Encore 2: 2016-2017

THE MAGAZINE OF THE JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY

INTRODUCING CHILDREN TO SYMPHONIC MUSIC

JAXSYMPHONY.ORG

Dec 2016 - Jan 2017

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WELCOME! Insight One hour prior to each Florida Blue Masterworks Series concert, join Music Director Courtney Lewis and other Masterworks guest conductors in Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall to hear their insight on the program. An open, low-key 15 to 25 minute presentation including question and answer time will provide the opportunity to learn more about the fantastic works performed by the Jacksonville Symphony.

As we say goodbye to 2016 and herald in 2017, I’m thrilled to welcome you to the Jacksonville Symphony as we make this transition to the New Year with a number of exciting, entertaining and family-friendly performances. This issue focuses on a subject that is very personal to me—introducing children to classical music. You have likely seen me in the hall accompanied by my eleven year-old daughter who has been attending symphony concerts for most of her life. With an orchestra manager father and violist mother, she really didn’t have a choice.

Over the years, it’s been a joy to see her appreciation deepen. At first, she liked only loud and fast pieces, and anything by Franz Joseph Haydn. We would always get aisle seats so we could make a quick get away if she became restless. With each year, concert and season her patience and palette became more sophisticated.

She knows that she won’t like everything performed equally, but she has an understanding that not everyone has the same tastes. We have this same conversation about food. She may favor macaroni and cheese over spinach, but she also knows that one cannot go through life on cheesy carbs alone.

Guest artists often join the conductor to give their vision of the works to be presented. Insight is a new angle on the concert experience. You’ll never listen to the music the same way after hearing Insight. So come early, grab a seat and hear what the experts have to say.

When my family moved from Washington, DC, to Iowa, I was amazed by how deeply college football was embedded into the culture of that community. I’d see social media posts with cute babies wearing Hawkeye onesies, little girls wearing cheerleading uniforms and boys wearing the jerseys of their favorite players. In the United States, our communities unite around sports teams (Go Jags!) and from an early age, children develop a bond with a team through their parents, grandparents and other family members.

INSIGHT

is sponsored by

Tickets: 904.354.5547 Contributions: 904.354.1473 Administration: 904.354.5479

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could develop the same culture for the arts as we do for sports? The Jacksonville Symphony is committed to making the ability for parents and grandparents to pass their love of symphonic music to their children and grandchildren as easy as possible. For young children, we offer one-hour Family concerts. For older children, we offer a free ticket to Masterworks and Pops concerts with the purchase of an adult ticket. We’ve created new programs such as Symphonic Night at the Movies which features popular films performed to a live soundtrack. With titles ranging from last season’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial to this spring’s Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, many of these are perfect for families. We expanded our Sunday matinee offerings for both Masterworks and Pops concerts to provide an accessible afternoon time for those who don’t like to drive at night, have to travel a great distance or simply can’t stay up that late.

Encore! Production Publisher – Robert Massey Editor – Amy Rankin Graphic Designer – Kenneth Shade Advertising Sales – Caroline Jones Photography – Tiffany Manning, Renee Parenteau To Advertise in Encore - Call Caroline Jones at 904.356.0426 or email cjones@jaxsymphony.org. © 2016 Jacksonville Symphony Association 300 Water Street, Suite 200 • Jacksonville, FL 32202

follow us /jaxsymphony

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@jaxsymphony

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#jaxsymphony

is the official piano of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.

Now is the perfect time to introduce your loved ones to the music you have already discovered. Opera returns with the fairy tale classic, Hansel and Gretel, which features a full cast of singers, the Jacksonville Children’s Chorus, costumes, sets and larger-than-lifesize puppets. Seasonal favorites Holiday Pops, The Nutcracker and Handel’s Messiah also make a return. Our Masterworks series continues with music by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. For our older family members, don’t miss Pops concerts featuring Steven Reineke and the music of Frank Sinatra on New Years Eve, plus Principal Pops Conductor Michael Krajewski’s return with the music of Journey, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and more.

As always, our performances are only possible thanks to your support. To our patrons, members and sponsors, I thank you, and while this is the “Season of You,” it is also the season of giving, so please share the gift of music with those in your life that you love.

You’ll be passing on a wonderful gift that will last a lifetime.

4 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Robert Massey President and CEO

EnCORE

THE MAGAZINE OF THE JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY

2016 - 2017 SEASON

VOLUME 23 – ISSUE TWO

EVENTS

17

47

53

DEPARTMENTS 4

Welcome

7

Music Director

8

Symphony Association Board

11

About the Symphony

31

43

69

17

HANSEL AND GRETEL

FLORIDA BLUE MASTERWORKS SERIES

December 2, 3, 4

25

JSYO HOLIDAY CONCERT

PUBLIX SUPER MARKETS CHARITIES JSYO SERIES

December 5

31

HOLIDAY POPS

FIDELITY NATIONAL FINANCIAL POPS SERIES

COFFEE SERIES

December 8, 9, 10, 11

37

HANDEL’S MESSIAH

JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY SPECIAL EVENT

December 17, 18

43

NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH STEVEN REINEKE

FIDELITY NATIONAL FINANCIAL POPS SERIES

December 31

47

MOZART AND MCGILL

bestbet SYMPHONY IN 60 SERIES

COFFEE SERIES

FLORIDA BLUE MASTERWORKS SERIES

January 5, 6, 7

53

JOURNEY, THE EAGLES, FLEETWOOD MAC & MORE

FIDELITY NATIONAL FINANCIAL POPS SERIES

January 13, 14

57

BRAHMS AND BEYOND

FLORIDA BLUE MASTERWORKS SERIES

January 20, 21, 22

67

CIVIC ORCHESTRA CONCERT

JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY SPECIAL EVENT

January 27

9, 23, 62-64

Thank You, Supporters

12-13

Jacksonville Symphony Musicians

61

The Cadenza Society

69

VIOLINS OF HOPE

73

Sound Investment Program

JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY SPECIAL EVENT

76-77

Volunteer Activities and Events

January 28

82

Jacksonville Symphony Administration ENCORE 5

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CFA Society Jacksonville is a community of investment professionals who promote the ethical and professional standards set by CFA Institute. To learn more about the CFA® designation and CFA Society Jacksonville, visit www.cfasociety.org/jacksonville or contact us at info@jacksonville.cfasociety.org ©2012 CFA Institute. CFA®, CFA Institute® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks of CFA Institute in many countries around the world.

6 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

EQUITY

MUSIC DIRECTOR Courtney Lewis Music Director, Haskell Endowed Chair With clear artistic vision, subtle musicality, and innovative programming, Courtney Lewis has established himself as one of his generation’s most talented conductors. The 2016/17 season marks his second as Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony. Previous appointments have included Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, where he returns on subscription in the 2016/17 season, Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, where he made his subscription debut in the 2011/12 season, and Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he debuted in 2011. From 2008 to 2014, Courtney Lewis was the music director of Boston’s acclaimed Discovery Ensemble, a chamber orchestra dedicated not only to giving concerts of contemporary and established repertoire at the highest level of musical and technical excellence, but also bringing live music into the least privileged parts of Boston with workshops in local schools.

In the 2016/17 season he will make his debut with the Dallas Symphony and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and return to the Colorado Symphony. Highlights of 2015/16 included debuts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, and Colorado Symphony, as well as assisting Thomas Adès at the Salzburg Festival for the world première of Adès’s opera The Exterminating Angel.

RENEE PARENTEAU

Lewis made his major American orchestral debut in November 2008 with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and has since appeared with the Atlanta Symphony, Washington National Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Houston Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and Ulster Orchestra, among others.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Lewis read music at the University of Cambridge during which time he studied composition with Robin Holloway and clarinet with Dame Thea King.

After completing a master’s degree with a focus on the late music of György Ligeti, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Mark Elder and Clark Rundell.

ENCORE 7

SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS Officers

Past Board Chairs

Matthew S. McAfee, Chair David Strickland, Vice Chair & Development Committee Chair Rick Moyer, Treasurer & Finance Committee Chair Elizabeth Lovett Colledge, Ph.D., Secretary Robert Massey, President and Chief Executive Officer

Executive Committee Gilchrist Berg, Member at Large R. Chris Doerr, Member at Large Margaret Gomez, Foundation Board Chair Gurmeet Keaveny, Marketing Committee Chair Randall C. Tinnin, DMA, Programming Committee Chair Terry West, Member at Large Gwendolyn “Gwen” Yates, Governance Committee Chair

Board of Directors

Honorary Directors

Don Baldwin

Ruth Conley

Martha Barrett

David W. Foerster

Karen Bower

Preston H. Haskell

J.F. Bryan, IV

Robert E. Jacoby

Tim Cost

Frances Bartlett Kinne, Ph. D.

Tyler Dann

Arthur W. Milam

Barbara Darby, Ed.D.

Mary Carr Patton

Jack Dickison, ex officio

Mary Ellen Smith

Anne H. Hopkins, Ph.D.

Jay Stein

Michael Imbriani, ex officio

James Van Vleck

Wesley Jennison

James H. Winston

Charles Joseph Randolph R. Johnson Susan Jones Kiki Karpen Allison Keller Ross Krueger, M.D.

Foundation Board

Anne Lufrano, Ph.D.

Margaret Gomez, Chair

John Malone

Gilchrist Berg

Pat Manko, ex officio

R. Chris Doerr

Elizabeth McAlhany

Peter Karpen

W. Ross Singletary, II John Surface Clay B. “Chip” Tousey, Jr. Lowell Weiner, Ph.D. Douglas Worth 8 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Olin E. Watts, Founding President Wellington W. Cummer Hugh R. Dowling Giles J. Patterson Carl S. Swisher Gert H. W. Schmidt Robert R. Bowen Roger L. Main Charles L. Hoffman Hugh Abernethy Archie J. Freels Harold K. Smith Jacob F. Bryan, III Ira M. Koger J. Shepard Bryan, Jr. Randall C. Berg W. E. Grissett, Jr. B. Cecil West James C. Blanton David C. Hastings Alford C. Sinclair Constance S. Green Arthur W. Milam John H. McCallum Preston H. Haskell Sylvia F. “Tibby” Sinclair J. F. Bryan, IV David W. Foerster E. William Nash, Jr. James H. Winston Robert T. Shircliff Robert O. Purcifull Carl N. Cannon Phillip E. Wright Jay Stein Mary Ellen Smith R. Travis Storey John S. Peyton A. R. “Pete” Carpenter Steven T. Halverson Gerald J. Pollack James Van Vleck R. Chris Doerr Richard H. Pierpont Martin F. Connor, III

The Jacksonville Symphony gratefully acknowledges some of our most important music makers.

J. Wayne & Delores Barr Weaver

Ruth Conley

Robert D. and Isabelle T. Davis Endowment Fund

The Roger L. and Rochelle S. Main Charitable Trust

State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture.

The Jessie Ball duPont Fund

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The DuBow Family Foundation

Donald C. McGraw Foundation

Follow Us on Facebook & Instagram: @avlproductions

Valdemar Joost Kroier Endowment Fund

Ann McDonald Baker Family Foundation • Yvonne Charvot Barnett Young Artist Fund Biscottis • G. Howard Bryan Fund • Brooks Rehabilitation • Cummer Family Foundation • Drummond Press Jess & Brewster J. Durkee Foundation • FIS • Fleet Landing • David and Ann Hicks • The Kirbo Charitable Trust • Martin Coffee Co. Publix Super Markets Charities • Rice Family Foundation • David and Linda Stein • Jay and Deanie Stein Foundation Carl S. Swisher Foundation • Edna Sproull Williams Foundation • St. Vincent’s HealthCare • Stein Mart • SunTrust Vanguard Charitable-Kessler Fund • Woodcock Foundation for the Appreciation of the Arts

ACOSTA Sales & Marketing • The Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation • Buffet Group Wind Instruments • CenterState Bank Claude Nolan Cadillac • Dana’s limousine and Transportation Services • Enterprise Holdings Foundation • Harbinger Sign Holland and Knight • JAX Chamber • JAX Chamber - Downtown Council • Brady S. Johnson Charitable Trust The Main Street America Group • Mayse-Turner Fund • Parsley’s Piano • Raymond James & Associates, Inc. Rayonier Advanced Materials Foundation • Rowe Charitable Foundation • Sawcross, Inc. • Scott-McRae Group, Inc. Shacter Family Foundation • Harold K. Smith Foundation • Smoller Scholarship Fund • Stellar Foundation • V Pizza Wells Fargo • Westminster Woods on Julington Creek • Workscapes A-B Distributors, Inc. • The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida • Cornelia and Olin Watts Endowment Fund Media Partners: WJCT Public Broadcasting • Florida Times-Union

Community Partners:

ENCORE 9

FIRST JACKSONVILLE PERFORMANCE!

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A Broad Range of Personal & Business Client Solutions • High-yield deposit accounts

Jacksonville Symphony’s 2017 Gala featuring

Lang Lang Celebrate Valentine’s Day and the 20th Anniversary of Jacoby Symphony Hall

Friday, February 17

Reception: 6:00 pm Concert: 7:30 pm Dinner: 9:00 pm

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THE VALUE OF GIVING BACK We place tremendous value on giving back to the communities we serve. Over the past three years, we’ve donated nearly $9 million to over 100 charitable organizations—supporting our key initiatives: empowering youth, housing & economic development, and financial literacy. Not only that, we’re proud to say our people make a big difference each year, by donating their time, money and resources to numerous local and national groups.

THERE’S STRENGTH IN OUR NUMBERS Today EverBank stands tall, buoyed by our valued clients and a record of steady and consistent growth through the years.

Since the early 1960s when our journey began, EverBank has grown to $24.1 billion in assets and $16.5 billion in deposits as of June 30, 2015.

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15EBF0041. EverBank NMLS ID: 399805 © 2015 EverBank. All rights reserved.

904.354.5547

JaxSymphony.org 10 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

ABOUT THE JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY

Fresh from the first complete season for both Music Director Courtney Lewis and President and CEO Robert Massey, the Jacksonville Symphony is ready to break new ground and new records for 2016-2017.

The 2015-2016 season saw an increase in ticket sales of 9% over the previous year as well as an increase in contributed income of 6%. The Symphony performed for more than 201,000 individuals up from the previous season record of 180,000. New music such as Adés Asyla and new events including bestbet Symphony in 60 and Symphonic Night at the Movies were introduced to the community. A new marketing branding including revised logo, updated website and video program notes emphasize the new direction.

The Jacksonville Symphony is one of Northeast Florida’s most important cultural institutions. Founded in 1949, the Symphony is ranked among the nation’s top regional orchestras. The Symphony’s home, Robert E. Jacoby Hall, is considered to be an acoustic gem.

Each year thousands enjoy the Symphony’s performances both at Jacoby Hall in the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts and at venues located throughout Northeast Florida.

The Symphony is also the community’s leader in music education for children, serving four county school districts. Besides offering free tickets to children under the age of 18 for selected concerts and other special youth pricing, there are several programs to foster music education. The Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras, under the direction of Music Director and Principal Conductor Scott Gregg, has a membership of more than 300 and a regular concert schedule.

Over the years the Jacksonville Symphony has hosted some of the most renowned artists of the music world including Isaac Stern, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, Itzhak Perlman, Kathleen Battle, Mstislav Rostopovich and Audra McDonald. This year the Symphony will host Lang Lang at a February 17 Gala.

As a not-for-profit organization, the Symphony relies on the generosity of its donors, patrons and volunteers. For more information about the Jacksonville Symphony, please visit www.

Facebook.com/JaxSymphony, follow us on Twitter @JaxSymphony, and on Instagram at JaxSymphony.

ENCORE 11

THE ORCHESTRA

Anthony Anurca

Melissa Barrett

Patrick Bilanchone

Aaron Brask

Andrew Bruck

Katherine Caliendo

SECOND BASSOON CONTRABASSOON

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

BASS

THIRD HORN

VIOLIN

SECOND HORN

Rhonda Cassano

Kevin Casseday

Laurie Casseday

Christopher Chappell

Tristan Clarke

Merryn Ledbetter Corsat

BASS

CELLO

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL SECOND VIOLIN

PRINCIPAL TRUMPET

PRINCIPAL VIOLA

Clinton Dewing

Aurelia Duca

Patrice Evans

Kenneth Every

Betsy Federman

Ileana Fernandez

VIOLIN

PRINCIPAL SECOND VIOLIN

VIOLIN

PRINCIPAL TIMPANI

CELLO

PRINCIPAL KEYBOARD

Dr. Hugh A Carithers Endowed Chair

SECOND FLUTE

Kevin Garry

Anna Genest

Lois Elfenbein Gosa

Derek Hawkes

Deborah Heller

Max Huls

SECOND PERCUSSION

VIOLIN

VIOLIN

SECOND TROMBONE

THIRD FLUTE – PICCOLO

VIOLIN

Vernon Humbert

Kayo Ishimaru

James Jenkins

Cynthia Kempf

Colin Kiely

Ilana Kimel

CELLO

PRINCIPAL HARP

PRINCIPAL TUBA

VIOLA

VIOLA

VIOLIN

Mark Knowles

Jonathan Kuo

Lela LaBarbera

Dana Landis

Jason Lindsay

Stephanie Lindsay

FOURTH HORN

VIOLIN

VIOLIN

BASS TROMBONE

BASS

VIOLIN

12 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Shannon Lockwood

Todd Lockwood

Charlotte Mabrey

Brian Magnus

Jeanne Majors

Steve Merrill

CELLO

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL BASS

PERCUSSION

CELLO

VIOLIN

PRINCIPAL PERCUSSION

Claudia Minch

Linda Minke

Annie Morris

Glynda Newton

Ellen Caruso Olson

Eric Olson

SECOND OBOE ENGLISH HORN

CELLO

The George V. Grune Endowed Chair

VIOLIN

VIOLA

PRINCIPAL OBOE

VIOLIN

Brian Osborne

Philip Pan

Joel Panian

Susan Pardue

Jeffrey Peterson

Lisa Ponton

THIRD TRUMPET

Isabelle Davis Endowed Chair

THIRD PERCUSSION

VIOLA

PRINCIPAL TROMBONE

VIOLA

CONCERTMASTER

Jorge A. Peña Portillo

Kevin Reid

Marguerite Richardson

Les Roettges

Alexei Romanenko

Sunshine Simmons

VIOLA

PRINCIPAL HORN

VIOLIN

PRINCIPAL FLUTE

PRINCIPAL CELLO

SECOND CLARINET

Forrest Sonntag

Paul Strasshofer

Piotr Szewczyk

Naira Underwood

Carol Whitman

John Wieland

SECOND TRUMPET

BASS

VIOLIN

VIOLIN

VIOLIN

PRINCIPAL BASS

The Musicians of the Jacksonville Symphony are proudly represented by the American Federation of Musicians, Local 444.

Peter Wright

Backstage Employees are proudly represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E.) Local 115, Saul Lucio, Business Agent.

PRINCIPAL CLARINET

ENCORE 13

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS Four UpTempo Concert Vouchers Includes UpTempo Block seating

• Invitations to Monthly Member Experiences • Buy additional tickets to Symphony concerts and Member Experiences for $25 • Discounts to Premier Symphony Events • One year of Symphony Membership Benefits

DISCOVER | EXPERIENCE | CONNECT UpTempo young professionals experience the Jacksonville Symphony through concerts, educational activities and social events.

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14 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

REGISTER TODAY! 904.354.4092

Membership@JaxSymphony.org

INTRODUCING CHILDREN TO CLASSICAL MUSIC

by Richard A. Salkin Many expectant parents wonder, If I listen to classical music before and after the baby is born, will my child grow up to be smarter?

Others take a more activist view: If I provide music lessons early, could my child grow up to be the next Mozart?

While more ubiquitous kinds of music like pop need no introduction, the broadly varied music we call “classical” is so complex that we often make a deliberate effort to introduce it to kids. The famous 1959 Bugs Bunny cartoon, “What’s Opera, Doc” (the one with “Kill the wabbit”) was an early attempt. So were Leonard Bernstein’s more literal Young People’s Concerts, broadcast live on national TV throughout the 1960s. In some ways, so was Disney’s 1940 masterpiece, Fantasia.

