is considered one of the greatest achievements of the Baroque tradition of what was called the “pastoral symphony”; here, a pair of flutes contrasts with a quartet of two oboes d’amore and two oboes da caccia (literally “hunting oboes,” whose modern equivalent is the English horn) to evoke rustic simplicity.

Bach was almost fifty when he composed the Christmas Oratorio, which is now as much a holiday tradition in Europe as Handel’s Messiah is in English-speaking countries. It includes several of the best movements from some of his earlier secular cantatas, retrofitted with appropriate sacred texts; he chose movements he had written to celebrate the birthdays of two members of the Saxon royal family. Commentators have suggested that some sections were based on the no longer extant St. Mark Passion.

Repurposing music was a rather common practice then, although Bach

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did make many changes as he reworked secular material to make it function as religious music. Bach and his frequent collaborator Picander fit religious texts to their new circumstances, and Bach composed new music for all of the recitatives and chorale settings. He also included musically complex arias for the soloists in each of the oratorio’s parts.

Unfortunately the work quickly faded into oblivion after its initial performances and was not performed again for more than a century following Bach’s death. Even after the composer Felix Mendelssohn revived many Bach works, the Christmas Oratorio was not among those performed, and it was another thirty plus years before it was rediscovered and performed in Berlin in 1857.

The Christmas Oratorio is not technically an oratorio; what Bach actually did was join the cantata form with some of the more dramatic qualities of the oratorio. The term cantata in Bach’s day broadly referred to a sectional narrative work for voice or voices and ensemble, with or without chorus. Although its six-part cantata structure is the most obvious reason the Christmas Oratorio cannot be considered a true oratorio, there are other significant reasons. Oratorios in Bach’s time traditionally used poetic libretti that emphasized drama with narration and dialogue over reflective content. The Christmas Oratorio text, by comparison, joins prose and poetry with a text that includes quotations from the Bible. Each cantata is a multimovement work made up of several kinds of pieces. The Biblical narrative of each is delivered in a recitative by a tenor in the role of Evangelist; solo vocal and choral commentary and poetic texts make up the arias.

Bach used the Lutheran historia of the previous century as his models: they characteristically featured a solo Evangelist who functioned as a narrator, and they, too, included Biblical quotations and reflective sections that related the narrative directly to the feelings of the Christian worshiper.

The cantata form originated in

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Italy. A story in song, it was composed in sections of contrasting musical character to narrate a text which could be secular or sacred. Chorus or soloists sing each section. In Germany, the cantata usually took sacred form, although Bach wrote secular cantatas as well.

Perhaps the most important musical element in Bach’s sacred choral music is his use of the chorale, an element Martin Luther introduced into church services to give the congregation an active part in musical worship. Simple hymn-like tunes set harmonically characterize Bach’s chorales. His congregation would have known the melodies, yet his settings give them their own unique identity. Often, as in the last movement of Part I and in the final movement of Part VI, Bach sets the chorales with a full orchestral accompaniment. The choruses either proclaim the Gospel message for the occasion or offer prayer and praise to God on the listener’s behalf, encouraging them to respond to what they are hearing: in the Christmas Oratorio, the Lutheran chorales with Bach’s extraordinary settings represent the congregation’s response of praise and thanksgiving for the Christmas message.

In each cantata, the first movement establishes the tone of the cantata.

Five of the six open with chorales, introducing the scene with both text and music. Part II begins with an instrumental Sinfonia known as the “Pastorale.”

Part I takes place on Christmas Day and focuses on Jesus’ birth.

The oratorio begins with a massive chorus expression of jubilation and exultation, “Shout ye exultant this Day of Salvation” (“Jauchzet frohlocket!”)

Instrumentally, this chorus begins with thundering timpani, followed by the strings and winds and blazing trumpets.

Like the other large choruses that open various parts of the oratorio, it uses dance rhythms that reinforce the celebratory mood of Christmas. Several of these introductory choruses are complex in structure and include center

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sections in minor keys for contrast or have imitative passages full of counterpoint.

The chorale that draws the first part of this cantata to a close is one now associated with Easter as a Lenten hymn. Bach took the melody of “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” (“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”) for the four-part chorale, “How can I fitly greet Thee.” The first chorale in the Christmas Oratorio, “Wie soll ich dich empfangen” is highly recognizable, even today; Bach had also used it in the St. Matthew Passion. In the minor mode, it is penitent, yet hopeful in spirit.

Part II, the Second Christmas Day, is centered on the Adoration of the Shepherds, and is the only one of the six cantatas that does not begin with a celebratory chorus. It begins instead with a beautiful instrumental pastorale Sinfonia, often called the “Pastorale Symphony,” an extremely lush, expansive movement in the popular Baroque tradition, and one of the few numbers to have been expressly written for the Christmas Oratorio. It is characterized by its gently undulating dotted rhythms and predominant major tonality, although its many suspensions create an effect of sadness. Two flutes and a quartet of two oboes d’amore and two oboes da caccia (hunting oboes, related to the modern English horn) bring out the feeling of rustic simplicity.

The oboes represent the shepherds, while the flutes and strings indicate the heavenly choir of angels. After the sinfonia, the music switches focus to a group of shepherds in the field. The solo tenor aria with pizzicato strings and flute obbligato, “Happy Shepherds, haste ah haste ye” encourages the shepherds quickly to gather and see the Child for themselves. The solo flute represents the traditional shepherd’s pipe.

Part III, the third Christmas Day, follows the shepherds’ visit to Bethlehem, and begins with the brief chorus of praise, “Ruler of Heaven, tho’ weak be our voices” (“Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen”) in which the shepherds rush to Bethlehem in

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homage and celebration to see the child themselves. In this brief but brilliant chorus with trumpets and drums, which Bach had written for an earlier secular cantata, the contrasted nature of the vocal writing may well imply both individual and communal offerings of praise. Part III ends with several hymn stanzas that express the joy the shepherds and all people of faith take in this momentous event, “That God has blessed his people Thus.” After it, Part III ends festively with a repetition of the first chorus.

Part IV, the Feast of the Circumcision, takes place a week after Christmas, which would have been the day on which Jesus was circumcised. This part also focuses on the naming of the baby with two notable arias, the well known aria, “Say my Saviour tell me rightly” for soprano and oboe and an energetic tenor aria, “Thy Name I live to praise and honor” with two obbligato violins asks the saviour’s aid in mustering the strength to offer praise.

The texts in this cantata dwell upon the theme of how Jesus’ name brings joy and strength. The stunning soprano aria includes a part for another soprano, who is hidden somewhere in the hall, echoing the words “Yes!” and “No!” The relationship between the voice, the obbligato and the echo is quite complex; it bears mentioning that since female singers were not allowed in church, Bach worked only with boys and men, perhaps a reason why the arias for sopranos are not as demanding technically as those for men.

Part VI, takes place on the Feast of Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas and covers the Adoration of the Magi.

The music of this cantata seems more serious and dark. Bach took the music for this final Part almost completely from an existing cantata, no longer extant; he made a few musical changes to fit the new texts of this cantata. It has been hypothesized that his reuse for this cantata indicates that perhaps he ran out of time, but regardless, he celebrates with much ceremony, using the trumpets and drums.

The wonderful soprano aria, “He

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whom God has not befriended,” suggests that God’s power can destroy the pride of his enemies with a mere word; the music, almost a minuet in 3⁄4 time, has many shifting accents and unexpected phrasing choices.

Resolutely, the aria tells how the saviour’s strength has the power to overcome his opponents’ pride. The chorale, “And I stand beside Thy cradle here” suggests that everyone has something to give Jesus, especially their spirits and their hearts. The final triumphant Chorale fantasia, which was heard initially in Part I, is here repeated.

“The triumph is completed” with much energy and exuberance; the drums and the trumpet fanfares proclaim the defeat of death, devil, sin and hell in a song of victory. The linking of the oratorio’s first and last parts, with the last chorale (Part VI, No. 64) unifies the whole work by using the same melody, although this time in a richly decorated version, one that is in a prominent Lenten hymn and thus foreshadows the Good Friday Passion. Bach also unifies the oratorio by having Part I and Part VI share the same tonality and identical instrumentation (three trumpets and timpani.)

The instrumental ensemble is slightly different for each cantata, although the strings and the continuo group, made up of organ, bassoon, and cello, are constant throughout. In addition, Part I requires two flutes, two oboes, two oboes d’amore, three trumpets, and timpani; Part II, two flutes, two oboes d’amore, and two oboes da caccia; Part III, two flutes, two oboes, two oboes d’amore, three trumpets, and timpani; Part IV, two oboes and two horns; Part V, two oboes d’amore; Part VI, two oboes, two oboes d’amore, three trumpets, and timpani.

Messiah Handel During the last decades of his life, beginning in the 1730’s, Handel began to turn away from the world of opera in order to devote more and more of his effort to oratorio. The oratorio

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was a similar and closely related kind of musical presentation to opera; it differed little outwardly in structure and content from opera musically, but it required no costumes, scenery or staging, and the subjects, generally elevated and noble, were more often taken from the Bible, or classic myths or other legends. Most importantly, it was written for public entertainment, not for religious services.

Handel’s oratorios (and Messiah in particular) became the first “immortal masterpieces,” and were performed over and over again long after their novelty was gone, even after their composer’s death. Unlike today, until some seventy-five years after Handel’s death, novelty was a supremely important factor in musical life. Music of the past, even of the recent past, was performed only with a sense of participating in a revival of something long gone. The then current repertoire was always contemporary and thus always in flux, but Handel’s Messiah broke the mold with its immediate and consequent perennial popularity. At once, Handel’s oratorios captivated the English people, and their fame inspired Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven when the oratorio’s popularity spread to the European continent. Gradually, oratorios established the new idea that some “old” music was too good to abandon, and that, in fact, sometimes established pieces should actually be given precedence over the new.

