NSM 2023_24 Vol. 1

Northern Sounds

Photos: Steven R. Mattson Zenith City Photgraphy

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Counsel that strikes just the right chord.

“Should my age dictate how

2023-2024 CONCERT SERIES

September 26 | 7:30 p.m.

University Recital Series

Vicki Fingalson, soprano

Teresa Vaughan, piano

Webb Recital Hall

November 14 | 7:30 p.m.

September 30 | 3:00 p.m

Collage Concert

Featuring UWS Alumni

Thorpe Langley Auditorium

University Recital Series | Vincent Osborn, double bass

Theodore Schoen, clarinet | Ed Willett, cello | Erin Aldridge, violin

Hector Landa, piano

Webb Recital Hall

through the performance of symphonic music

October 17 | 7:30 p.m.

Twin Ports Brass Quintet

Steven Siegel, trumpet | Charlie Leibfried, trumpet

Deborah Rausch, horn | Derek Bromme, trombone

David Leslie, bass trombone

Webb Recital Hall

We envision a stronger community through

DIRK MEYER

WELCOME TO THE SYMPHONY!

Time flies, if you’re having fun. Looking back at 10 years with the DSSO, it seems that I just started working here yesterday! It has been an incredible honor and privilege to lead this wonderful orchestra over the past decade. Together we have performed over 200 works – on our Masterworks Series alone. We made lots of memories along the way and I can’t wait to embark on our next decade together. One thing is for certain: More great music will find its way to us and enrich our lives, beginning with our 2023/24 Season:

As we continue our efforts to make underrepresented voices heard, we focus our attention on works written by female composers. From composers with a romantic voice, like Clara Schumann and Amy Beach, to more modern voices, like Anna Clyne and Joan Tower: This season we explore rich and powerful compositions, written by strong women around the globe. We are thrilled to even include a world premiere, a new work written for the DSSO by Duluth composer Wendy Durrwachter.

Our second focus this season is to celebrate our past 10 years together. What better way to do so than with audiences’ and musicians’ favorites. Last season we asked all of you to submit your favorites from the past decade. For the audience the clear winner was Carmina Burana, while the musicians voted Gustav Mahler as their favorite. With these blockbusters bookending the season, we complete our Masterworks Series with beloved composers like Mozart, Sibelius and Brahms. While, at the same time, presenting amazing works by lesser known masters, like Wieniawski, Walton and Weill.

In our Pops Series we bring back our Holiday tradition and take a stroll back through the Pops classics. This promises to be one of our most exciting and fun seasons ever. A great way to ring in the next decade!

Dirk Meyer, Music Director Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2023-2024:

Mark Monson, Board President

John Berchild, Past Chair

Robert T. Bennett, Treasurer

Tammy Ostrander, Secretary

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

William Alexander

Sandra Barkley

Robert T. Bennett

John Berchild

Linda Boben

Mark Danielson

Rhonda Degelau

Beth Gilbert

Jeremy Hoglund

Jill Kaiser

Tina Koecher

James McLeod

Mark Monson

Emily Nygren

Tammy Ostrander

William “Buzz” Palmer

Branden Robinson

Kathleen Sanders

James Sebastian

Nairi Stack

Rajiv Vaidyanathan

Roberta Vose

HONORARY LIFE DIRECTORS

Christabel Grant

Elaine Killen

Dexter Larsen

Nancy Melander

James Zastrow

VANWAEYENBERGHE BRANDON

Welcome to the 2023-24 Season of your Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra! I am so excited that you are able to join us for one (or all) of the concerts this year. Before I talk about this current season, I want to share with you some of the highlights from last year and this summer.

Last year, we grew our subscription base by more than 450 seats through our “9 for $90” offer. This introductory offer was a gateway for so many into our concerts, and we certainly set the bar across the nation for subscription growth. Over half of those individuals renewed their subscription for this season, so if you are one of them, thank you for coming back!

We also were fortunate to have three capacity concerts this calendar year. In February, the “Tribute to John Williams” concert was the Symphony’s first sell-out in seven years. Then the Beethoven 9 concert in May had only a few seats remaining, where something spectacular happened in the hall that night. Patrons are still talking about it to this day. And speaking of being talked about, August’s performance of “Jurassic Park in Concert” had people shouting, crying, laughing and clapping during and after the performance. John Williams’ score along with the 30th anniversary of an iconic movie was a spectacular event and we hope to bring more similar productions to the Twin Ports in the future.

Fall brings change as well, and not just the color of the leaves. The DSSO is in the process of moving its administrative office back into the St. Louis County Depot, and we look forward to not only serve our patrons in a more visible location but also sharing the nearly 100 year history of the orchestra through archival displays.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, our Musicians, our staff and volunteer Chorus, thank you so much for your support of the DSSO. Your investment – whether through purchasing a ticket or donating – supports our musicians and their ability to make music for the Twins Ports Community. We are so happy to celebrate Dirk Meyer’s 10 years as Music Director, and we hope you join us for all of the concerts.

Brandon VanWaeyenberghe, Executive Director Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra

STAFF AND ADMINISTRATION:

ADMINISTRATION

Brandon VanWaeyenberghe, Executive Director

Kelly Katzmarek, Marketing Director

Jean Larson, Patron Service Manager

Ginger Dallin, Box Office Assitant

ARTISTIC STAFF

Dirk Meyer, The Charles A. & Carolyn M. Russell

Music Director

David Arnott, Manager of Orchestra Operations

Rebecca Adickes, Stage Manager

Maureen Breemeersch, Assistant Stage Manager

Kristin Sande, Music Librarian

CHORUS

Aine Miller, Chorus Administrator

Beth Sobczak, Rehearsal Accompanist

YOUTH ORCHESTRAS

Melanie Sever, Administrative Director and Concert Orchestra Conductor

Kristin Sande, DSSYO Administrative Assistant

Ronald Kari, Youth Orchestras Coordinator

Pedro Oviedo, Youth Symphony Conductor

Kevin Hoeschen, Sinfonia Conductor

Byron Klimek, Sinfonia Conductor

Teresa Aho, Sinfonia Conductor

Jeremy Craycraft, Percussion Ensemble Director

LAYOUT OF NORTHERN SOUNDS

Karen Blais

PRINTING OF NORTHERN SOUNDS

Pro Print

NORTHERN SOUNDS PROGRAM NOTES

Vincent Osborn, Program Notes Writer

Ronald Kari, Performance Historian, now in his 62nd Season with DSSO

DULUTH SUPERIOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Office: 506 W. Michigan St., Duluth, MN 55802

Mailing: 130 W. Superior St. LL2 – 120, Duluth, MN 55802

TICKETS

218–623–3776

tickets@dsso.com | www.dsso.com

MUSIC DIRECTORS

Dirk Meyer (2013 – present)

Markand Thakar (2001 – 2012)

Yong-yan Hu (1995 – 2000)

Taavo Virkhaus (1977-1994)

Joseph Hawthorne (1967-1977)

Hermann Herz (1950-1967)

Joseph Wagner (1947-1950)

Tauno Hannikainen (1942 – 1947)

Paul Lemay (1932 – 1942)

MEET THE ORCHESTRA

DIRK MEYER, THE CHARLES A. & CAROLYN M. RUSSELL MUSIC DIRECTOR

Sponsors: Harris & Diane Balko; Elisabeth C. Mason; The Charles A. & Carolyn M. Russell Foundation

FIRST VIOLIN:

Erin Aldridge, Concertmaster

Sponsor: Arend & Verna Sandbulte in support of the concertmaster chair through the Sandbulte Orchestra

Leadership Fund

Mary Alice Hutton, Associate Concertmaster

Angela Waterman-Hanson, Assistant Concertmaster

Nicole Craycraft

Sponsor: Glen Holt

Kathleen Sanders

Sponsor: Terry & Vicki Anderson

Nairi Stack

Sponsors: Stack Brothers Mechanical Contractors;

Bill Stack

Joan Halquist

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Amanda Wirta

Sponsors: John & Rhonda Degelau

Daniel Radosevich

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Steve Highland

Sponsor: Thomas & Barbara Elliott

Jenna Mattson

Sponsors: Tom & Jill Kaiser

Kristin Sande

Lara Hicks

SECOND VIOLIN:

Laurie Bastian, Principal

Sponsor: Jacquie & Jim Sebastian

Jean Leibfried, Assistant Principal

Sponsor: Sandra Barkley

Amy Eichers

Sponsor: Thomas & Alice McCabe

Michael Husby

Sponsor: Brad Schmugge, CPA

Olga Chernyshev

Sponsor: Walter & Kay Gower

Michael Zellgert

Sponsor: Vern & May Nordling

Sarah Warner

Sponsor: Kathy & James Sanders

Kristen Anderson

Sponsor: James Seitz & Diane Kolquist

Mark Haroo

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

VIOLA:

Kevin Hoeschen, Principal

Sponsor: Rose & Lester Drewes

Ronald Kari, Assistant Principal

Sponsors: Stephen & Lauri Cushing; Ruth Ann Eaton

Clare Chopp

Sponsor: Martha Aas

Jonathan Kresha

Sponsors: Nancy Odden & Doug W. Britton

Kevin Peterson

Sponsors: Robert T. & Barbara K. Bennett;

Linda & Mark Boben; Elizabeth Cregan

J. David Arnott

Sponsor: Sylvia Jamar

Judy MacGibbon

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Kelli Barker

John Middleton

CELLO:

Betsy Husby, Principal

Sponsor: Christabel & James Grant

Lucia Magney, Assistant Principal

Sponsor: Ann Mars

Julia Morehouse

Sponsors: Nancy Melander; Nancy & Mark Melhus

Eric Graf (On Leave 23-24)

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Rebecca M. Peterson

Sponsor: Robert T. & Barbara K. Bennett

Darin Anderson

Sponsor: Michael & Sharon Mollerus

Byron Klimek

Lindsay Schlemmer

Scott Lykins

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Dan Keeler

DOUBLE BASS:

Cassidy Morgan, Principal

Vincent Osborn, Assistant Principal

Sponsor: Lane Fryberger Smith

Anthony Lischalk

Sponsor: John Ivey Thomas & Mary Rees Thomas

Family Fund

James McLeod

Sponsor: Branden Robinson

Irving G. Steinberg

Sponsor: Lurene Buhrmann

Blake Bonde

Sponsor: Carolyn Sundquist

FLUTE:

James DeVoll, Principal

Melanie Sever, Flute 2

OBOE:

Michael Dayton, Principal

Sponsor: Gary & Jacqueline Foley

Darci Griffith Gamerl, Oboe 2 (On Leave 23-24)

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Sarah Carmack Boyle, Oboe 3/English Horn

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

CLARINET:

Jennifer Gerth, Principal

Sponsor: William & Saundra Palmer

Kristine Peterson, Clarinet 2

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Theodore Schoen, Bass Clarinet/Clarinet 3

Sponsor: Karl Diekman

BASSOON:

Michael Roemhildt, Principal

Sponsor Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

Jefferson Campbell, Bassoon 2

Karl Kubiak, Bassoon 3/Contrabassoon

Sponsor: Timothy Sandor

SAXOPHONE:

Gregory Kehl Moore, Principal

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

HORN:

James Pospisil, Principal

Sponsor: James & Mary Zastrow

Erika Hammerschmidt, Horn 2

Sponsors: Roger & Elaine Engle; Robert & Mary Evans

HORN (continued):

Gwendolyn Hoberg, Horn 3

Deborah Rausch, Assistant / Utility

Sponsor: Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

TRUMPET:

Earl Salemink, Principal

Sponsor: Sharon & Robert Wahman

Charles Leibfried, Trumpet 2

Sponsor: Jeff & Vickie Cadwell; David and Patricia Mast

Thomas Pfotenhauer, Trumpet 3

Sponsor: Mark & Grace Monson

TROMBONE:

Larry Zimmerman, Principal

Sponsor: Gale & Jeri Kerns; Roberta Vose

James Erickson, Bass Trombone

Sponsor: Mark Danielson & Theresa Smith

TUBA:

Steve Grove, Principal

Sponsors: Helena Jackson & Doug Dunham

TIMPANI:

Fred Morgan, Principal

Sponsors: Happy Sleeper; John Fochs; Anonymous Friend of the DSSO

PERCUSSION:

Colin O’ Day, Principal

Sponsor: Susan J. Relf

HARP:

Janell Kokkonen Lemire, Principal

Sponsor: Elaine Killen

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2023 7 PM

DECC SYMPHONY HALL, ALLETE STAGE

DIRK MEYER, CONDUCTOR

ORION WEISS, PIANO

CLYNE 5’

Pivot

GRIEG

Piano Concerto in A minor, op 16 30’

Allegro molto moderato

Adagio

Allegro moderato molto e marcato

Orion Weiss, piano

INTERMISSION

BEACH 41’

Symphony in E minor, op. 32 “Gaelic”

Allegro con fuoco

Alla Siciliana

Lento con molto espressione

Allegro di molto

CONCERT SPONSOR:

ORION WEISS

One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is widely regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). With a warmth to his playing that reflects his engaging personality, Weiss has dazzled audiences with his passionate, lush sound and performed with dozens of orchestras in North America including the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic.

Recent seasons have seen Weiss in performances for the Lucerne Festival, the Denver Friends of Chamber Music, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center’s Fortas Series, and the 92nd Street Y, and at the Aspen, Bard, Ravinia, Seattle, and Grand Teton summer festivals, among others. Highlights also include his third performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a live-stream with the Minnesota Orchestra, a performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the release of his recording of Christopher Rouse’s Seeing, and recordings of Gershwin’s complete works for piano and orchestra with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta. Known for his affinity for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with violinists Augustin Hadelich, William Hagen, Benjamin Beilman, and James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; cellist Julie Albers; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. As a recitalist and chamber musician, he has appeared across the United States at venues and festivals including Sheldon Concert

Hall, the Broad Stage, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, the Schubert Club, Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, and Spivey Hall. Weiss can be heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels in recordings such as The Piano Protagonists with The Orchestra Now led by Leon Botstein; Scarlatti’s Complete Keyboard Sonatas; a disc of Bartók, Dvorák, and Prokofiev; Brahms Sonatas with violinist Arnaud Sussmann; a solo album of J.S. Bach, Scriabin, Mozart, and Carter; and a recital disc of Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Schumann, Massenet, and Piatigorsky with cellist Julie Albers. His career honors include the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Gina Bachauer Scholarship at The Juilliard School, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. A native of Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1999. The next month, with less than 24 hours’ notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and was immediately invited to return later that year. In 2004, he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax. In 2005, he toured Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Itzhak Perlman. That same year, he made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall, and his European debut in a recital at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

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PIVOT Anna Clyne

BORN: March 9, 1980, London, England

WORK COMPOSED: 2021

WORLD PREMIERE: August 7, 2021, at the Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland; BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dalia Stasevska conducting

PERFORMANCE HISTORY: There have been no previous DSSO performances of any music by Anna Clyne.

INSTRUMENTATION: Flute and piccolo, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet, trombone, string quintet (soloists) and strings.

DURATION : 5 minutes

Anna Clyne completed her first music composition at the age of seven and she was only eleven when one of her compositions was first publicly performed. Her musical career was only beginning. Clyne attended the University of Edinburgh where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree with honors. She earned a Master of Arts degree in music from the Manhattan School of Music. From 2008 to 2010, Clyne was director of the New York Youth Symphony’s Making Score program for young composers. She was composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2010 through the 2015 season, with the Orchestre National d’Île-deFrance from 2014-16, for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s 2015-16 season, and with the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 2017-19.

Clyne was appointed Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from 2019-22. In 2022-23 she was the composer-in-residence with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. She will hold this position with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra for their upcoming 2023-24 season.

Clyne has been commissioned by many arts institutions, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Museum of Modern Art. In 2013 she wrote the concert overture Masquerade on a commission by BBC Radio 3 to open the Last Night of the Proms, where Marin Alsop conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in its premiere. In 2015, Clyne was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Prince of Clouds, a double violin concerto. The New York Times described her as a

in a 2015 profile. In 2018, music critic Corinna da Fonseca Wollheim selected Clyne’s Lavender Rain for a New York Times feature on “5 Minutes that Will Make You Love Classical Music.”

Clyne herself provides notes for PIVOT on her website:

“PIVOT is inspired by my experiences at the Edinburgh Festival where I enjoyed an array of fantastic performances across the arts. It is this variety that I have tried to capture in PIVOT which, as the title suggests, pivots from one experience to another. The Pivot is also a former name of the 200-year-old folk music venue and pub in Edinburgh, The Royal Oak.

PIVOT quotes fragments of The Flowers of Edinburgh, a traditional fiddle tune of eighteenth century Scottish lineage that is also prominent in American fiddle music and thus bridges between Edinburgh and St. Louis, where this music was premiered. Thank you to Aidan O’Rourke for his guidance on folk fiddle bowings and ornaments, which are incorporated into “PIVOT.”

A review of PIVOT in the St. Louis Post Dispatch reads, “Moments reminiscent of the music of Leonard Bernstein, of movie music, more modern music and of course of Scottish music. At five minutes it’s brief, but energy-packed.”

ANNA CLYNE

“Composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods”

EDVARD GRIEG

Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16

EDVARD GRIEG

BORN: June 15, 1843, Bergen, Norway

DIED: September 4, 1907, Bergen

WORK COMPOSED: 1868-69

WORLD PREMIERE: April 3, 1869, in Copenhagen; Holger Simon Paulli conducting, Edmund Neupert, soloist

PERFORMANCE HISTORY: Tonight marks the ninth DSSO subscription series performance of this Grieg Concerto. It was heard in 1937 (with soloist Percy Grainger), 1940 (with Alec Templeton), in both 1955 and 1980 (with Grant Johannesen), 1962 (Daniel Pollack), on September 22, 1995 (with Dan-Wen Wei and conducted by Yong-yan Hu on his first concert as the Orchestra’s Music Director), 2003 (Terrence Wilson and then repeated in Hibbing, MN the next day), and September 28, 2013 (Orion Weiss; Dirk Meyer conducting – his first DSSO concert as Music Director).

INSTRUMENTATION: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, strings and solo piano

DURATION : 30 minutes

Grieg is considered one of the foremost composers of the Romantic era and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. With the use of Norwegian folk music in his compositions, Grieg developed a national identity and brought the music of Norway to fame.

Edvard Grieg was raised in a musical family and was taught piano by his mother. His father, Alexander Grieg (1806-1875) was a merchant and the British Vice-Consul in Bergen and his mother, Gesine Judithe Hagerup (1814-1875) was a music teacher. The family name, originally spelled Greig, is associated with the Scottish Clann Ghriogair (Clan Gregor). (Also known as Clan MacGregor, Clan Gregor claims its origin in the early 9th century. The clan’s most famous member is Robert Roy MacGregor (1671-1734), a Scottish outlaw who later became a folk hero.) After the Battle of Culloden (1746) Grieg’s great-grandfather Alexander Greig (1739-1803) traveled widely before settling in Norway about 1770 and establishing business interests in Bergen.

In the summer of 1858, 15-year-old Edvard played for family friend and eminent Norwegian violinist Ole Bull. Recognizing his talent, Bull persuaded his parents to send him to the Leipzig Conservatory to formally study the piano. Like many teenagers Grieg disliked the disciplined course of study; things haven’t changed much over the years. Grieg debuted as a concert pianist in Karlsham, Sweden in 1861, after surviving life-threatening respiratory ailments the previous spring.