It wasn’t always thus. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms all came from musical families and found music on their own; even Gershwin, a scrappy New York street kid, plunked out tunes on a piano purchased originally for his brother Ira. But today, with so many alternative genres to choose from, children might not develop an awareness of classical music, much less a love for it, without an assist; otherwise it gets lost in the shuffle. And that would be a shame. Every person deserves a chance to experience it.

So parents play a key role in introducing kids to classical music. The process involves two separate but related propositions: appreciating music as a listener and creating music with an instrument.

Music Appreciation In 1993, an article in Nature described a study showing that college students scored better at performing a mindless task while listening to classical music (a Mozart piano sonata). The finding produced a cottage industry built on “The Mozart Effect.” Soon, mothers were routinely listening to Mozart’s music before and after childbirth as a way to boost their children’s intelligence. Many still do. The states of both Florida and Georgia even mandated the playing of classical music by mothers and at daycare centers.

The idea that you can kick your baby’s brain up a notch by listening to Mozart remains an appealing concept that has avid proponents and detractors; the author of the original study, Frances Rauscher, even debunked any cause-and-effect relationship between Mozart and intelligence. “I would simply say that there is no compelling evidence that children who listen to classical music are going to have any improvement in cognitive abilities,” she said in 2007.

Still, one certainty remains: Mozart can’t hurt, in-utero or in childhood.

You’re doing your child a huge favor, with potentially lifelong benefits, by exposing him or her to classical music at the right time. So when and how to start?

“There’s tons of research about it,” said Kathryn Rudolph, Director of Education and Community Engagement at the Symphony.

“You can start early on with age-appropriate goals that are appealing to children.” Like so many developmental milestones, your child will cue you.

As a toddler, Rudolph’s own niece spontaneously started singing random melodies and clapping out rhythms she had heard on TV. “She had a mini-piano that she chose to play with over her other toys. That was a clue. Also at only 4 years old, she came to a Young People’s Concert at the Symphony and sang the melodies for days.”

Rudolph is tasked with revamping, focusing and integrating the Jacksonville Symphony’s outreach programs. “There are lots of ways to expose young people to symphonic music,” she explained, “There are a variety of entry points in addition to taking them to Masterworks concerts.”

For younger children, the season is peppered with family and pops concerts that provide a perfect first experience. Among them this season: Holiday Pops (December 8 through 11); First Coast Nutcracker (December 16 through 18); Handel’s Messiah (December 17-18); Stravinsky’s The Firebird (Feb. 19) and Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II—inspired by the aforementioned “Kill the wabbit” cartoon (April 1-2).

ENCORE 15

Some children and families may enjoy the bestbet Symphony in 60 concerts, the first of which is January 5. These 60 minute performances that begin at 6:30pm on Thursday nights, feature explanations from Conductor Courtney Lewis and video displays of the orchestra performing. Children can meet with musicians on stage after the performance and even take selfies on the podium.

The Symphony also brings music to Duval County Public School students in the second and fourth grade through its Preludes and Young People’s Concerts. These are special 45-minute Youth Concerts every Spring and Fall, geared for elementary school students and including educator classroom guides to help teachers add relevance in their classrooms.

While many parents start introducing kids to the classics early, there’s no expiration date on learning to enjoy it. Older kids and even young adults derive benefits. The Symphony has a program that brings middle-school students and families to Jacoby Hall an hour before a scheduled concert for an interactive pre-concert workshop.

Rudolph said these and other programs are part of a strategic and coordinated outreach effort called the Sound Investment Program.

“I believe that symphonic music has the powerful ability to transform lives,” she said, “especially for children.” Components include inschool music programs, special performances and free or discounted tickets—reaching more than 200,000 people in Northeast Florida.

Beyond listening: Making music While listening to great music is its own reward and can provide a lifetime of joy, actually playing it offers a whole separate system of benefits. In addition to the technical requirements, participating with any ensemble of musicians, whether it’s a duet or a full orchestra, helps young people develop important life skills—like teamwork, patience, collaboration, interdependence – which are different skills gained from solely taking private lessons.

Nothing brings these concepts to life better than participation in the celebrated Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras. It’s a two decades-old program that keeps growing in size, sophistication 16 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

and participation under the musical leadership of Scott Gregg.

Many of the Symphony’s own musicians participate as instructors.

In his 20 years leading the program, Maestro Gregg estimates more than 2,000 students have participated.

Children ages 7 through 21 are eligible to participate. There is an audition process to determine which performance level is appropriate for their experience. FSCJ’s South campus will be hosting rehearsals for all six performance levels and all instruments. This year, JSYO has added an additional rehearsal site, the Wehner School of the Arts, in Middleburg. This site will be for Clay County area children who play string instruments and are eligible for the Foundation I and II levels of performance. Through a partnership with Communities in Schools, these two levels of JSYO are also offered in three neighborhood schools: Reynolds Lane, Pickett and Woodland Acres Elementary Schools.

JSYO maintains its own schedule of performances at Jacoby Hall including a Holiday Concert (December 5), the Young Artists Competition Finals, Festival of Strings (March 6), the Major/Minor Concert (March 11) where they perform with musicians of the Jacksonville Symphony and the Spring Concert (May 14).

Cori Roberts, house manager at the Jacksonville Symphony, seized the chance to enroll her 16-year-old daughter, Oona, in JSYO when the family moved here from Tallahassee. “Classical music has always been important to our family,” she said. “We always knew we wanted Oona to play an instrument. By age 8, she was already playing the fiddle and wanted to move into classical violin.”

Once the family did move here, Oona, now a creative writing student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, auditioned for and earned a position with the JSYO. Last year, she took a step up—from first-chair in the JSYO Repertory Orchestra to second-chair in the more advanced Philharmonic.

“She learned it takes a lot of people to make this beautiful sound,” Cori said. From a more long-term perspective, “Her life will be forever impacted by these experiences. My hope for her is that playing music will always be a part of her life, and I hope it will stick with her even if she’s busy with other interests.”

MASTERWORKS SERIES world at large by a single work. Now, that is undoubtedly a better situation for a composer than not being known by anything, but it is certainly frustrating, and Humperdinck spent most of his life trying to recapture his early success. His early musical training took the form of piano lessons, but he was captivated by the musical theater when, at the age of 14, he saw a performance of Lortzing’s romantic Undine, and he immediately began to compose similar works. (Undine was a Singspiel, with spoken dialogue connecting the fairly elaborate musical numbers, and this was the approach that Humperdinck took at first.)

Friday & Saturday, December 2 & 3, 2016 l 8 pm Sunday, December 4, 2016 l 3 pm “Insight” one hour prior to each Masterworks concert

Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

HANSEL AND GRETEL Courtney Lewis, conductor Haskell Endowed Chair

Jennifer Baldwin Peden, Gretel Bergen Baker, Hansel Karin Wolverton, mother Jeffrey Madison, father Vicki Fingalson, witch Quinn Shadko, Sleep Fairy/Dew Fairy Jacksonville Children’s Chorus Robert Neu, producer/stage director Engelbert Hansel and Gretel, A Fairytale Opera in Three Acts HUMPERDINCK Overture Act I: At Home Act II: In The Forest

58:00

~ Intermission ~ 20:00

Act III: The Gingerbread House 40:00 This program is dedicated in memory of Doina Gradina Farkas.

A Gift of Music in honor of her three years as president of the Guild was presented to Allene Groote by the Jacksonville Symphony Guild.

Jo Carol Hutchins presented A Gift of Music in memory of William E. Adair, her grandfather.

These donations have been used to assist with the cost of the music for Hansel and Gretel.

Sunday’s concert is sponsored by: Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

HANSEL AND GRETEL

By Steven Ledbetter

Engelbert Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel Engelbert Humperdinck was born in Siegburg, Germany, on September 1, 1854, and died in Neustrelitz on September 27, 1921. He composed his most famous opera Hansel and Gretel in several stages (described below) between 1890 and 1893. When Richard Strauss conducted the premiere in Weimar on December 23, 1893, the work was an instant success.

Vocal soloists include Gretel (soprano), Hansel (mezzo-soprano),Gertrud, their mother (mezzo-soprano), Peter, their father

(baritone), Sandman (soprano), Dew Fairy (soprano), and Witch (mezzo-soprano), plus a chorus comprising 14 angels and children.

The orchestral score calls for two flutes and piccolo, two each of oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, and strings.

Engelbert Humperdinck (no relation to the pop singer Arnold George Dorsey, whose manager renamed him Engelbert Humperdinck, having come across this unusual name in a music dictionary, because he thought it would attract attention) is one of those composers known to the

At the age of 18, Humperdinck entered the conservatory at Cologne and quickly won major prizes given by the top German conservatories of the day. In 1877, at 23, he moved to Munich, which was a hotbed of Wagnerianism, and there the ultra-modern music of Wagner began to impinge on the Schumannesque style he had learned from his more conservative teachers.

During a tour of Italy on a scholarship from the conservatory he had the opportunity to meet Wagner in person, and Wagner quickly invited the talented and enthusiastic young man to come visit him in Bayreuth to help with the first production of Parsifal.

The Bayreuth stay was essential to Humperdinck’s future, but it took a decade before the results revealed themselves in his work. In the meantime he became a teacher and critic in Cologne and later in Frankfurt. Attempts to write an opera fell through owing to the overwhelming weight of Wagner’s example, which looked to become a permanent inhibition to his creativity.

The block was broken, happily, when the composer’s sister, Adelheid Wette, asked him in 1890 to set some folksongs for a small private production of the familiar Grimm’s fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.

The music required was so simple that there could be no question of Wagnerian influence, and Humperdinck happily complied. They decided to expand the work from a play with a few folksongs to a Singspiel, with more elaborate music, but still with spoken dialogue. And finally they decided to turn it into a full-fledged opera.

In doing so, Humperdinck retained the folk-like simplicity of the basic songs, but NOTE (continued on page 19) ENCORE 17

NOTE (continued from page 17) set them in the framework of a Wagnerian orchestra, with elaborated Leitmotifs and rich scoring. He had qualms about his decision to combine the simplest sort of music with the most complex style of the day, yet from the opening night the opera was a signal success. (Within the first year it had been performed in 72 theaters!)

From the beginning the work frequently became a holiday specialty. Even the world premiere took place just before Christmas, and it is still very common in Germanspeaking countries to mount a matinee performance on January 6, Dreikönigstag (“Three Kings’ Day”), the last of the

“twelve days of Christmas,” specifically for family opera-going. Humperdinck tried repeatedly, in many ways, to clone this success, but only one of his nine works for the stage attained even an estimable success afterwards; that was Königskinder (“The King’s Children”), premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910.

The story of Hansel and Gretel closely follows the tale as told by the Brothers Grimm, with the two children lost in the woods and happening upon a gingerbread house inhabited by a wicked witch. Happily the children not only save themselves from this creature, but also release from enchantment many other children that she

About the Jacksonville Children’s Chorus The Jacksonville Children’s Chorus has been providing children of all ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds with music education and choral performance programs, while advancing a model of artistic excellence and diversity that enriches the community since 1995.

Millicent “Penny” Sylvester, Jacksonville Children’s Chorus Opera Choir Chorus Master A native of Chicago, Sylvester graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from the University of Illinois and a Masters of Music Education (choral) from Florida State University. As a music educator she has taught elementary, middle and high school chorus and general music. She brings a unique combination of education and performance experience. Her performance background includes solo and ensemble work with the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Symphony singers, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Alhambra Theater, Jacksonville Symphony and Florida Opera Theater. She has been an adjudicator for Florida Elementary All-State Chorus and is Orff certified.

had previously caught. The most Wagnerian passage in the score is the music of the witch’s wild ride, which could hardly have been conceived without the example of Wagner’s Valkyries. For the rest, the tunes are redolent of German folksong (in the songs and dances for Hansel and Gretel) and of the church chorale (in the famous prayer that the children sing before going to sleep in the dark forest, appealing to fourteen angels to watch over them and bring them safely through the night). © Steven Ledbetter

Opera Chorus Zoe Balanag Reyna Beckwith Meagan Black Nalanie Bramer Aniela Cabrera Niki Clay Emma Conway Sydney Copeland Laura Cumper Hannah Daily Jacob Dern Heaven Doles Alahna Ellis Abigail Fringer Adriana Garrison Jacquelyn Gates Ava Geiger Aubri Giron Caroline Guiler Morgan Harrell Ella Henderson Mariah Hernandez Faith Keister Elizabeth Lobetti Anabel Macchi Zoe Mathews Rachel Mechling Jorja Moore Katy Morris Morgan Mundy Silas O’Steen Samantha Pacanins Jaylen Richie Reahna Robinson Mariajose Rodriquez-Bazan Alyssa Stark Sarah Thomas Leonorah Watson Trinity Webster-Bass Alexander White ENCORE 19

Jennifer Baldwin Peden, Gretel Masterworks guest artists sponsored by Ruth Conley Jennifer Baldwin Peden is a singer and actor who has engaged audiences both on stage and in the concert setting. Trained initially as a classical vocalist, Peden began to develop a passion for experiences which integrate music, movement, and drama through a decade-long collaboration with the internationally acclaimed, Tony award-winning company, Theatre de la Jeune Lune.

Equally comfortable on the concert stage, Peden has performed roles with Minnesota Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, and Astoria Music Festival. She has performed memorable theatrical and operatic roles with companies such as the Guthrie Theater, Minnesota Opera, the Moving Company, Nautilus Music-Theater, Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, Skylark Opera, History Theater, and nationally with American Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

She has been a featured guest on A Prairie Home Companion, has appeared in a motion picture (an opera-singing contestant in Drop Dead Gorgeous), and has extensive voice work in commercials and award-winning short films.

As an educator, she has collaborated for over 10 years with her sister, mezzo-soprano Christina Baldwin, to bring opera to thousands of public school children throughout Minnesota through a piece they wrote.

Bergen Baker, Hansel Hailed by the Star Tribune as having a “fetching blend of grace, warmth and humor on stage,” Bergen Baker has been a featured performer with companies such as Minnesota Opera, The Minnesota Orchestra, Skylark Opera and Florentine Opera. Her concert and oratorio experience includes performances of Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces, as well as many programs of art song.

In addition to performance on the operatic and concert stage, Baker served as Teaching Artist for Minnesota Opera from 2012-2014. During her tenure, she organized community residencies and performances that served nearly 15,000 opera lovers across the state of Minnesota. She currently manages opera and music theater programs for students through the University of Minnesota and Musica nelle Marche LLC in Urbino, Italy.

Bergen Baker holds Bachelor and Master degrees in vocal performance from DePaul University and the University of Minnesota, respectively. More info at bergenbaker.com

Karin Wolverton, Mother A love of new music and ability to perform in a wide range of roles has led Opera News to describe Karin Wolverton as “a young soprano to watch” having “a lovely warm tone, easy agility and winning musicality.”

Wolverton’s love of new music brought her together with the Minnesota Opera where she was featured in the leading female role, Anna Sörensen, in Kevin Puts’ award-winning opera Silent Night. Wolverton hopes to spread her passion for new music onto the next generation through a mission to encourage young composers and to get contemporary music in front of audiences.

Rounding out her repertoire, Wolverton has appeared in the Minnesota Opera’s hugely popular parks concert Opera Under the Stars. She has also held parts in popular works such as Carmen, Don Giovanni and The Rake’s Progress.

While being hugely successful on an opera stage, Wolverton has also made quite an impact on the concert stage. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Minnesota Orchestra in Nielson’s Symphony No. 3.

20 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Jeffrey Madison, Father Hailed for his dramatic diversity, baritone and stage director, Jeffrey Madison has performed and directed a varied repertoire from grand opera and operetta to musical comedy.

Madison’s national performing credits include an appearance at Carnegie Hall with the Minnesota Orchestra, performances in the roles of Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier and the Father in Hansel and Gretel, also with the Minnesota Orchestra, Marcello in La Bohème with West Virginia Symphony, Germont in La Traviata with Western Plains Opera, Shaunard in La Bohème with Minnesota Opera, Silvio in I Pagliaci with Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Seattle Opera Young Artists, Albert in Werther with Chautauqua Opera, Figaro in The Barber of Seville with the Lyric Opera of the North, and Malatesta in Don Pasquale with Skylark Opera among others.

Madison lives in Duluth, Minnesota with his wife, soprano, Vicki Fingalson.

Vicki Fingalson, Witch With over 50 roles and nearly 70 productions to her credit from grand opera to musical theater, Vicki Fingalson has been acclaimed for her “luscious sound and comedic sensibility,” as well as her “soaring soprano” and “powerful voice.” She has performed with companies and orchestras across the U.S. singing such favorite roles as Musetta (La Bohème), Nedda (I Pagliacci), Hanna Glawari (The Merry Widow), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), and Anna Maurrant (Street Scene). Recent engagements include Minnesota Orchestra (Der Rosenkavalier, Die Zauberflöte, Hansel & Gretel); Western Plains Opera (I Pagliacci, Gianni Schicchi); The Minnesota Opera (Casanova’s Homecoming, The Adventures of Pinocchio); Colorado Symphony (Hansel & Gretel); and West Virginia Symphony (La Bohème). For more, including upcoming performances, visit: www.vickifingalson.com

Quinn Shadko, Sleep Fairy/Dew Fairy Quinn Shadko, a Minneapolis, MN native, has appeared with various operatic and music theatre companies, including Houston’s Mercury Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Skylark Opera, Nautilus Music-Theater, Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company, Minneapolis Pops Orchestra, Angels & Demons Entertainment, Park Square Theatre and Guthrie Theater.

Favorite roles include Despina in Così fan tutte, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro, and Luisa in The Fantasticks. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music and linguistics from Rice University and master’s degree in vocal performance from New York University.

Robert Neu, producer/stage director Robert Neu, known for his highly theatrical and musically sensitive work, has directed over 80 productions of operas, musicals and plays throughout the country. Neu’s recent productions include Bernstein’s Mass, Peer Gynt (also adaptation), La Traviata, The Magic Flute and Carousel for the Minnesota Orchestra; Hansel and Gretel with both the Minnesota Orchestra and Colorado Symphony; Tosca and The Music Man for Colorado Symphony; St. Matthew Passion for Central City Opera/Boulder Philharmonic; Don Pasquale, Carmen and The Barber of Seville for Lyric Opera of the North; Art and Death of a Salesman for Bloomington Civic Theater; The Marriage of Figaro for Bellevue Opera; Ayn Rand in Love for Chameleon Theater; The Laramie Project, Godspell and Blithe Spirit for Lyric Arts Theater; Florencia en el Amazonas for Emerald City Opera, and On the Town, The Fantasticks, Candide and Putting It Together for Skylark Opera Theatre.

Neu teaches masterclasses in audition techniques for the University of Minnesota’s opera department, and he is a Resident Director at Lyric Arts Theater. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and is the co-founder of Angels & Demons Entertainment, a production and arts consultancy organization. He has recently been appointed Artistic Director of Skylark Opera Theatre.

ENCORE 21

Darren Dailey,

Artistic & Executive Director, Jacksonville Children’s Chorus Darren Dailey is celebrating his tenth season in Jacksonville, where he has been shaping the Jacksonville Children’s Chorus into a world-class organization. Under his artistic leadership the Chorus has grown to serve over 500 First Coast children annually with five core performance choirs, multiple satellite rehearsal locations and outreach throughout the region.

A nationally-recognized clinician and conductor, Mr. Dailey has served as guest conductor in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center and at the ACDA Honor Choir in Seattle. He has presented workshops for the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, Organization of Kodály Educators, American Choral Directors Association, Music Educator’s National Conference, and many universities. He is the 2014 recipient of the Reinhold Foundation Outstanding Executive Director Award.

Dailey received a Bachelor of Music Education degree with a concentration in Voice from Westminster Choir College and a Master of Music Education in Choral Conducting from Appalachian State University’s Hayes School of Music. He is also trained in Kindermusik.