Handel composed Messiah during the few weeks from August 22 to September 14, 1741. Presumably, his friend Charles Jennens assembled the text from the Bible, assisted by his private chaplain and in consultation with the composer. This theory is not definitive; some believe that the text was the careful work of Handel’s secretary, a clergyman named Pooley.

A few weeks after the score was complete, William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, invited Handel to give some benefit concerts of his music in Dublin for several charities. Handel left London early in November, spent

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a few days in Chester awaiting good weather for the Irish Sea crossing, and arrived in Ireland on November 18th.

In December, he began his successful series of subscription concerts.

On March 23, 1742, a notice appeared in two Dublin newspapers: “For the Relief of the Prisoners in the several Gaols, and for the Support of Mercer’s Hospital, in Stephen’s-street, and of the Charitable Infirmary on the Inn’s Quay, on Monday, the 12th of April, will be performed at the Musick Hall in Fishamble-street, Mr. Handel’s new Grand Oratorio, called Messiah, in which the Gentlemen of the Choirs of both Cathedrals will assist, with some Concertos on the Organ, by Mr. Handel.”

A public rehearsal of Messiah was held on April 8 before a large audience, and the next day a newspaper reported, “It was allowed by the greatest Judges to be the finest Composition of Musick that ever was heard.” The paper also suggested that ladies should come to the concert without hoops and the gentlemen without swords in order to make room for a larger than normal audience. The public cooperated and seven hundred people attended the premiere, although the hall really accommodated only six hundred.

Handel returned to London in the fall, and in March 1743, he began a series of performances of Messiah at Covent Garden. London did not immediately share Dublin’s enthusiasm; the clergy even attempted to close the theater on the grounds that “any Work about the Omnipotent should never be performed in a playhouse.” However, Handel’s old patron, George II, attended the London premiere, and legend has it that he was so moved by the Hallelujah Chorus that he rose and remained standing until its end. Of course, when the King stood up, the rest of the audience stood too, and since that time, almost all audiences have traditionally risen at that point in the performance. Handel said of the Hallelujah that while composing it, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.” It is a glorious musical moment, but cynical

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historians think that if the reputed incident took place at all, the King probably thought that intermission came before, not after it.

In 1749, Handel presented an organ to the chapel of the Foundling Hospital, a home for abandoned and maltreated children founded in 1739 by a retired American sea captain. On May 1, 1750, he dedicated the organ with a revival of Messiah that turned out to be the first in a series of annual benefits that continued long after his death, and that initiated Messiah’s great popular appeal.

Handel himself made many changes in both the text and music during his lifetime, and in the long years since his death, countless variants have crept into the score. It is impossible now to hear the oratorio exactly as it was originally conceived and as it was performed in Handel’s time. No one absolutely authentic version of the music has come down to us. The singers’ art of decorating the composer’s simple melodic lines with brilliant ornament was lost for about two hundred years and is now being revived only tentatively, or sometimes, clumsily.

We no longer have the altered male sopranos and altos who sang the treble solos in Handel’s time. In addition, we do not know Handel’s exact scoring.

Thirty years after Handel’s death, Mozart completely modernized the orchestration, and others have done so again and again since then. In our time, no two performances are exactly alike.

Handel divided Messiah into three parts. Part I contains the prophet’s prophecy and the Nativity. It is made up of a sequence of Christmas movements and a final chorus, ‘Glory to God’. Part II is the passion dealing with Christ’s suffering and death, but it ends on an optimistic note; the trumpets, drums and chorus exult in a triumphant ‘Hallelujah!’ For Christmas, it became traditional to perform Part I and the Hallelujah Chorus from Part II. The final section, Part III, which is usually considered the Easter portion, includes the resurrection of all mankind to the glory of God.

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Handel’s Messiah is unique in that the text sung by the soloists and chorus is removed from outwardly dramatic situations; unlike in opera, or even choral cantatas or dramas which Handel had written, in Messiah, the singing is an extension of devotional contemplation.

Handel gives us the life of Christ in all its phases covering the whole liturgical year, yet Messiah is not liturgical music.

Handel dealt with his subject as a non-sectarian humanist, glorifying the validity of just and moral action more than the dogmas of Christianity.

Messiah is Handel’s only oratorio without a continuous dramatic plot; it uses soloists who are commentators on, rather than participants or characters in, the oratorio’s narrative. Like other oratorios, it is based on a biblical story, but few others use scripture as their text. To use only scripture and almost no direct narrative was a bold innovation for Handel.

NPR music commentator Miles Hoffman estimated that since Handel spent only 24 days composing Messiah,

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a work of roughly a quarter of a million notes, that if he had written every day for ten hours, Handel would have had to have kept a continuous pace writing 15 notes a minute.

Handel began the work with a French overture, a form that traditionally was used for the entrance of the king in French ballets and opera. Throughout the work, he follows this royal gesture with stately dotted rhythms that at the time connoted royalty. Text painting is another technique widely used at the time, which can be found in Messiah.

The contours of the valleys, mountains and hills are evident in the tenor’s first aria, “Ev’ry valley shall be exalted” and in the wandering lines of melody of “All we like sheep have gone astray.”

Susan Halpern, trained as a flutist, has been writing program notes for 25 years. Her notes have been featured on programs from New York to California, and London to Hong Kong.

Program Book Volume 29.2

Accounting

Aaron Ready, CPA

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aready@hymelcpas.com (504) 598-5253 900 Camp Street #452 New Orleans, LA 70130

Tax Planning & Preparation Litigation, Fraud & Forensic

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Beethoven’s

EROICA

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Program Book Volume 29.2

Classics presented by Paulette and Frank Stewart

Beethoven’s “eroica”

January 9, 2020, 7:30 p.m. • Orpheum Theater, New Orleans January 10, 2020, 7:30 p.m. • First Baptist Church, Covington January 11, 2020, 7:30 p.m. • Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor • Pablo Ferrández, cello AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)

Three Latin-American Sketches (11') Estribillo Pasaije Mexicano Danza de Jalisco

Concerto in C Major for Cello and Orchestra, HV11b:1 (24') Moderato Adagio Allegro molto Pablo Ferrández, cello

INTERMISSION (20')

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major Op. 55 (47’) Allegro con brio Marcia funebre: Adagio assai Scherzo: Allegro vivace Finale: Allegro molto

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Artist Bios Prizewinner at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition, V Paulo International Cello Competition and ICMA 2016 “Young Artist of the Year”, Pablo Ferrández announces himself as a musician of stature. His emotional intensity and personality on stage have wowed audiences around the globe.

Praised by his authenticity and hailed by the critics as “one of the top cellists” (Rémy Louis, Diapason Magazine), the 26-year-old Pablo Ferrández continues building a brilliant career through collaborations with international renowned artists and world leading orchestras.

Recent highlights include the performances of Brahms’ Double Concerto alongside Anne-Sophie Mutter in Madrid and Oxford, the debut with the Bamberg Symphony under C. Eschenbach within the Orpheum Foundation Program, and

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appearances with London Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Konzerthaus Berlin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, KBS Symphony, WASO, Spanish National Symphony, Barcelona Symphony, Kremerata Baltica, and at the renowned festivals, such as Verbier, Dresden, Folle Journée, Granada, Grant Park, Rostropovich, Rheingau, JCMF and Trans-Siberian Arts Festival.

Ferrández regularly performs under the batons of Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Vladimir Jurowski, Thomas Sondegard, Vassily Petrenko, Gabor Takacs, David Afkham, Robert Trevino, Alpesh Chauhan, Joshua Weilerstein, Andris Poga, Juanjo Mena, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rossen Milanov and Aziz Shokhakimov among others.

Ferrández has performed with Rotterdam Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, BBC Scottish Symphony, Hamburg Symphony, Gurzenich Orchester, Antwerp Symphony, Montecarlo Philharmonic, Orquestra Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Warsaw Philharmonic, Szcecin Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky Symphony, Bilkent Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Euskadi, Orquesta de Valencia, and Orquesta de les Illes Balears.

As a recitalist and chamber musician, he will perform at the Musikverein, Wigmore Hall, Boulez Saal, Dortmund Konzertnaus, Moscow Phiharmonic and Bologna Opera, collaborating with such artists as Vadim Repin, Nikolay Lugansky, Maxim Rysanov, Beatrice Rana, Denis Kozhukhin, Ray Chen, Alice Sarah Ott, Elena Bashkirova, Michael Barenboim and Gerard Caussé. He has also recently performed with Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Joshua Bell or Yuja Wang, among others.

A captivating performer with a compelling technique, he is described as “an inspirational and expressive soloist who always places his skills at the service of the composer.” “Personal vanity is alien to Ferrández” (Rheingau Festival Award Jury).

Pablo Ferrández recorded his first CD, featuring Dvorak and Schumann cello concertos, with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Radoslaw Szulc, which was received with great acclaim: “Pablo Ferrández is a fine performer, with a warm tone and an impulsive, if refined, lyricism that makes him a natural interpreter for Schumann’s concerto, with its melancholic elegance and flashes of mercurial wit.” (Tim Ashley, The Guardian), “It is in Dvorak that Ferrández announces himself as a cellist of stature” “(he) manages to play with huge emotion while still keeping his interpretation light and free from overindulgence” (Janet Banks, The Strad).

