2019/20 SEASON PRESENTING SPONSOR:
CLASSICS
2019/20
OPENING WEEKEND: MENDELSSOHN VIOLIN CONCERTO FEATURING YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS PERFORMED BY YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY BRETT MITCHELL, conductor YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin Friday, September 20, 2019 at 7:30pm Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 7:30pm Sunday, September 22, 2019 at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall
ANNA CLYNE
Masquerade
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 Allegro molto appassionato Andante Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace — INTERMISSION —
RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 Non allegro Andante con moto (Tempo di Valse) Lento assai – Allegro vivace CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 26 MINUTES WITH A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION. FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 8 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT! This Weekend’s Performances are Gratefully Dedicated to Mary Rossick Kern and Jerome H. Kern Friday’s Concert is Gratefully Dedicated to Ms. Amy C Harmon Saturday’s Concert is Gratefully Dedicated to Mary Rossick Kern and Jerome H. Kern PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
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CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES PHOTO: ROGER MASTROIANNI
BRETT MITCHELL, conductor Hailed for delivering compelling performances of innovative, eclectic programs, Brett Mitchell was named the fourth Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in September 2016. He served as the orchestra’s Music Director Designate during the 16/17 season and began his four year appointment in September 2017.
Mr. Mitchell concluded his tenure as the Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra in August 2017. He joined the orchestra as Assistant Conductor in 2013 and was promoted to Associate in 2015, becoming the orchestra’s first Associate Conductor in over three decades and only the fifth in its 98 year history. In this role, he led the orchestra in several dozen concerts each season at Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, and on tour. Mr. Mitchell also served as the Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO), which he recently led on a four-city tour of China, marking the ensemble’s second international tour and its first to Asia. In May, 2019 he returned to the Cleveland Orchestra to lead subscription performances of An American in Paris. In addition to his work in Cleveland and Denver, Brett Mitchell is in consistent demand as a guest conductor. Recent and upcoming guest engagements include subscription debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Dallas, San Antonio, Vancouver and New Zealand symphonies and the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, as well as debuts with the Grant Park Music Festival in downtown Chicago and the Indianapolis Symphony during the orchestra’s summer festival at Conner Prairie. He has also appeared with the Detroit, National, Houston, Milwaukee and Oregon symphonies, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra among others. From 2007 to 2011, Brett Mitchell led over one hundred performances as Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony. He also held Assistant Conductor posts with the Orchestre National de France, where he worked under Kurt Masur from 2006 to 2009, and the Castleton Festival, where he worked under Lorin Maazel in 2009 and 2010. In 2015, Mr. Mitchell completed a highly successful five-year tenure as Music Director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, where an increased focus on locally relevant programming and community collaborations resulted in record attendance throughout his tenure. As an opera conductor, Brett Mitchell has conducted nearly a dozen productions, principally during his tenure as Music Director of the Moores Opera Center in Houston, where he led eight productions from 2010 to 2013. His repertoire spans the core works of Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute), Verdi (Rigoletto and Falstaff), and Stravinsky (The Rake’s Progress), to contemporary works by Adamo (Little Women), Aldridge (Elmer Gantry), Catán (Il Postino and Salsipuedes), and Hagen (Amelia). In addition to his work with professional orchestras, Mr. Mitchell is also well-known for his affinity for working with and mentoring highly talented young musicians aspiring to be professional orchestral players. His work with COYO during his Cleveland Orchestra tenure was highly praised and he is regularly invited to work with the orchestra at the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as at summer orchestral training programs such as the Texas Music Festival, National repertory Orchestra, Interlochen and Sarasota Music Festival.
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CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES Born in Seattle in 1979, Brett Mitchell holds degrees in conducting from the University of Texas in Austin and composition from Western Washington University, which selected him as its 2014 Young Alumnus of the Year. He studied at the National Conducting Institute and was selected by Kurt Masur as a recipient of the inaugural American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation Scholarship. Mr. Mitchell was also one of five recipients of the League of American Orchestras’ American Conducting Fellowship Program from 2007 to 2010.
YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin Yumi Hwang-Williams has been Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony since 2000 and will celebrate her 20th season in 2019/20. An American violinist of exceptional musicianship, she is recognized both for her stylish performances of the classics and her commitment to the works of present-day composers. Strings magazine calls her “a modern Prometheus” who has “emerged as a fiery champion of contemporary classical music.” Her interpretations of concertos by Thomas Adès, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, and Christopher Rouse have earned critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic approval from the composers. She has collaborated with the Joffrey Ballet in a world premiere of Bold Moves, with numerous performances of Adès’ Concentric Paths for violin and orchestra choreographed by Ashley Page. Hwang-Williams recently celebrated the release of two albums of Isang Yun’s music with Matt Haimevitz with the Violin Concerto No. 1, Solo piece, and work with piano — a culmination of a decade-long project. Hwang-Williams has appeared as soloist with other major orchestras both in the U.S. and abroad, including the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel (Switzerland), and the Bruckner Orchester Linz (Austria) with conductors Marin Alsop, Dennis Russell Davies, Hans Graf, Brett Mitchell, Paavo Järvi, Peter Oundjian, and Markus Stenz. An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with Jeffrey Kahane, Andrew Litton, Anne-Marie McDermott, Pinchas Zukerman, among others. Prior to joining the Colorado Symphony, Hwang-Williams served as Principal Second Violin for the Cincinnati Symphony. In addition, she previously served as Concertmaster of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for 13 summers, has performed as Guest Concertmaster for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa, at the invitation of Music Director Pinchas Zukerman, and has been Guest First Violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Hwang-Williams began violin studies at the age of 10 in Philadelphia, one year after emigrating from South Korea. She was accepted to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music at age 15 and made her debut at the age of 15 as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Currently, she is Adjunct Violin Professor at the University of Denver, Lamont School of Music, and is actively involved in advancing the arts in her community through many local concerts and supporting the symphony. Hwang-Williams plays on a violin made by Carlo Landolfi c. 1752.