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22 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

The Jacksonville Symphony Association gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the following individuals, businesses and foundations: Gifts to the Annual Fund between July 1, 2015 and October 20, 2016 ∆ Designates a gift in-kind

* Designates deceased

PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL $100,000+ BRASS Ruth Conley in memory of Paul Conley Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville/City of Jacksonville Fidelity National Financial Florida Blue Florida State College of Jacksonville ∆ Jessie Ball duPont Fund Mrs. Josephine Flaherty Monica and Bob Jacoby

$50,000 - $99,000 Anonymous gift in honor of the City Rescue Mission Staff bestbet / bestbet Poker, Simulcast & Racing State of Florida, Department of State Florida Times-Union ∆ Mayo Clinic Mrs. C. Herman Terry

$25,000 - $49,999 Bob and Lynn Alligood Amy and Gilchrist B. Berg AVL Productions ∆ Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Bryan, IV Robert D. and Isabelle T. Davis Endowment Fund Deutsche Bank Chris and Stephanie Doerr Lory and Harold Doolittle DuBow Family Foundation EverBank Haskell Jacksonville Symphony Guild Valdemar Joost Kroier Endowment Fund Anne and Robert Lufrano Magnolia Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Matthew S. McAfee Donald C. McGraw Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Russell B. Newton Jr. Omni Hotel & Resorts ∆ PGA TOUR PwC Regency Centers, Inc. VyStar Credit Union J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Music Education Endowment ENCORE 23

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YOUTH ORCHESTRAS SERIES Sunday, December 5, 2016 l 7 pm Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY YOUTH ORCHESTRAS HOLIDAY CONCERT Foundation Strings II

Rocco DiGeorgio, conducting

V. Horton (ad. D. Wagner)

Jazzy Old Saint Nick

B.R. HANBY (arr. S. Wieloszynski)

Up on the House Top

J. HOPKINS (arr. D.B. Monday)

We Three Kings Rock!

Encore Strings

Rocco DiGeorgio, conducting

A. MISTAK

Skiing Holiday

W.A. MOZART (arr. D.E. Wagner)

The Sleigh Ride, From Three German Dances

Traditional (arr. S. Dackow)

Auld Lang Syne

Premiere Strings

Judith Steinmeyer, conducting

J. STYNE

The Christmas Waltz

R. ALLEN (arr. Clark)

Home for the Holidays

G.F. HANDEL (arr. Isaac)

Pastorale from Messiah

J. HERMAN (arr. Ricketts)

We Need A Little Christmas (from Mame)

Repertory Orchestra

Scott C. Gregg, conducting

P.I. TCHAIKOVSKY (arr. S. Dackow)

Nutcracker: Trepak

H. MARTIN (arr. Cerulli)

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

J. ROLLINS (arr. Moss)

Frosty the Snowman

Traditional (arr. Wagner)

Fetival of Carols

~ Intermission ~ Philharmonic

Scott C. Gregg, conducting

V. HERBERT (arr. Langley)

Babes in Toyland: March of the Toys

E. HUMPERDINCK

Hansel and Gretel: Song of the Sandman

and Dream Pantomime

L. HENDERSON (arr. Custer)

Canadian Brass Christmas

M. TORME (arr. Lowden)

The Christmas Song

L. ANDERSON

Sleigh Ride

L. ANERSON

Christmas Festival

Concert sponsored by is a sponsor of JSYO. Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

About the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras The Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras (JSYO) are Northeast Florida’s premiere developmental orchestral ensembles.

The JSYO serves more than 300 young musicians ages 7-21, who are admitted through competitive auditions. Through the in-depth study of classical repertoire, each orchestra improves its musical skills and understanding at the both individual student level and the ensemble level. In all, there are six ensembles which rehearse and perform under the direction of Music Director Scott Gregg and his team of music educators.

These professional conductors, along with Jacksonville Symphony musicians, nationally recognized soloists, and other professional educators in the community, enable the JSYO to serve the needs of each young musician with individualized, ability-level specific instruction.

JSYO members are afforded unique musical experiences, in addition to the exposure to and performance of orchestral masterworks.

For example, JSYO ensembles perform in the Symphony’s Jacoby Hall during the season as well as the annual Major/Minor concert.

At this concert, finalists in the annual Young Artists Concerto Competition showcase their exceptional talents by performing acclaimed solo works with their orchestra’s accompaniment. The Jacksonville Symphony and the JSYO also perform free community engagement concerts, both in Jacoby Symphony Hall and at various First Coast locations.

The JSYO ensembles are as follows: Foundation Strings I – beginner string students Foundation Strings II – advancing beginner string students Encore Strings – intermediate string students Premiere Strings – advancing intermediate string students Repertory Orchestra – intermediate to advancing full orchestra Philharmonic – advanced/pre-conservatory full orchestra Above all, the JSYO is committed to enriching the Jacksonville community through music education. Need-based scholarships are available for qualified young musicians in all six JSYO ensembles.

ENCORE 25

Scott C. Gregg, Youth Orchestras Music Director and Principal Conductor, Winston Family Endowed Chair Scott Gregg will be in his 22nd year holding the Winston Family Endowed Chair with the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras (JSYO). He has guided the organization’s growth from a 60-member group to an artistically robust arts education program with more than 300 participants this season. Previously, Gregg served as Music Director for Education of the Jacksonville Symphony; Music Director for the Youth at the Beaches Arts Guild productions; and Music Director for the Summer Musical Theater Experience at Florida State College at Jacksonville. In 2016, Maestro Gregg was named Music Director and Principal Conductor of the St. Augustine Orchestra.

In 2006, Gregg helped found the First Coast Community Music School which assists hundreds of Jacksonville music students access top-notch music education. In 2014, he became that school’s Artistic and Executive Director.

Once in a youth orchestra himself, Gregg served as concertmaster of the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, and made his solo debut with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the age of 17. Gregg received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University with a concentration in music theory and composition and minor concentration in astrophysics.

He studied conducting at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he earned a master’s degree and was awarded the Christopher Percy Prize in Conducting. Concurrently, Gregg was appointed to the conducting staff of the Peabody Conservatory Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as Associate Conductor of the Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra.

He is married to Camille Clement Gregg and the two are the proud parents of their golden retriever, Midas.

26 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

JSYO ASSISTANT CONDUCTORS Judith Steinmeyer, Conductor, Premiere Strings Judith Steinmeyer has been involved with the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras for many years serving as a sectional coach, audition faculty, co-director of the beginner strings groups and now director for the Premiere Strings.

She started her career as a violinist at the U.S. Air Force Band Symphony Orchestra and Strolling Strings at Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, DC. After completion of her military service she performed in venues ranging from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to the Bolshoi Theatre to Carnegie Hall.

Steinmeyer was personnel manager and violinist for the Washington Chamber Orchestra for nearly 10 years. She holds a Professional Educator’s Certificate from the State of Florida and currently teaches private violin and viola lessons at the First Coast Community Music School and general music at Holy Spirit Catholic School.

She was named one of five artist-educators in Florida to receive the Florida Alliance for Arts Education 2012 Guided Residency Program Award and scholarship. She is a member of the American Federation of Musicians, the Suzuki Association of the Americas, the American String Teachers Association and the America Orff-Schulwerk Association.

Rocco (Rocky) DiGeorgio, Conductor, Foundation Strings II/ Encore Strings

Rocco (Rocky) DiGeorgio has 35 years of experience as an orchestral music instructor.

In addition to leading the JSYO Foundation Strings II and Encore Strings, DiGeorgio performs a variety of musical roles in the community. He is founder and director of Jacksonville Suzuki Strings, an ensemble consisting of 60 young musicians from greater Jacksonville. He has also been a guest clinician for Suzuki violin workshops throughout the United States. He also currently serves as Sunday Music Director at San Juan del Rio Church in St. Johns County and conductor for several student orchestras at area private schools. DiGeorgio received his Bachelor of Music Education from Jacksonville University.

He resides in Mandarin with his wife Judy and children Antoni and Juliana.

Marj Dutilly, Foundation Strings I Marj Dutilly’s career has taken her from the military to JSYO but music has always been the base of her success. A graduate of Immaculata University with a degree in music, she served a tour of duty in Vietnam and was utilized as a music recreation therapist at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Dutilly has performed with the Ventura (CA) Symphony Orchestra, the North Attleboro (MA) Civic Symphony, the Attleboro Civic Opera Company and the Warwick (RI) Symphony Orchestra. She is Director of Music at Faith Christian Academy, Fernandina Beach and founder/director of SELAH STRINGS of Nassau County. Her work has included assistance with both the JSYO Foundation and Overture Strings as tuning coach and audition judge. She and her husband Ron have six children, one of whom, Peter, was a member of the JSYO Philharmonic Orchestra for six years.

ENCORE 27

JSYO Repertory Violin Alyssa Albert Bridget Ausley Alexander Barnett + Julia Butler Mary Carlson Grace Castillo Kismet Field Peter Goricki Katherine Harland Miguel Huertas Gabrielle Keller Ariel Lockley + Nicole Lukens Nora Menon Benjamin Model Anneliese Nguyen Sarah Park Audrey Plauche Hanna Ray Sophia Reed Eden Rewa Jamie Robinson Willmott Alessia Rosa

JSYO Foundation Strings II Samuel Schlenoff Selin Tiryakioglu Elizabeth Whitehead + Viola Russell Greco Avery Palmer Aditi Shandilya Ellison Whitehead + Cello Aaron Dantzler + LaRyn Fagan Noah Hays + Mitchell Henshaw Samuel Iturra Natalie Taunton + Sam Watson Nicholas Willie + Double Bass Christopher Cavaliere Kieran Elwood Ned Franklin +

JSYO Premiere Strings Violin Seth Arcenas Alexia Bartley + Stephanie Baskin Gabriella Caballero Tatiana Caballero Annastasia Cantu + Anne Caraher Carolyn Chen Andrew Chiang Augustina Cole Franchesca Dalugdug Ethan Das Caleb Feng Madison Fisher Audrey Freehafer Elise French Levi French Micah French Katherine Gabriel Addison Hassler Claire Huang Stella Hyatt Michael Kim Jihae Kim Rohini Kumar William Li Audrey Lindsay Victoria Locklin Rachael Lovejoy Marison McDowell Gabriel Miel Matthew Miel Gahyun Park

Kent Peyton Xavier Phillips Ericz Plauche Alexander Roes + Elise Russu Lauren Schawrz Sarah-lyuna Spencer + Mary Clare Stinneford Pilar Thorn Ronak Venkata Leila Warren Viola Ian Adkinson Nathan Oyler Cello Margaret Chalut James Dowell Maggie Frantz Jack Gallishaw Ryan Gear Anamarie Lopez Wills Maw Chasney Stancliffe Double Bass Peter Goricki Volunteer Assistants Kelly Albright Selah Welton

Flute Ainsley Elgin Hanna Kissenger Gabin Park Oboe Mackenzie Ki Margaret Monday Matthew Rowell + Michael Stabile Clarinet Nicole Graham + Brianna Howard William Skinner Bass Clarinet Cordelia Ciuk Bassoon Kaila Peeples + Kylie Wilkins

Trumpet Richard Bachmann Joseph Stancil Horn Michael Flanagan Timothy Kellett Justin Marcotte Kayleigh Owen Trombone Federico Bolano + Georgie Rodriguez Tuba Parker White Percussion Grace Bachmann Trinity Hootman

JSYO Encore Strings Violin Mary Adams Valeria Aviles Brianna Borbely Jack Camp Ava Cheng Rebekah Chun Sam Cosby Ana Docuyanan Emily Docuyanan Madison Fagan Abby Grace French Katherine Graham Laurence Greene, II + Gloria Honoré + Anna Keller Christian Kim Christine Kim + David Kim + Philip M. Lawson, II Likhita Manchikanti Gabriela Micolucci Alerice Milagrosa Mia Moore Mason Mormino Nate Mormino Abigail Okey Samay Patel Julia Peiris Khobe Pierre + Alyssa Ramesh Grace Randall Laurel Reed Ashkon Shirazi

28 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Aden Speight Rodriquez Shannon Stalford Srikuti Venkat-Ganesh Natalie Watson Kaylin White Mihajla Wickham Kalen Wilkins Enoch Xiao Ethan Xiao Viola Raquel Abril Charlie Doyle Joshua Manuel Jairen Neil-Blake + Janel Neil-Blake + Brendan Roes + Aditya Singh Racheal Stowe Cello Kyle Bae Emily Caraher Lyanne Claudio Jordan Dowell Henry Franklin + Neriah Holley + Kalahni McNair Ian Navaille Finley Petchauer + Julie Remmer Ellie Stewart Roan Wallerius Sina Wegerer-Jones

Violin Aislin Alexander William Bell Tyler Bradley + Ankitha Chintala Nikitha Chintala Skylar Davis Maxim Drexler Jadah Foltz Rex Franklin + Ashley Fuentes Jacob Holyer Nikolus Huff Cates Kean Keller Krieger Kariel Lampkin Aleydis Lockwood Garrett McLees Abbygale Monroe Madeline Mormino Giavanna Nagy Mary Patterson Arianna Rahmathulla Emaad Rahmathulla Hannah Lydia Sauer Chinmay Shandilya Amelia Snodgrass Timur Tiryakioglu

Kylea Watson Joya Welch Clement Wurtz Viola Makayla Artis Justin Berger Melanie Dickson + Taylor Graham McKennah Lanier + Lauren Lanier + Nevaeh Lanier + Cello Nathalie Bowen Jackson Brown Alayna Edwards Leo Franklin + Taelyn Graham Amaya Gray + Thomas Karvounis Deckland Lanier + Madison McInarnay Audrey Roes + Water “David” Ulmer Mihajla Wickham

JSYO Foundation Strings I Violin Hunter Davis Leila Jones Kariel Lampkin Kerrington Marshall Randy Martin III Mateo Pinilla Sofia Pinilla David Stewart Viola Talina Fuentes Louisa Holyer Andrew Keller Grace Lampkin

Angelina Rush Kaz Sasaki + Jaylen ThomasBailey Cello Alani Austin Farhad Bagirov Nicholas Cribbs Leah Lampkin Joshua Mayrand Double Bass Liam McNew +

+ Denotes Eleanor King Scholarship winners made possible through the Jacksonville Symphony Guild. ++ Denotes the James B. Lay, Sr. Trumpet Memorial Scholarship

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 continuingeducation@fscj.edu

JSYO Philharmonic Violin I Noah Arcenas Cameron Black Michelle Dantzler + Glen Dizon Ava Hampton Lark Harrington William Harrington* Anatasia Letkemann Moriah Lewis Bryce Martin* Olivia Morello Joseph Petchauer + Jessica Rinosa Max Warren Olivai Wright Violin II Arianna Arcenas Allen Barnett + Sadie Butler Lexi Feng Eva Karjono Fiona Lockley + Mira Menon Lara Morello Sadie Pichelmann

A.J. Pulliam Dolaine Qian Oona Roberts Daniel Savo Maxwell Vanhoeij Laura Watson* Viola Breanna Lang Grace Remmer Kaitlynn Thornton Cello Angelo Andrew Hannah Budd Nathan Ealum Wesley Navaille Alejandro Ochoa + Maxwell Remmer* Sophia Schlenoff Darren Wang Double Bass Tierra Andrews* + Pete Casseday Sam Watson

30 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Flute Annabelle Gunn Alex McGuire* Jillian Savage + Oboe Derek Alexander Jacob Hutchinson Sammy Park Megan Wojtyla* Clarinet Michael Jenkins* Frank Lukens Ashlie Santiango Bass Clarinet Makobi Marshall Bassoon Sam Watson* Trumpet Patrick Clarke* ++ Carson Brite* Benjamin Gibson

Horn Paola Colón Amanda Friedman* Janet Johnson Joshua Stancil Trombone Kiara Benjamin* Alexis Potter + Ian Wolff Bass Trombone Georgie Rodriguez Tuba Bryce Pierce Percussion Zachary Schoonmaker Ignacio Troche Harp Marie Chappell + Isabelle Scott * Denotes Principals

POPS SERIES |

COFFEE SERIES What Makes Your Holiday Sing?

Thursday, December 8, 2016 l 7:30 pm Friday, December 9, 2016 l 11 am (Coffee Series Concert) Friday, December 9, 2016 l 8 pm Saturday, Dec 10, 2016 l 3 pm & 8 pm Sunday, Dec 11, 2016 l 3 pm

Everyone has their favorite holiday music.

Some like the traditional carols, some wouldn’t think of celebrating without attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah, and others like the more modern music that has been built around family experiences.

Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

HOLIDAY POPS Nathan Aspinall, conductor Mikki Sodergren, guest soloist Jacksonville Symphony Chorus under the direction of Donald McCullough Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Dancers under the direction of Rhonda Stampalia Bethel Baptist Institutional Church Choir under the direction of Meachum Clarke Joshua Clinton, Jose Jimenez, Kaleb Sims, guest dancers under the direction of Brian Palmer

51:00

BACH GRUBER HANDEL ADAM arr. HOLCOMBE

Christmas Oratorio * Stille Nacht Messiah “For Unto Us a Child is Born” O Holy Night Festive Sounds of Hanukkah

TCHAIKOVSKY

Suite from the Nutcracker, Opus 71

~ Intermission ~ 20:00

ANDERSON Christmas Festival arr. HANKEWICH Kickin’ Kringle JAVITS/SPRINGER Santa Baby WILLIAMS Home Alone medley BEALE/BOO Jingle Bell Rock arr. WASSON Bellsong Fantasy TRADITIONAL Lulajze Jezunia (Polish lullaby) ANDERSON Sleigh Ride CAREY All I want for Christmas FINNEGAN or McNEILAND Christmas Singalong HANDEL/arr. CHRISTIANSON, ANDERSON

Some highlights of this year’s performance are:

54:00

Hallelujah from Too Hot to Handel *

* Not on Coffee Series Concert Coffee Concert Sponsor:

Saturday Concert Sponsor:

Westminster Woods Thursday & Friday Evening Concerts Sponsor:

Sunday Concert Sponsor:

The Jess & Brewster Durkee Foundation and

Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Whatever your preference, Holiday Pops has something for you. This year’s event is packed full of special guests including guest vocalist Mikki Sodergren, the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus, the Philharmonic Strings of the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra and the dancers from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts.

And don’t forget, the finale will include Jacksonville’s only guaranteed snowfall and an appearance by the Bethel Baptist Institutional Church Choir.

• The traditional Polish lullaby, Lulajze Jezunia, means lullaby or sleep little pearl. It is a song directed to Baby Jesus and thanks Mary for watching over him.

• It wouldn’t be the holidays without Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Ironically, the first performance of this ballet in 1892 was not a success but since the 1960’s the Nutcracker has been part of many families’ Christmas traditions. December 16, 17 & 18 the Symphony will present the First Coast Nutcracker with Chelsea Tipton as conductor and Rhonda Stampalia, choreographer.

• A movie classic is featured prominently in this year’s Holiday Pops - Home Alone, with music by John Williams. The 1990 film, which spawned several sequels, made a star out of Macaulay Culkin and the two Christmas bandits, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. A favorite scene is when ‘Kevin’ puts a life size cut out of Michael Jordan on the Christmas train tracks and belts out holiday music to confuse the bandits.

• “Santa Baby,” the 1953 classic sung by Eartha Kitt is all about gifts – ‘put a sable under the tree for me…’ she warbles.

• A public relations professional who lived in Atlantic City, NJ and an advertising copywriter came up with “Jingle Bell Rock,” one of the great rock-and-roll holiday hits.

ENCORE 31

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32 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Mikki Sodergren, guest vocalist Young soprano Mikki Sodergren makes her Jacksonville Symphony debut this season as the Holiday Pops soloist. Previous symphonic engagements include the New York Chamber Orchestra, the Savannah Philharmonic, and the Israeli Chamber Orchestra.

She has starred in Amarillo Opera’s sold-out production of Les Miserables (Eponine), where she was lauded as having “brought that essential earthiness and longing [to the role]” (Amarillo Globe News), and has been featured in readings of many new shows in New York.