Born in Madrid in 1991, in a family of musicians, Pablo Ferrández joined the prestigious Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía when he was 13 to study with Natalia Shakhovskaya. After that he completed his studies at the Kronberg Academy with Frans Helmerson.

Mr. Ferrández plays the Stradivarius “Lord Aylesford” (1696) thanks to the Nippon Music Foundation.

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Program Notes

by Susan Halpern

Three Latin-American Sketches Aaron Copland

Though Aaron Copland has long been famous for the typically American sound he imparted to his compositions, he did, on a few occasions, produce music with a Latin-American flavor.

Most notable of the works in the latter idiom are El Salón Mexico and Danzón Cubano, which were joined by the Three Latin-American Sketches.

In 1959, composer Gian Carlo Menotti, director of the Spoleto Festival, asked Copland to write a short orchestral work. Copland, who was in Acapulco at the time, composed Paisaje Mexicano (“Mexican Landscape”) but, when he finished the piece he realized that it was too short to stand alone, so he quickly wrote a second piece, which he called Danza de Jalisco (“Dance of Jalisco,” named for the Mexican state of Jalisco). Only the ‘Danza’ was played on that occasion. A decade later, Andre Kostelanetz asked him to add a third piece, which became Estribillo, based on a popular song the composer heard in Venezuela.

When Andre Kostelanetz conducted what was listed as the “world premiere” of the Three Latin-American Sketches at a New York Philharmonic “Promenade” concert on June 7, 1972. Copland then wrote: “The tunes, the rhythms, and the temperament of the pieces are folksy, while the orchestration is bright and snappy and the music sizzles along — or at least it seems to me that it does.”

In their final form, the Three LatinAmerican Sketches are played with the last of the pieces composed becoming the first movement: 1. Estribillo, 2.

Pasaije Mexicano (Mexican Landscape), 3. Danza de Jalisco (Jalisco is a province on the west-central coast of Mexico, its principal city being Guadalajara).

Copland based all three movements on traditional melodies, giving them his own special blend of fragmentation and development. Copland commented, “Like El Salon Mexico the three Sketches

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may provide no musical problems for the listener, but the two dances, with their cross-accents and uneven rhythms, are taxing enough for the players. . . .” Within them are complex and unusual rhythms, unexpected dissonances, and novel orchestration, demonstrating his singular talent for making the most out of simple, uncomplicated material.

“Estribillo” features angular rhythms and a syncopated phrase that passes from one to another of the sections of the orchestra, similar to the refrain-like sections of salsa and calypso music.

The vaguely melancholic “Paisaje Mexicano” (“Mexican Landscape”) recalls rural landscapes, beginning with a serene melody played by the woodwinds and then taken up by the strings and trumpet. The energetic finale, “Danza de Jalisco” features the alternating meters, a characteristic of Mexican dance, reinforced by some optional hand-clapping for the pianists.

Although the Sketches are light in tone, the composer described them as “not so light as to be pop-concert material.”

The Sketches are scored for a relatively small orchestra comprising flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, percussion, piano, and strings. Extra percussion add a Latin flavor with claves, wood block, xylophone, ratchet, slap-stick, triangle, suspended cymbal, and conga drum.

Concerto in C Major for Cello and Orchestra, H. VIIb:1 Franz Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn was one of the foremost composers in the history of orchestral music, but he wrote curiously few concertos. The reason, perhaps, is that although he played the violin and piano with professional competence, he was not an outstanding virtuoso in the way that Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven were. Haydn spent most of his time composing works

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in other forms, notably the symphony.

The princely family who employed him as staff conductor and composer was quite content with the occasional concerto that he would compose for a particularly talented member of its house orchestra for a special occasion or on commission. Most of Haydn’s solo concertos were written in the 1760’s and 1770’s, at a time when his orchestra was becoming one of the finest ensembles in Europe, a group that included many splendid virtuoso players able to manage the solos of concertos.

Haydn was particularly skilled at fitting his works to suit the distinctive talents of the specific individual players.

Two of his finest concertos are for cello. This C-Major Concerto was not known for about two hundred years.

Haydn had listed its opening theme in a catalog of his works that he sketched around 1765, but the music was missing until 1961, when it turned up in a private library transferred from the castle of a once noble Czech family to the National Museum in Prague. A note in the old cello part indicates that Haydn wrote the concerto for Joseph Weigl, a close personal friend and a member of his orchestra, for whom he had also written difficult solo cello passages embedded in several of his symphonies. (Weigl’s son, also Joseph, was a fine composer and conductor as well as a friend of both Mozart and Beethoven. ) The concerto received its first performance after its long absence at a concert of the Prague Spring Festival in 1962.

The writing for the orchestral strings suggests that Haydn had very few players in his ensemble available at the time when he composed the concerto and that the soloist may even have been his only cellist. The wind instruments are the pairs of oboes and horns that were then usual, but they do not play in the slow movement.

The opening Moderato is, in terms of the time, quite grandly laid out and is devoted to the intense exploitation of the theme with which the concerto opens. Next come a lyrical and almost sentimental Adagio and a finale,

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Allegro molto, of breathtaking brilliant virtuosity.

Symphony No. 3, in E-Flat, Op. 55 (Sinfonia Eroica) Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven wrote the Eroica Symphony for the most part in 1803, but its history goes back to 1798, when a minister of France’s revolutionary government arrived in Vienna. The news this minister brought of a young general named Napoleon Bonaparte, whose democratic ideals matched his military genius, fired Beethoven’s imagination. For five years, he thought of ways in which music could reflect the new republican Europe that might follow the Revolution in France. Then, between May 1803 and some time early in 1804, he composed his great new symphony. By this time, Napoleon had become the leader of the French government. Beethoven wrote Napoleon’s name at the head of the music, but it was not to remain there long.

In May 1804, Napoleon had himself named Emperor of France. When the news reached Vienna, Beethoven was enraged. “So he is just like all the rest, after all,” the angry composer shouted.

“He will stamp out human rights and become a greater tyrant than the others,” and he ripped up the first page of his score. He had a new copy made, with the heading, “Grand Symphony, entitled Bonaparte” but then he erased the last two words. Some time later he decided on the title Sinfonia Eroica, which appeared (in Italian) on the cover of the first edition, in 1806, as Heroic Symphony, Composed in Memory of a Great Man. Napoleon still had fifteen more years on earth, but for Beethoven his greatness was past. In 1809, when Vienna was occupied by Napoleon, Beethoven led a performance of the Eroica as an act of defiance. Napoleon himself was out of the city on the day of the concert, and there seems to have been no reaction from the authorities.

Beethoven’s heroic Symphony No. 3 is the work with which he outgrew the

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18th century and finally abandoned the limitations of form and style that had dominated music from the time of Haydn and Mozart. He told one of his pupils when he was writing his symphony, “I am unsatisfied with my work up to now. From here on, I take a new course.” It is a completely new kind of symphony, of and for the 19th century, a huge work, double the length of his Symphony No. 1, written only three years before. Its size was so tremendous that some early critics thought it could never become popular.

This great symphony, first performed in public on April 7, 1805, in Vienna, puzzled many early listeners. One critic called it a “wild Fantasy.” Beethoven’s friends said that the public simply was not yet ready for his advanced musical thought. Others found it strange and violent, and another critic wrote, “If Beethoven continues on his present path, his music could reach the point where one would derive no pleasure from it.” Beethoven himself was unmoved by all the complaints. He made no changes in his work and is reported to have replied to complaints about its length by saying, “If I write an hour-long symphony, it will be short.”

The nearest he came to admitting the possibility of anything problematic was a note in the first edition saying, “Since this Symphony lasts longer than usual, it should be played nearer the beginning than the end of the concert, for if heard later, the audience will be tired from listening to other works, and the Symphony will not make its proper effect.”

The first movement of the symphony, Allegro con Brio, opens with two smashing chords, after which all the formal elements, except the size, are familiar. The whole movement embodies tension as the theme is developed but seems to search perennially for a resolution. The peak of the development explodes with bold harmonic dissonance and syncopated rhythms that can still surprise our modern ears. This innovative gesture greatly upset the music critics of Beethoven’s day and those for many

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years after.

The second movement is a solemn Funeral March, Adagio assai, with a contrasting central section. This music of heroic grief may originally have been intended to honor Napoleon’s soldiers who died in battle. When he heard of Napoleon’s death in 1821, Beethoven said that he had already written the appropriate music, referring to this movement.

The third movement contrasts strongly with the movement before it. Full of life and humor, it is a long, brilliant scherzo, Allegro vivace, with a contrasting central Trio section featuring the orchestra’s three horns.

One of the most distinguishing features of this movement is the creative rhythm Beethoven employs.

The great Finale, Allegro molto, is a theme-and-variations movement that seems to personify the creative vitality of the human spirit. The theme is the tune of a light ballroom dance Beethoven had written sometime around 1801. He also used it as a subject for variations in the allegorical ballet he wrote that year, The Creatures of Prometheus, and in 1802, it reappeared in his Fifteen Piano Variations, Op. 35. The variations in the Symphony No. 3 are the most original and the most profound. After a rushing introduction, plucked strings articulate the theme. Later this turns out to be only the harmonic foundation of the main theme itself, which is not revealed until the woodwinds play it in the third variation. The last variations are slow, and then, as the symphony draws to a close, there is a sudden change to a very fast tempo, Presto, for a brilliant ending.

The score calls for an orchestra of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, three horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

Susan Halpern, trained as a flutist, has been writing program notes for 25 years. Her notes have been featured on programs from New York to California, and London to Hong Kong.

