THIS PERFORMANCE IS PART OF THE
RAND G ROUP
GRE AT P E RF ORM E RS
LIVESTREAMING OF HOUSTON SYMPHONY CONCERTS IS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Barbara J. Burger
THIS PERFORMANCE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Barbara & Pat McCelvey GU A RA N T OR
THIS PERFORMANCE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Tad & Suzanne Smith PART N E R
Concertmaster, and Max Levine Chair, Yoonshin Song is sponsored in part by Gary and Marian Beauchamp and the Beauchamp Foundation The Classical Season is endowed by The Wortham Foundation, Inc., in memory of Gus S. and Lyndall F. Wortham
THE HOUSTON SYMPHONY WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR GENEROUS SEASON SPONSORS
The Classical Season is sponsored by
THE ROBERT CIZIK FAMILY Principal Corporate Guarantor Official Airline
Official Health Care Provider
The Houston Symphony is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.
Preferred Jewelry Partner
THE HOUSTON SYMPHONY WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR GENEROUS SERIES SPONSORS
Gold Classics
Favorite Masters
RAND G ROUP
Great Performers
POPS Series
Family Series
Donations account for two-thirds of the Houston Symphony’s annual operating budget.
ways to DONATE houstonsymphony.org/donate 713.337.8559 text MUSIC to 41444 and pledge your gift
On Today’s Program C.-T. PERKINSON Sinfonietta No. 1 for Strings 1. Sonata Allegro: Allegro 2. Song Form: Largo 3. Rondo: Allegro furioso COPLAND Clarinet Concerto BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 36 I. Adagio—Allegro con brio II. Larghetto III. Scherzo and Trio: Allegro IV. Allegro molto
ABOUT THE MUSIC
C . -T. P E R K I N S O N S I N F O N I E T TA N O . 1 F O R S T R I N G S
COLERIDGETAYLOR PERKINSON
COMPOSER (1932–2004) • Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was named after Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Throughout his six-decade career, his compositions spanned the worlds of classical, jazz, dance, pop, film, and television music. • After receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, Perkinson served on the faculty of the Brooklyn College, as well as co-founded the Symphony of the New World in 1965, serving as its Music Director. He also served as the Music Director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. • Sinfonietta No. 1 was composed when Perkinson was only 22, though it wouldn’t be premiered for another 12 years. Stylistically, the piece is dotted with canons of several composers, including Bach, Barber, and Copland. • Sinfonietta No. 1 is authentic to the musical characteristics that would define Perkinson’s compositions. For example, pointed and controlled dissonance and metrical ambiguity often disrupts the rhythmic flow and alters the relative position of themes throughout the third movement.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
A. COPLAND CLARINET CONCERTO
AARON COPLAND
COMPOSER (1900–1990) • Aaron Copland was dubbed the “Dean of American Composers” by his peers. His work came to define the 20th century landscape of American music. • Copland’s Clarinet Concerto premiered in 1950 during an NBC radio broadcast. Benny Goodman, for whom the piece was commissioned, served as the soloist and blended the canons of classical and popular music found within the composition. • The piece’s first movement was a recasting of a score Copland had written for a WWII newsreel in 1945, while its livelier second movement drew from South American sounds blended with North American jazz. A written solo cadenza bridges the two movements together.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
B E E T H OV E N SYMPHONY NO. 2
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
COMPOSER (1770–1827) • Beethoven’s Second Symphony was written in the summer of 1802 while the composer visited Heiligenstadt at the recommendation of a physician, who suggested a trip outside the bustling Vienna cityscape would benefit his hearing loss. • Despite Beethoven’s personal health troubles at the time of its composition, his Symphony No. 2 is arguably the composer’s most energetic and cheerful, and is primarily written in the triumphant key of D major. • This symphony was composed without the traditional minuet (French dance for two) that was common at the time. Instead, the minuet was replaced with a playful scherzo rife with musical jokes that weren’t necessarily appreciated by the conventional music critics of that time. • The Symphony No. 2 marked a major pivot in Beethoven’s style, ushering in his commanding interpretation of the Romantic era style while laying the foundation for his subsequent symphonies that would go on to be regarded as classical masterpieces.
ARTIST BIOS ˇ JURAJ VALCUHA CONDUCTOR Juraj Valcuha ˇ is Music Director of the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples and First Guest Conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. He was Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai from 2009 to 2016. He studied composition and conducting in Bratislava, St. Petersburg (with Ilya Musin) and Paris where he made his debut with the Orchestre National de France in 2005. He has since led the Philharmonia, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra dell´Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome, and Milan’s Filarmonica della Scala. In North America Juraj ˇ Valcuha has regularly led the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Pittsburgh, Boston, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Cincinnati, National, Minnesota, and Montreal symphony orchestras. Touring with Orchestra della Rai took them to the Abu Dhabi Classics, Cologne, Zurich, Munich, Musikverein in Vienna, and Philharmonie in Berlin. From 2017 to 2020, he made debuts with the Chicago Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra and return engagements with the New York Philharmonic in New York and at Bravo!Vail Festival. He joined the Minnesota, Montréal, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Houston, and Dallas symphony orchestras. In Europe he was acclaimed on the podium of the Munich Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Czech Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, the NDR Hamburg and hr Frankfurt Radio orchestras, BBC Symphony, and Philharmonia London. With the Konzerthausorchester Berlin they made a tour to Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Baltic nations.
ARTIST BIOS
On the opera stage, he recently conducted Faust in Florence, Jenufa, Peter Grimes and Salomé in Bologna, Elektra, Carmen, Bluebeard´s Castle, Valkyria, The Girl of the Golden West, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Katja Kabanova, and Pique Dame at Teatro San Carlo di Napoli. Last year he conducted an opera production of Tristan and Isolde at Teatro Comunale Bologna as well as Tosca with Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann in the summer open-air season of Teatro San Carlo. Juraj Valcuha ˇ is the recipient of the Premio Abbiati 2018 in the category Best Conductor.
MARK NUCCIO PRINCIPAL CLARINET Mark Nuccio is sponsored by Joan and Marvin Kaplan. This weekend’s performances are in loving memory of Marvin.
Mark Nuccio began his position as principal clarinet with the Houston Symphony in the 2016–17 season after 17 years with the New York Philharmonic. He is also a member of the clarinet faculty at both Northwestern University in Chicago and the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. Nuccio joined the New York Philharmonic in 1999 as Associate Principal and Solo E-flat Clarinetist and served as Acting Principal Clarinet with the New York Philharmonic from 2009 to 2013. Prior to his tenure in New York, he held positions with orchestras in Pittsburgh, Denver, Savannah, and Florida, working with distinguished conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Erich Leinsdorf, Bernard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, André Previn, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Gustavo Dudamel. A Colorado native, Nuccio was recently awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mater, the University of Northern Colorado. He also holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University where he studied with renowned pedagogue Robert Marcellus.