Sodergren has created a niche for herself as a performer who comfortably crosses genres.

As the 2014 winner of the American Traditions Competition in Savannah, GA, she took home not only the gold medal, but also awards for best Johnny Mercer song interpretation and best jazz performance.

Her work in film has been tied to music, starring as Sarah in The Parksville Murders, Ep. 1, a new short opera written specifically for virtual reality film. Additionally, she portrayed the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson in a special performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique at Jazz at Lincoln Center, as well as being featured in Connection Lost: l’Opera di Tinder.

Mikki Sodergren is a core member of many professional choral ensembles in Manhattan, most notably the Manhattan Chorale, with whom she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and other notable venues. When she is not performing, Sodergren enjoys ice-skating, hiking, and exploring new films. www.mikkisodergren.com

Nathan Aspinall, conductor Nathan Aspinall, joined the Jacksonville Symphony as Assistant Conductor in 2015. Formerly, he held the position of Young Conductor with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra where he assisted Chief Conductor Johannes Fritzsch and visiting guest conductors and conducted concerts for the education series. He studied French Horn and Conducting at the University of Queensland and upon graduation was awarded the Hugh Brandon Prize. In 2012 he attended the Aspen Music Festival studying with Robert Spano and Hugh Wolff. He was awarded the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize, inviting him to return to Aspen in 2013.

Aspinall has guest conducted the Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, the Queensland Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra and has acted as Assistant Conductor for Opera Queensland. During the 2015-16 he returned to the Queensland and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras and had also been invited to attend the Conductor’s Workshop at the Tanglewood Music Centre. He studied Orchestral Conducting with Hugh Wolff at New England Conservatory.

Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Dance Theater Choreography by Rhonda Stampalia

Ysabel Ali*+ Liana Cliff*+ Addie Higgins*+ Hope Jones*+ Grace Leeper*+ Kelly Liddicoat*+ Madison Minkley*+ Benjamin Peralta* Isabella Pineda*+

Macey Rowan* Caitlyn Savage+ Tish Schmid*+ Reece Weaver*+ Allyson Williams*+ Kickin Kringle* Jingle Bell Rock+

ENCORE 33

2017 Season: February-April Itzhak Perlman – February 6 Itzhak Perlman is universally considered the reigning virtuoso of the violin. This concert is sold out, but call the Festival office at 904/261-1779 to be added to the waiting list.

Itzhak Perlman

Dover Quartet – February 8 Our Quartet-in-Residence, the Dover is one of the most in-demand ensembles in the world.

Celebrate

St. Patrick’s Day! Fidelity National Financial Pops Series

MAR 17/18

Dover Quartet

Anne Akiko Meyers – February 17 Anne Akiko Meyers, one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, is known for her passionate performances, purity of sound and deeply poetic interpretations.

Anne Akiko Meyers

Buy Tickets Today for our 16th Season! www.aicmf.com or 904-261-1779

Visit www.aicmf.com for complete information about our entire 2017 season

Fri & Sat, Mar 17 & 18 @ 8 pm Timothy Hankewich, conductor

Synonymous with Irish music, The Chieftains are THE quintessential band from the Emerald Isle.

With green beer, corned beef and cabbage and more, everyone in Jacoby Symphony Hall will be Irish this St. Patrick’s Day.

EXPERIENCE LIVE MUSIC IN AN ENTIRELY NEW WAY. LUNCHING WITH THE RITZ: A LUNCHTIME CHAMBER CONCERT Wednesday, January 18 Wednesday, February 22 12:30 p.m. | Free with Museum admission

SUNDAY CLASSICAL CONCERT Sunday, February 26 1:30 p.m. | Free with Museum admission

GARDEN MONTH CONCERT: THE CHRIS THOMAS BAND Friday, March 10 Doors open at 6 p.m., concert 7 to 9 p.m. | Members $25, Non-Members $35

Tickets: 904.354.5547 JaxSymphony.org

For reservations please call 904.899.6038 or visit cummermuseum.org 829 Riverside Ave Jacksonville, FL 32204

34 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

About the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus The Jacksonville Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Donald McCullough, is an all-volunteer group of individuals from all walks of life who have a love of singing choral music. The 140 members must audition to participate. Four members have been with the Chorus since the beginning: Carole Vanderhoef Banks, Deborrah Hoag, Libby Montgomery and Billy Ware.

“The Symphony chorus is designed to sing over the Symphony,” said McCullough.

“I look for voices that have focus and ring to them and that are sizeable enough to add to the sound we are trying to achieve.”

Some of the voice factors that go into selecting a choral member including their ability to sing in tune, which must be impeccable; their flexibility; range, diction; and innate sense of musicality.

to a recent study by Chorus America. Over 18% of American households report one or more adults participate in a chorus.

The Chorus is celebrating its 32st season this year and was founded by past Music Director Roger Nierenberg. In 2014 the Chorus traveled to New York City to perform under McCullough’s direction in the Lincoln Center premiere of his cantata In The Shadow of the Holocaust.

This season the Chorus will participate in several performances including The Dream of Gerontius, Holiday Pops and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection.

Choral singing is the most popular form of participation in the performing arts according

Jacksonville Symphony Chorus Donald McCullough, Director Tom Zimmerman Endowed Chair

Jill Weisblatt, Chorus Manager William Adams David Avery Susan Baker Jerrye Baker Stan Ballenger Carole Vanderhoef Banks Alla Bartosh May Beattie Jessica Bergstol Taylor Boice Elizabeth Bricknell Louise Brooks Dorothy Jean Bush Rita Cannon Craig Cantley Chuck Carroll Kenneth Chin Estelle Chisholm Dale Choate Ellen Christensen Sandy Clarke Susan Connors Bradley Corner Nancy Crookshank Julie Cross Katherine Crowell Jane Daugherty Julie Davis Tracy Davis Alyce Decker Marissa Dickerson Stephanie Doerr Jeff Elledge Kate Flint Brian Ganan

Karin Ghinter Bonnie Goldsmith Jessica Green David Groth Michele Hale Robert Hall Deborah Harden Baker Carol Heckrotte Wayne Heckrotte Lynda Height Deborrah Hoag Shawna Hodges Mike Hodges Kathy Hunt Steven Jockisch Ryan Justice Kiki Karpen Matthew Kelly Michelle Kemp William Kolb Ken Kutch Lili Lauer Ginger Lindberg Leyse Lowry Melissa Lumsden Mark Macco Linda MacLeod Jim Maher Walter Mattingly Marianne McAlhany-Murray Liz McAlhany James McGuffin Kate Medill Osvaldo Medina Pat Medlock

Bill Meisel Paula Merritt Molly Miller Barbara Miller Kenneth Mixon Libby Montgomery John Morrow Sevella Mostella Joseph Murray Tom Nesbitt Christina Ng Ben Norman Shane Oakley Sally Offen John Owen Vanessa Pagan Jane Palmer Hugh Patterson Rosina Paul John Petersen Anne Petersen David Pierson Deborah Pierson Kelsey Potratz Ken Powell Rosalind Powell Shelby Prendes Vickie Prince John Pugh Nancy Purcell Robert Quinby Amy Quinn Paulina Ragunas Mark Reasoner Timothy Redding

Nancy Redfern Wynn Redmon Caitlin Regan Patti Robertson Mark Robinson Karl Rogers Robert Roth Connie Roush Kim Rowland A.J. Ruvane John Ruvane Jeffrey Schroer Keith Schroyer Jennifer Serotta Kara Shidemantle Janet Snell Sharon Snow Laura Stephenson Buddy Stone Richard Stritter Richard Sykes Hugh Tobias Michael Tough Sheri Van Orden Hannah Ventro Eileen Ward Jerri Lea Ware Billy Ware Jill Weisblatt John Weitzel Terri Williams Cindy Wohl Peter Wynkoop Sam Young ENCORE 35

Special concert featuring Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award-winning singer and actress

audra mcdonald with performances by the

SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 2017 7:00pm JACOBY SYMPHONY HALL For info JaxChildrensChorus.org or call 904.353.1636

Tickets available at TICKETMASTER

36 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Fidelity National Financial Pops Series

Sat, Apr 1 @ 7 pm Sun, Apr 2 @ 3 pm Warner Bros. Studios presents

BUGS BUNNY AT THE SYMPHONY II Conducted by GEORGE DAUGHERTY Created by GEORGE DAUGHERTY & DAVID KA LIK WONG TM & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s16)

SPECIAL EVENT people naturally assume that it is “typical” Handel and that it represents the sum total of his best work.

Saturday, December 17, 2016 l 8 pm Sunday, December 18, 2016 l 3 pm Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

On account of the example of Messiah, listeners assume Handel’s oratorios to be non-dramatic sacred works, based on Biblical texts. Most people, moreover, assume that Messiah itself was intended for church performance at Christmas. Actually Handel had little interest in liturgical music, and he certainly never considered Messiah as a church piece. His primary interest was in musical drama. He stumbled across the English oratorio, his principal innovation in music history, almost by accident.

HANDEL’S MESSIAH Nathan Aspinall, conductor Rachele Gilmore, soprano Aleksandra Romano, mezzo-soprano Chris Carr, tenor Daniel Mobbs, bass-baritone Jacksonville Symphony Chorus under the direction of Donald McCullough

An Oratorio in Three Parts by George Frideric Handel

Part 1 The Advent of the Messiah

57:00

~ Intermission ~

20:00

Part II The Passion of Christ

46:00

Part III His Resurrection

26:00

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George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Messiah, HWV 56 (1741) George Friedrich Händel was born in Halle, Germany, on February 23, 1685, and, having in the meantime adopted the English spelling George Frideric Handel, died in London on April 14, 1759. He composed Messiah to a text consisting of scriptural passages selected and arranged

by Charles Jennens in the 23 days between August 22 and September 14, 1741. The first performance took place in Dublin in April 13, 1742 (a public rehearsal had taken place four days earlier). Handel’s written score contains, in addition to the vocal parts, lines only for the strings of the

orchestra, with two trumpets and timpani added in certain climactic passages, but contemporary practice called for the addition of oboes and bassoons doubling the string parts in certain places, a practice that can be confirmed by the study of the actual performance parts for Handel’s various productions of the work. Duration is about two hours.

As one of those musical compositions whose fate has been overwhelming popularity, Handel’s Messiah has labored under many misconceptions. Everyone knows a few numbers from the score; relatively fewer people know it in its entirety.

And those who do know it often know little of the rest of Handel’s copious and varied output. Messiah has been so frequently performed in the last two centuries that many

Operatic production in England was expensive and chancy. Opera was generally supported by the aristocracy and the upper classes, but attracted few of the general populace, who preferred entertainment in their own language.

But in 1732, after disillusionment and occasional commercial failures in the opera house, Handel, an energetic entrepreneur, brought out revised versions of his Englishlanguage works. Their financial success demonstrated the public’s interest in large‑scale musical entertainments in their own tongue. Throughout the 1730s his operas were more and more likely to be commercial (though not artistic!) failures, while audiences clamored for the oratorios.

It gradually became Handel’s practice to produce his oratorios during the season of Lent, when stage performances with costumes and theatrical paraphernalia were banned by ecclesiastical authorities.

The oratorios appeared in English, enticing a much larger middle class audience than the opera had ever done. Moreover, they usually drew their plots from Biblical stories, usually from the Hebrew scriptures, stories which were already familiar to the audience. When, as often happened, the plot concerned the survival or political stability of the Hebrew people, Handel’s audiences could empathize with the protagonists, mentally making the appropriate translation between Old Testament history and modern nationalistic aspiration.

In the summer of 1741, Handel’s fortunes changed when he received an invitation from MESSIAH (continued on page 39) ENCORE 37

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MESSIAH (continued from page 37) the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to visit Dublin.

Almost at once he began composing two works, Messiah and Samson, both probably intended for performance there, though in the end only the former was given at that time. Handel had a reputation as a generous man, willing to contribute to charitable causes (he had already been a founding member in 1738 of a Fund for the Support of Decayed Musicians (now the Royal Society of Musicians). It is likely that Messiah was intended from the outset for the charitable purpose it served at its premiere—to raise money for three Dublin charities, Mercer’s Hospital, the Charitable Infirmary, and the Charitable Music Society.

The composition of Messiah went at a miraculous pace. The text, assembled by Charles Jennens from the Bible. Handel told Jennens that he expected to take a year to set the text to music, but he actually completed the entire score in just 23 days of feverish composition, from August 22 to September 14.

a few other oratorios eventually made him the most seriously misunderstood and misrepresented of all the great composers— both in the character of his music and the size of the sometimes mammoth ensembles put together to perform them.

The one‑sided view of Handel progressed so far during the century after his death that a Victorian writer could claim “all Handel’s fine Italian airs” to be “essentially of a sacred character.” Even today we hear only a small fraction of his large output, with insufficient attention to the dramatic works. Recently, though, Handel’s operas have started returning to opera houses in a big way and his dramatic art has been taken seriously.

Audiences now understand the style of the early 18th century theater and accept Handel’s extraordinary vocal writing. And choral groups have happily expanded their

Handel reached Dublin in mid‑November 1741 and remained until the following August. He announced a series of “Musical Entertainments” which proved so successful that a second series was put on. Excitement built as the new oratorio approached performance. The public rehearsal (open only to ticket‑holders for the premiere itself) led Faulker’s Dublin Journal to report that “the greatest Judges” considered the work “to be the finest Composition of Musick that ever was heard.”

text comes not from Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus but rather from the Hebrew prophets, a choice that creates an element of distance from the immediacy of narrative.

Handel arranged his text in what might be construed as a series of “scenes,” each consisting of a recitative followed by an aria and then a chorus. In this framework, the recitative explained some aspect of the situation, to which the aria provided an individual lyrical response and the chorus then supplied the communal response of Christendom. Each such “scene” is a self‑contained harmonic unit in the overall plan.

The stern French overture is in E minor.

The librettist Jennens insisted that it contained “passages far unworthy of Handel, but much more unworthy of the Messiah.”

It is hard to know what he could have meant.

The dotted rhythm of the opening provides a nice contrast to the taut fugue that follows, and the cadence leads to one of the simplest and most magical strokes in the whole work: the sudden consoling change to E major for the opening of the tenor recitative on the words “Comfort ye.”

The level of inspiration that follows from number to number is extraordinary. The recitatives and arias overflow with wonderful musical imagery and nature‑painting to mirror the images of the text; at the same time they provide expressive interpretations of the meaning behind the texts—and display the imaginative powers of a composer who knew and loved the human voice as few have ever done.

Handel returned to London in the fall of 1742 and there produced Samson, the great success of which probably induced him to remain in a city where his fortunes had earlier been so variable. He gave the first London performance of Messiah on March 23 following, though to avoid offending public taste, which harbored a Puritan suspicion of anything connected with the theater, he did not use the title, but simply called the work “a New Sacred Oratorio.” Even so, he was roundly attacked by clergymen for daring to perform such a work in a playhouse.

Though Messiah had been an immediate success in Dublin, it was not one in London.

Not until 1750, when Handel began offering annual performances to benefit for his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital, did the work really catch on in the capital.

knowledge of the oratorios to include many splendid works other than Messiah.

Still, Messiah is by far the most often performed. It remains unique, among the least typical of Handel’s oratorios. Divided into a symbolic three sections, Messiah tells no story in explicit dramatic terms (though Part I has a brief narrative passage from Luke), but rather provides a series of meditations on the prophecy and realization of God’s plan for the redemption of mankind through the coming of the Messiah; the accomplishment of that redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus; and an extended hymn of thanks for the final overthrow of death.

Following Handel’s death, the continuing— and growing—popularity of Messiah and

It is a measure of the contemplative character of Messiah that so much of the

But it is the choruses that provide the center of gravity; they include some of the greatest examples of the choral art of the Baroque, and, indeed, of all time. If Handel treats the solo voice with singular skill, he offers equally rich treasures in the intertwining of four parts, weaving the lines into delicate contrapuntal webs that suddenly coalesce into mighty blocks of the hammering sound.

Handel was always aware of each voice part’s most effective range, and when he wanted a real climax, he crafted his choral writing so that each singer would, at one instant, be singing in his or her most resonant level. This is but one reason why “For unto us a child is born” and “Hallelujah” and the final “Amen,” to mention only three movements, will remain at the heart of the choral repertory as long as we continue to sing. © Steven Ledbetter ENCORE 39

Rachele Gilmore, soprano Rachele Gilmore has established herself as one of America’s most sought after coloratura sopranos, and continues to thrill audiences around the globe combining what Opera News describes as a “silvery soprano...with an effortlessness that thrills her audience.” A regular performer in America, Europe and Asia, Gilmore is consistently praised for being “the vocal standout” and a dynamic actress; “displaying more talent and charm than any one person should be allowed to possess.”

Her 2016-2017 season features performances of Gretel in Hansel und Gretel with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Marie in La fille du regiment with Austin Opera, and Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Hawaii Opera. She will also appear in concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for performances of the Haydn Creation and with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and three songs by Duparc.

Rachele Gilmore is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and received her Bachelor’s of Music from Indiana University and continued with Graduate studies at Boston University. She was a member the Young Artist Programs of Glimmerglass Opera, Florida Grand Opera and Aspen Music Festival’s Opera Center, and was a winner in Placido Domingo’s Operalia World Opera Contest in Paris.

Aleksandra Romano, mezzo-soprano Romano’s 2016-2017 season features a company debut with Portland Opera as Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri, a return to Washington National Opera as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, and another company debut with Opera Parallele singing the Stewardess in Jonathan Dove’s Flight. She also joins the roster of the Lyric Opera of Chicago to cover Dulcinée in Don Quichotte. In concert she will appear with the Kansas City Symphony for performances of the Mozart Requiem. Future seasons include a company debut with Austin Opera.

Last season she returned to Washington National Opera as Mercedes in Carmen, Hansel in Hansel und Gretel, and in Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars, as well as covering the role of Wellgunde in Das Rheingold.

Previous seasons’ highlights include the Fox in The Little Prince, Sister Mathilde in Dialogues of the Carmelites, and the cover of Angelina in La cenerentola, all with the Washington National Opera as a member of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, Second Lady in The Magic Flute, Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti, and the cover of Marzia in Vivaldi’s Catone in Utica, with The Glimmerglass Festival.

A huge proponent of art song and concert repertoire, Romano has been seen in solo recitals at Yale University and Bard College, and presented a joint recital at the National Opera Center with other Domingo-Cafritz young artists in the spring of 2015. Previous concert appearances include the Yale Philharmonia (Woolsey Concerto Competition Winner, 2014), Voices of Cooperstown, the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra, and the American Symphony Orchestra.

She has received additional prizes from Opera Theater CT (First Place, Amici Vocal Competition, 2014), Yale University (Lotte Lenya Scholarship, 2013), the Bard College Concerto Competition (2009, 2010), the Classical Singer University Competition (national semifinalist, 2010), and the Presser Foundation (2009).

40 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Chris Carr, tenor A confident, energetic” performer with “warmth and beauty in his voice”, tenor Chris Carr is making his way onto stages across the country. Raised in the small town of Quasqueton, IA, Carr has most recently performed roles at Arizona Opera, Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, The Merola Opera Program, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Central City Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera, among others.

He opens this season with a return to Arizona Opera for a workshop of The Copper Queen, followed by a debut with Madison Opera as Tybalt in Romeo et Juliette, and joins Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre as Beppe in Pagliacci. Future seasons include a debut with the Berkshire Opera Festival, as Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos.

After several seasons performing as a baritone in some of the country’s most respected houses and festivals, in the summer of 2015, Carr made a successful transition to tenor repertoire.

He made his company debut with Arizona Opera in 2013 as part of the Marion Roose Pullin Opera Studio. While there he performed many roles including, Eugene Onegin in Eugene Onegin, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, and Schaunard in La bohème. In February of 2014 he was announced the recipient of the Igor Gorin Memorial Award. That year he made his debut at The Glimmerglass Festival where he sang, among other assignments, Billy Bigelow in Carousel, and Washington National Opera where he sang The Pilot in The Little Prince.