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Folk rhythms

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Classics presented by Paulette and Frank Stewart This concert is presented by Betty and Jim Karam

Folk Rhythms

January 30, 2020, 7:30 p.m. • Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor • Simon Shaheen, oud ROBERTO SIERRA (b. 1953)

Fandangos (13')

SIMON SHAHEEN (b. 1955)

Concerto for Oud (31') Simon Shaheen, oud

INTERMISSION (20')

SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)

Symphonic Dances - Op. 45, (35’) Non allegro - Lento - Tempo I Andante con moto (Tempo di valse) Lento assai - Allegro vivace

Guest artist travel and accommodations provided by:

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#LPOclassics

Artist Bios Simon Shaheen dazzles his listeners as he deftly leaps from traditional Arabic sounds to jazz and Western classical styles. His soaring technique, melodic ingenuity, and unparalleled grace have earned him international acclaim as a virtuoso on the oud and violin.

Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. This unique contribution to the world of arts was recognized in 1994 when Shaheen was honored with the prestigious National Heritage Award at the White House.

In the 1990s he released four albums of his own: Saltanah (Water Lily Acoustics), Turath (CMP), Taqasim (Lyrichord), and Simon Shaheen: The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab (Axiom), while also contributing cuts to producer Bill Laswell’s fusion collective, Hallucination Engine (Island). He has contributed selections to soundtracks for The Sheltering Sky and Malcolm X , among others, and has composed the entire soundtrack for the United Nations-sponsored documentary, For Everyone Everywhere. Broadcast globally in December 1998,

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this film celebrated the 50 th anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Charter.

But perhaps his greatest success has come with Blue Flame (ARK21, 2001), where he leads his group, Qantara, on a labyrinthian journey through the world of fusion music to discover the heart of the Middle East. The album has been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards, and the band’s performances have been called “glorious.”

A Palestinian, born in the village of Tarshiha in the Galilee, Shaheen’s childhood was steeped in music. His father, Hikmat Shaheen, was a professor of music and a master oud player. “Learning to play on the oud from my father was the most powerful influence in my musical life,” Shaheen recalls. He began playing on the oud at the age of five, and a year later studying violin at the Conservatory for Western Classical Music in Jerusalem. “When I held and played these instruments, they felt like an extension of my arms.”

After graduating from the Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1978, Shaheen was appointed its instructor of Arab music, performance, and theory. Two years later he moved to New York City to complete his graduate studies in performance at the Manhattan School of Music, and later in performance and music education at Columbia University.

In 1982, Shaheen formed the Near Eastern Music Ensemble in New York, establishing a group that would perform the highest standard of traditional Arab music. This time also marked the beginning of Shaheen’s workshops and lecture/demonstrations in schools, colleges, and universities to educate the younger generation. As a champion and guardian of Arab music, Shaheen still devotes almost fifty percent of his time to working with schools and universities, including Julliard, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Yale, University of California in San Diego, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and many others.

His concert credits are a veritable compendium of the world’s greatest venues: Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Cairo’s Opera House, Theatre de la Ville in Beirut, and Belgium’s Le Palais des Arts. In May of 2004, Shaheen appeared at Quincy Jones’ “We Are The Future,” fundraising concert in Rome in front of a half million strong crowd.

As a composer, Shaheen has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Jerome Foundation, Continental Harmony, and Yellow Springs Institute. In addition to his recorded work, his theatrical repertoire includes Majnun Layla, (performances included the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and The Museum of Natural History in New York), The Book and the Stranger (from Kalilah Wa-Dimanah), Possible City, and Collateral Damage with actress Vanessa Redgrave. He has also written the music for the documentary of the British Museum’s Egyptian collection, which has toured U.S. museums.

Since 1994, Shaheen has produced the Annual Arab Festival of Arts, called “Mahrajan al-Fan.” Held in New York, the festival showcases the work of the finest Arab artists, while presenting the scope, depth and quality of Arab culture. To continue this exposure to Arab music and culture, Shaheen founded the Annual Arabic Music Retreat in 1997. Held each summer at Mount Holyoke College, this weeklong intensive program of Arabic music studies draws participants from the U.S. and abroad.

For the past six years, though, Shaheen has focused much of his energies on Qantara . The band, whose name means arch in Arabic, brings to life Shaheen’s

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vision for the unbridled fusion of Arab, jazz, Western classical, and Latin American music, a perfect alchemy for music to transcend the boundaries of genre and geography.

“I want to create a world music exceptionally satisfying to the ear and for the soul,” says Shaheen, “This is why I selected members for Qantara who are all virtuosos in their own musical forms, and whose expertise and knowledge can raise the music and the group’s performance to spectacular levels.”

Qantara made their first live recording debut on Mondo Melodia/ARK21’s “Historic Live Recording of the Two Tenors & Qantara ,” featuring tenors Wadi al-Safi and Sabah Fahkri. The disc featured two instrumental cuts by Shaheen and Qantara, which, only begins to show the band’s range and capabilities.”

Shaheen and Qantara made their full recording debut with Blue Flame.

Compositions of “Al-Qantara” and “Dance Mediterranea” sparkle like jewels, while the opening track, Blue Flame, is a bravura exhibition of Shaheen’s -- and the band’s -- virtuosity. The Los Angeles Times proclaimed the record “stunning,” National Public Radio called it “a staggering tour-de-force of technique and passion,” CMJ called it “a new benchmark in Arab-Western fusion,” and the Washington Post termed it “eminently cosmopolitan.”

The band has toured during 2003 and 2004, playing concerts and festivals like WOMAD USA, WOMAD Sicily, the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival. Traveling throughout Europe and the Middle East, Qantara’s appearances have included: Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon; Les Mediterranean in France; New York’s Central Park Summer Stage; Stern Grove International Festival in San Francisco; Chicago World Music Festival; Royce Hall in Los Angeles; University Musical Society in Ann Arbor; Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis; International Souk Ukaz at the historic citadel in Amman, Jordan; and Yabous Festival in the historical Tombs of Kings in East Jerusalem amongst others . In Palestine, Shaheen conducts an annual weeklong music workshop designed for gifted children In addition to performing with his two bands, Qantara and the Near Eastern Music Ensemble, Shaheen tours as a solo artist internationally and as a lecturer throughout the academic world promoting awareness to Arab music through numerous lecture and workshop presentations.

Program Notes

by Susan Halpern

Fandangos Roberto Sierra

Roberto Sierra is one of the leading American composers of his generation.

Sierra began his formal study of music at the Conservatory of Music and the University of Puerto Rico. After graduation, he went to Europe to study at the Royal College of Music and the University of London, and later at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht. Between 1979 and 1982, he did advanced work in composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg

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under the renowned György Ligeti. In 1982, Sierra returned to Puerto Rico to take on administrative posts in arts administration and higher education, first as Director of the Cultural Activities Department at the University of Puerto Rico, and later as Chancellor of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. Throughout this period, he continued to compose.

In 1987, Sierra came to prominence when the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra performed his first major orchestral composition, Júbilo, at Carnegie Hall. His works have been

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performed by major orchestras in the United States and in Europe.

His recent commissions include Con madera, metal y cuero for Evelyn Glennie commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Casals Festival (the premiere was part of the BBC 20th Century Retrospective “Sounding the Century”); Fanfarria, aria y movimiento perpetuo for violin and piano commissioned by the Library of Congress to celebrate Copland’s centennial; Concerto for Orchestra for the centennial celebrations of the Philadelphia Orchestra commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Recently the acclaimed guitarist Manuel Barrueco premiered a new concerto, Folias, with the New World Symphony. The Seattle, the New Mexico and the Tucson Symphony Orchestras commissioned a new song cycle, Beyond the Silence of Sorrow. The composer recently completed his first symphony (Sinfonía No. 1) commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Doble Concierto commissioned by the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Orchestras.

In 1989, Roberto Sierra became the Composer-in-Residence of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

During the 2000-2001 season Sierra was Composer-In-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Sierra composed Fandangos in 2000 as a commission for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. The National Symphony, conducted

by Leonard Slatkin, premiered it in February 2001 at the Kennedy Center.

The Virginia Symphony opened its 2005-06 season with this work. It has also been performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the opening concert of the London Proms in the Royal Albert Hall (broadcast in Europe and presented live on BBC TV), as well as many other orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, the Grant Park Music Festival of Chicago, as well as the Chicago, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Phoenix Orchestras.

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The festive and approachable Fandangos, the composer says, is a fantasy on a keyboard fandango by Antonio Soler and the fandango finale from one of Luigi Boccherini’s Guitar Quintets. “I bring it to the present through some transformations of the musical fabric. When we are hearing something that may sound Baroque, a window into our time opens, and the piece is transformed. My title Fandangos (in plural) refers to the multi-dimensionality of the work.” This strongly rhythmic and colorful piece gently modernizes the traditional Spanish dance form and takes up the dance form of the fandango as Soler and Boccherini conceived it with a welldefined rhythm and harmony, preserves these for the majority of the work, but adds to it an imaginative contemporary sound with an exotic blend of brass and percussion. Sierra creates a suggestion of the sound of the guitar through his use of harp and piano.

Sierra described the work in a short program note he wrote: “Antonio Soler’s Fandango for keyboard has always fascinated me, for its strange and whimsical twists and turns. My Fandangos is a fantasy, or a “super-fandango,” that takes as point of departure Soler’s work and incorporates elements of the Boccherini’s Fandango and my own Baroque musings. Some of the oddities in the harmonic structure of the Soler piece provided a bridge for the incorporation of contemporary sonorities, opening windows to apparently alien sound worlds. In these parenthetical commentaries, the same materials heard before are transformed, as if one would look at the same objects through different types of lenses or prisms. The continuous variation form over an ostinato bass gave me the chance to use complex orchestration techniques as another element for variation.”