In 1863, Grieg relocated to Copenhagen where for the next three years he focused more of his energies on composing. One main source of inspiration was the Norwegian composer Rikard Nordraak (composer of the Norwegian national anthem), who became a good friend to Grieg. Upon Nordraak’s death in 1866, Grieg composed a funeral march in his honor, which was also performed at his own memorial service in 1907.

During this time he also met a young singer, Nina Hagerup, who happened to be his first cousin, and four years later in June of 1867 they married. The following year they welcomed their only child, Alexandra, who died in 1869 from meningitis.

Grieg constantly sought relief from his respiratory ailments. In 1868 he traveled to Søllerød, Denmark to benefit from the warmer climate compared to that of Norway. While there, he composed one of his earliest and most important works, the Concerto for Piano in A minor.

Begun in June 1868, around the same time as the birth of Alexandra, and completed in early 1869, Edmund Neupert premiered Grieg’s Piano Concerto in Copenhagen on April 3, 1869. Interestingly, Grieg was not in attendance at the premiere due to a conducting commitment in Oslo! Grieg continued to revise the concerto many times, in 1872, 1882, 1890, and 1895. On July 21, 1907, six weeks before his death, he sent his last revision to his publisher. One of the most commonly performed editions nowadays was prepared in 1917 by Australian composer and pianist Percy Grainger. Grainger studied the concerto with Grieg and attested that the changes he made were with the composer’s authorization. Grieg also declared that Grainger played the work better than anyone. Most of the revisions dealt more with performance directions and orchestration than with the thematic material or shape of the work. Listen to the opening flourish of the piano, one of the most popular introductions to any concerto in the repertoire. The main theme enters with the winds, followed by the strings. This theme and the second theme, introduced by the strings following the piano’s statement of the first theme, are heard throughout the first movement. The exquisitely beautiful second movement with its melancholic lyricism will take you to wondrous, mystical places if you allow – and please do! Imitations of the Hardanger fiddle (Norwegian folk fiddle) and a sense of the Norwegian folk dance commonly performed at weddings, halling, are found in the final movement. You will also hear melodies reminiscent of floating on a calm lake, inviting you to leave your cares and worries behind. Imagine attending a wedding in the early afternoon on one side of a lake, getting into your boat and leisurely rowing across the lake to attend a different wedding celebration on another lakefront.

INSTRUMENTATION: Two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (triangle) and strings.

DURATION : 41 minutes

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. She was one of the most respected and acclaimed American composers of her era and one of the first to succeed without the benefit of European training.

AMY BEACH

Gaelic Symphony

AMY BEACH

BORN: September 5, 1867, in Henniker, New Hampshire

DIED: December 27, 1944, in New York City, New York

WORK COMPOSED: 1894

WORLD PREMIERE: October 30, 1896, Boston; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Emil Paur conducting

PERFORMANCE HISTORY: The Orchestra performs music of Amy Beach for the first time with this Symphony.

Amy Marcy Cheney was born to Charles Abbott Cheney, a paper manufacturer and importer (whose uncle Oren B. Cheney co-founded Bates College) and Clara Imogene (Marcy) Cheney, who was reputed to be an excellent pianist and singer. Amy showed every sign of being a true wunderkind: at the age of one she was able to accurately sing forty songs, capable of improvising counter-melody to her mother’s singing by age two, and she taught herself to read at age three! At the age of four she was at her grandfather’s farm and composed three waltzes for piano - without a piano. She composed them mentally and played them when she returned home. Amy could also play music by ear, including four-part hymns. She finally began formal piano lessons from her mom when she was six. Within a year she was giving public recitals of works by Beethoven, Chopin, Handel and her own works. Her parents declined offers from multiple agents to have Amy do concert tours, for which she was later grateful.

Around 1871, when Amy was four, her family moved to Chelsea, Massachusetts, and four years later they relocated to Boston. Her parents were advised to enroll their young daughter in a European conservatory, however they chose local training, at first engaging Ernst Perabo and later Carl Baermann as her piano instructors. Her development as a pianist was monitored by a group including, among others, H.W. Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Mason, and Henry Harris Aubrey Beach (1843–1910), a physician who lectured on anatomy at Harvard University and was an amateur singer. She married him in 1885.

When Amy was fourteen she studied harmony and counterpoint for one year from Junius W. Hill, which would be her only formal training in composition. In 1884 she consulted Wilhelm Gericke, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1884-1889 and 1898-1906, who prescribed a course of independent study. Over the next ten years she taught herself composition and orchestration using a range of theory texts. She also translated both Hector Berlioz’s (1803-1869) and François-Auguste Gevaert’s (1828-1908) Treatise on Instrumentation.

Her marriage to Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach in 1885, when she was eighteen and he forty-two, came with conditions that she “live according to his status, that is, function as a society matron and patron of the arts.” She also agreed to never teach piano, to limit herself to two public recitals per year with profits donated to charity, and to devote herself more to composition than to performing. Her selfguided composition education was necessitated because Dr. Beach disapproved of her having a tutor. During their marriage she was credited in the concert programs and published compositions as “Mrs. H. H. A. Beach.” After her husband’s death in 1910, she reverted to “Amy Beach” on a concert tour in Germany, but afterwards reverted back to Mrs. H. H. A. Beach for the remainder of her life.

Beach’s Gaelic Symphony is the first symphony composed and published by an American woman, a major milestone in music history! The premiere on October 30, 1896, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was an exceptional success, although the critics went to extraordinary lengths to relate any of its merits or defects to the composer’s sex. Composer George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931) wrote to Beach the he and his colleague Horatio Parker (1863-1919) had attended the premiere and enjoyed it greatly:

“I always feel a thrill of pride myself whenever I hear a fine work by any of us, and as such you will have to be counted in, whether you [like it] or not –one of the boys.” The “boys” referred to a group of composers unofficially known as the Second New England School and included Chadwick, Parker, John Knowles Paine (1839-1926), Arthur Foote (1853-1937), and Edward MacDowell (18601908). They collectively became known as the Boston Six when Beach, the youngest of the lot, was added to the list.

Beach was heavily influenced by Antonín Dvořák, who was teaching in America at the time. Similar to Dvořák, Beach incorporated folk music as thematic material into her Gaelic Symphony, the first American composer to do so in a symphonic work. Her belief was that composers should look to their own heritage for inspiration and she therefore chose music from the British Isles, the home of her ancestors. Her own song Dark is the Night!, which she set to the words of English poet William Ernest Henley, became the foundation of the symphony’s first movement. Several Gaelic themes are introduced in the second movement, first of which is an Irish tune played by the solo oboe. Listen for the rich harmonies by the woodwind chorale that accompanies the oboe. After a boisterous section with the strings, the oboe melody returns for a second visit after which the strings and flute end the movement with flourish, grace and a bit of humor.

The large Irish immigrant community in Boston faced considerable discrimination and hostility, especially from the higher crust of society into which Beach had married and empathizing with their plight was frowned upon in her social circle. She wrote that the third movement conveys

of the Irish people. The final movement is full of drama and triumph. Beach wrote that this movement was about the Celtic people, “their sturdy daily life, their passions and battles.”

The Gaelic Symphony was forgotten during the 1920s and made a resurgence in the 1930s and 1940s. Justifiably it is now being performed more regularly over the last twenty years or so. It is a wonderful work that has an irresistible charm with a big heart.

Program notes by Vincent Osborn © 2023

“the laments… romance and… dreams”

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Lisa Zallar, APRN, CNP Lester River Medical Clinic

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7TH, 2023 7 PM

DECC SYMPHONY HALL, ALLETE STAGE

DIRK MEYER, CONDUCTOR

BLYTHE GAISSERT, MEZZO-SOPRANO

DSSO WOMEN’S CHORUS, MICHAEL FUCHS, CONDUCTOR

LSYC CONCERT CHOIR, BRET AMUNDSON, DIRECTOR

MAHLER 99’

Symphony No. 3

Kräftig. Entschieden

INTERMISSION

Tempo di Menuetto. Sehr mässig. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast.

Sehr langsam. Misterioso.

Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck

Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden.

Blythe Gaissert, Mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert has established herself as one of the preeminent interpreters of some of the brightest stars of new classical music. A true singing actress, she has received critical acclaim for her interpretations of both new and traditional repertoire in opera, concert, and chamber repertoire. “Gaissert gave a dramatically powerful, vocally stunning portrait of a woman growing increasingly desperate and delusional from lack of contact with the outer world. Gaissert’s development of Loats’s personality was utterly believable, and she gave a virtuoso performance of this very challenging music’ (Arlo McKinnon, Opera News for The Echo Drift). Known for her warm tone, powerful stage presence, and impeccable musicianship and technical prowess….

In the 19-20 season, Ms. Gaissert created the role of Dorothy in the world premiere of Kamala Sankaram and Rob Handel’s Looking At You with Here Arts Center NYC, sang Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek’s 27 with Intermountain Opera Bozeman, Hannah After in As One with Opera Columbus and Opera Memphis, covered Margret in Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera, sang Hansel in Hansel And Gretel at San Diego Opera, performed the world premiere of a chamber piece by John Glover and Kelly Rourke with Echappe Ensemble, sang Beethoven 9 with the Fort Worth Symphony, performed the world premiere of songs by Kamala Sankaram, David T. Little and Martin Hennessy with Sybarite5 as well as the world premiere of Robert Paterson’s Autumn Songs with American Modern Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. Blythe finished out with a recital of Brahms and Schubert with the Brooklyn Art Song Society.

In the 2018-19 season, Ms. Gaissert created the role of Georgia O’Keefe Today It Rains with San Francisco’s Opera Parallele, the world premiere of the third opera by the highly acclaimed and record setting team of As One: Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed. She also reprises her role as Hannah After in her 6th production of As One with New York City Opera/American Opera Projects, performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with both the Buffalo Symphony and Sarasota Orchestra, and performed in a workshop performance of Laura Kaminsky’s fourth opera, also with librettist Kimberly Reed, Postville: Hometown To The World with Opera

BLYTHE GAISSERT

Fusion: New Works in conjunction with Cincinnati Opera and her alma mater Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Recent engagements include Berio Folk Songs and Siegrune Die Walkuere with the Dallas Symphony, and Berlioz L’Enfance du Christ with the Orquesta Sinfónica y Coro Rtve conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya.