Carr graduated with a Master’s in Music from the University of Missouri Kansas City and a Bachelor’s of Music from Simpson College in Indianola, IA.

Daniel Mobbs, bass-baritone American bass-baritone Daniel Mobbs has won praise on both sides of the Atlantic for his “solid, resonant voice and boundless energy...his stage presence virtually ensured that he was the focal point of nearly every scene in which he appeared,” as written in the New York Times.

During the 2016-2017 season, Mobbs returns to both Opera Philadelphia, as Orbazzano in Tancredi, and Portland Opera, as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte. He also joins the Lyric Opera of Chicago for its production of Don Quichotte, as well as Opera Delaware and Baltimore Concert Opera as Assur in Semiramide. In concert, he appears with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra for the Brahms Requiem. Future seasons include a return to the Metropolitan Opera as Kromow in the Merry Widow.

Last season, he appeared with Opera Santa Barbara as Leporello in Don Giovanni, Opera Philadelphia, as the Baron Douphol in La traviata, Opera Memphis, as Escamillo in Peter Brooks’ La tragédie de Carmen, and returned to the Metropolitan Opera for their production of La donna del lago.

ENCORE 41

The Harkness Method at Episcopal School of Jacksonville

Donald McCullough,

Director, Jacksonville Symphony Chorus, Tom Zimmerman Endowed Chair

Developing students as contributors and leaders in society through student-centered, collaborative learning.

GRADES 6-12 | ADMISSIONS@ESJ.ORG | ESJ.ORG 4455 ATLANTIC BOULEVARD | JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA 32207

Hailed by the Washington Post for his “dazzling expertise” on the podium, Donald McCullough is considered one of America’s pre-eminent choral conductors. He became the Director of the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus in 2012. In November 2014 he led the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus in its first appearance at New York’s Lincoln Center.

Previously, he was the director of the Master Chorale of Washington in the John F. Kennedy Center Concert Hall for more than a decade, developing a reputation for creating choruses that sang “with an innate sense of lyricism and musical poise” and delivered concerts that were “sensitive, scrupulous and heartfelt” (Washington Post).

During his tenure with the Master Chorale, the 120-member symphonic chorus performed 16 world premieres, produced three nationally distributed CDs, and toured twice throughout Central Europe. The Chorale earned The Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence in North America.

McCullough is also a composer whose works have been critically acclaimed throughout North America and Europe.

Routinely sought after for commissions, his works have been described as “powerful and heart-wrenching,” “mystically beautiful” and “remarkably inspirational.”

Previously, McCullough was the founder and music director of two Norfolk-based choruses: the all-professional vocal ensemble, the Virginia Chorale, and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus. A native of Jacksonville, FL, he moved to Atlantic Beach, FL, in 2009 to focus on his expanding composing career.

He also holds the post of Organist and Choirmaster at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Riverside.

42 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

POPS SERIES Saturday, December 31, 2016 l 9 pm Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH STEVEN REINEKE AND THE MUSIC OF FRANK SINATRA – THE BEST IS YET TO COME Steven Reineke, conductor Tony DeSare, piano, guest vocalist Montego Glover, guest vocalist 38:00 KANDER/EBB Arr. ELLIOTT New York, New York RODGERS/HART

The Lady is a Tramp

LERNER/LOWE

Almost Like Being in Love/

RODGERS/HART Adapted Chris Jahnke

This Can’t Be Love

COLEMAN/LEIGH Arr. JONES

The Best is Yet to Come

PORTER Arr. RIDDLE/BERENS

Night and Day

RODGERS/HAMMERSTEIN II Arr. FIRTH

I Have Dreamed

PORTER Arr. RIDDLE/PRICE

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

MERCER Arr. DESARE Orch. FIRTH

Something’s Gotta Give

LOESSER/CARMICHAEL

Two Sleepy People

PARKS Arr. BERENS

Something Stupid

BERLIN Arr. DESARE, FIRTH Orch. FIRTH

I Love a Piano

~ Intermission ~ 20:00 35:00 WEILL/BRECHT Arr. REINEKE

Mack the Knife

BRYAN/DiPIETRO

Two Selections from Memphis The Musical Ain’t Nothin’ But A Kiss Colored Woman

ARNOLD/WALKER Arr. DESARE

You Don’t Know Me

STYNE/CAHN Arr. BARTON

Just in Time

ARLEN/MERCER

One for My Baby

ARLEN/MERCER Arr. HENDERSON

Come Rain or Come Shine

FRANCOIS/REVAUX English lyrics – Paul Anka Orch. FIRTH

My Way

Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

New Year’s Eve With Steven Reineke and the music of Frank Sinatra – The Best is Yet to Come There’s no better way to ring in a new year than with the sounds of Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra, born in 1915 in Hoboken, NJ, was a larger-than-life performer. Known as ‘The Voice,’ ‘The Sultan of Swoon,’ and then finally as ‘Chairman of the Board,’ his work spanned decades including numerous Grammys, Platinum Record sales, Rat Pack shows in Las Vegas and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in “From Here to Eternity.”

Everyone has their own Sinatra favorite.

There were the ballads of the Tommy Dorsey era, the duets with other stars in the 1980’s, but for some, the 1950’s stand out as being truly golden. Sinatra was riding high after his Oscar and had signed a record contract with Capital Records to produce the music he wanted to sing.

Sinatra, who couldn’t read music, knew a good song when he heard it. He was also particular about his arrangements and his studio musicians. Only the best would do and when he teamed up with Nelson Riddle, magic truly happened.

Riddle, another New Jersey guy, started his music career in the Dorsey band as a trombone player. Not a great musician, but he loved listening to all types of music.

Classic composers Ravel and Debussy were his favorites. That would be his good fortune when he worked with Sinatra on one of the all-time classic albums, “Songs for Swinging Lovers” in 1954.

Sinatra invented the ‘concept’ album before people even heard of the term. “Songs for Swinging Lovers” was music that was upbeat, alive and included one of the most NYE (continued on next page) ENCORE 43

NYE (continued from previous page) famous Sinatra songs, Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

Interestingly that song was not originally slated for the album. Capital Records thought the album was going to be such a big hit that they wanted to add three songs to the original lineup. The call went out to Sinatra and Riddle at 1am one January morning calling everyone back for a recording session the following evening.

Riddle, the arranger, had to stay up all night and day to score the music. Legend has it that he had his wife drive him to the studio that night while he sat in the back with a flashlight finishing up the score.

We thank the

Roger L. and Rochelle S. Main Charitable Trust for their generous support helping us bring symphonic music to

• 201,000 people

Ravel plays a part in this story, too, because Riddle used elements of “Bolero” in building the music. Sinatra, a perfectionist in the studio, completed 22 takes before he felt that everyone got it right.

Lots of talent from composer Cole Porter to arranger Nelson Riddle to vocalist Frank Sinatra to the studio musicians make “I’ve Got Your Under My Skin” one of the all-time classics. So do what Sinatra would have wanted you to do, enjoy and have a ‘swinging’ New Year.

Proud Supporter of the Jacksonville Symphony.

• 63,000 Duval County Public School students

• Resulting in a banner 2015-2016 season

Roasters and Blenders of Fine Coffee Since 1957 Martin Coffee Company 1633 Marshall Street / Jacksonville, FL 32206

904.355.9 6 6 1

w ww.mar t i ncoffe e.com 44 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Steven Reineke, conductor Steven Reineke is the Music Director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Principal Pops Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Principal Pops Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Principal Pops Conductor Designate of the Houston Symphony.

He is a frequent guest conductor with The Philadelphia Orchestra and has been on the podium with the Boston Pops, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia. His extensive North American conducting appearances include Seattle, Edmonton and Pittsburgh.

On stage Reineke has created programs and collaborated with a range of leading artists from the worlds Hip Hop, Broadway, television and rock including Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Sutton Foster, Megan Hilty, Cheyenne Jackson, Wayne Brady, Peter Frampton and Ben Folds, amongst others.

As the creator of more than 100 orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, his work has been performed worldwide, and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently in North America. His numerous wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands around the world.

A native of Ohio, Steven Reineke is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, where he earned bachelor of music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition.

Tony DeSare, piano, guest vocalist Named a Rising Star Male Vocalist in Downbeat magazine, DeSare has lived up to this distinction by winning critical and popular acclaim for his concert performances throughout North America and abroad. From jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall to Las Vegas headlining with Don Rickles and major symphony orchestras, DeSare has brought his fresh take on old school class around the globe. DeSare has three top ten Billboard jazz albums under his belt and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, NPR, A Prairie Home Companion, the Today Show and his music has been posted by social media celebrity juggernaut, George Takei.

Notwithstanding his critically acclaimed turns as a singer/pianist, DeSare is also an accomplished award-winning composer. He not only won first place in the USA Songwriting Contest, but has written the theme song for the motion picture, My Date With Drew, and has composed the full soundtrack for the December 2016 film Love Always, Santa.

DeSare’s forthcoming appearances include the Houston Symphony, The Philly Pops, Minnesota Orchestra, Charleston Symphony, Manship Theatre in Baton Rouge, Napa Valley Performing Arts Center and the Wengler Center for the Arts in Malibu.

He releases new recordings, videos of standards and new originals every few weeks on his YouTube channel, iTunes and Spotify. Follow Tony on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe on YouTube to stay connected.

Montego Glover, guest vocalist Montego Glover just completed starring to critical acclaim in The Royale at Lincoln Center Theater after starring on Broadway in the award winning revival of Les Miserables as Fantine.

Glover is a Tony Award Nominee, two-time Drama Desk Award Winner, Outer Critics Circle Award Winner, and Drama League Award Nominee for originating the role of Felicia Farrell in the Tony winner of Best Musical, Memphis. Other Broadway: It Shoulda Been You, The Color Purple. Other theatre: IRNE Award (Aida), Helen Hayes Nomination (Once on This Island), Craig Noel Award Nomination (The Royale). TV/Film: Alone, Black Box, The Following, Hostages, Smash, The Good Wife, White Collar, Golden Boy, Law & Order, Made In Jersey.

Glover has served as a member of the Artist’s Committee for the Kennedy Center Honors and is a PopsEd Ambassador to the New York Pops. She is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA. @montegoglover ENCORE 45

SYMPHONY IN 60 SERIES COFFEE SERIES MASTERWORKS SERIES

Symphony in 60 Series Coffee Series Masterworks Series

Thursday, January 5, 2017 l 6:30 pm Friday, January 6, 2017 l 11 am Friday & Saturday, January 6 & 7, 2017 l 8 pm

(1770-1827)

MOZART AND MCGILL

Symphony No. 2 in D, Opus 36

Courtney Lewis, conductor

Anthony McGill, clarinet

Haskell Endowed Chair

(not on Coffee Series Concert)

bestbet Symphony in 60 Series – Mozart & McGill 28:00

22:00

Coffee Series – Beethoven & Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36 Ludwig van BEETHOVEN

I. Adagio Molto – Allegro con brio

II. Larghetto

III. Scherzo: Allegro

IV. Allegro Molto Jean SIBELIUS Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105

34:00

22:00

The Coffee Concert is hosted by the Jacksonville Symphony Guild.

Coffee and tea are provided by Martin Coffee Company, Inc. Florida Blue Masterworks Series – Mozart & McGill Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36 Ludwig van BEETHOVEN

I. Adagio Molto – Allegro con brio

II. Larghetto

III. Scherzo: Allegro

IV. Allegro Molto

34:00

~ Intermission ~ 20:00 Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622 28:00

I. Allegro

II. Adagio

III. Rondo: Allegro Jean SIBELIUS Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105 22:00

Adagio

Un Pochetto meno adagio; Vivacissimo; Adagio

Allegro molto moderato

Vivace; Presto; adagio; Largamente molto;

Affetuoso Friday evening concert sponsor: Buffet Crampon Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

By Steven Ledbetter

Ludwig van Beethoven

“Insight” one hour prior to each Masterworks concert

Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622

I. Allegro

II. Adagio

III. Rondo: Allegro Jean SIBELIUS Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105

MOZART and MCGILL

(1802) Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn on December 17, 1770, and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. The Second Symphony was composed during the summer and fall of 1802; its first performance took place on an all Beethoven concert given at the TheateranderWien in Vienna on April 5, 180.

During the summer of 1802 Beethoven left Vienna for several months to live in the nearby suburb of Heiligenstadt, located in the low mountains to the northwest of Vienna.

Having gone to Heiligenstadt in the first place on the advice of his doctor, who suggested that the rural quiet of the village might improve his hearing, which had already begun to concern him deeply, Beethoven fell into a deep, suicidal despair and on October 6, 1802, gave vent to his emotions by writing—in a document now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament—a lengthy farewell that combined elements of self-justification (trying to explain his apparently misanthropic nature) with rhetorical moralisms on the importance of virtue (which, he says, prevented him from taking his own life) and passionate outbursts expressing his unhappiness. After writing this document, Beethoven sealed it up in his papers, where it was discovered after his death, a full quarter of a century later, and went on with the business of living and composing.

In any case, the musical works sketched and completed at Heiligenstadt that summer— including the Second Symphony—seem entirely to have avoided contamination from the mental world of the Heiligenstadt Testament. The symphony, while vigorous and energetic in the unmistakable early Beethoven manner, is nonetheless smiling BEETHOVEN (continued on page 49) ENCORE 47

Your table is ready.

Experience the local flavors of Jacksonville at Juliette’s Restaurant. Located in the Omni Jacksonville Hotel, enjoy pre-show dinner or post-show dessert. Or relax with a refreshing cocktail at J Bar. 904-355-6664 • omnihotels.com/jacksonville

48 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Anthony McGill, clarinet Masterworks guest artists sponsored by Ruth Conley Considered among the top solo, chamber and orchestral musicians today, Anthony McGill, is now in his second season as principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, having previously been principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and associate principal of the Cincinnati Symphony.

Performances throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South Africa in recital, chamber music and as soloist with orchestra consistently receive rave reviews. He has collaborated with Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, Midori, Mitsiko Uchida and Lang Lang, and in January of 2009 performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and Gabriela Montero at President Obama’s inauguration.

As an educator, McGill is on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Peabody Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music and Bard College Conservatory.

A native of Chicago, McGill attended The Curtis Institute of Music and is a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as the first Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and was the 2015-16 WQXR Artist-in-Residence.

For further information see www.anthonymcgill.com or www.acm360artists.com.

BEETHOVEN (continued from page 47) throughout, filled with such musical wit as befits a composer who once studied, however briefly, with Haydn.

Following the slow introduction Beethoven presents thematic material that is little more than an arpeggiation of the tonic chord, animated by a rapid turn figure in the tune itself and an answering “fiery flash of the fiddles” (as Sir George Grove put it). At the very outset of the Allegro everything sounds straightforwardly formalistic, but the dovetailing of phrases soon keeps us from predicting the next event. When the full orchestra takes up the theme, fortissimo, what started out as a simple D major arpeggio rushes up as far as a strongly accented C natural, the first emphatic outofkey note; it has consequences later on. The violins begin inserting a measured trill, which appears in every movement as a particular fingerprint of this symphony.

The second theme is also straightforwardly simple, a marchlike arpeggiation of the dominant key presented first on clarinets and bassoons. At the end of the recapitulation all is prepared for a short coda, with a few perfunctory reiterations of the tonic D major triad, when the woodwinds suddenly insist on inserting a C natural—the intrusive note from early in the movement—into the tonic chord. This generates a much more extended coda, which takes on some of the elements of a new development section, something that was to be even more marked in the Third Symphony to come.

The slow movement is one of the most leisurely Beethoven ever wrote. It is a fullscale slow movement sonata form, complete with development and a good deal of internal repetition.

Beethoven uses the term “scherzo” here for the first time in a symphony. The third movement of the Second Symphony, though, is a hearty joke (which is what the word “scherzo” means), with whirlwind alternations of dialogue, tossing back and forth the basic three note motive between the instruments, then suddenly bending one pitch to lead off to distant keys, only to return home with equal celerity. In the Trio, the strings roar in mock gruffness on the chord of Fsharp major, only to be reminded (by a fortissimo A from the woodwinds) that F sharp is not the home key here, but simply the third of D, to which the chastened strings immediately return.

The finale is a wonderfully confident achievement, fusing Haydn’s wit with Beethoven’s newly won breadth and grandeur. The rondo style of the principal theme—a pickup tossed off in the upper instruments to be answered with a sullen growl lower down—forecasts wit, especially when Beethoven uses that little pickup to mislead the ear. But the real breadth appears at the end, when a quiet, lyrical idea that has passed almost unnoticed as the transition between first and second themes now takes on an unexpectedly potent force and generates an enormous coda with a

whole new developmental section, in which the measured tremolo of the strings, heard here and there throughout the symphony, returns with a fortissimo shake on the same C natural that had upset the course of the home tonic back in the first movement.

From here on, the reaffirmation of that firm tonic is the main order of business, to bring the chain of events to a close.

Beethoven’s sense of proportion—which allows him to achieve the greatest effects with the simplest and most abstract materials—is already fully in operation with the Second Symphony.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622 (1791) Joannes Chrisostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756, and died in Vienna on December 5, 1791. At some point between the end of September and mid-November 1791, Mozart wrote a concerto for the clarinetist Anton Stadler, who presumably gave its first performance in Vienna soon after.

For much of the last two centuries, Mozart was viewed as a Dresden china doll, hardly human at all—marked with a divine spark that allowed him to churn out one perfect MOZART (continued on page 51) ENCORE 49

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MOZART (continued from page 49) masterpiece after another, but untouched by the normal hurly-burly of the world.

But if a composer’s works truly reflect his character and state of mind, the music that Mozart composed in the last year or so of his life played into the first image. Scarcely any composition is more serenely beautiful than his final instrumental composition, the Clarinet Concerto, composed for the great instrumentalist Anton Stadler (1753-1812), whose abilities had inspired Mozart before, in the Clarinet Quintet and the wonderful solos for the instrument in La Clemenza di Tito.

Stadler played this concerto on a specially constructed instrument that had four additional semitones below the bottom note of the soprano clarinet in A. This instrument is now often referred to as a “bassetclarinet” to distinguish it from the standard instrument. Since that instrument became obsolete in short order, the music that Mozart wrote for it—which fitted like a glove— needed to be adjusted for performances with the standard clarinet. Mozart’s own manuscript is lost, so the only source we have for playing this music is early printed

carried on by canonic imitation, so that the solo instrument and the orchestra are always sharing a part in the same story, rather than competing in different musical worlds. For all the tranquility of feeling, there is also a distinct poignancy to this music, which moves regularly into minor keys that temporarily darken the landscape until but the compact reworking of materials in the recapitulation returns us to normality.

Adagio is a marking that Mozart reserves for some of his most deeply felt music, and this slow movement, which projects an utter serenity, unfolds in the greatest simplicity. The final rondo, on the other hand, while based on those whistleable tunes that constitute most rondos, is filled with tricky touches, including a play of phrase rhythms that keeps the movement from ever becoming predictable. And in the midst of all this calm good cheer, an episode that brings the activity to a sudden stop, as if in self-doubt, is one of the most poignant touches in all of Mozart’s concertos, leaving its wistful touch on the finale, even through its energetic close.

Family portrait: Maria Anna ("Nannerl") Mozart, her brother Wolfgang, their mother Anna Maria (medallion) and father, Leopold Mozart editions from about ten years after the composition of the concerto and Mozart’s death; but these have been adjusted for the standard clarinet (with occasional leaps into an upper octave to finish the line that Mozart carried lower to its natural ending.)

Mozart left oboes out of his orchestra so that their penetrating sound would not affect the wonderfully liquid color of the remaining instruments and especially the solo clarinet. The first movement is spacious and open in its feel, yet filled with elements that provide tightness and cohesion to the structure, particularly a number of passages

JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957) Symphony No. 7 in C major, Opus 105 (1924)

and rare atmosphere,” in the words of the English writer Donald Francis Tovey, who found it thrilling.