The orchestra required for this work includes a piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three

Program Book Volume 29.2

trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, castanets, cencerros, cymbals, marimba, snare drum, tambourine, tam-tam, tom-toms, triangle, vibraphone, xylophone), harp, piano, celesta, and strings.

Concerto for Oud Simon Shaheen

Simon Shaheen’s work incorporates a look back on the history of Arabic music, as well as a drive forward, embracing many different styles. He explains, “When I held and played these instruments, they felt like an extension of me.”

The Concerto for Oud, which was premiered by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, sounds and feels distinct from anything in the orchestral repertory, with its merging of Middle Eastern, Western and jazz methods resulting in unusual and unexpected harmonic, rhythmic and melodic effects.

In the concerto, Shaheen’s themes are lyrical, and the solo passages for the oud often technically demanding, while his orchestral writing is sensitive. The composer explains: “It is very difficult because I needed to be aware that this is an oud; it’s not a piano, it doesn’t have the projection of the piano. I had to be careful about the orchestration, and how to manage the symphonic sound on one hand delicately, on the other hand without losing its grand beauty. It was, I would say, a labor of a great deal of sensitive balance, where I don’t bury either, the orchestra or the oud. It’s the opposite: bringing the sonorities of both in a very alive sound.”

In this work, Shaheen combines at least two distinct ways of making music: contemporary Western composition and ancient Arabic improvisation, which only enhances its appeal. The concerto gives expression to melancholy and joy, displaying the possibilities of melodic ingenuity joined with unparalleled grace, as Shaheen fuses traditional Arabic to jazz and classical styles. He has explained, “Since I am versed in both Arabic and Western classical styles, I worked on bridging the sounds

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with the oud and the orchestra. I used some of the Arabic music scales and rhythmic modes so that the orchestra doesn’t sound like the typically Western classical harmony, but has certain colors and textures.”

Improvisation is at the heart of much Arabic music, and the virtuosic cadenza in the first movement pays tribute to that tradition. The central movement is characterized by a dialogue between the oud and the orchestral strings; the final movement is most memorable for its distinctive rhythmic style as well as the texture of the orchestra.

Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff was one of those unusual versatile musicians who appear in history from time to time, one of the supreme pianists of his era, an admired composer and a conductor good enough to have been twice offered the directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Despite his busy life as a touring performer, Rachmaninoff found or made the time to write a great deal of music: four piano concertos, three symphonies, three operas, a large number of other works in many forms and a larger number of songs and piano pieces. He left Russia in 1917 and made his home in the United States for the rest of his life. Rachmaninoff had been educated at the Conservatories of St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the great melodic power and the rich, characteristically Russian sonority of his music made him one of the most popular composers of the 20th century.

Rachmaninoff wrote this set of three Symphonic Dances, his last work, during the summer of 1940, while spending time on New York’s Long Island. He completed the orchestration that October, and on January 3, 1941, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed its premiere. The composer had originally thought of entitling the movements Noon, Twilight and Midnight, but in a letter he wrote to Ormandy before the first performance,

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he referred to the score simply as “a symphonic piece called Fantastic Dances.” In the end, he abandoned all descriptive designations and adopted the simple Symphonic Dances. He and the great choreographer Michael Fokine discussed the possibility of using the score for a ballet, but Fokine’s death in 1942 prevented any further development of this idea.

When composing the music, however, Rachmaninoff had been much more concerned with the symphonic aspect of this work than with dance, and it is, in fact, rather more like a “dancing symphony.” The first movement, Non Allegro, is the most rhythmic of the three, but it is a powerful and sinister march, beginning with a quietly threatening sound. The return of the march after a slower middle section is followed by an expansive coda, where Rachmaninoff privately selfquotes music from the beginning of his Symphony No. 1, offering a new poignant melody in which the strings play a gorgeous new theme against the tintinnabulation of flute and piccolo, harp, piano, and bells. Also in the first movement, Rachmaninoff includes an extended solo for saxophone, an instrument he had never used before.

He sought the advice of his friend Robert Russell Bennett in its use; when Rachmaninoff played what he had written for Bennett, “he sang, whistled, stamped, rolled his chords, and otherwise conducted himself not as one would expect of so great and

impeccable a piano virtuoso.”

Although the second movement is ostensibly a waltz, Andante con moto (Tempo di valse), it is endowed with mystery and melancholy. The third and final movement begins with a slow introduction, Lento assai, then shifts to Allegro vivace. The Gregorian hymn Dies irae (“Day of Wrath”) from the Latin Mass for the Dead is woven into the music in a way that suggests a medieval dance of death. Its first appearance here is in the trumpet preceded by devilish sounding violin with a danse macabre.

The finale also quotes the chant of the Russian Orthodox liturgy. Part of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, an a cappella choral work from 1915, also makes an appearance.

The late critic Michael Steinberg noted that shortly before the movement concludes, Rachmaninoff wrote “Alliluya” at the top of a page. He goes on to say, “Given what we know of Rachmaninoff’s state of mind in 1940, it is likely that he thought of this as his last composition. We see him then taking leave of his craft with a hymn of thanks and praise.” Rachmaninoff wrote at the end of his manuscript, “I thank thee, Lord.”

The score calls for a large orchestra with triple woodwinds, alto saxophone, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, harp and strings.

Susan Halpern, trained as a flutist, has been writing program notes for 25 years. Her notes have been featured on programs from New York to California, and London to Hong Kong.

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MUSICIAN LUNCH SERIES EVERY MONTH Reserve seating at lpomusic.com, or call 504-523-6530, option 2 The LPO Musician Lunch series provides patrons the unique opportunity to get to know LPO musicians on a more personal basis. At each lunch, a small group of patrons will dine with one or two LPO musicians at one of their favorite restaurants.

In order to keep these lunches small and intimate a very limited number of seats are available, so make sure to reserve your spot early!

UPCOMING: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 Friday, February 28, 2020 Friday, March 20, 2020 **No performance component is included. *Seating is limited for each event.

A SPECIAL

Thank You The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra would like to acknowledge and honor the following legacy gifts received recently. We are grateful for those whose philanthropy endures through a gift they have planned in their estate and for all of their support and dedication to the LPO. Benjamin S. Brupbacher, Jr. and Lois Weil Brupbacher Family Foundation Estate of Harold H. Burns Estate of Robert R. Casey Estate of Dr. Guillermo Náñez-Falcón

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Program Book Volume 29.2

MARCH 14, 2020 JUNG HOTEL & RESIDENCES 6:00 PM FEATURING

ELLIS MARSALIS GERMAINE BAZZLE DOREEN KETCHENS To purchase your tickets today, visit lpomusic.com or call 504-523-6530, option 2.

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Nature’s

Awakening

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Classics presented by Paulette and Frank Stewart

Nature’s Awakening with Beethoven’s “Pastoral” February 27, 2020, 7:30 p.m. • Orpheum Theater, New Orleans February 28, 2020, 7:30 p.m. • Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts, Hammond

Earl Lee, conductor • CHARLES IVES

Ziang Xu, piano

Symphony No. 3, “The Camp Meeting” (23')

(1874-1954)

SERGEI PROKOFIEV

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major - Op. 10 (16')

(1891 - 1953)

Ziang Xu, piano 2018 New Orleans International Piano Competition Gold Medalist

INTERMISSION (20')

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770 - 1827)

Symphony No. 6, in F Major, Op. 68, “Pastoral” (41’)

Non Allegro Andante con moto (Tempo di valse) Lento assai Allegro vivace

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Artist Bios A newly appointed Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and former RBC Resident Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Earl Lee is a renowned Korean Canadian performer who creates powerful, emotional experiences for audiences worldwide. Earl’s passion for music is reflected in his diverse career as both a conductor and a cellist, appearing on major concert hall stages across the globe. Highlights from the 2018-2019 season include: leading the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, returning engagements with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and debut performances with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Earl was the recipient of the 50th Anniversary Heinz Unger Award from the Ontario Arts Council in 2018. In 2013, Earl was one of two performers to receive the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Scholarship, chosen by a renowned conductor

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Kurt Masur to travel to Leizpig and study the music and life of Felix Mendelssohn.

That same year, Lee was awarded the Ansbacher Fellowship by the American Austrian Foundation and members of the Vienna Philharmonic, and spent six weeks at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.

Earl’s musical philosophy is centered around the power of emotional connections. Every aspect of his concerts - from programming to performance - are fine-tuned to connect with both musicians and audiences on a personal level. Earl’s close affinity for the emotions of his audience has made him a sought-after performer across the world, with concerts in Canada, the United States, China, and South Korea. Earl also works to spread these connections beyond the concert hall and to the community at large, mentoring young musicians as former Artistic Director & Conductor for the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, and incoming Music Director for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra.

As a cellist, Earl toured with the acclaimed duet of Gary Burton & Chick Corea as a guest member of the Harlem String Quartet in 2012, performing in notable venues including Symphony Hall in Boston, Maison Symphonique de Montréal, and the iconic Blue Note jazz club in New York City. Earl has also toured the United States as part of ensembles including Musicians from Marlboro, and his performance frequently appears on air such as American Public Media’s Saint Paul Sunday. Earl has performed at prestigious summer festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, Caramoor Rising Stars, and Ravinia’s Steans Institute. He is currently a member of a conductor-less chamber ensemble, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO).