Previous engagements include Carmen, Orlovsky Die Fledermaus, Hansel Hansel Und Gretel, Siegrune Die Walkure, Lucretia Rape Of Lucretia, Maddalena Rigoletto, Suzuki Madama Butterfly, soloist in the Verdi Requiem, Berio Folk Songs, Mozart Requiem, world premieres by John Adams, Laura Kaminsky, Mikael Karlsson, Robert Paterson, Martin Hennessy, Mohammed Fairouz, Richard Pearson Thomas, Glen Roven, Yotam Haber, Jorge Martin, Tom Cipullo, Renee Favand-See, Gilda Lyons, Jessica Meyer, Gabriel Kahane and more. Companies with whom Ms. Gaissert has performed include the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Dallas Symphony, San Diego Opera, Prototype Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Lyrique en Mer, Tulsa Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Sarasota Opera, and Opera Saratoga.

“Mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert was impossible to ignore as the headstrong Mother Marie. She has a pure, powerful and appealing voice and a forceful stage presence to match.”

(Denver Post)

GUSTAV MAHLER

Symphony No. 3 in D minor GUSTAV MAHLER

BORN: July 7, 1860, in Kalischt, near Iglau, Bohemia [now: Kaliště, Jihlava, Czech Republic]

DIED: May 18, 1911, in Vienna, Austria

WORK COMPOSED: 1895-96

WORLD PREMIERE: June 9. 1902, Krefeld, Germany; Festival Orchestra of the German Musical Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein), Mahler conducting

PERFORMANCE HISTORY: Tonight marks the first DSSO performance of this Mahler Symphony

INSTRUMENTATION: Four flutes (all doubling piccolo), four oboes (4th doubling English horn), four clarinets and E-flat clarinet (3rd doubling bass clarinet, 4th doubling E-flat clarinet), four bassoons (4th doubling contrabassoon), eight horns, four trumpets (one doubling posthorn), four trombones, tuba, timpani (two players), percussion (bass drum, snare drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, tam-tam, rute (bundle of attached canes for hitting drums), glockenspiels, chimes), two harps, strings, alto solo, women’s and children’s chorus.

DURATION: 99 minutes

Mahler’s Third Symphony belongs to the early period of his life and to his own personal quest for life’s meaning in the face of suffering and death. As a young man Mahler suffered great personal losses; his father died early in 1889 followed by the deaths of both his sister and mother later that same year. Suddenly, at the age of 29 and already in poor health, Mahler became a guardian of his four younger siblings. A worse tragedy befell Mahler when his younger brother Otto shot himself in February 1895. Faced with these challenges he was deeply affected by his encounter with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Mahler’s First Symphony, Titan, focused on heroism and earthly existence. His approach to redemption in his Second Symphony, Resurrection, is that humankind is subservient to God’s grace achieved through belief. The Third Symphony is Mahler’s attempt to experience all that nature has to offer in a quest to reach higher forms of existence, until ultimately forming a union with God and humanity.

The Third Symphony is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire and in a survey of conductors carried out by the BBC Music Magazine, was voted one of the ten greatest symphonies of all time. The Third has six movements and is divided into two parts. Part One is the first movement alone and Part Two consists of the other five movements. As he did with all of his first four symphonies, Mahler provided a programmatic description to explain the narrative of the piece, however he was ambivalent about the use of these descriptions. The following messages give an excellent example of Mahler’s diverse opinions regarding descriptive program notes, this to the critic Max Kalbeck in 1902:

Beginning with Beethoven there is no modern music without its underlying program. But no music is worth anything if you first have to tell the listener what experience lies behind it and what he is supposed to experience in it. And so yet again: to hell with every program! You just have to bring along ears and a heart along and - not least - willingly surrender to the rhapsodist. Some residue of mystery always remains, even for the creator.

At about the same time he wrote to the conductor

Josef Krug-Waldsee:

Those titles were an attempt on my part to provide non-musicians with something to hold on to and with a signpost for the intellectual, or better, the expressive content of the various movements and for their relationships to each other and to the whole. That it didn’t work (as, in fact, it could never work) and that it led only to misinterpretations of the most horrendous sort became painfully clear all too quickly. It’s the same disaster that had overtaken me on previous and similar occasions, and now I have

once and for all given up commenting, analyzing all such expediencies of whatever sort. These titles . . . will surely say something to you after you know the score. You will draw intimations from them about how I imagined the steady intensification of feeling, from the indistinct, unbending, elemental existence (of the forces of nature) to the tender formation of the human heart, which in turn points toward and reaches a region beyond itself (God). Please express that in your own words without quoting those extremely inadequate titles and that way you will have acted in my spirit. I am very grateful that you asked me [about the titles], for it is by no means inconsequential to me and for the future of my work how it is introduced into “public life.”

When Mahler completed the Third, dated August 6, 1896, the subtitle of the work was simply A Midsummer Noon’s Dream. The individual movements were titled:

First Part: Pan Awakes. Summer Comes Marching In

Second Part: What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me

What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me

What Humanity Tells Me

What the Angels Tell Me

What Love Tells Me

Critics of Mahler have great fun with these titles; Mahler was a flower-child long before it came into vogue. However, the titles of the movements disappear by the Third Symphony’s first publishing.

Mahler acquired a one-room cabin at Steinbach on the Attersee, about twenty miles east of Salzburg, in 1893 where he would spend summers composing. In the summer of 1895 his sister Justine (1868-1938) and his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner (1858-1921) accompanied him there to look after him, which meant basically to silence the crows, waterbirds, children and whistling farmhands, as he began composing the Third Symphony. I’m reminded of Ken Russell’s 1974 film Mahler where a young woman (most likely Justine) is running all over silencing every possible noise that might be a disturbance to Mahler.

Part One opens with a declamatory fanfare that is heavy and menacing. Mahler described the effect of this opening to Bauer-Lechner: “Over the introduction to this movement, there lies again that atmosphere of brooding summer midday heat; not a breath stirs, all life is suspended, and the sun-drenched air trembles and vibrates.” A second theme, with winds and solo violin, offers some light into the ominous gloom. Several of the themes heard near the beginning will be transformed into material for the last three movements (fascinating in that Mahler wrote the first movement after the others). The entire movement is a series of marches that continue to build, becoming more

and more impassioned. A return to the menace of the opening march cuts off that section. The climactic ending of Part One is nothing short of breathtaking. The orchestra is playing at full force as Mahler instructs “mit höchster Kraft” (with all possible strength). This is certainly a place where not only the audience, but the orchestra as well needs a well-deserved break. After the first movement in the Second Symphony, Mahler calls for a short pause before beginning the remainder of the work; a break is recommended between Part One and Part Two of the Third Symphony.

Part Two, except for the finale, is a series of short character pieces beginning with Blumenstück, the first music he composed for this symphony Blumenstück is a minuet that is interrupted with a sinister section with brief moments of frantic activity, only to return to the gentle minuet. The third movement harkens back to his First and Second Symphonies. The love of nature in the First Symphony and the great summoning at the end of the Second Symphony are evoked.

The fourth movement enters with low strings and provides a foundation for the solo alto. Nietzsche provides the words to the Midnight Song from Also sprach Zarathustra with each of its eleven lines to be imagined as coming between two of the twelve strokes of midnight. “Oh man, give heed! What does deep midnight say? I Slept! From a deep dream have I waked. The world is deep. And deeper than the day had thought! Deep is its pain! Joy deeper still than heartbreak! Pain speaks: Vanish! But all joy seeks eternity. Seeks deep, deep eternity.”

As dark as Nietzsche’s midnight is, the change to a world of bells and angels is most welcome. The text for the fifth movement comes from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn) with interjections of Mahler’s words Du sollst ja nicht weinen (But you mustn’t weep). The children’s chorus is at first confined to bell noises but joins in later with the exhortation Liebe nur Gott (Love only God) and the final stanza. Mahler ends the Third with an exceptionally beautiful Adagio. As he explained to Bauer-Lechner, “In adagio movements everything is resolved in quiet. The Ixion [Ixion was a king who, by Zeus’ command, was pinned to a fiery wheel that revolved unceasingly through the underworld, as punishment for his alleged seduction of Hera] wheel of outward appearances is at last brought to a standstill. In fast movements - minuets, allegros, even andantes nowadays - everything is motion, change, flux. Therefore I have ended my Second and Third symphonies contrary to custom… with adagios - the higher form as distinguished from the lower.”

The final movement’s original title, What Love Tells Me, refers to Christian love, to agape, and Mahler’s drafts include “Behold my wounds! Let not one soul be lost!” And as Michael Steinberg writes, Mahler’s performance directions also speak to spirituality; the immense final bars with the thundering timpani are not to be played with brute strength, but with a rich, noble tone and the last measure should “not be cut off sharply” - so that there is some softness to the edge between sound and silence at the end of this profound utterance of serene power and beauty.

MASTERWORKS 3

MASTERWORKS 7

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4TH, 2023, 7PM

DECC SYMPHONY HALL, ALLETE STAGE

DIRK MEYER, CONDUCTOR

ERIN ALDRIDGE, VIOLIN

DURRWACHTER

Laurentia (world premiere) 23’

Gabbro and Ice

Forest and Fen

Superior Flowage

WIENIAWSKI 22’

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, op. 22

Allegro moderato

Romance: Andante non troppo

Allegro con fuoco – Allegro moderato

Erin Aldridge, violin

INTERMISSION

SIBELIUS

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, op. 43 43’

Allegretto

Tempo andante, ma rubato

Vivacissimo – Lento e soave

Finale: Allegro moderato

CONCERT SPONSORS:

The composition by Wendy Durrwatchter was supported by a generous donation from Dr. Michael and Sharon Mollerus.