There is no question here of standard patterns and forms from the symphony of the nineteenth century. Sibelius had shown clearly in his First Symphony that he knew as well as anyone how to compose a 19th-century romantic symphony. But in the quarter century that followed, he had essentially recreated the symphonic form in his own way, and with the Seventh he has produced a large work which—though it has subsections in various tempos—is an entirely original one-movement form that takes its shape from the constant development and unification of the ideas that fill it. So original is the shape of the work that Sibelius at first did not even call it a symphony. At the Stockholm premiere, it was billed as a Fantasia Sinfonica; but thereafter he admitted it to the canon of his symphonies as No. 7, where it remained the last to be completed.

The Seventh begins in darkness with a lengthy passage in a slow tempo, in the strings, growing gradually lighter, hinting at themes to come. Near its climax what must be heard as the main theme is thrown out by trombones. This appears three times during the symphony, always boldly and always in the home key (which is itself a very unusual procedure for a symphony). Sibelius creates his characteristic “Nordic” sonorities with essentially the same orchestra that Brahms was using 40 years earlier.

For the rest, the themes are constantly growing, developing, changing through a wide range of characters, usually moving from subtle hints to wild or dramatic outbursts before moving on to another realm.

The handling of the tempo is extraordinarily subtle. The harmonies are uniquely of a piece, often modal, implying great antiquity, yet sounding fresh and new. Sibelius clearly did not intend this to be his final word on symphonic form and structure but it is a bold and wonderful conclusion nonetheless. © Steven Ledbetter

Jean (Johan Julius Christian) Sibelius was born at Tavastehusmeenlinna, Finland, on December 8, 1865, and died at Järvenpää, at his country home near Helsingfors (Helsinki), on September 20, 1957. He completed the Seventh Symphony in 1924 and performed it in Stockholm that March.

This, Sibelius’s last symphony is among his most advanced, a work of “austere beauty ENCORE 51

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52 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

PARKING AND TRANSPORTATION The Times-Union Center is within easy walking distance of several convenient parking locations, including the lot directly across the street.

Disabled Parking spaces for disabled patrons are located in the CSX lot with a valid concert ticket for that evening’s performance and a handicapped licence plate or hanging decal. For more information, please call Patron Services at 904.354.5547.

Subscribers to Masterworks, Pops, Passport, Family or Symphony in 60 Series can purchase series parking vouchers (booklet of ten passes) for the One Enterprise Center Garage (entrance on Pearl Street) for only $40 for the entire season. Discounted single ticket parking is also available in advance for $6 through Patron Services.

POPS SERIES Friday & Saturday, January 13 & 14, 2017 l 8 pm Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

JOURNEY, THE EAGLES, FLEETWOOD MAC AND MORE Michael Krajewski, conductor Shem von Schroeck, Lori Wilshire and Micah Wilshire, guest vocalists 36:00 McVIE/SHOUP Don’t Stop NICKS/SHOUP Landslide LOGGINS/MANCHESTER/GABER Arr. BERENS

Whenever I Call You Friend

Arr. BERENS

Chicago in Concert

McCARTNEY/HERMAN

Maybe I’m Amazed

HALL/OATES Arr. SHOUP

Sara Smile

SCHON/PERRY Arr. SHOUP

Journey Medley

BUCKINGHAM Arr. SHOUP

Go Your Own Way

Baby Boomers Don’t Stop Believing The Baby Boomers had their share of stars and signature songs that characterized their generation. To quote The Who, “rock and roll will never die.” In the Journey, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and More program we revisit some of the brightest of those stars of the 1970’s Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and Journey.

And Eagles fans will feel the poignancy of listening to their favorites now that guitarist and composer Glenn Frey has passed away.

Formed in 1971, ending in 1980 and reforming in 1994 in the famous ‘Hell Freezes Over’ tour, they epitomized the country-rock scene in Los Angeles. Originally they were back-ups to Linda Ronstadt and then moved on to create their own hits, one of which, “Take It Easy,” was written with friend and neighbor Jackson Browne. Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 is among the best-selling albums of all time and contributed to the fact that they sold more albums in the ‘70’s than any other American band.

Fleetwood Mac, a British blues band, was formed in 1967 and moved into the California ~ Intermission ~ 20:00 pop rock genre in the mid-70’s. Like the Eagles,

this band made great music while going through 43:00 much internal turmoil. Drummer Mick Fleetwood JOEL Billy Joel Medley and bassist John McVie formed the band after a Arr. PRECHEL/SCHROECK stint with John Mayall’s Bluebreakers and were joined by Lindsay Buckingham, Christie McVie BROWNE/FREY Take It Easy and Stevie Nicks. They won the Grammy in Arr. SHOUP 1978 for Rumors (beating out the Eagles’ Hotel FREY/HENLEY/FELDER Hotel California California). Their song, “Don’t Stop” became Arr. SHOUP the theme song for the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton in 1993-94.

FREY/HENLEY Desperado Arr. PRECHEL BALLARD You’re No Good Arr. SHOUP

MANN/WEIL/SNOW Don’t Know Much Arr. SCHROECK Arr. SCHROECK/SHOUP

Rock Tenor Medley

JOHNSON Arr. SHOUP

Listen to the Music

Friday concert sponsor: Saturday concert sponsor: David and Linda Stein in honor of the Stein Scholars from Jacksonville University and the University of North Florida.

Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Journey, which was formed in 1973 in San Francisco by former members of Santana and Frumious Bandersnatch, went on to have several iterations while earning 19 top 40 singles and 25 gold and platinum albums.

Their song, “Don’t Stop Believin’” is their biggest hit and featured lead singer Steve Perry, who was added to the band in ’77. Ironically this band never won a Grammy. Other big numbers for them included “Wheel in the Sky,” “Any Way You Want it,” and “Open Arms.”

The 1970’s where rich with lots of different sounds including the Philadelphia music of Hall & Oates, the country rock of Loggins & Messina, the brass of Chicago and the piano of Billy Joel.

Many of those artists are still performing today well into their ‘70’s.

ENCORE 53

Second City’s Guide to the Symphony!

Fidelity National Financial Pops Series

February 24 & 25 at 8 pm The legendary Second City comedy theatre and the Jacksonville Symphony team up to bring you a show filled with comedy, satire, songs, improvisation and incredible classical music.

PG-13 Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Prelude Chamber

Music Camp & Festival Registration opens in January. Individual musicians and pre-formed ensembles should register by April 3rd.

Open to all ages and experience levels. Placement auditions in April.

16th Season: 7-Days this Summer June 4 - 11 Information and Registration on PreludeChamberMusic.org Daily schedule is determined by program selected. Location: 819 Park St, Jacksonville, FL 32204. Tel: 904-388-5738 Thanks to our donors, generous scholarships and financial assistance is available on request.

Prelude Chamber Music, Inc., is a 501C3 non-profit organization.

54 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Prelude Chamber Music Inc

Michael Krajewski, Principal Pops Conductor, Calvin and Ellen Hudson Charitable Trust Endowed Chair Known for his entertaining programs and clever humor, Michael Krajewski is “as effective and entertaining a communicator in music as he is in words” according to the Houston Chronicle. Besides his role as Principal Pops Conductor for the Jacksonville Symphony, he is Music Director of The Philly Pops and Principal Pops Conductor of the Houston and Atlanta Symphonies.

As a guest conductor, Krajewski has performed with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Boston and Cincinnati Pops and numerous other orchestras in the United State. His international appearances include Canada, Dublin and Belfast with the Ulster Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Spain’s Bilbao Symphony Orchestra.

Krajewski is the conductor of the video, Silver Screen Serenade, with violinist Jenny Oaks Baker which aired worldwide on BYU Broadcasting. His recordings include two holiday albums with the Houston Symphony and other collaborative programs with such artists as flutist James Galway, Jason Alexander, Art Garfunkel, Wynonna Judd, Kenny Loggins, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Pink Martini and Cirque de la Symphonie.

He has degrees from Wayne State University and the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music. Further training includes the Pierre Monteux Domaine School for Conductors. Krajewski was a Dorati Fellowship Conductor with the Detroit Symphony and later served as that orchestra’s assistant conductor. He was resident conductor of the Florida Symphony and for 11 years served as music director of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra.

When not conducting, he enjoys travel, photography and solving crossword puzzles.

Shem von Schroeck, guest vocalist Shem von Schroeck has been entertaining audiences since he was 3-years-old. A veteran of the stage and recording studio, he has performed in all 50 states and 37 countries as a singer, multiinstrumentalist, and music director in a diverse range of genres. He has toured with some of pop music’s most recognizable names, including Kenny Loggins, Marie Osmond, Tom Jones, Loggins & Messina, Christopher Cross, Don Felder(The Eagles), Steve Perry, Richard Marx, Ambrosia, and many others.

He made his professional opera debut singing with the Mittelsächsisches Theatre in Freiberg, Germany as Spoletta in Puccini’s Tosca. His operatic repertoire includes Parsifal, Siegmund, Florestan, Peter Grimes, and Canio. He is a regular tenor soloist with the Philly Pops, The Atlanta Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, and Jacksonville Symphony. He has also conducted several pops concerts with The Columbus Symphony, The Oklahoma Symphony, The Dallas Symphony, The Little Rock Symphony, The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and The Boston Pops Orchestra. He currently resides in Phoenix, AZ with his wife, Tamra.

Lori Wilshire, guest vocalist Lori grew up in Houston, Texas and began singing at age five. She nurtured her love for music by singing in church and school choirs, then moved to Nashville, Tennessee to attend Belmont University as a music major.

Lori became a one half of the duo “Wilshire” and the band relocated to Los Angeles. “Wilshire’s unique sound quickly caught on, landing them a record deal with Columbia Records and Warner-Chappell Publishing. The duo wrote their hit single, Special, which climbed the Billboard Top 20 chart. They toured with artists like Train and Seal, as well as performing live on Late Night, The Sharon Osbourne Show, Wayne Brady, and Pepsi Smash.

Today, Lori continues to write and record. Her voice can be heard on national commercials for brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Claritin.

ENCORE 55

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Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council of Arts and Culture and the State of Florida.

MASTERWORKS SERIES to end. It is structure like a classical sonata form based on the shape of the opening movement of Shostakovich’s quirky Symphony No. 9, and retaining a Haydnesque repeat of the exposition.

But the musical materials the create that shape are essentially drawn of modern popular traditions, including early jazz.

Friday & Saturday, January 20 & 21, 2017 l 8 pm Sunday, January 22, 2017 l 3 pm “Insight” one hour prior to each Masterworks concert

Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

BRAHMS AND BEYOND Hugo Wolff, conductor Joshua Roman, cello David SCHIFF Stomp

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) 8:00

Cello Concerto in E minor, Opus 85 (1919)

Edward ELGAR

Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85

26:00

Adagio

Lento – Allegro molto

Adagio

Allegro – Moderato – Allegro, ma non troppo, Poco piu lento, Adagio

~ Intermission ~ 20:00 Johannes BRAHMS

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Allegro non troppo

Adagio non troppo

Allegretto grazioso

Allegro con spirit

39:00

Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

BRAHMS AND BEYOND

By Steven Ledbetter

David Schiff (1945- ) Stomp (1990) David Schiff was born in New York City on August 30, 1945, and has taught for many years at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

He composed Stomp in 1990 for Marin Alsop and Concordia, which gave the first performance in New York on November 8, 1990.

Schiff grew up in a family that attended the Broadway shows in a period regarded by some as the Golden Age of the Broadway musical. He has said that he never saw the inside of Carnegie Hall or the Metropolitan Opera until he was in college. But he had already found classical music as something

to listen to before that time, and he attended the Manhattan School of Music (studying with John Corigliano and Ursula Mamlok), then at Julliard with Elliott Carter. He also holds degrees in English literature from Columbia University and Oxford. In addition to his compositions—especially the opera Gimpel the Fool, with a libretto by Isaac Bashevis Singer—he has been active as a writer, both of articles in The Atlantic Monthly among other publications, and three significant books, including Elliott Carter (the most thorough and profound treatment of his work), Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue, and The Ellington Century.

Stomp is a vigorous, even raucous piece dominated by rhythm from beginning

Edward Elgar was born at Broadheath, near Worcester, England, on June 2, 1857, and died in Worcester on February 23, 1934; he was knighted on July 5, 1904. He began composing his Cello Concerto, Opus 85, in September 1918 and completed it in August the following year. The work received its world premiere in London on October 26, 1919, with Elgar himself conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Felix Salmond as soloist.

During the years of World War I, Elgar largely withdrew from the musical world and, with his wife, lived quietly by himself. Then, in 1918 and 1919, Elgar’s creative impulse exploded in a sudden outpouring of chamber music—a string quartet, a violin sonata, and a piano quintet, all his very first ventures into each medium—capped by his most personal concerto.

The years immediately before had been made bleak by the death of friends, by war news from the European fronts, and by his own ill health. Alice Elgar understood that her husband desperately needed to find some peace and solitude, to recapture his rural boyhood. She located a cottage in Sussex with a studio in the garden and nearby woods suitable for long walks. They rented it from the fall of 1917 and there, a year later, he began the cello concerto.

When the British String Quartet premiered Elgar’s String Quartet and Piano Quintet in the spring of 1919, the composer invited the ensemble’s cellist, Felix Salmond, to premiere his Cello Concerto and invited him to consult on the draft. By August 3 Elgar announced that he and Salmond had “polished” the concerto. The premiere was ELGAR (continued on page 59) ENCORE 57

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You’ll receive vouchers for concert experiences that will include four tickets to any series concert, enjoy complimentary refreshments in the Florence K. Davis Gallery during intermission receptions during your visit, and as a member at the Gold level, valet parking.

2016-2017 Corporate Conductor’s Club

BENEFITS

$3,000 SILVER

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Four Tickets to Four Concerts

Four Tickets to Eight Concerts

INTERMISSION RECEPTIONS

Four complimentary Intermission Reception vouchers

Eight complimentary Intermission Reception vouchers

COMPLIMENTARY Not Available VALET PARKING

YEAR-LONG RECOGNITION

IN ENCORE

Year-long recognition as “Corporate Silver” in Encore

One complimentary Valet Parking pass per concert Year-long recognition as “Corporate Gold” in Encore

EARLY ACCESS TO THE ANNUAL GALA

Reserve a table before tickets go on sale by adding $5,000 to your Membership

DISCOUNT ON SEASON ADS

15% discount on your company’s season-long advertisement in Encore

Florida Blue Challenge

In addition to these great benefits that all Corporate Conductor’s Club members receive, businesses who join in 2016 as charter members will receive two tickets to the New Year’s Eve or The Chieftains concerts and events.

The Jacksonville Symphony is not only a great place to entertain clients and reward staff, it’s an essential cultural institution that serves over 80,000 families and youth annually with free community concerts, music instruction and education programs and field trips to Jacoby Symphony Hall. To help us support this work, Florida Blue will match every Corporate Conductor’s Club membership dollar for dollar through December 31, 2016. Become a member today and support music in our community!

NEW YEAR’S EVE Dec 31

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Connect your company to the Symphony and join today!

904.354.7779 | Corporate@jaxsymphony.org JaxSymphony.org/Corporate 58 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

ELGAR (continued from page 57) scheduled for November 26 with the London Symphony Orchestra. Ironically the last major premiere of Elgar’s life—when he was regarded as the greatest English composer of his age—was undercut by insufficient rehearsal, the same problem that had ruined the premiere of his greatest masterpiece, The Dream of Gerontius.

Even a superb performance would probably have left the first audience at a loss. Elgar’s music fit the new times. The Great War had finally put an end to old notions of chivalry and military glory. The English were concentrating on individual sorrows rather than nationalistic glories. This was compounded by Elgar’s sense of his own mortality. No wonder the introspective element dominates, giving the work an autumnal quality.

The cello solo opens with a poignant recitative moving gradually downward in a mood of elegiac lassitude. The violas enter, unaccompanied, with the “infinite tune,” which seems to have started somewhere in the distance before we are able to hear it. Eventually the full orchestra presents it in the manner noted on Elgar’s sketch: “very full, sweet, and sonorous.” This movement’s middle section begins in 12/8 with a dialogue between the clarinets and bassoons on the one hand and the solo cello on the other. It is brighter than the first theme, moving to the major mode, but retaining the same lazy, rocking character.

The opening material returns and dies away over a low‑held E in the cellos and basses.

The second movement begins with a brief reference in the solo cello (pizzicato) to the introductory recitative of the first movement; the soloist then tentatively investigates a figure with many repeated notes. This eventually launches into a fast movement in G major built up on the repeated‑note theme laid out in a free sonata form with one of Elgar’s impetuous, warmhearted lyrical phrases as the contrasting idea.

The slow movement is a long elegiac song in a single breath, set in the key of B‑flat major, as far away from the concerto’s home key of E minor as it is possible to get. This movement pauses without truly ending, then leads into the introduction of the finale, which opens in the distant key of B‑flat minor.

The orchestra hints at the main theme to come and modulates quickly to E minor for the entrance of the soloist in a recitative, rather like the one that opened the concerto.

Once the orchestra reenters in the Allegro tempo, the finale is underway, laid out as a free rondo. The second subject includes a precipitous downward rush. This is by far the longest and most elaborately developed movement in the concerto. Towards the end the lighthearted vigor with which the finale began is replaced by a surprising pathos in a new, slow theme colored by complex chromatic harmonies. The cello sings a passionate new theme in 3/4 time, one of Elgar’s great emotional outpourings.

It flows directly into a brief reminiscence of the slow movement and a reminder of the concerto’s very beginning before the orchestra concludes the work with an abrupt final statement.

Elgar’s Cello Concerto is a valedictory to an age. It is also the farewell of a great composer. Elgar had every intention of composing new works after this concerto, but Alice’s death on April 7, 1920, left him utterly devastated. It is well known that Elgar wrote on his score of The Dream of Gerontius, “This is the best of me.” Although he didn’t say it in so many words, Michael Kennedy suggests that the pathos of the Cello Concerto tells us, “This is the last of me.”

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Symphony No. 2 in D, Opus 73 (1877) Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, on May 7, 1833, and died in Vienna on April 3, 1897. The Symphony No. 2 was composed in 1877, during a productive summer stay at Pörtschach, Carinthia (southern Austria).

It is a well-known fact that Brahms put off allowing a symphony to be brought to performance until his 43rd year, so aware was he of the giant shadow of Beethoven.

But once he had broken the ice, he did not hesitate to try again. His First Symphony was completed in 1876; the Second came just the following year. Brahms spent the first of three happy and musically productive summers at Lake Wörth, near Pörtschach in the southern Austrian province of Carinthia.

Between 1877 and 1879 he composed a major work each summer‑‑the Second Symphony, the Violin Concerto, and the G‑major Violin Sonata.

The criticism most frequently encountered was that Brahms’s music was too intellectual, too calculated, had too little emotional quality. Today most listeners regard Brahms’s Second as the most spontaneous, the most sensuous, a work that pulses with the sounds of nature.

It feels much more relaxed than the tense, driven First Symphony.

Nonetheless, the Second is, if anything, even more finely precision‑ground than before; the parts fit as in a fine watch. Everything in the first movement grows out of some aspect of its opening phrase and its three component parts: a three‑note “motto” in cellos and basses, the arpeggiated horn call, and a rising scale figure in the woodwinds. One of the loveliest moments in the first movement occurs at the arrival of the second theme in violas and cellos, a melting waltz tune that is first cousin to Brahms’s famous Lullaby.

The second movement, a rather dark reaction to the sunshine of the first, begins with a stepwise melody rising in the bassoons against a similar melody descending in the cellos, the two ideas mirroring each other.

Rising and falling in slow, graceful shapes, each grows organically into rich and sinuous patterns.

Beethoven would have written a scherzo for his third movement. Brahms avoids direct comparison by writing more of a lyrical intermezzo, though shaped like a scherzo with two trios. A serenading 3/4 melody in the oboe opens the main section, which is twice interrupted by Presto sections in different meters, the first in 2/4, the second in 3/8 time.