Earl has degrees in cello from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School. He began his conducting studies in 2010 with Ignat Solzhenitsyn and received his master’s in 2013 from the Manhattan School of Music with George Manahan. Earl pursued post-graduate studies in conducting at the New England Conservatory with Hugh Wolff prior to his tenure with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Chinese-born pianist, Ziang Xu, has distinguished himself in several international competitions. His prizes and awards include first prizes in New Orleans International Piano Competition, Rondo Young Artist Competition, The East Coast International Piano Competition, The Princeton Festival Piano Competition, and The Grand Prize at Steinway Society of Puerto Rico Award. He has also been awarded top prizes at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival the New England Conservatory Honors Competition, and the Five Towns Music and Arts Foundation. He has performed widely including at Carnegie (Weill) Hall, Ukrainian Institute, Hunter College in New York, and at New England Conservatory`s Jordan Hall. His performances of the complete Chopin Etudes, a feat for any pianist, were described as “extraordinary.”

Making his solo debut at age eleven, Ziang studied at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music and pursued undergraduate studies at the Mannes School of Music, as a student of Vladimir Feltsman and Victor Rosenbaum, with whom he continued to

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study at the New England Conservatory as he pursued his Master of Music degree.

Ziang is now studying with Bruce Brubaker as Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at the New England Conservatory.

Program Notes

by Susan Halpern

Symphony No. 3, “The Camp Meeting” Charles Ives

Charles Ives was a libertarian thinker, a successful businessman and one of the most independent and original of all American composers. His father, who had been a Union bandmaster during the Civil War, gave him his basic education in music and encouraged him to pursue paths of experimentation and invention unhampered by convention and tradition. Later, as a student at Yale, he became the composition pupil of a German-trained professor who tried to place limits on musical expression that Ives could never accept. Throughout his lifetime, he exercised his musical powers for his own purposes, very unconventionally.

Ives’s works are permeated with the everyday music of his time: popular and patriotic songs, marches, and hymns.

He used the kind of tunes that people might hum or whistle to themselves while going about their day’s business.

When these melodies are worked into his music, they do not often appear as principal themes, but usually are just fragments in complex textures, or tags hung onto the ends of something quite different, or ideas that seem to have just passed through his mind while he was thinking of something else.

There is much of this technique in his Symphony No. 3, in which, as the title suggests, most of the quoted material comes from the kind of hymns sung at outdoor, evangelical camp meetings.

The symphony in large part utilizes music written or sometimes only improvised around 1901.

Ives first played this music on the organ of the Central Presbyterian

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Church in New York, and some of it also appeared in one of his early string quartets. Between 1901 and 1904, Ives worked at converting it into the Symphony No. 3, which he substantially completed in 1911.

Early that year, Gustav Mahler, who was conducting in New York, happened, by chance, to see the score in the hands of the copyist who was working on it for Ives, and requested permission to perform it in Europe. Much in Ives’s music appealed to Mahler: the sounds of past experience dimly recalled or heard at a distance, for example, which Mahler frequently also used in his own symphonies. Unfortunately, Mahler fell very ill that spring, and died in May and was not able to introduce Ives to the European continent as he had planned.

Thirty-six years later, on May 5, 1947, Ives’s Symphony No. 3 had its première at last, performed by the New York Little Symphony under the direction of Lou Harrison, and it won the year’s Pulitzer Prize for Music.

The Camp Meeting Symphony begins with “Old Folks Gatherin’”,” Andante maestoso. In it we first hear the music of hymns like “O, for a Thousand Tongues,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and “Just As I Am,” which can be traced through the entire work. The second movement, a lively depiction of “Children’s Day,” Allegro, appropriately uses the melody “There is a Happy Land,” and ends with the Welsh march, “All through the Night.” The symphony’s finale, “Communion,” Largo, is a rhapsodic consideration of hymns like “There is a Fountain” and “Shall We Gather by the River.”

The symphony is scored for a small orchestra: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, two horns, trombone and strings, plus optional bells.

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Piano Concerto No. 1 in D flat Major, Op. 10 Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev was born in a remote Ukrainian village where his agronomist father managed a large estate. His mother, an excellent pianist and teacher, gave him his first music lessons. Prokofiev began to compose when he was only five years old, and by the end of his student years had already written around one hundred compositions, but the great majority of his early works were never published.

Prokofiev had begun studying composition with the distinguished Russian composer Sergei Taneyev by the time he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory at the age of twelve. He was an exceptional student, studying piano with the celebrated Anna Essipova and conducting with Nicolai Tcherepnin.

Prokofiev was an excellent pianist and composed all but one of his five piano concertos to perform himself.

The first two were composed while he was still a student at the Conservatory.

He completed the concerto in 1911, dedicating it to his conducting teacher Tcherepnin, who suggested that his students carefully study Haydn and Mozart, believing that a good understanding of their compositions would be valuable to young composers.

Prokofiev introduced both concertos in 1912 and 1913, respectively, at a renowned series of summer concerts at a resort near the city. The premiere of Concerto No. 1 took place on August 7, 1912 with the composer piano soloist and Konstantin Saradzhev conducting, at Sokolniki Park, in a Moscow suburb. Prokofiev had been nervous about the performance and had written to his friend Vasily Morelev, “It’s the first time I’ll have played with an orchestra,” and “I have to know it by heart to play it confidently.” In a letter after the premiere’s success, he wrote to his friend Maximilian Schmidthof: “The concerto went well. Saradzhev realized all the tempos splendidly.

The music was in my fingers. . . .The

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outward success was considerable; there were a lot of summonses to the platform and three encores.” There was no agreement about the work, however: Leonid Sabaneyev, the critic of Moscow Voice, was totally negative: “This energetically rhythmned concerto, coarse and crude, primitive and cacophonic, scarcely merits its honorable title. The composer, in his quest of novelty, but lacking it in the depth of his nature, has apparently contorted himself to the ultimate limit.

This sort of thing does not happen with real talents.” Others would say it was “musical mud” and the work of a madman.

Prokofiev chose to play this technically demanding concerto two years later for his graduation performance in 1914, with rather disastrous results: the composer Alexander Glazunov, who was the director of the Conservatory and who had lauded and encouraged Prokofiev while he was a student there, angrily walked out of the performance midconcerto. He left in protest of the work, but not Prokofiev’s performance of it. Prokofiev still received the Anton Rubinstein prize at graduation, but the prize was awarded for piano performance and not for composition, with Glazunov openly opposing its presentation.

Today’s audiences can hear nothing bizarre or unusual to account for Glazunov’s extreme reaction although some have described it as “audacious” because of its youthful drive. The work requires strength and speed from the soloist, but it is short, spirited and lyrical. This concise work has only one movement; its sections roughly approximate those of a conventional three-movement concerto. It already has the distinctive sound that we hear as that of Prokofiev’s later music. The piano begins with a nimble motoric passage after the grand opening chords for both piano and orchestra.

Its powerful opening subject returns before each of the succeeding sections.

The two fast outer sections frame a slow Andante assai in which the works

Program Book Volume 29.2

Prokofiev would compose in the 1930s and 1940’s are foreshadowed. As the composer explained , the Andante precedes the development, and the development is a Scherzo, with a final cadenza introducing the recapitulation.

The outer movements are characterized by their short, percussive notes and direct dynamics.

The sixteen minute concerto is scored for solo piano, two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bells, and strings.

Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 (“Pastoral Symphony”) Ludwig Van Beethoven

All of the great composers of Vienna, from Beethoven and Schubert to Brahms and Mahler, spent as much time as they could in the gorgeous and evocative Austrian countryside just outside of Vienna and sought to make their music echo with it. Beethoven liked to compose in his head during long walks in the countryside close to the city. The problem of representing the beauties of nature in music held difficulties for both Beethoven and Mahler, who lived and worked almost a century apart. Mahler often had a specific descriptive program in mind while he worked on his compositions, but he usually revised and then discarded it after a few performances, finding that it was more likely to confuse than enlighten the audience.

Beethoven, many years earlier, foresaw exactly the same situation and wrote in his notebook, “The hearer should be allowed to discover the subject himself. Anyone who has an idea of what country life is can make out the intentions of the composer, and without titles, the work will be recognized as a matter of feeling rather than of painting sounds.”

Later Beethoven relaxed his position on programmatic music somewhat.

On a violin part used at the first performance of the Pastoral Symphony is a note, probably quoted from the

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composer, “Recollection of life in the country -- more an expression of feeling than a depiction.” When the symphony was published, Beethoven reportedly spoke of this matter of program music differently with friends.

He headed the first movement, Allegro ma non troppo, Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande, “The Awakening of Pleasure on Arriving in the Country.”

The second movement, Andante molto moto, Szene am Bach, represents a “Scene by the Brook,” and at its end, the birdcalls are specified in the score as being those of a nightingale, the cuckoo, and the quail. Beethoven’s disciple Anton Schindler, who in 1840 published a memoir of his friendship with the great composer, wrote about revisiting a favorite bit of countryside with him. “Crossing a meadow that is traversed by a gently murmuring brook, Beethoven kept stopping and looking about, full of joy in the glorious landscape. He sat on the ground, resting against an elm and asked if I could hear any yellowhammers in the trees. [Beethoven had lost most of his hearing by this time.] Then he said, ‘I composed the “Scene by the Brook” here; and the yellowhammers up there, the quails, nightingales, and cuckoos all around composed along with me.’”