ERIN ALDRIDGE

Erin Aldridge has won numerous awards as both soloist and chamber musician, and has been featured throughout Europe, South America, and the United States. She is a highly sought-after performer and pedagogue and has been published in Strings Magazine.

Erin maintains an active performance schedule as a soloist and chamber musician. She has been a soloist with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, the Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, the Long Prairie Chamber Orchestra, the Mesabi Symphony Orchestra, and the Itasca Symphony Orchestra. She has been a guest artist at the Indiana University Summer Music Festival, Arizona State University, DePaul University Contemporary Concert Series, Madeline Island Music Camp, Ashland Chamber Music Series, National String Workshop, “Live at the Chazen” Concert Series, and has been broadcast on National Public Radio, the BBC, Minnesota Public Radio, and Wisconsin Public Radio. As a fiddler with Danny Frank and the Smoky Gold, Erin has been featured in festivals, and performances, and radio and TV across the Midwest, most recently being invited to perform at the 2023 Blue Ox Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

In the Twin Ports area, she received recognition as a prominent artist.In the spring of 2005, she was named concertmaster of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. She was selected for the “20 under 40” award by the Duluth News Tribune in the fall of 2007, an honor given to 20 professionals who are successful in their chosen fields and role models in the community. In 2012 she received the Community Enrichment Award from the Duluth Depot Foundation Annual Artist Awards and was honored by the American Association of University Women as one of four “Created Here” artists in the Duluth-Superior area. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award by the University of Wisconsin-System Board of Regents.

Erin attended Indiana University where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Violin Performance. She received her Master’s degree and Performer’s Certificate in Chamber Music Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was a member of the Leonard Sorkin Institute of Chamber Music under the direction of the Fine Arts Quartet. She continued her studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Violin Performance. Her primary teachers include Mimi Zweig, Josef Gingold, Nellie Shkolnikova, Rostaslav Dubinsky, Efim Boico, and Vartan Manoogian.

Erin has several recordings, including her recording of Eugene Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27, and composer Justin Rubin’s Constellations for the MSR Classics label. In addition, she has done several recordings with acclaimed singer-songwriter Sara Thomsen as well as the Three Altos, and has an upcoming release album of a live performance recording at Sacred Heart with her band Danny Frank and the Smoky Gold.

In 2003, Dr. Aldridge joined the music faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. She is the Concertmaster of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera of the North Orchestra, was a long-time faculty member of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Summer String Academy and is a member of the bluegrass/Americana/folk-based band Danny Frank and the Smoky Gold.

WENDY DURRWACHTER

WENDY DURRWACHTER

BORN: December 19, 1977, in Madison, Wisconsin

WORK COMPOSED: Completed April 27, 2023

WORLD PREMIERE: November 4, 2023, Duluth, Minnesota; Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Dirk Meyer conducting

PERFORMANCE HISTORY: This world premiere marks the first original composition by Wendy Durrwachter to be played by the DSSO.

INSTRUMENTATION: Two flutes (doubling alto flute and piccolo), two oboes (one doubling English horn), two clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (vibraphone, marimba), harp, piano and strings.

DURATION : 23 minutes

I have spent a lifetime with various opportunities to explore the Great Lakes. My childhood family road trips explored the shores of Lake Michigan from Door County, WI - either on the southern borders through the US or northern borders over the Mackinac Bridge into Canada - to Niagara Falls. Trips in the other direction provided glimpses of the Lake Superior south shore to Isle Royale and the north shore to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Quetico Provincial Park through Grand Marais. Later road trips from Duluth with my kids

would bring me to explore Lake Huron and Ontario as well as the full north shore of Lake Superior. It is a remarkable thing to retreat into your imagination into an omniscient perspective of the interconnectivity of the waterways of the unique chain of lakes in the BWCA/Quetico Provincial Park to the Great Lakes, traveling all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Because the continent has a border drawn through its middle, it is easy to perceive the Duluth Superior watershed as being marginal or on the edge of our country. But when we remove the map’s international border, it is easy to see that the Duluth, Minnesota area is actually in the very center of the continental bedrock that comprises the North American Craton – Laurentia. Of additional regional importance is the short drive to Hibbing to the triple point in which rivers begin to flow in three different directions to reach Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Atlantic. Remarkably, this region was a central figure in the Mid-continent Rift that began 1.1 billion years ago. This rift that created the lowest depths drawn through the center of Lake Superior almost created a continental divide. With its tangential arms, the rift is the significant event that gave us the extraordinary marvel that is the Great Lakes. I am astonished when I travel to the US coasts to encounter people who have never heard of Lake Superior - hardly knowing anything about the Great Lakes – which are by far the largest deposit of fresh water on earth! When I stand on these rocks on the north shore of Minnesota, I imagine the geological story of their creation, a mental journey through ancient time - from their 2.5 billion year-old initial volcanic formation into their much later twenty glaciations. It is impossible to ignore the dynamic story of fire and ice that shaped this region to become the rarity it is. When commissioned by the DSSO to write a piece that honors the region of Duluth, I immediately came to this topic.

The first movement begins with a meditative theme of the passing of time with a minimal orchestration and a simple rhythmic motif showing variance in time. It gradually builds to a grand, richly layered orchestration breaking open the earth’s crust in time lapse. The fire motif is introduced. It then transitions to the slow passing of a glacier where the ice motif is introduced and dwindles away.

The second movement is my time-lapsed reflection of life forming in the region. It is a snapshot imagining tree roots developing into a network beneath the soil as they weave between crevices in the jagged bedrock. Then it transitions to a bog/fen region, an underground water “scene” elevating to the surface with a slow flow.

Laurentia

The third and final movement begins with our treasured aurora borealis over this imagined region of still water. It then transitions into various moving bodies of surface water – streams, slowly flowing lakes, and rivers. It ultimately builds into a rushing, grandiose drainage over the Superior Hiking Trail escarpment into the world’s largest fresh-water flowage of Lake Superior. Each setting or era brings on the necessity of new thematic material, however, the two motives (for fire and ice) introduced in the first movement return, scattered throughout the entirety. In each return the character of the new material changes the character of the two early motives to weave it all into the present of today.

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22 HENRYK WIENIAWSKI

BORN: July 10, 1835, in Lublin, Poland

DIED: March 31, 1880, in Moscow, Russia

WORK COMPOSED: Began in 1856; dedicated to Pablo de Sarasate

WORLD PREMIERE: November 27, 1862, in St Petersburg, Wieniawski soloist, Anton Rubenstein conducting

PERFORMANCE HISTORY: This Wieniawski Concerto has been presented twice before on the Masterworks Series:  in 1955 with Erica Morini and 1982 with Elmar Oliveira.

INSTRUMENTATION: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, strings and solo violin.

DURATION : 22 minutes.

Henryk Wieniawski was one of the eminent violinists of the mid-19th century. He was a member of a distinguished family of Polish musicians. His younger brother Józef (18371912) was an accomplished pianist and a versatile composer. Their nephew Adam Tadeusz Wieniawski (1879-1950) was also an accomplished composer. He was appointed leader of the Warsaw Musical Society in 1928 and taught at the Chopin Music School and was its director after World War II for a brief period.

Henryk showed exceptional talent on the violin at a very young age. After playing a brilliant audition he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire at the age of eight. On January 30, 1848, he played a concert accompanied by his younger brother Józef, after which he departed for St Petersburg where he gave five successful concerts. There he earned the praise of Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881), at the time the solo violinist in the court of Tsar Nicholas I. Henryk returned to the Paris Conservatoire in 1849 to study harmony. In 1850, at the age of fifteen, he was made an honorary member of the Societé Philharmonique and received the Cercle-des-Arts.

HENRYK WIENIAWSKI

From 1860 to 1872 Wieniawski lived in St Petersburg where he was extremely active as a solo violinist to the tsar, leader of both the orchestra and string quartet of the Russian Musical Society and from 1862 to 1868 professor of violin at the newly established conservatory. To say that he exerted a decisive influence on Russian violin pedagogy would be an understatement. This was also an era when he wrote a significant number of his compositions, including the Violin Concerto No. 2, his finest work.

Wieniawski possessed a superlative technique on the violin, a mastery that amazed all who heard him. It was written that all the advanced wizardry of the legendary virtuosos was apparently no challenge to him. His intensity of emotion and expressivity impressed the musical establishment the most. He was hailed as one of the great geniuses of the violin of all time and the successor to the immortal Paganini. The Second Violin Concerto, which he dedicated to the great Pablo de Sarasate, bears all the technical acrobatics and extravagant romanticism expected to show off a true virtuoso.

The extensive introduction to the first movement begins in a rather subdued, moody atmosphere

Wendy Durrwachter © 2023

before bringing in the soloist to explore the opening themes already heard. The virtuosic embellishments seem organic and not at all out of place. Unlike nearly every concerto from that period, it lacks the development or recapitulation sections. The second movement Romance follows without pause, the melody of which is guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings. Intuitively the movement is short enough to keep the audience awaiting the explosive, exciting final movement. Marked as à la Zingara (in the Gypsy manner), the last movement is a tip of the hat to the dedicatee Sarasate and his famous Zigeunerweisen. One can only imagine the audiences of the day hearing this unequivocal master of the violin in performance.

Wieniawski loved to perform. After his tenure in Russia he undertook, with Rubinstein, a remarkable tour of North America. They performed an astounding 215 concerts during the first year. Although both were near exhaustion, Wieniawski remained for a second year and shared the stage with soprano Paulina Lucca (1841-1908). He made a fortune, but seriously endangered his health. Upon his return to Europe he accepted the offer in 1875 to replace Vieuxtemps as professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory, a post he kept for only two years. Despite his deteriorating health (he suffered from a severe heart condition), he continued traveling and performing because of his financial need (he also had a severe gambling addiction).