The final Allegro is as close‑knit as the first movement and is based on thematic ideas that can ultimately be traced back to the very beginning of the symphony, including the motto figure. Here Brahms’s lavish invention makes familiar ideas sound fresh in new relationships. The great miracle of the Second Symphony is that it sounds so easy and immediate, yet turns out to be so elaborately shaped, richly repaying the most concentrated study, yet offering immediate delight to the casual listener. © Steven Ledbetter

ENCORE 59

Hugh Wolff, conductor Hugh Wolff is among the leading conductors of his generation. He has appeared with all the major North American orchestras and is much in demand in Europe, where he has worked with such orchestras as the London Symphony, the Philharmonia, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic and the Bavarian and Berlin Radio Orchestras.

Hugh Wolff has been named as the next Music Director of the Orchestre National de Belgique.

From 1997 to 2006 Wolff was principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra with whom he maintains a close relationship. Wolff was principal conductor and then music director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (1988-2000), with whom he recorded 20 discs and toured the United States, Europe, Japan and the Far East.

Wolff has an extensive discography on the Teldec label, with works ranging from Haydn to Stravinsky with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. His recordings for Decca include a disc of works by Aaron Jay Kernis with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Argo label), and a disc with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the BBC Symphony Orchestra Born in Paris in 1953 to American parents, Wolff spent his early years in London and Washington DC. After graduating from Harvard, Wolff returned on a fellowship to Paris, where he studied conducting with Charles Bruck and composition with Olivier Messiaen. He then continued his studies in Baltimore with Leon Fleisher. Wolff and his wife, Judith Kogan, have three sons and live in Boston.

Joshua Roman, cello Masterworks guest artists sponsored by Ruth Conley Joshua Roman has earned an international reputation for his wide-ranging repertoire, a commitment to communicating the essence of music in visionary ways, artistic leadership and versatility. As well as being a celebrated performer, he is recognized as an accomplished composer, curator and programmer.

Roman premiered his own Cello Concerto with the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra and subsequently performed it with ProMusica Chamber Orchestra during the 2015-2016 season.

In April 2016, he began a residency with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as part of which he will perform the Mason Bates Cello Concerto. He also continues to perform classics of the repertoire, and made his debut in February, 2016 with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra playing Dvorák’s beloved Cello Concerto.

Before embarking on a solo career, Roman spent two seasons as principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony, a position he won in 2006 at the age of 22. Since that time he has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, and Mariinsky Orchestra, among many others. An active chamber musician, Roman has collaborated with Cho-Liang Lin, Assad Brothers, Christian Zacharias, Yo-Yo Ma, the JACK Quartet, the Enso String Quartet and Talea Ensemble. His YouTube series (youtube.com/joshuaromancello), “Everyday Bach,” features Roman performing Bach’s cello suites from beautiful settings around the world. He was the only guest artist invited to play an unaccompanied solo during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra’s 2009 debut concert at Carnegie Hall, and gave a solo performance on the TED2015 main stage. Roman is grateful for the loan of an 1899 cello by Giulio Degani of Venice. www.joshuaroman.com

60 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

THE

CA D E NZ A

An invitation to play your part in the future of our Orchestra

SOCIETY

Cadenza Society members are a group of dedicated supporters who have made a future financial commitment to ensure that the orchestra you love will be able to keep making vibrant music for generations to come.

Membership is easy. No immediate donation is necessary.

You simply need to name Jacksonville Symphony as a beneficiary in your will, trust, insurance policy, donor advised fund, or foundation.

Cadenza Society Members receive recognition in Encore as well as invitations to: • An exclusive Cadenza Society gathering with Music Director Courtney Lewis • Onstage Open Rehearsals • Annual Donor Appreciation Night

THE CADENZA SOCIETY

Office of Development 904.354.9136

J a x S y m p h o n y. o r g / l e g a c y The Jacksonville Symphony gratefully acknowledges these members for including the Symphony in their estate planning.

Mark and Rita Allen Sandra Sue Ashby Rick E. Bendel Jacob F. Bryan IV Elizabeth I. Byrne, Ed.D. Clarissa and Warren Chandler Estelle and Terry Chisholm Col. and Mrs. Robert B. Clarke Luther and Blanche Coggin Elizabeth Schell Colyer Ruth P. Conley Mrs. Caroline S. Covin Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Cowden Dr. Amy Crowder in memory of Carole V. Ewart Ms. Sara Alice Bradley Darby Stephen and Suzanne Day Chris and Stephanie Doerr Jeff Driggers Brock Fazzini Josephine Flaherty Friend of the Symphony (7) Mr. and Mrs. Allan Geiger John L. Georgas Linda Barton Gillis Rabbi Robert and Marilyn Goodman

Sue Gover Mary T. Grant Scott and Camille Gregg Dr. Dan W. Hadwin and Dr. Alice Rietman-Hadwin Preston H. Haskell Richard Hickok and Andrea Ashley Bev and Bill Hiller Calvin and Ellen Hudson Charitable Trust Wes and Beth Jennison Miss Naomi E. Karkanen Elizabeth Kerr Frances Bartlett Kinne, Ph.D. Norman and Dolores Kramer Dr. and Mrs. Ross T. Krueger E. Michel and Heidja Kruse Mrs. Edward W. Lane, Jr. Dr. D’ Anne and Mr. Daniel Lombardo Doug and Laura Mathewson Ambassador Marilyn McAfee Alison McCallum Frances Watts McCurry Sherry Murray Mr. and Mrs. E. William Nash, Jr. Janet and Joseph Nicosia Lloyd Hamilton Oakes in memory of Ruthwood C. Samek

Mr. Val Palmer Mr. and Mrs. Joe Peters Ruth (Rusty) Pierce Richard and Leslie Pierpont Donald Albert James Robinson Victoria M. Rogers J. William Ross Mrs. Ruthwood C. Samek Carol and Bob Shircliff Mrs. Sally Simpson Ann H. Sims Al Sinclair Helen Morse and Fritz Skeen Ana and Hal Skinner Mary Love Strum Gwynne and Bob Tonsfeldt Chip and Phyllis Tousey Rev. W. Glenn Turner Mary Jane and Jack Uible James and Joan Van Vleck Stephen Williams Renee Winkler Quentin Wood Thomas C. Zimmerman

ENCORE 61

The Jacksonville Symphony Association gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the following individuals, businesses and foundations: Gifts to the Annual Fund between July 1, 2015 and October 20, 2016 ∆ Designates

CONDUCTOR’S CLUB PLATINUM $10,000 - $24,999

Arts Consulting Group ∆ Sandra Sue Ashby Baker Family Advised Fund Bank of America Biscottis ∆ Brooks Rehabilitation G. Howard Bryan Endowment Fund Sandra and Phillip Burnaman Elizabeth Lovett Colledge Sharon and Martin Connor Tim and Stephanie Cost CSX Transportation, Inc. Cummer Family Foundation Sally and Tyler Dann Susan P. Davis Stephen and Suzanne Day Jane and Jack Dickison Driver, McAfee, Peek, & Hawthorne, P. L. Drummond Press Jess & Brewster J. Durkee Foundation Jon A. Ebacher and Jill T. Wannemacher Andrew Farkas FIS Fleet Landing Margaret Gomez Paul and Nina Goodwin Hicks Charitable Foundations Michael and Maryann Imbriani Rebecca and Randolph Johnson The Thomas M. Kirbo and Irene B. Kirbo Charitable Trust Michel and Heidja Kruse Mrs. Edward W. Lane, Jr. Roger L. and Rochelle S. Main Charitable Trust Merrill Lynch Arthur W. Milam* and Teresa de Balmaseda Milam Lee and Darlene Nutter Publix Super Markets Charities Rice Family Foundation Riverplace Capital Management, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Shircliff David and Linda Stein Jay and Deanie Stein Stein Mart, Inc. David and Elaine Strickland St. Vincent’s HealthCare SunTrust Bank, North Florida John and Kristen Surface Carl S. Swisher Foundation

a gift in-kind * Designates deceased

Erlane D. and John E. Tait Chip and Phyllis Tousey Vanguard Charitable - Kessler Fund Tom Vickery and Sarah McAlhany George and Ellen Williams Edna Sproull Williams Foundation Winston Family Foundation Quentin and Louise* Wood Woodcock Foundation for the Appreciation of the Arts Mr. and Mrs. Douglas C. Worth GOLD $5,000 - $9,999 Acosta Sales & Marketing Mrs. Audrey Baker Drs. Julie R. and James D. Baker, III Sally and Jim Baldwin John and Cherie Billings Annette and Bill Boling Ginny and Bob Bon Durant Paul and Kathy Bosland Buffet Group USA Woodwind Instruments Nancy and Ted Burfeind Mary Ann Burns and Suzanne Burns Dalton Dr. and Mrs. John D. Casler CenterState Bank Claude Nolan Cadillac, Inc. Cornehl Family Foundation Fund Tom and Jesse Dattilo Alice and O’Neal Douglas Downtown Council of Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce Mr. and Mrs. Walter H. Drew Friend of the Symphony Judy and George Gabel Mr. and Mrs. George W. Gibbs, III Mr. and Mrs. John Godfrey Claudia B. Gordon Cynthia and Walter Graham, Jr. Betty Lu Grune Harbinger Sign Bob and Pat Henderson Calvin and Ellen Hudson Mr. and Mrs. Victor A. Hughes Ira and Eva Jackler Jax Chamber – Downtown Council Lillian and Bunky Johnson Mr. and Mrs. J. Malcolm Jones Charlie and Anne Joseph Dr. Lawrence and Kathy Kanter Peter and Kiki Karpen Bob and Cindy Kastner Dr. Frances B. Kinne Patty and Jim Kleck Dr. and Mrs. Ross T. Krueger Mrs. Anne Kufeldt Dave and Mary Pat Kulik Kustura Technology ∆ Richard and Janet Tatiana Langford Mrs. Richard C. Lonsdale The Main Street America Group

62 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Bill and Barbara Maletz Martin Coffee ∆ Margaret Leu Means Jeanne and David Moomaw Dorothea E. Neinstedt Ms. Kay Nichols Janet and Joseph Nicosia Robert and Flo Anne O’Brien Mary Carr Patton Deborah and David Pierson Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Pippin Raymond James & Associates, Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Raymond A. Ross, Jr. Susan and John Ryzewic Mrs. J. Louis Schaefer Scott-McRae Group, Inc. Ed and Whitney Selover Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Sisisky Richard G. and Ann F. Skinner Advised Fund Kent and Marie Smith Dr. Mark A. Spatola and Dr. Mihaela Ionescu Mr. and Mrs. Edward L. Spetnagel III Joseph and Anna Spiak Brooke and Hap Stein The Thomas Family Foundation V Pizza Jim and Joan Van Vleck Dr. and Mrs. H. Warner Webb Ms. Barbara W. Webster Mr. Terry West Westminster Woods on Julington Creek Dr. and Mrs. Scott Wiedenmann Norma and Jack Williams Dr. Eugene and Brenda Wolchok Martie Yohe Carleton and Barbara Zacheis SILVER $2,500 - $4,999 Mr. and Mrs. Conrad F. Ahrens Mark and Rita Allen Teri and Jim Babcock Stephen E. and Phyllis C. Bachand Mr. and Mrs. Don Baldwin Claudette and Richard Barker, Jr. Mr. Paul Berry Drs. Roger and Marsha Bertholf Borkowski Family Foundation Sandy and Jack Borntraeger Mr. and Mrs. Raymond W. Boushie John and Cletia Bowron Patricia Sanow Bramlett Col. and Mrs. E. M. Brisach Rod and Pat Brock Mark and Beth Brockelman Karen and Mark Brown Mary Ann and Shepard Bryan Jim and Carol Bryce Carl and Rita Cannon Chef’s Garden of Jacksonville, Inc. ∆ Sandra and Andrew Clarke Patricia Clegg in memory of George F. Clegg Linda L and Patrick W Clyne In memory of Shirley Collupy

Constangy, Brooks & Smith, LLC ∆ Peter and Lois Dalmares Mr. and Mrs. Thomas P. Davis Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Mrs. George C. Elliott Enterprise Holdings Foundation Greg and Helen Euston Mr. and Mrs. David Foerster Friend of the Symphony Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Gartner Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Pat and Fred Gieg William G. Gingrich Nathaniel Glover, President Edward Waters College Lawrence and Phyllis Goldberg Rabbi Robert and Marilyn Goodman Mel and Debbie Gottlieb O. C. and Mae Jean Gregg Jim and Pat Griffiths Becky and Tommy Grimes Mr. and Mrs. B. A. Grubbs, Jr. Mrs. Egbert Heilman Mrs. Joan F. Heller Holland & Knight Brian J. Horton John Ievalts and Lise Everly Miss Naomi E. Karkanen Andrew and Gurmeet Keaveny Mr. and Mrs. Charles Keller Dr. and Mrs. John R. Kelley David and Sally Ketcham Dr. Annette Laubscher Janine Leland and Tom Larson Gene H. Lewis Carolyn Marsh Lindsay Mrs. John R. Mackroth Mr. and Mrs. John Malone Susan and Ron Masucci Mayse-Turner Fund for Public Performance of Classical Music Alison McCallum Davis and Sandra McCarty Donald McCurry and Suzanne Keith Frances W. McCurry Julie and Michael McKenny Helen Morse and Fritz Skeen Newman Family Foundation Capt. John and Mrs. Carol O’Neil Jr (USN Ret.) Marie and Joel Pangborn Performance Security, Inc. Mr. John S. Peyton and Dr. Kathryn Pearson Peyton Mrs. John G. Pflugfelder Ted and Jane Preston Ina W. Richter Donald Albert James Robinson Bruce Rosborough and Judy Ham Lorraine and Paul Rothstein Herb and Ann Rowe Charitable Foundation Mrs. Patricia M. Sams Ms. Betty Saunders Mrs. Miyuki Scheidel Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Sherin Mr. and Mrs. Ross Singletary Hal and Ana Skinner Smith Gambrell & Russell, LLP ∆ Rev. and Mrs. J. Perry Smith Ms. Linda L. Smith Virginia K. Smith John and Suzanne Spanier

Marianne and Ben Stein Mrs. C. G. Strum Mr. and Mrs. John Tancredi Mrs. Barbara Thornton Mireille and Robert Threlkel Mr. and Mrs. Rolf Towe Maureen and Ronald Townsend Michael Ward and Jennifer Glock Dr. and Mrs. Lowell B. Weiner Wells Fargo Barbara C. West Arlene and Phil Wiesner Judy Williams Dr. and Mrs. Charles N. Winton Mr. and Mrs. A. Daniel Wolff III Hon. Gwen Yates and Lt. Col. Alton Yates, Ret.

PLAYERS CIRCLE $1,500 - $2,499 Ron and Darlene Adams Judith T. and Robert P. Adelman Linda R. Alexander Lewis and Sybil Ansbacher Family Foundation, Inc. David and Beth Arnold Byron and Cynthia Bergren Mr. and Mrs. Charles Berman Joyce R. Blackburn Mr. and Mrs. James C. Blanton Otis and Joan Bowden John and Hilary Breen Mr. Stanley W. Cairns The Candy Apple Cafe and Cocktails ∆ Mrs. Diane Cannon Warren and Clarissa Chandler Meade and Alvin Coplan Alice Mach Coughlin Caroline Covin in memory of Robert Covin Mr. John Cranston Dr. Jacob Danner Mr. John A. Darby and Dr. Barbara Darby Mr. and Mrs. Bruce R. Darnall Mr. and Mrs. Donald M. Davis Dr. and Mrs. James W. Dyer Most Reverend F. J. Estevez Randy and Lynn Evans David C. Ferner * Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Fernley III Reed and Nancy Freeman Friend of the Symphony (2) Clark and Lauretta Gaylord Wayne Greenberg and Elizabeth Shahan Dr. Dan Hadwin and Dr. Alice Rietman-Hadwin Dr. Anne H. Hopkins, Emeritus Professor Rita H. Joost The E. J. Kovarik Philanthropic Fund Norman and Mary Ellen Ledwin Harriet LeMaster Alison R. Leonard Phil and Rose Littlefield Robert Massey and Lisa Ponton Ann and Bob Maxwell Alison McCallum Mr. and Mrs. Harold F. McCart, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Frederick McNabb Marcia Mederos Lee and Bobbie Mercier Brett and Susan Merrill Lance and Barbara Mora Linda Crank Moseley John and Dorothy Nutant David and Kathryn Olson

JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY

PAT R O N P L U S MEMBER EVENTS An all-new series of monthly events that provide a behind the scenes look at the music Members make possible.

Introducing Symphony Central A new space for you to connect with your Symphony.

DEC Holiday Treats

at Symphony Central

JAN “Sound Bites” Open Rehearsal & Luncheon (Mozart & McGill) Wednesday 1.4.17 | 12:30-4 PM

FEB “Sound Bites” French Connection Wednesday 2.1.17 | 12:30-4 PM

MAR

Member Day @ Young People’s Concert (Firebird)

Thursday 3.9.17 | 10:30 AM-1:00 PM

APR

“Listen Up”

(Chamber Ensemble) Wednesday 4.19.17 Stay tuned for details!

MAY “Sound Bites” Open Rehearsal & Cocktails (Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony) Wednesday 5.17.17 | 6-10 PM

For additional information, call Patron Services at 904.354.5547 or email TicketOffice@JaxSymphony.org.

The Jacksonville Symphony appreciates your support. If you would like to change the way your name is listed, or are not recognized appropriately, please forgive us and let us know so we can update our next edition.

Please call us at 904.354.2767.

Thank you!