The third movement of the symphony, Allegro, Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute represents a “Jolly Gathering of Country Folk” and their countrified songs and dances. It depicts, in part, a scene of a kind that especially amused the composer. “Beethoven asked me,” Schindler wrote, “if I had ever observed how village musicians often played while half asleep, occasionally dropped their instruments [and] then waking with a start, vigorously sounded a few random notes — generally in the right key — and then fell asleep again.” The country-dance runs without pause into an Allegro, Gewitter, Sturm “Thunderstorm” section, which, in effect, constitutes an extra movement.

The thunderstorm is first heard in the distance beginning gently, then becoming intensified into a full-fledged

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storm with lightning and thunder. It fades away much as it starts. The last movement, finale, Allegretto, opens with a “Shepherd’s Song,” and then continues with Hirtengesang; Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm “Happy and Thankful feelings after the Storm.”

From the beginning, this symphony is dominated by the brightness of its major tonality and the airy textures appropriate to its program. The themes are made up of intervals consisting of simple thirds and sixths, like those often used in folksong, and the accompaniment of drones and other countrified band sounds intensifies the feeling of rusticity. The first two movements are particularly serene and calm, using the woodwinds and strings, and no brass except horns and percussion. The first movement is based almost entirely on one theme, which repeats itself in variations of tonality and instrumental color. In the third movement, the texture is brightened with the sound of trumpets.

Many passages recall the country bands Beethoven heard at peasant taverns, so the intimation of dancing and the sound of foot-stomping exist to depict the activities of the gathering of country folk. The realistic effects of the thunderstorm are heightened in the fourth movement in the sounds of the piccolo (whose high-pitched timbre helps listeners feel the wind) and the trombones, two instruments Beethoven had never used in his symphonies until Symphony No. 5. The timpani evoke thunder. The piping of the shepherd’s song of Thanksgiving in the last movement begins in the solo clarinet at the opening and then is taken up by the solo horn. The finale becomes a joyous hymn to some pantheistic god of Nature.

Beethoven began to sketch ideas for the Pastoral Symphony as early as 1803 and 1804, when he was writing the Eroica Symphony, his Symphony No. 3, and by 1806 and 1807, he had worked out its principal themes. Then in 1807 and 1808, he worked simultaneously on the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies,

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finishing the Fifth early in 1808, and the Sixth in the early summer of 1808.

On December 22, 1808 Beethoven gave a premiere concert of his newest compositions, performed at the Academy Concert at the Royal Theatre an der Wien conducting all the music himself. The works were the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, and several other works.

A contemporary observer said that the concert lasted for four hours in the evening in a bitterly cold hall, and that he experienced the truth that one can have too much of a good thing.

Symphony No. 6 is dedicated to Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz and Count Andreas Razumovsky, both frequent patrons of Beethoven. This symphony is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani and strings.

Susan Halpern, trained as a flutist, has been writing program notes for 25 years. Her notes have been featured on programs from New York to California, and London to Hong Kong.

Program Book Volume 29.2

Spring Highlights Jazz Underground:

Evan Christopher’s Clarinet Road January 23 in Nunemaker at 7:30 p.m.

All Star Jam March 5 in Nunemaker at 7:30 p.m.

Jazz Festival: March 6-7 featuring Matt Wilson March 7 in Roussel at 4:30 p.m.

Choir Festival: March 29-31

featuring Chanticleer March 31 at Holy Name of Jesus at 7:30 p.m.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg with Loyola Strings April 19 in Roussel at 3 p.m.

(504) 865-2074 Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

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UP NEXT Don’t miss these upcoming concerts this spring!

Become a subscriber and reserve your seats today.

The Music of John Williams Saturday, March 7, 7:30 PM Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Sunday, March 8, 2:30 PM Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Quint Plays Korngold

featuring violinist Philippe Quint Thursday, March 19, 7:30 PM Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Friday, March 20, 7:30 PM First Baptist Church, Covington

Cyril Neville with Special Guests Saturday, April 18, 8:00 PM Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Sunday, April 19, 7:30 PM Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

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Program Book Volume 29.2

Sustaining Members A special thank you to donors making mulit-year pledges in support of the LPO's mission to transform people and communitites through music. Long-term commitments such as these provide stability and help to ensure the LPO's success for years to come.

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Orchestra Fund

The following are gratefully acknowledged for new and renewed gifts made to the LPO’s Orchestra Fund between November 1, 2018 and November 1, 2019. A gift to the Orchestra Fund supports the LPO’s artistic and community programs that connect people and music throughout the region.

$100,000+

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Chaffe McCall Kathy and Gordon Cain Vance Ceaser Collins C. Diboll Private Foundation Ms. Linda Dawson Edgar "Dooky" Jr. and Leah Chase Family Foundation Ella West Freeman Foundation Benjamin S. Brupbacher, Jr. and Lois Weil Brupbacher Family Foundation Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust Goldring Family Foundation Greater New Orleans Foundation Ms. Angela Hill and Dr. Irwin M. Marcus Exxon-Mobil Fund Dr. Bernard M. Jaffe T. Larry and Darlene Johnson Keller Family Foundation Timothy and Virginia Kelly Louise H. Moffett Family Foundation Dr. Ray Lousteau Raymond McCabe Dr. and Mrs. Christopher B. Merritt Joel and Bert Myers Pan-American Life Peoples Health Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group Mr. and Mrs. H. Britton Sanderford, Jr. Slidell Memorial Hospital Standard Mortgage Corporation Starseed Foundation Sybil M. and D. Blair Favrot Family Fund Virginia B. Tolumin Foundation Ms. Catherine B. Tremaine Lizbeth Turner Wells Fargo Woldenberg Foundation Anonymous

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Program Book Volume 29.2

Orchestra Fund

The following are gratefully acknowledged for new and renewed gifts made to the LPO’s Orchestra Fund between November 1, 2018 and November 1, 2019. A gift to the Orchestra Fund supports the LPO’s artistic and community programs that connect people and music throughout the region.

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Orchestra Fund

The following are gratefully acknowledged for new and renewed gifts made to the LPO’s Orchestra Fund between November 1, 2018 and November 1, 2019. A gift to the Orchestra Fund supports the LPO’s artistic and community programs that connect people and music throughout the region.

Helen Hilbert Ms. Kathryn E. Hill Heidi and Arthur Huguley Mrs. Joan G. Inman Sylvia Johnson Ruth and Larry Kullman Mr. and Mrs. Ted Laborde Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Leake, Jr. Ms. Wilma S. Longstreet Carolyn Wood Lorio Marc and Judith Loudon Mrs. Irene E. Mackenroth Brigitta Malm Mrs Lorna Menzel Mr. and Mrs. G. Edward Merritt Ms. Deborah Moench Elizabeth Moog Jane E. Morgan, Ph.D. Mr. James J. Morse Mr. and Mrs. James T. Murphy Dr. James A. Oakes, III Paul G. and Elizabeth Hofmann Kevin and Charlotte Phillips O’Connor Family Foundation Mr. and Mrs. L. Dow Oliver Robin Reed Mark Rigamer Beth and Jim Ryan Charles Sanno Dr. Steven Schilling Mr. and Mrs. Richard Schornstein Mark and Sally Seyler Dr. and Mrs. Jay M. Shames Esther and Joe Shefsky Alexandra K. Shikhris and Eduard V. Danilyants Mrs. Dorothy P. Smith Alton Stewart Charles and Ann Stuart Mrs. Carroll Suggs James and Caroline Theus Mr. and Mrs. William E. Thibodeaux Drs. Gregory and Ann Tilton Mr Jason Waguespack Julia and Cedric Walker Elizabeth Wilson Anonymous

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Mr. and Mrs. Gene Andes Judy and Allain Andry Robert Armstrong Mrs. Sara Attaya Mrs. Ann H. Babington Jeffrey and Kasey Bealer Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Benko Yolande and Stephen Bernard Ronald Biava and Emily Clark Dr. Walter and Martha Birdsall Leslie Blake Gretchen Bosworth Mr. and Mrs. Bob Breck Mr. and Mrs. Phelan A. Bright Fay Bright Cathy Burka Michael Butterman Dr. and Ms. Jon C. Brown Claudia and Steve Campbell Dr. Robert J. Cangelosi and Ann Yvette de la Villesbret Mr. and Mrs. Carlo Capomazza di Campolattaro Brenda Case Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Chase III Angela Cirami Jane Clayton, M.D.