During a performance of his Second Violin Concerto on November 11, 1878, Wieniawski collapsed and was carried off the stage. A few minutes later Joseph Joachim, who was in the audience, came out on stage with Wieniawski’s violin and announced, ‘Although I cannot play my friend’s wonderful concerto, I shall play Bach’s Chaconne.’

By the end of Joachim’s performance Wieniawski had slightly recovered and embraced his friend on the stage. Continuing health problems plagued Wieniawski for the next few months until he was able to perform a farewell concert in April in Odessa. He returned to Moscow after the concert and was admitted to the Mariinsky Hospital in November. Tchaikovsky’s patron Nadezhda von Meck took Wieniawski into her home on February 14, 1880, to give him medical attention and hospice care. His friends arranged a benefit concert to help provide for his family. A few weeks later Wieniawski, at only 44 years old, died of a heart attack. His Second Violin Concerto remains one of the most popular violin concertos in the repertoire, memorable for its lush melodies and harmonies.

JEAN SIBELIUS

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43

JEAN SIBELIUS

BORN: December 8, 1865, in Hämeenlinna, in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland

DIED: September 20, 1957, in his home, Ainola, at Lake Tuusula, Järvenpää, Finland

WORK COMPOSED: 1901

WORLD PREMIERE: March 8, 1902, in Helsinki; Helsinki Philharmonic Society, Sibelius conducting

PERFORMANCE HISTORY: The longest and most popular of the Sibelius symphonies, this work has been given eleven times previously on the Masterworks Series. It was also played in 1938, 1940, 1944, 1951, 1956, October 28, 1966 (the Orchestra’s first Masterworks concert in its new home – the Duluth Auditorium, now the DECC’s Symphony Hall), 1972, 1983, 1998, 2003, and 2014.

INSTRUMENTATION: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

DURATION : 43 Minutes.

“YOU HAVE BEEN SITTING AT HOME for quite a while, Mr. Sibelius, it is high time for you to travel. You will spend the late autumn and the winter in Italy, a country where one learns cantabile, balance and harmony, plasticity and symmetry of lines, a country where everything is beautiful – even the ugly.” Baron Axel Carpelan (to whom the symphony is dedicated) wrote these words to Sibelius in 1900

and through his connections was able to find a patron to supply the funds. In October 1900, Sibelius and his family left their home. Staying in Berlin for two months, they continued to Italy at the end of January 1901, settling in a mountain villa near Rapallo.

The solace Sibelius found there brought about a remembrance of reading Flegeljahre, by Jean Paul (1763-1825): “the midday moment has something ominous to it… a kind of muteness, as if nature itself is breathlessly listening to the stealthy footsteps of something supernatural, and at that very moment one feels a greater need for company than ever.” Solitude, anticipation, anxiety – things we’ve all experienced at one time or another.

Following this recollection of reading Jean Paul, Sibelius wrote: “Don Juan. Sitting in the twilight in my castle, a guest enters. I ask many times who he is. – No answer. I make an effort to entertain him. He remains mute. Eventually he starts singing. At this time, Don Juan notices who he is – Death.” On the other side of the paper he wrote the date, “2/19/01”, and then sketched the melody that became the bassoon theme (in D minor) of the second movement of the Second Symphony. In Florence two months later, Sibelius drafted a second theme (originally in C major, later to be in F-sharp major), above which he wrote ‘Christus.’ We might consider the first theme Defeat and Death and the latter theme Resurrection and Life. What are we to make of Sibelius and his music?

In 1907 Sibelius met Gustav Mahler. This was the only time they were to meet. Remembering the encounter Sibelius wrote:

When our conversation touched on the essence of symphony, I said that I admired its severity and style and the profound logic that created an inner connection between all the motives. This was the experience I had come to in composing. Mahler’s opinion was just the reverse. “Nein, die Symphonie müss sein wie die Welt. Sie müss alles umfassen.” (No, the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.)

This encounter speaks volumes about both composers. Perhaps the difficulty with Mahler is that his symphonies are huge, sprawling masterpieces that require the total concentration of the listener – they were unique for their time and also for the current day. The symphonies of Sibelius are masterful, yet more concise and they come to a logical completion.

The connection between all four movements of the Second Symphony is one of the aspects that makes this work so enduring and powerful. From the opening measures to the very last notes we feel as if we have been on a long trip. Imagine a journey

where there are ample opportunities to stop, enjoy the scenery, have something to eat, take a walk and continue on because the final destination has not been reached. As we get closer to our destination we become more anxious as time seems to slow and the anticipation is too much to bear. At the end we finally realize that any difficulties we encountered during our journey have been mitigated by the pure joy we now find.

A few quotes about the Second Symphony may help to enhance our enjoyment:

The effect of the andante is that of the most crushing protest against all the injustice which today threatens to take light from the sun (…) [The scherzo] depicts hurried preparation (…) [The finale] culminates in a triumphant closure which is capable of arousing in the listener a bright mood of consolation and optimism.

Robert Kajanus, conductor, 1902

The second symphony is a song of praise for summer and the joy of life.

Simon Parmet, conductor, 1955

I find this work vulgar, self-indulgent and provincial beyond any description.

Virgil Thomson, critic and composer

In comparison with the first symphony, the second symphony already shows a dignified man of the world looking into the horizon. We have moved from Slavism to Central Europe. Still, from time to time I also see images of Karelian grandmothers practising their witchcraft.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor, 2002

The second symphony is connected with our nation’s fight for independence, but it is also about the struggle, crisis and turning-point in the life of an individual. This is what makes it so touching.

Osmo Vänskä, conductor, 1998

The Helsinki Philharmonic Society premiered the Symphony No. 2 in D major on March 8, 1902, with Sibelius conducting. Historically, Finland was experiencing a struggle for independence from Russia, suffering imposed sanctions on the Finnish language and culture. The symphony was immediately received as a patriotic, nationalistic message and was dubbed the “Symphony of Independence.” Sibelius rejected any programmatic labels and claimed that all his symphonies are pure absolute music. Regardless of his claims, few composers are as identified with their nationality as Sibelius. His music plays an important role in the formation of the Finnish identity.

Program notes by Vincent Osborn © 2023

RICHARD ROBBINS

DSSO chorus master Richard Robbins is the director of choral activities at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where directs the University Singers and Chamber Singers, in addition to teaching an array of choral conducting and music courses. Robbins travels extensively as a clinician, adjudicator, and director for choral festivals and honor choirs across the country, with recent engagements in Miami, Los Angeles, Orlando, San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, and New York City. He has conducted and lectured internationally on multiple occasions at Warsaw’s Chopin Conservatory of Music, the John Paul II Liturgical Institute, and at Krakow’s Academy of Music. As a conductor, his performances have been featured on numerous nationally syndicated programs, including American Public Media’s Pipedreams. His extensive experience in preparing choral-orchestral performances includes leading choirs for the Houston Ballet and for over 50 performances with the Houston Symphony. He has prepared choruses for several major conductors, including Christoph Eschenbach, Ermanno Florio, Hans Graf, Joan Glover, Bernard Labadie, Klaus Peter Flor, Michael Krajewski, Stephen Cleobury, Robert Franz, and Dirk Meyer

Learn

dsacommunityfoundation.org

INVEST IN THE MUSIC YOU LOVE

WAYS TO SUPPORT THE DULUTH SUPERIOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Just as it takes an ensemble to perform the great works of Beethoven, so it takes a collection of individuals to support the work of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. When you give to the DSSO, you are supporting an organization that is a cultural cornerstone of the Twin Ports region, bringing together the best of our local musicians to entertain, educate and enrich the lives of more than 20,000 individuals each year.

Your ticket purchase tonight was important - but it only covers a quarter of our annual operating expenses. Individual donors play an important part in helping the Symphony bridge that gap. Each season, gifts from individuals provide more than 60% of our contributed income. That means donations of any size make a big difference and support our efforts to share great music with everyone in the community.

WAYS TO MAKE A GIFT:

In Person - Come say hello to us at the tables in the lobby. We want to hear your stories about concerts you have enjoyed over the years.

Call the Office - We are happy to process your donation over the phone and love it when you call!

Donate Online - Give securely by visiting www.DSSO.com/give

Debit Transfer - Join other DSSO patrons and simply authorize your banker to initiate a reoccurring debit transfer from your account directly to the DSSO.

Mail Us a Check - We know it can be old-fashioned, but our office loves getting mail. 130 W. Superior St Suite LL2 - 120 Duluth, MN 55802

IRA Donation - Are you 70½ or older? You can support the music you love with a Qualified Charitable Distribution from your IRA. Please consult your tax or financial advisor for more information.

Charitable Bequest - Write your own story with planned gifts to the people & organizations you value by writing them to your Will and beneficiary designations.

Stock Donations- You can transfer appreciated stock as a gift that is fully tax-deductible.

PERPETUAL SUPPORT VIA THE LEGACY SOCIETY:

The Legacy Society recognizes and honors the visionary individuals, couples, and families who have included the DSSO in their estate plans, ensuring that the music you care about continues into the future. To join the Legacy Society, you can make a bequest to the DSSO as part of your Will, name the organization as a beneficiary in a policy or retirement fund or provide a direct cash donation into our endowment.

To begin, contact your attorney and ask for the DSSO to be included in your Will, Trust or policy. Then contact the DSSO office and we can provide you with a membership form so we can begin recognizing your generosity and including your gift in our future planning.

In recognition of their support, Legacy Society members are listed in all concert Program Books and are invited to an exclusive annual benefit event each year.

BUSINESS SUPPORT:

The Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra (DSSO) is proud to be a part of the Twin Ports business community. The Symphony is an employer, a downtown tenant, a consumer, an advertiser, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. We understand that each company has different needs and motivations, from marketing and brand identification to client and employee entertainment and recognition, and more. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your corporate objectives and identify customized ways we can work together for mutual benefits.

THE DSSO DONOR LOUNGE

The DSSO Donor Lounge is a space for where our most invested patrons can gather before a concert and during intermission. Access to the Donor Lounge starts with gifts to the annual fund of $1,000 and includes access to a private bartender on the second floor of the Symphony Hall Lobby Space.