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Aretha: A Tribute NOV 30 SAT 7:30 Christopher Dragon, conductor Capathia Jenkins and Ryan Shaw, vocalists COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG
CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES ANNA CLYNE (b. 1980): Masquerade Anna Clyne was born on March 9, 1980 in London, England. Masquerade was composed in 2013 and premiered on September 7, 2013 at the Royal Albert Hall in London by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings. Duration is about 5 minutes. This is the first performance of the work by the orchestra. “Anna Clyne,” according to the biography provided by her publisher Boosey & Hawkes, “is a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, combining resonant soundscapes with propelling textures that weave, morph and collide in dramatic explosions. Her work often includes collaborations with cutting edge choreographers, visual artists, film-makers and musicians worldwide.” Anna Clyne was born in London in 1980, studied music from early in life (she recalls lessons “on a piano with randomly missing keys”), began composing at age eleven (a fully notated piece for flute and piano), and received her undergraduate training at Edinburgh University and a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music; her teachers include Julia Wolfe, Marina Adamia, and Marjan Mozetich. Clyne is now a member of the composition faculty of Mannes/ The New School in New York City, and serves as Mentor Composer for the Orchestra of St Luke’s Inaugural DeGaetano Composer Institute. Clyne’s career has been on a meteoric trajectory since she completed her education — performances by leading ensembles and soloists around the world and commissions from the American Composers Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Opus 21, Janus Trio, Jerome Foundation, New York Voices (a collaboration between the Albany Symphony and the New York State Archives), ASCAP, Seattle Chamber Players, and Houston Ballet; selection as a participant in a master class with Pierre Boulez in New York City; director of the New York Youth Symphony’s award-winning program for young composers “Making Score” from 2008 to 2010. She was Guest Composer at the 2011 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival at the University of Missouri, and through the 2020-2021 season serves as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Associate Composer, for whom she is writing three compositions. Clyne’s dedication to both education and collaboration are evidenced by her extended residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2010-2015), when she not only composed six works for that ensemble — including the GRAMMY nominated double-violin concerto Prince of Clouds — but also conducted workshops with the Chicago Public Schools and incarcerated youth at the city’s Juvenile Detention Center, joined with Yo-Yo Ma and musicians of the Civic Orchestra, CSO and Chorus to help realize the work of young poets, musicians, and composers at such events as the Humanities Festival and Youth in Music Festival, and worked with art therapist Caroline Edasis to develop an innovative collaboration between the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Learning Institute and residents in the memory care unit of the Mather Pavilion Residential Nursing Home. Anna Clyne’s rapidly accumulating honors includes eight consecutive ASCAP Plus Awards, Hindemith Prize, Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Clutterbuck Award from the University of Edinburgh, as well as awards from Meet the Composer, American Music Center, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Jerome Foundation, SOUNDINGS
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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES and International Artist Sponsorship; she also received a grant from Opera America to develop a work titled Eva, about the German-born American post-minimalist sculptor Eva Hesse (1936-1970), which was workshopped in spring 2018 during her residency at the composer collaborative National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. Clyne wrote that Masquerade, commissioned for the Last Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall and premiered there on September 7, 2013 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop, “draws inspiration from the original mid-18th-century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens. As is true today, those concerts were a place where people from all walks of life mingled to enjoy a wide array of music. Other forms of entertainment ranged from the sedate to the salacious, with acrobats, exotic street entertainers, dancers, fireworks, and masquerades. I am fascinated by the historic and sociological courtship between music and dance. Combined with costumes, masked guises, and elaborate settings, masquerades created an exciting, yet controlled, sense of occasion and celebration. It is this that I wish to evoke in Masquerade. “The work derives its material from two melodies. For the main theme, I imagined a chorus welcoming the audience and inviting them into their imaginary world. The second theme, Juice of Barley, is an old English country-dance melody and drinking song that first appeared in John Playford’s 1695 edition of The English Dancing Master.”
FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847): Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 Felix Mendelssohn was born on February 3, 1809 in Hamburg and died on November 4, 1847 in Leipzig. He completed the E minor Violin Concerto in December 1844, though the first ideas for the piece originated six years earlier, in 1838. The Concerto is dedicated to Ferdinand David, the soloist in the premiere at the Leipzig Gewandhaus concert of March 13, 1845, conducted by the Danish composer Niels Gade, a close friend of Mendelssohn. The score calls for woodwinds, horns, and trumpets in pairs, timpani, and strings. Duration is about 25 minutes. The concerto was last performed on February 14-16, 2014, with Midori the soloist and Mark Wigglesworth conducting. “I would like to compose a violin concerto for next winter,” Mendelssohn wrote in July 1838 to his friend, the violinist Ferdinand David. “One in E minor keeps running through my head, and the opening gives me no peace.” It was for David that Mendelssohn planned and wrote his only mature Violin Concerto. Their friendship began when the two first met at about the age of fifteen while the young violinist was on a concert tour through Germany, when they were delighted to discover the coincidence that David had been born only eleven months after Mendelssohn in the same neighborhood in Hamburg. Already well formed even in those early years, David’s playing was said to have combined the serious, classical restraint of Ludwig Spohr, his teacher; the elegance of the French tradition; and the technical brilliance of Paganini. Mendelssohn, who admired both the man and his playing, saw to it that David was appointed concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra when he became that organization’s music director in 1835. They remained close friends and musical allies. When Mendelssohn’s health was feeble, David looked after much of the routine activity of the Gewandhaus, where he spent 37 years, and he even stepped in to conduct the premiere of Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. Paul when PROGRAM 6
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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES the composer was stricken during a measles epidemic in 1836. The Concerto opens with a soaring violin melody whose lyricism exhibits a grand passion tinged with restless, Romantic melancholy. Some glistening passagework for the violinist leads through a transition melody to the second theme, a quiet, sunny strain shared by woodwinds and soloist. More glistening arabesques from the violinist and a quickened rhythm close the exposition. The succinct development section is largely based on the opening theme. The cadenza is used as a bridge to the recapitulation and leads seamlessly into the restatement of the movement’s thematic material. The thread of a single note sustained by the bassoon carries the Concerto to the Andante, a wordless song rich in warm sentiment and endearing elegance. This slow movement’s center section is distinguished by its rustling accompaniment and bittersweet minor-mode melody. A dozen measures of chordal writing for strings link this movement with the finale, an effervescent sonata form.
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943): Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 Sergei Rachmaninoff was born on April 1, 1873 in Oneg (near Novgorod), Russia and died March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California. The Symphonic Dances was composed in 1940 at his summer home in Huntington, Long Island. The score is dedicated to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, who gave the premiere on January 4, 1941. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, E-flat alto saxophone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings. Duration is about 35 minutes. Symphonic Dances was last performed on April 11-13, 2014, with Scott O’Neil on the podium. World War I, of course, was a trial for Rachmaninoff and his countrymen, but his most severe personal adversity came when the 1917 Revolution smashed the aristocratic society of Russia — the only world he had ever known. He was forced to flee his beloved country for America and he pined for his homeland the rest of his life. He did his best to keep the old language, food, customs, and holidays alive in his own household, “but it was at best synthetic,” wrote American musicologist David Ewen. “Away from Russia, which he could never hope to see again, he always felt lonely and sad, a stranger even in lands that were ready to be hospitable to him. His homesickness assumed the character of a disease as the years passed, and one symptom of that disease was an unshakable melancholy.” By 1940, when he composed the Symphonic Dances, he was filled with worry over his daughter Tatiana, who was trapped in France by the German invasion (he never saw her again), and had been weakened by a minor operation in May. Still, he felt the need to compose for the first time since the Third Symphony of 1936. The three Symphonic Dances were written quickly at his summer retreat on Long Island Sound, an idyllic setting for creative work, where he had a studio by the water in which to work in seclusion, lovely gardens for walking, and easy access to a ride in his new cabin cruiser, one of his favorite amusements. The Symphonic Dances was his last important creation. Still, it was the man and not the setting that was expressed in this music. “I try to make music speak directly and simply that which is in my heart at the time I am composing,” he once told an interviewer. “If there is love there, or bitterness, or sadness, or religion, these moods become part of my music, and it becomes either beautiful or bitter or sad or religious.” SOUNDINGS
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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES The first of the Symphonic Dances, in a large three-part form (A–B–A), is spun from a tiny three-note descending motive heard at the beginning that serves as the germ for much of the opening section’s thematic material. The middle portion is given over to a folk-like melody. The return of the opening section, with its distinctive falling motive, rounds out the first movement. The waltz of the second movement is more rugged and deeply expressive than the Viennese variety, and possesses the quality of inconsolable pathos that gives so much of Rachmaninoff’s music its sharply defined personality. The finale begins with a sighing introduction, which leads into a section in quicker tempo whose vital rhythms may have been influenced by the syncopations of American jazz. Soon after this faster section begins, a pattern reminiscent of the opening phrase of the Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”), the ancient chant from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass for the Dead, is heard. The sighing measures recur and are considerably extended, acquiring new thematic material but remaining unaltered in mood. When the fast, jazz-inspired music returns, its thematic relationship with the Dies Irae is strengthened. The movement accumulates an almost visceral rhythmic energy as it progresses, virtually exploding into the last pages, a coda based on an ancient Russian Orthodox chant. ©2019 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
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