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Dr. Irwin Cohen Ms. Kristina J. Peterson Michael and Linda Coney Ms. Murray M. Pitts Mr. Francis Conway John and Martha Reaves Head Ray and Ellen Cook Carol Reese Marcia Cooke and Ted Cotton Keith and Vicki Rhea Phyllis Cosentino Dr Heather Richter Dana Cruthirds David and Catherine Robbins Bob Cunningham Jessica Roberts Mr George Dansker Camille Rome Kathleen Davenport Ava Rosenberg Katherine de Montluzin Skylar Rosenbloom Ms Phyllis DeMers Anthony M. Rotolo Ms. Suellen H. DeRussy Andre and Robbie Rubenstein Ms. Marlene L. Donovan Dr. Rafael Rubio Ms. Virginia M. Dribus W. Barclay Rushton Mr. Chawki El-Dahr William J. Ryan, III Mrs Dee Vern Elliot Andrew J. Sanchez, Jr., M.D. Ms. Maria Elliott Drs. John and Sylvia Schneller, III Anne Escobedo Kathleen and Edmund Schrenk Ms. Clare Fiasconaro Margaret and Wade Shields Frames, Inc. Bruce and Jackie Shreves Knowles French, Jr. Mr Chance Simoncelli Dr. and Mrs. Harold A. Fuselier, Jr. Daniel and Maureen Smith Marisol Garcia Lynne Stern Dr. Mary Frances Gardner Mr John Sterrett Mr. and Mrs. Henry A. Garon Mr. and Mrs. James A. Stuckey Mary Colleen Gaudin Mr. and Mrs. George R. Sumner Andrew Gerfin Sarah Vandergriff Jackie Gillane Keith Veizer Mrs. Jacqueline Gold Yvonne Vonderhaar Mr. William A. Greene Mr. and Mrs. David Wagstaff Judge and Mrs. John W. Greene Eric and Regina Wedig Mr. and Mrs. Calvin J. Grisafe James Wesner Kirk and Holly Groh Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Whann, III Mr. and Mrs. Douglas J. Haas Peggy White Matthew Haines Mr. Richard Wier Gay Hanby Lisa Wilson Mr. Sidney Hardy Ellen Winchell and Mario Philipp Deborah and Richard Harris Barbara Jezek-Withrow Mrs. Mildred F. Hawkshead Ms. Julie W. Woolfolk Mrs. John Hegarty Betty Wood Mr. Christopher Hines James T. Clavin Mr. Craig Hood and Ms. Jean Cassels Dr. Lynne H. Neitzschman Joel Horwich Anonymous Robbie and Cheryl Jarrell Ms. Joan F. Jensen Robert and Stephanie Jumonville Andrew and Carey King James Knoepp Lisa Kurtz Shanna Labranche Canal Barge Co. Gladys LeBreton Mr. Edward LeBreton Diana and Tom Lewis Mr. and Mrs. Lee H. Longstreet Mr. and Mrs. James B Lootens Mr. Jordy J. Luft Barbara Campbell MacPhee Francis J. Madary Jr. Joel and Suzy Mague Mr. Michael Mancuso Mr. Jay E. Mellon Rebecca Meriwether Dr. Howard W. Mielke Mr. Robert Mintz Michael Mislove Dr. and Mrs. Lee Roy Morgan, Jr. Anne and James Morse Eric Mund Mr Guillermo Nanez Kenneth Newburger Nell Nolan and Robert Young Dr. and Mrs. Tom Oelsner Mrs. Ruth R. Olivera Lt. Col. Donald and Barbara Opperman

Program Book Volume 29.2

Commemorative Giving

Honorariums

Honorarium gifts to the LPO are a thoughtful way to commemorate an anniversary or birthday, or to honor a loved one. The LPO thanks the following donors and their loved ones for their honorary gifts.

Drs. Barbara and Edwin Beckman, by Cathy Burka

Jeff Elliott, by Anne Escobedo Phyllis DeMers

Mr. and Mrs. T. Longmire, by James T. Clavin and Burron Greenberg

Mrs. Gayle Benson, the New Orleans Saints, and the New Orleans Pelicans, by Mr. James C. Gulotta and Ms. Susan G. Talley

Lt. Col. Dwight R. McGhee, USAF (Ret.), by Mr. G. Okyeame Haley Katy Jones Justin Lopez Drs. Ranney and Emel Mize W. Barclay Rushton, CPA Dr. Victoria McGhee Smith Alton Stewart

Barbara and Tom Sands, by Tiffany Kaul Jan Wootan

Linda and Lyle Ferguson, by Susan Sadler Hayman Jim Atwood, by Joel Horwich

Courtney-Anne Sarpy, by Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Whann, III Lizbeth Turner, by Katherine Acuff

Stephen W. Hales, M.D., by Joe and Judy Toups

Memorials The following donations have been made in memory of beloved friends and family members.

Richard Adler, by Meredith and Jonathan Angrist Mr. and Mrs. Darryl D. Berger Miles and Lisa Caire Susan and Jimmy Gundlach Diana and Tom Lewis Ms. Murray M. Pitts Therese Stuckey Mrs. Kathryn L. Wiener June Aiken, by Mrs. Claire L. Whitehurst Lydianne Stahel Barousse, by Mr. and Mrs. Harry C. Stahel Mike Bertucci, by William G. Sabatier George M. Cummins, III, by William G. Sabatier Paul Fabry, by Judy and Allain Andry Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Armstrong Lin Emery Laurance and Karin Eustis, III Phillip Gordillo Edward and Anne-Marie Karp Officers and Directors of Hancock Whitney Bank Philip Frohnmayer, by Mrs. Ellen Frohnmayer Nate Hackman, by Betty and Jim Karam Marlene Jaffe, by Dr. Lynne H. Neitzschman

Victoria Lenore Vauthier Key, by Lt. Col. Donald and Barbara Opperman John H. "Jack" Knipmeyer, by Frames, Inc. Gary and Winkie Hymel Claude Kohler, by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) and Mrs. Thomas A. Sands Charles W. Lane, III, by Mrs. Charles W. Lane, III Helen Malin, by Kathleen Davenport Susie DeRussy Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Lawder, Jr. Suzy Mague Peter and Shelby Merckx Elizabeth R. Moog Murray Pitts Patti Reynolds Bob and Barb Sanders Laura Westbrook Suzanne Motion, by Benjamin H. Motion Paul G. O’Connor, by Paul G. and Elizabeth Hofmann O'Connor Family Foundation John Pecoul, by Ms. Casey Kait Mr. and Mrs. Dean H. Miller Joel and Ben Myers Joe and Judy Toups

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

Beth B. Rosenthal, by Phyllis Alltmont Margaret B. Epstein Susan and Timmy Gundlach Deborah and Richard Harris Elly and Merritt Lane Dr. Edward D. Levy, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Tom Oelsner Judge and Mrs. Steven Plotkin Karen Sanno, by Donna Bradley Charles and Jean Sanno Delight E. Thompson, by Mrs. Dee Vern T. Elliot Anne Escobedo Patricia Hartel Cecile Weil Usdin, by Cathy Burka Elaine Van der Linden, by Mr. Bernard Van der Linden Sharon Weilbaecher, by Ms. Anne B. Gauthier Jerry W. Zachary, by Anonymous Dr. Phillip F. Fuselier Mr. Vincent Ilustre Paul J. Leaman, Jr. and Marilyn V. Dittmann Lt. Col. and Mrs. Dwight R. McGhee, USAF, (Ret) Sherry Snyder

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Amadeus Society The LPO Musicians, Trustees, and Staff gratefully acknowledge the bequests of those who expressed their support for the future of the LPO in their estate gifts: Betty Weston Atkinson Benjamin S. Brupbacher, Jr. and Lois Weil Brupbacher Family Foundation Olga Ravitsh Braunstein Harold H. Burns Abby Ray Catledge Robert R. Casey Carol Haik Eyrich Darwin Schriever Fenner Betty A Fishman and Raymond S Fishman Norma Eyrich Gross Peter and Doris Hansen Byrde Berenson Haspel Karl Heinz Hasselbach Robert Z. Hirsch Rosemarie Jernigan Mr. and Mrs. C. Palmer Jones Virginia D. Kock Louise L. Levy Elizabeth E. MacConnell Berthe Mangin

John A. Marque Suzanne Motion Leroy R. Nolan Dr. Guillermo Náñez-Falcón Felicien Gus Perrin Francoise Billion Richardson Carolyn J. Ross Rachel Sainton Edward Schlotter Katherine E. Siebel Dorothy Beckemeyer Skau Lynette Askin Stilwell Doris Zemurray Stone Kathleen Moore Vick Lorraine Halse Vines Hugo Wedemeyer Nellie H. Weekley Rosetta and Harold Weil Mr. Clarence D. Wolbrette Jerry Zachary

The LPO’s planned gift society would like to thank the following individuals for the generosity, vision, and thoughtful planning that will help to ensure that the LPO continues to provide the best orchestral music to our audiences throughout the region for years to come.

Mr. John S. Batson Mrs. Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin Drs. Andrea S. and Archie W. Brown Mr. and Mrs. J. Scott Chotin Ms. Nancy L. Claypool George Dansker Dr. Jane Eyrich Dr. Phillip F. Fuselier Larry and Joanne Gay Robert and Valborg Gross Dr. and Mrs. Stephen W. Hales

Dr. Edward D. Levy, Jr. Hugh W. Long and Susan L. Krinsky Ellen and Stephen Manshel Drs. R. Ranney and Emel Songu Mize Ms. Babs Mollere Peter Rogers Ms. Courtney-Anne Sarpy Lillian Eyrich and Rosemary Vines Ms. Lizbeth A. Turner

Endowment Fund

We are grateful to the following donors who have helped secure the future for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra through Endowment Fund contributions: Anonymous Courtney A. Sarpy Fund Darwin S. Fenner Memorial Fund Joan Coulter Fund for the LPO Kathleen Moore Vick Foundation

LPO Endowment Trust LPO Fund Pete Wolbrette Memorial Fund Virginia D. Kock Endowment Weil Family Fund

The Amadeus Society is LPO’s planned giving society formed to recognize the generosity and vision of individuals whose thoughtful estate planning will ensure that the LPO continues to provide the best orchestral music to our audiences and the highest quality education programs to students, families, and teachers throughout the region for years to come.

Join those who have ensured the future of the LPO for generations to come.

Please consider including a bequest to the LPO in your estate plans.

For more information, contact Mimi Kruger at 504.523.6530, ext.301 or mimi.kruger@lpomusic.com.

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TODAY! • Gain exposure to over 8,000 patrons • Support your local orchestra • Reach a wide and varied audience with new messaging opportunities three times a year To learn more about placing your ad in our program, contact Candice Perkins at 504.523.6530, ext. 203 or email candice.perkins@lpomusic.com.

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