DSSO CONTRIBUTORS

THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING CORPORATE AND INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS WHO HAVE GIVEN IN SUPPORT OF THE DSSO JUNE 1, 2022 THROUGH AUGUST 11, 2023.

MAESTRO

($25,000 & up)

The Depot Foundation

Elisabeth C. Mason Revocable Trust

Margaret Ames Memorial Fund

McKnight Foundation

Minnesota State Arts Board

Muriel Whiteside Charitable Trust

PRINCIPAL

($10,000 to $24,999)

Charles & Carolyn Russell Foundation

Jeremy & Carol Fryberger

Helena Jackson

Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation

Anonymous

Dr. Michael & Sharon Mollerus

Vern & May Nordling

Nancy Odden & Doug Britton

Pachel Foundation

Dr. Ann Rock

Arend J. & Verna Sandbulte

Wildey H. Mitchell Family Foundation

GUEST ARTIST

($6,000 to $9,999)

Essentia Health

National Bank of Commerce

North Shore Bank of Commerce

FULL CHAIR

($4,500 to $5,999)

Dr. Vicki & Terry Anderson

Linda & Mark Boben

Karl Diekman

Thomas & Barbara Elliott

Sylvia Jamar

Minnesota PowerAn ALLETE Company

William (“Buzz”) & Saundra Palmer

Brad Schmugge

James & Jacquie Sebastian

St. Luke’s

Shirley Tratechaud

HALF CHAIR

($2,500 to $4,499)

Robert T. & Barbara Bennett

Hon. David & Gloria Bouschor

Adelaide M. Cline

Gary & Jacqueline Foley

Dr. Beth Gilbert

Christabel & James Grant

Elaine B. Killen

Kathleen & James Sanders

Timothy Sandor

Bill Stack of Stack Bros. Mechanical Contractors

Carolyn Sundquist

The Teberg Fund

QUARTER CHAIR

($1,200 to $2,499)

Martha A. Aas

Bell Bank

John & Kathleen Berchild

Lurene Buhrmann

Jeffrey & Vickie Cadwell

Alison Clarke

Steve & Lauri Cushing

Mark Danielson & Theresa Smith

John & Rhonda Degelau

Rose & Lester Drewes

Ruth Ann Eaton

Roger & Elaine Engle

Mary Evans

Harold & Ruth Frederick

Walter & Kay Gower

John Fochs of Happy Sleeper Mattress

Dr. Glen E. Holt

Jill & Tom Kaiser

Robert Knighton

Tina Koecher

Mary & Jim Krook

Patricia & David Mast

Thomas & Alice McCabe

Nancy Melander

Mark & Grace Monson

Heather Muster

Tammy Ostrander & Tony Barrett

Jennifer Owen

Branden Robinson

Lane F. Smith

Tobin Sobaski & Kari Koehler

Roberta Vose

Dr. Robert Wahman

Gudrun & Geoffery Witrak

Cathleen & Kirby Wood

James & Mary Zastrow

ACCELERANDO

($600 to $1,199)

Sandra Barkley

Susan Bathory & Donald Lane

Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery

Kate Dean

Kari Dresback

Rondi Erickson

Louise (Margaret) Foss

Kay & Ronald Gustafson

Christine Hensolt

Dr. Jason & Megan Johnson

Otto Johnson & September Mihaly

Ronald Kari

John & Sharon Kemp

Gale & Jeri Kerns

Richard D. Kivela

Diane Kolquist & James Seitz

Dennis Lamkin & Jon Niemi

Dirk & Paula Meyer

Gerald & Mary Ann Ostroski

Gerald & Karen Ruona

Nicholas & Dr. Mark Scott

Anita Swanson

Dr. Andrew Thompson

Geiger & David Yount

ADAGIO

($200 to $599)

John Alexander Anonymous

Allen Anway

Charles R. Babst

Leonore & Robert Baeumler

Susanne & Johan Bakken

Riley Barka

Daniel & Marjorie Bergeland

Janice Biga

Angie Bomier

Tamara Bottge

Gary & Kathy Bubalo

Maryjane Burdge

Bill & Renee Burns

Jean & Sharon Captain

Jan Carey

Jay Carlsgaard

Mary & Jeff Charnes

Timothy & Kathleen Cortes

Jerry Curnow

John & Judy Dahl

Dorothy Dayton

Kathleen DeSanto

Linville Doan

R. Craft & Ellie Dryer

Paul Enenbach

Paula Fenstad

Martha & Conrad Firling

David & Barbara Gaddie

Patricia Gannon

Karen Gran

Michelle Gribbon

Carlton Gustafson

Linda Haagensen

Lois & Robert Heller

Shirley Herman

Barbara Hjort

Mark & Sharon Holm

Paul & Alice Holm

Wayne Holmberg

Oliver & Mary Ann Houx

Bill & Kate Isles

Kenneth G. Jackson

Pamella Jacobson

Dan & Lois Jaeckel

James Jarocki

Ellis Johns

Dennis & Susan Johnson

Matthew Johnson

Linda Jorgenson & Jack Gunderson

John & Beth Kelly

Carol & Paul Knuti

Mark Kolbo

Katherine Kuettel

Andre & Marilyn LaMourea

James Lampi

Sharon Layon & Neil Nelson

Michael Lillo

Gary & Nancy Loberg

Paul Lokken

Candace Madich

John & Michelle Magdsick

Rachel & Gregory Mason

Dean & Kate McCall

Robert Meese Jr. & Ann E. Small

Gary & Darla Meier

Barbara Melde Olson

David Mesner & Joyce Piper

Alice & Don Michels

Julie Michels

William Miner

Pam Moore & Jon Stephenson

Daniel & Catherine Mundt

Jennifer Naegele

Jeannette Nesseth

Emily Nygren

Vincent & Sharon (Rigby) Osborn

David J. Ouse

Deborah Rausch

Mary Pat Renaud

Kathleen Risku

Joseph & Catherine Roby

Jonathan & Nancy Rova

Janet R. Sklaris

Phyllis & Vic Smith

Nairi Stack

James H. Stewart

Thom & Cynthia Storm

Sharon L. Torrison

Lucas Trea

Claudia Welty

TEMPO (up to $199)

M John J. Agacki

Cigale Ahlquist

Janet Akervik

William Alexander

John & Cathy Ameel

Gwendolyn Anderson

Patricia Anderson

Richard & Yvonne Anderson

Sylvia Angradi

Kathleen Antilla

Allan Apter

J. David Arnott

Ramin Artang

Linda Backman

Carla Bailey

Judith & James Bailey

Carolyn Baird

Lee Ball

Thomas & Mary Jean Barratt

Jane & Thomas Barthell

Dr. Niles H. Batdorf

Carla Bayerl

Anonymous

Tiffany Beckman

Claire Belisle

Jessica Bellefeuille

Bridget Bemis

Lisa Benson

Audrey Beyer

Damita Beyer

Anne Bier

Kay Biga & Patrick Spott

David & Karen Bjorkman

Bryan Block

Gary Boelhower & Gary Anderson

Thomas & Mary Boman

Joseph Boulley

Richard & Jane Bradford

Kathleen Bray

Day Breitag

Rhianna Brodin

Rebecca M. Brookman

Anonymous

Wendy Buczynski

Debra Buresh

Jacob Burski

Trilby Busch

Jose Cabrera

Nic Caine

Ronald Caple

Rev. Craig S. Carlson

Lea Carr

Eun Joo Choi

Timothy & Leslie Churchill

Molly Clabots

Jan Cleary

Katie Comley Stevenson

Natalie Constance

Anthony Croeker

Gwyn Curran

Matthew Daeuber

Tom & Kathy Dahlberg

Dave Dake

Joel Day

Julie Demgen

Franklin Doane-Arkulary

Michael & Carol Donahue

Thomas Donahue

Jeanne Doty

Mary Dragich

Nancy Eaton

Joanne & Tom Ellison

Donald Erickson

Paul Eskuche

Anya Felts

Karen Finseth

Anne & William Fleischman

Dewaine Forbragd

Ernie Forgach

Joel Forgacs

Jonathan Forgrave

Greg Fox

Rebecca Fulin

Kristin Garey

Cole Gasper

Geoffrey Gates

John Gibbs

Jane Gilley

Sarah Glesner

Mary Godfrey

Robert Goodell

Rikki Graskey

Mary & Joe Gummerson

Trammell Gutierrez

Mary Kay Hagen

Elizabeth Hall

Michon Harju

Lynne Harrington Hall

Margaret M. Hayes

Cheryl Hedgecock

Ellen Hedin

Alex Heil

Clay Helberg

Thomas Henning

Sara Henriksen

Linda Herron

Joyce & Robert Hickman

Alex Hickok

Jill Hilliard

Susan Hjort

Anonymous

Mary & Allen Hoberg

Lisa Hoch

Karen Hoeschen

Sister Kathleen Hofer

Sara Hollingsworth

Kerri Holm-Eberling

Sally Horstman

Jane Hovland

Robert D. Howe

Anonymous

Debra Jensen

Jana Jensen

Mark & Theresa Jobin

Donald & Mary John

Casey Johnson

Evan Johnson

Leif Johnson

Rachel Johnson

Barbara Johnson-Kim

Aziza Jones

Jennifer & Erik Julsrud

Kelly Katzmarek

Karen & John Keenan

Georgia L. Keeney

Sami Keller

Melissa King

Carl Klubertanz

Rena Kraut

Pat Kruschke

Cot LaFond

Barbara & David LaMaster

Serena & Robert (Lamers) McClellan

Cheryl Lancette

Paul Lantieri

Dan Larson

Abigail Latanich

Clifford Lavigne

Peter Lawson

Thomas & Cynthia Ledin

Charles & Jean Leibfried

Melissa Lentz

Tony & Renate Lischalk

Bonnie & Robert Lloyd

Philip Lundquist

Judy MacGibbon

Lucia Magney & Richard Wildberger

Lisa Mandelin

Ann Mars

Tiffany Martin

Cari Matheson

Cathy McCarty & Dan Wallin

Debra McDonald

Karen McManus

Nancy McParlan

Mark & Nancy Melhus

Patricia Mester

Elena Metcalf

Carol Michealson

Patricia Miller

William Miller & Stephanie Hemphill

Wende Morrell

Penelope Morton

Mary K. Murphy & Family

Elsa Murray

Leigh Neitzel

Hannah Nelson

Jeanette Nelson

Susan & Charles Nelson

Judith A. Newman

Dale & Joretta Nikula

Phil & Lorraine Norrgard

Ann M. Novack

Pamella J. Oberfeld

Anonymous

Margaret (Peg) Oman

Myrna Orensten

Michael Orth

Avery Overlie

Timothy Panula

Lacey Parr

Judith Pearson

Ann Pellman

Kenrea Perell

Marylou Perham

Anonymous

Kimberly Pintok

Ericka Pitrago

Mary Planten-Krell

Chuck & Della Pleski

Veronica Poquette

Nancy & Roger Ralston

Lance Reasor

Eric Rodvold

Michael & Betsy Rosenzweig

Sheila Runquist

Nathan Sager

Patty Salo Downs

Keiko Satomi

Diane Sauer

Nichole & Jeffrey Schaefer

Barbara Schlichting

Sam Schmall

Randy Schmidt

Ernst Schoenfeld

Linda Schwartz

Shelly Schwarz

Buddy Scroggins

Jack & Cindy Seiler

Judy Seliga-Punyko

Helen Sever

Melanie Sever

Laurie & Mark Severson

Charlene Shimmin & Don Lemmerman

Dr. Thomas & Janice Shuey

Paul & Vicky Siders

Melissa Skelton

Sandy Skrien

Howard Smith

Beth Sobczak

Tina Solots

Lawrence Spears

Michelle Stark

Stacey Stark

Harlan & Anita Stech

Paul Stein

David Steininger & Lori Williams

Sandra & Craig Sterle

Sophie Stone

Paul Straka

Tim Stratton & Suzanne Wasilczuk

Scott Sueker

Lynette Swanberg

Shirley Swenson

Linnea Swenson Tellekson

Julie Takkunen

Philip Tarnowski

Mary Tennis

Ruth & Dale Thorpe

Adrienne Thureen

Brynn Torgerson

Nicole Turner

UW-Eau Claire

Haas Fine Arts Center

Laurie Van Brunt

Logan Vander Wiel

Brandon VanWaeyenberghe

Sam Verduzco

Steve Voltzke

Jennifer & Steve Wabrowetz

Mary Wagner Zbaracki

John Wakefield

Grimaldo Walker

Jori & Chuck Walt

Joe Walters

Rachel Warner

Sheldon & Susan Watts

Elizabeth Weberg

Trevor L. White

Laura Whitney

Janelle & Josh Wightman

Tom & Linda Wiig

Kelly Wiisanen

Dietrich Winter

Mandi Wojciehowski

Zach Wood

Jay & Helyn Woolf

Rebecca Zunkerr

Honoring Ron Kari’s 60 years with the DSSO

Martha Aas

John Alexander

John & Cathy Ameel

Dr. Vickie & Terry Anderson

Kathleen E. Antilla

Leonore & Robert Baeumler

Thomas & Mary Jean Barratt

Thomas & Jane Barthell

Susan Bathory & Donald Lane

John & Kathy Berchild

Kay Biga & Patrick Spott

Linda & Mark Boben

Honorable David Bouschor

Jeffrey Cadwell

Ronald Caple

Jean & Sharon Captain

Rev. Craig Carlson

Timothy & Leslie Churchill

Mark Danielson

Jeanne & Daniel Doty

Patty Salo Downs

R. Craft & Ellie Dryer

Joanne & Tom Ellison

IN MEMORY

Mary & Bob Evans

Louise Foss

Greg Fox

Harold A. Frederick

Lane Fryberger Smith

Dr. Beth Gilbert

Jane Gilley

Mary Godfrey

Walter and Kay Gower

Christabel and James Grant

Thomas & Sandra Henning

Joyce & Robert Hickman

Jill Hilliard

Jane Horland

Linda Jorgenson & Jack Gunderson

Pamella Jacobson

Dan & Lois Jaeckel

Sylvia Jamar

Karen Keenan

John & Sharon Kemp

Gale and Jeri Kerns

Elaine Killen

Diane Kloquist

Rena Kraut

Pat Kruschke

Cot Lafond

Charles & Jean Leibfried

James Lake & Melissa Lentz

Renate & Tony Lischalk

Gary Loberg

Judy MacGibbon

Bruce & Ann Mars

Nancy McParlan

Mark & Nancy Melhus

Julie Michels

Carol Michealson

Penny Morton

Judith A. Newman

Margaret (Peg) Oman

David J. Ouse

William & Saundra Palmer

Dean Peterson & Deb

Rausch

Nancy and Roger Ralston

Mary Pat Renaud

Our hearts go out to the families and friends of musicians or patrons who have passed. *This list represents those we have been made aware of through Memorial Gifts.

Alberte & Trevor White by Trevor L. White

Daryl & Anne Leibfried and Mary Donahue by Thomas Donahue

IN MEMORY OF JANET MILLEA BYE

Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Janet Millea Bye who passed in February 2023.

Lisa Hoch

Paul Lantieri

Mary K. Murphy & Family

Jennifer Naegele

Sheila Runquist

Roberta Vose.

IN MEMORY OF JOSEPH MEESE

Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Joseph Meese who passed in March 2023.

Patricia Anderson

Linda & Mark Boben

Julie Demgen, Anne & William Fleischman

Serena & Robert (Lamers) McClellan

Robert Meese Jr. & Ann E. Small

William (“Buzz”) & Saundra Palmer

Jacquie & Jim Sebastian.

Kathleen Risku

Michael & Betsy Rosenzweig

Kathleen Sanders

Brad Schmugge

Ernst Schoenfeld

Jacquie & Jim Sebastian

Laurie & Mark Severson

Paul & Vicky Siders

Bill & Nairi Stack

David Steininger & Lori Williams

William Miller & Stephanie Hemphill

Thom and Cindy Storm

Carolyn Sundquist

Ruth Thorpe

Robert and Sharon

Wahman M.D.

Sheldon Watts

Tom & Linda Wiig

Kelly Wiisanen

Jim & Mary Zastrow

Marge Kuehn by Kathleen Antilla

Samuel Tratechaud and Walter & Alta Moe by Shirley Tratechaud

Sharon Wahman by Lane Fryberger Smith and by Roberta Vose

IN MEMORY OF LORRAINE STOLEE

Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Lorraine Stolee who passed in March 2023.

Paula Fenstad

Dr. Glen E. Holt

Jeanette Nelson

Dale & Joretta Nikula

North Shore Bank

William (“Buzz”) & Saundra Palmer

Jacquie & Jim Sebastian

Roberta Vose

IN MEMORY OF JAMES E. SMITH

DSSO Concertmaster (1960-1967)

“My UMD Professor and Violin Teacher.” -Ronald Kari

IN MEMORY OF FORMER DSSO MUSICIANS

Our hearts go out to the family and friends of DSSO Musicians who have recently passed away.

Barbara LeBeau Coffin – Piano

David Kortier – Bassoon / Contrabassoon

Amy Tobin – Violin

Vicki Wheeler – French Horn

PROPRINT AD

TAKE A BOW, SPONSORS

TAKE A BOW, SPONSORS

TAKE A BOW, SPONSORS

A BOW, SPONSORS

pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

We are pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. Their generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, educational programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

TAKE A BOW, SPONSORS

TAKE A BOW, SPONSORS

are pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, educational programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

TAKE A BOW, SPONSORS

are pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. Their generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, educational programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

We are pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. Their generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, educational programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

We are pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. Their generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, educational programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

We are pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. Their generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, educational programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

TAKE A BOW, SPONSORS

We are pleased to o er a big thank you to our sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. Their generous support makes it possible for the DSSO to bring world-class concerts, educational programs, and community outreach to the Northland. BRAVO!

WE ARE PLEASED TO OFFER A BIG THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS FOR THE 2023-2024 SEASON. THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR THE DSSO TO BRING WORLD-CLASS CONCERTS, EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS, AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH TO THE NORTHLAND. BRAVO!

SPONSORS

sponsors for the 2021-2022 Season. DSSO to bring world-class concerts, to the Northland. BRAVO!

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

MASTERWORKS SERIES

ONE | MW1

TWO | MW2

THREE | MW3

FOUR | MW4

FIVE | MW5

SIX | MW6

SEVEN | MW7

POPS SERIES

EIGHT | POPS1

NINE | POPS2

CHAMBER

September 16, 2023

October 7, 2023

November 4, 2023

February 24, 2024

March 16, 2024

April 13, 2024

May 4, 2024

December 2, 2023

February 10, 2024

TEN | An intimate chamber performance conducted by Maestro Dirk Meyer to be held at the Depot Theatre. This is a non-subscription event and tickets will go on sale this fall.

Creating a community free from mental health crisis

Supporters of the Miller-Dwan Foundation see their gifts touch lives beyond hospital walls. Here, the youngest to the oldest in our area are cared for with dignity and respect. Our caregivers work wonders. And families find dignity, hope, and healing. We exist to support our region’s health. | mdfoundation.org

Pizza Lucé Duluth located on the corner of Superior and Lake.

Get the best under your feet

At Johnson Carpet One Floor & Home, we know how important it is for you to feel confident in your flooring selection. Therefore, we strive to ensure that the floor we’ve created together, is as beautiful as the one in your dreams. If not, we’ll replace it for free. That’s what we call The Beautiful Guarantee®.