ENCORE 63

Lorraine and John Orr Mr. Val Palmer Thomas M. Pope and Elsa Mae Troeh Rayonier Advanced Materials Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Robert Quinby Anne and John Ruvane Dr. and Mrs. Lowell Salter Sawcross Inc. Dr. and Mrs. Ralph A. Sawyer Tom and Jane Schmidt The Shacter Family Stephen and Joan Shewbrooks Mr. Benjamin Shorstein and Ms. Nicole Nissim Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Shorstein Mr. and Mrs. Mark J. Shorstein Samuel Shorstein Steve and Judy Silverman Harold K. Smith Charitable Fund Jonathan M. Smith, Esq. Randy and Cindy Sonntag Joseph and Nancy Spadaro George and Shirley Spaniel Dr. Mandell and Rita Diamond Stearman James and Lori Tilley Susan and James Towler Emily Van Vliet Gabriele Van Zon Mrs. Georgia Wahl Mary V. and Frank C. Watson Advised Fund Linda F. Wilkinson Stephen Williams Mr. and Mrs. David Wohlfarth Jacob and Karen Worner Dr. Mary Ellen Young and Mr. Donald Owen Mary Jean Zimmerman Carolyn and Elliot Zisser $750 – $1,499 Dr. William and Linda Ann Bainbridge Dr. and Mrs. Dwight S. Bayley Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Bender, Jr. Jim and Mary B. Burt Joseph and Susan Castellano Ian M. Charlton Concert On The Green, Inc. Tom and Pat Conway Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Cowden Mr. and Mrs. Henry D’Hulst Margie and George Dorsey Dr. and Mrs. A. R. Eckels Mark R. Evans Kris Meyer and Michael Fay Forster Family Foundation Bill and Judy Franson Friend of the Symphony (2) Jeff and Jolee Gardner Yves Genre Susan and Hugh Greene Oscar R. Gunther M.D. Gisela Haemmerle Susanna Hall Bill and Kent Hamb Jack and Grace Hand A. Sherburne Hart Hugh and Patricia Hayden Marion Haynes Evelyn Howard Arthur H. Hurwitz and Pamela Causey Brady Johnston Perpetual Charitable Trust Mr. and Mrs. Peter E. Kaplan Luke and Sandy Karlovec

Ruth and Jack Kelly Richard and Nancy Kennedy Don and Donna Kinlin Ted M. Klein and Barbara Levoy Janet LaFrance James and Karen Larsen Hal Latimer Laurel Conqueror Association, the Smoller Scholarship Fund Mark and Mary Lemmenes Hal and Frances Lynch Mr. and Mrs. Donald Maley Judith and Ray Mantle Dr. Mike and Marilyn Mass Mr. and Mrs. Philip S. May, Jr. Patrick and Helen Mayhew Allan and Rosemary McCorkle Mr. and Mrs. Howard M. McCue III Joe and Nancy McTighe Mr. and Mrs. Michael Minch Monica and Robert Mylod Tom and Harriet Nesbitt Brig. Gen. Henry C. Newcomer USAF Ret. Robert Nuss and Ann Harwood-Nuss The Parker Foundation Dr. and Mrs. Matthew C. Patterson Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Poniatowski Rev. and Mrs. John S. Rogers Claudia and Steve Russey Peter Ryan Becky Schumann Mr. and Mrs. Chris Seubert Paul Shuler Silicon Valley Community Foundation Dr. and Mrs.* Gregory E. Smith Rod and Ellen Sullivan Mr. and Mrs. Michael Tierney Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Torres Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Whittemore Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Wohl $500 - $749 Dickey, Joel, Leighton and Andrea Alford in memory of Cecil Cole Anne and Billy Allen Mr. Thomas Argyris Dr. and Mrs. George F. Armstrong, Jr. Barbara H. Arnold Shirley and Dave Bailey Ms. Martha E. Barrett David and Eleanor Bows Mr. and Mrs. Michael Boylan Mr. and Mrs. William Braddock Teresa Brewer Sandra Bay Bryant Caren and Dennis Buchman Dr. and Mrs. William Bullock Kevin and Pat Burke Dr. and Mrs. William H. Caldwell Mrs. Ruth G. Carden Gary and Barbara Christensen Elizabeth Schell Colyer Ted and Marg Copeland Mr. John and Mrs. Muffet Corse Bill and Kathy Cosnotti Sylvia G. Cotner and Mary Wysong Mary Crumpton Harriett L. Dame Noel and Mildred Dana Mr. and Mrs. Julius Dean George and Sachi Deriso

64 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

Paul and Doris Dorfman Kevin and Cathy Driscoll Mr. and Mrs. James F. Duffy Charles and Virginia Dunn Elaine Eberhart and Linda C. Miner Julia M. Edgerton Virginia M. Elliott Dr. Bill Ernoehazy and Mrs. Gail Bndi Mr. and Mrs. Richard Ezequelle David Faliszek Mike and Renee Favo Mr. and Mrs. Michael S. French Friend of the Symphony (2) Dr. John Gallo Mr. and Mrs. Sydney A. Gervin Mr. Stephen J. Getsy Camille and Scott Gregg Robert and Susan Gregg Richard Habres Malcolm and Joyce Hanson Dr. John Harrington Karen Harris MaryAnne Dokler Helffrich Mr. and Mrs. Philip R. Henrici Howard and Janet Hogshead Mrs. William G. Holyfield Barbara Johnson Shelley and Burt Kagen Thelma N. Kager William Kastelz, Jr. in memory of Sandra Bob and Cindy Kastner Ruth and Richard Klein Janet and Ron Kolar Sunny and Harold Krivan Ms. Merle Lear Mr. and Mrs. David Lovett William and Mary Lou MacLeod Sarah and Bill Mallory Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. McCauley William and Brenda McNeiland Mr. P. L. McWhorter Alex and Joann Meyer Miranda Contracting, LLC John and Kathie Nevin Mr. and Mrs. Ken New Mr. and Mrs. J. Kenneth E. Noon Judy and Jere* Ratcliffe Mr. Neil Rose and Dr. Jeannie Rose Dr. and Mrs. Wilbur C. Rust Colleen Sanchez The Schultz Foundation, Inc. in memory of Yvonne B. West Richard D. and Patricia L. Seiter Mrs. Sally Simpson Dr. and Mrs. Arne Sippens Robin Smathers Mike and Julia Suddath-Ranne Crew of Tievoli Dorcas G. Tanner Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Thompson Mr. and Mrs. Randall Tinnin Mrs. Alice Trainer Sheri Van Orden Billy J. Walker Mr. and Mrs. Norbert F. Wann Cornelia and Olin Watts Endowment Fund Dr. Mary Alice Westrick and Dr. Thomas Gonwa White Publishing Company Mr. and Mrs. Neil J. Wickersty Mary Ann and Woody Witczak Dr. Daniel S. Yip and Teresa Rodriguez-Yip

MEET THE MUSICIANS

DEBORAH HELLER FLUTE/PICCOLO Deborah Heller grew up not too far from Jacksonville on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Her parents listened to a lot of classical music, but Heller did not receive her introduction to a musical instrument until the fifth grade. That’s when the Georgia Public Schools started their music instruction program. “I had never played a flute before but I could get a sound out of a Coke bottle,” she said. “That’s how they determined if you could play flute or not.”

Her first love was actually ballet and she enjoys listening to what she terms ‘fabulous’ ballet music.

She still dances though it has been some time since she has been en pointe. “I loved the art form,” she explained. “It’s the perfect marriage of music and dance.” Ironically when she was growing up she was nicknamed Grace, because she tripped over everything.

In addition to dance, she keeps active with horseback riding.

“Riding, like dance, gives you core strength and you have to maintain focus when you are steering a very large animal,” she notes. Heller and her husband, Ron Robinson, have dogs and a horse on their ranch land in Macclenny. She said they raise grass and weeds. However, music is a very vital part of her life.

“Music is a necessity not a luxury,” Heller said. And she brings that necessity to hospitals and nursing homes through her work with the nonprofit Body and Soul, founded by fellow Symphony member James Jenkins.

Photo by Tiffany Manning

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66 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

SPECIAL PRESENTATION A Unique Experience

Friday, January 27, 2017 l 8 pm Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY CIVIC ORCHESTRA Nathan Aspinall, conductor Johannes

Akademische Festouvertüre, Op. 80

BRAHMS

10:00

Academic Festival Overture

Gustav

The Planets

HOLST

6:00

I. Mars, the Bringer of War

Edward

Enigma Variations, Op. 36

ELGAR

4:00

IX. “Nimrod” Moderato

Johann

Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald, Op. 325

STRAUSS, JR. Piotr Ilyich

10:00

(Tales from the Vienna Woods) Romeo and Juliet, TH 42a

23:00

TCHAIKOVSKY

Antonín

Symphony No. 9, Op. 95 in E minor (New World)

v

DVORÁK Camille

12:00

II. Largo

Symphony. No. 3, Op. 78 C minor (Organ Symphony)

SAINT-SAËNS

Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

10:00

Once a year, individuals from all walks of life come together with the musicians of Jacksonville Symphony to participate in a unique community engagement experiment – the Jacksonville Symphony Civic Orchestra.

They don’t need to be professionals.

They just need to have an abiding love of symphonic music, the willingness to rehearse and the ability to conquer any stage fright.

Last year, the inaugural season for the Jacksonville Symphony Civic Orchestra, 61 individuals who played an orchestra instrument joined with the members of the Symphony to perform for friends, family and the community.

This year, the call went out in October for those who would be interested in participating. It just takes an online registration, a $50 fee and the willingness to rehearse with the Symphony in the week leading up to the concert.

For tonight’s concert the group will be under the baton of the Symphony’s Associate Conductor Nathan Aspinall and will be playing favorites such as Brahams, Holst, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Dvorˇák and SaintSaëns. Imagine their feeling as they warm up on their instruments. Perhaps a bit proud, probably a little nervous. Yet once the conductor begins his baton movements, everyone becomes a unique community and all are enveloped in the music.

Bravo to all!

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TigerLily Media is proud to sponsor the Jacksonville Symphony’s 2016-2017 season.

FILM + TV + BROADCAST + MUSIC VIDEOS + BRANDED CONTENT + ANIMATION www.tigerlilymedia.com

68 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

SPECIAL PRESENTATION Violins of Hope

Saturday, January 28, 2017 l 8 pm Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts

“Violins of Hope,” a powerful concert featuring 16 violins recovered and restored from The Holocaust is presented in collaboration with the Anne Frank: A History for Today exhibit at the Museum of Science and History (MOSH) this January and February.

VIOLINS OF HOPE Nathan Aspinall, conductor Alexi Kenney, violin Alexei Romanenko, cello Johann Sebastian BACH

Sarabande from Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1002 Alexi Kenney, violin

Felix MENDELSSOHN

Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27

12:00

Max BRUCH

Kol Nidre, op. 47 Alexei Romanenko, cello

12:00

Henryk WIENIAWSKI

Polonaise brillante No. 2 in A major Op. 21 Alexi Kenney, violin

3:00

7:00

~ Intermission ~ 20:00 Max BRUCH

Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 Alexi Kenney, violin

Gustav Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor MAHLER IV. Adagietto

Dana’s Limousine is the official transportation of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Omni Jacksonville Hotel is the official hotel of the Jacksonville Symphony.

24:00

12:00

The “Violins of Hope” international series of concerts was started by Israeli luthier Amnon Weinstein when he was approached in 1996 to restore a violin that had been played by a man interred in one of World War II’s concentration camps. Weinstein, whose parents fled Europe in 1938 only to learn later of the death of more than 400 relatives, felt a connection to bring the violin back to life. After restoring the first violin, he actively sought out other violins that had been played in the concentration camps orchestras. There are now 30 violins that have been restored.

The violin has been an important participant in Jewish culture for centuries, both as a popular instrument with classical Jewish musicians—Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman—and also a central factor of social life. Many of the Nazi concentration camps had inmate orchestras. For many of those imprisoned there, the thought that wherever there was a violin, there was hope, sustained them during that very dark time in the world’s history. “For the Jews, who were forbidden to pray,” said Weinstein, “the violin is sacred.”

The Anne Frank exhibit at MOSH is the centerpiece of a community initiative, Voices of Hope, a variety of programs in northeast Florida designed to give voice to the millions that were silenced. And the lesson of “never forget” is just as valuable in 2017 as it was following World War II.

ENCORE 69

Alexi Kenney, violin The recipient of a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, violinist Alexi Kenney has been praised by the New York Times for “…immediately drawing listeners in with his beautifully phrased and delicate playing.” His win at the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition at the age of 19 led to a critically acclaimed debut recital at Carnegie Weill Hall.

O R C HES T R A

I

He is the recipient of top prizes at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition (2012), the Mondavi Center Competition (2010), and the 2013 Kronberg Academy master classes. He was praised by Strings magazine for his “beautiful, aching tone” for a performance of the Sibelius Concerto with the China Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing during the Menuhin Competition.

BA ND

I

T HE AT RE

Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Alexi received his Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he is currently the only violinist in its selective Artist Diploma program. At NEC he studied with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried on the Charlotte F. Rabb Presidential Scholarship. Former teachers include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong.

Pe r for ma nce a nd Educ ation

Alexi plays on the “Joachim-Ma” Stradivari of 1714, the violin used by Joseph Joachim for the premiere performance of the Brahms Concerto, through the generosity of the New England Conservatory.

Holidays at the Conservatory: Private Lessons on ALL Instruments for ALL Ages

Community Band | Orchestra | Jazz Band Faculty: Jacksonville Symphony Members and College Music Professors “Northeast Florida Conservatory is the most comprehensive music school in our community.”

Philanthropic Outreach Project

~Philip Pan, Jacksonville Symphony Concertmaster

Laura’s Friends We offer free music lessons/classes to the disadvantaged in our community and have introduced music into the lives of children and students at Daniel Kids, Girls Inc., The Bridge of NE Florida and many public schools in the Duval County School System.

904.374.8639

www.nfconservatory.org NE Conservatory is a non-profit 501(C)(3) Member: National Guild for Community Arts Education

70 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

12/2-12/11

White Christmas f 12/12

Orchestra Concert f 12/13

Concert Band Performance f 12/14

Broadway Singers Cabaret All performances at

The Conservatory

11363 San Jose Blvd., Bldg. 200

MEET THE MUSICIANS COLIN KIELY VIOLA Colin Kiely credits his mother with finding the viola. He began playing the violin at age four but over the years, listening to his mother sing alto(she was in professional theatre), he realized that her voice corresponded to the sound of a viola.

“Playing symphonic music is like emulating the human voice,” he adds. “The human voice is the pinnacle and we are striving to reach that quality when we play.”

A native of Chicago, and yes, a big Cubs baseball fan, he misses the change of seasons but not the winters. “After I went to college at USC, I got used to those California winters. Here in Jacksonville we really love the beach,” he adds.

And Jacksonville is where he met his wife. It was literally the girl next door. His roommate at the time was jogging down the street in Riverside and saw a ‘for rent’ sign.

The building suited their needs and Colin’s wife, Amy, was a neighbor.

As they say, the rest is history or in this case, matrimony.

He and Amy have three children: Emma who is being trained in classical ballet, Caroline who plays the violin, piano and French horn and Ben, a baseball all-star. Who knows, maybe Ben will grow up to play Cubs baseball and help break that World Series curse.

Photo by Tiffany Manning

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7PM FRIDAY

7PM FRIDAY

NOVEMBER 11

FEBRUARY 17

7PM WEDNESDAY

7PM FRIDAY

JANUARY 11 Sarah Chang, Violin

7PM TUESDAY

JANUARY 31

MARCH 3 World dance

7PM WEDNESDAY

MARCH 22

Nicola Benedetti, Violin

7PM FRIDAY

FEBRUARY 10

MUSIC CAN TAKE YOU PLACES

P E A B O DY AU D I TO R I U M

Ray Chen, Violin

for more information 386.253.2901 or dbss.org

TWO ALUMS • TWO ERAS • TWO SUCCESSES ULYSSES OWENS, JR. Jazz Artist with three solo albums, 2-time Grammy Award winner, recently joined the Faculty at The Juilliard School in the Jazz Studies Program

JULIAN ROBERTSON National Young Arts Finalist, Recipient of Full Scholarship at The Juilliard School

CLASS OF 2001

CLASS OF 2016

Offering Intensive Studies in Dance, Vocal, Instrumental Music, Film, Creative Writing, Theatre and Visual Arts

FO R 2017 AU D ITIO N IN F O R MATION:

72 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

(904) 346-5620, EXT. 101 • DA-ARTS. ORG

Jacksonville Symphony’s Sound Investment Program Symphonic music has the powerful ability to transform lives, especially for children. Throughout each season of the Sound Investment Program, the Jacksonville Symphony reaches more than 200,000 lives in Northeast Florida through in-school music programs, special performances and free or discounted tickets.

For more information on any of the Jacksonville Symphony’s Sound Investment Programs, please visit jaxsymphony.org.

Youth Concerts

Community Concerts

Each fall and spring, elementary school students attend a 45-minute concert featuring the full Jacksonville Symphony at Jacoby Hall.

Educator classroom guides and supporting material maximize the impact of the experience for the child.

With a promise of making music accessible to all, the Jacksonville Symphony provides free concerts throughout the community during its season.

Music in the Schools

Time to oil those rusty valves, rosin the bow and dust off the old Buffet. The Jacksonville Symphony invites you to join them in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform onstage at Jacoby Symphony Hall under the direction of the Jacksonville Symphony conductors and alongside some of your favorite Jacksonville Symphony musicians.

(Elementary School)

(Elementary and High School) Musicians from the Jacksonville Symphony visit schools to introduce smaller ensembles and integrate music with a variety of gradeappropriate curricula. The 2016-2017 season will introduce a new multi-media experience to high school students throughout Northeast Florida

Students at the Symphony (Middle and High School)

Students at the Symphony is a concert-going experience that provides tickets to students for each Jacksonville Symphony Masterworks concert via school partnerships. Pre-concert workshops with Symphony Teaching Artists, along with specialized booklets, teach students about the orchestra and connect content of each performance to general elements of musical knowledge and allow students to make cross-curricular connections.

(all ages)

Civic Orchestra

Registration is $50 and deadline to register is Sat., Dec. 10.

Concert is January 27, 2017 at 8 pm. Must be 22 years or older, be able to read music and play a standard orchestra instrument.

No audition necessary. Call 904.354.5657 for details or visit jaxsymphony.org.

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR MAJOR DONORS

Family Concerts (ages 4 – 10)

Musical classics and creative storytelling are sure to engage and enthrall children ages 4 – 10. Family Concerts are a fun experience for the entire family to learn and listen together. Add to this concert experience by attending FREE pre-concert activities designed specifically for the theme of each concert. Activities include crafts, games and the Instrument Zoo presented by the Jacksonville Symphony Guild. Family concerts are used to establish a foundation for learning, reading and/or storytelling. This is essential in creating successful students, and ultimately, successful adults and an educated work force.

Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Music Education Series • Deutsche Bank • EverBank • DuBow Family Foundation ENCORE 73

JACKSONVILLE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

PERFORMING ARTS SERIES

The Jacksonville University College of Fine Arts proudly presents the 2016 – 2017 Performing Arts Series!

The upcoming season features world-class performances and exhibitions produced by our Dance, Theatre, Music, and Visual Arts divisions including:

Dance • Music • Musical Theatre Theatre • Visual Arts MFA Choreography • MFA Visual Arts

74 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

For a full list of Performing Arts Series events, please visit www.ju.edu/cfaevents.

Listen. Learn. Create. Give Did you know that income from concert tickets covers just half of the cost of creating a full season of concerts? We rely on donations to keep concerts affordable, as well as offer community and education programs that will nurture musicians and listeners alike. Make a gift today that will inspire creativity and spread joy, and you’ll lead the way for great music in Jacksonville.

Giving Programs Making a gift to the Symphony’s Annual Fund strengthens your Symphony experience to include full year of special privileges and benefits for one household. Each level includes benefits of the previous levels for one household.

MEMBERSHIP ($75)

CONDUCTOR’S CLUB ($2,500)

Insider privileges and events

Elite concert and ticketing privileges

Invitations to the all-new Patron Plus events series

Florence N. Davis Gallery intermission reception access

Invitations to Season Announcement and Member Appreciation Night

VIP Ticketing Concierge

Minimum 10% off all tickets

Invitations to On-Stage Rehearsals

Members’-only edition of the Interlude e-Newsletter

R

R

CONDUCTOR’S CLUB GOLD ($5,000)

PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP ($250)

Guaranteed complimentary valet parking

50% off all Patron Plus events

R CONDUCTOR’S CLUB PLATINUM ($10,000)

A gift of $250 give 5 middle schoolers access to the new Students at the Symphony concert and lecture experience.

P L AY E R ’ S C I R C L E ( $ 5 0 0 ) Exclusive access to Symphony musicians Four vouchers for Patron Plus events Season-long recognition in Encore!

Invitations to Candlelight Conversations dinners and Cast Parties with Symphony musicians

R PREMIUM PLAYER’S CIRCLE ($500)

An exclusive CD recording of the Jacksonville Symphony A gift of $1,000 underwrites one year of instruction through the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras for one student.

The opportunity to dedicate a concert A gift of $2,500 brings seven busloads of students to the hall for youth concerts.

INTRODUCING PATRON PLUS EVENTS A new series of monthly behind-the-scenes events to give you more access to the music you make possible.

Privileges to attend events are available with a gift of $30 annually.

JAN “Sound Bites” Open Rehearsal & Luncheon

(Mozart & McGill) Wednesday 1.4.17 | 12:30-4 PM

FEB “Sound Bites” Open Rehearsal & Luncheon (French Connection) Wednesday 2.1.17 | 12:30-4 PM See page 63 for more information and a listing of events.

Make a difference and be counted among our members who share a passion for music.

J a x S y m p h o n y. o rg / d o n a t e

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GET INVOLVED - VOLUNTEER WITH THE SYMPHONY The Jacksonville Symphony loves its volunteers. There are many ways to support the Symphony – you can give a gift, join an auxiliary group, serve as an usher or sing in the chorus. Read about the many opportunities to support our mission.

ARIAS Continues Its Support of Nassau County Music Education ARIAS, Amelia Residents in Action for the Symphony, has as its primary mission the music education of Nassau County primary school students. This is divided into three parts. Instrument Zoo, our program for fourth graders, kicked off in November with the announcement of our schedule for this year. Our volunteers are given the opportunity to sign up for one or many dates to help guide the children through their introduction to the various symphonic instruments.

If you live in Nassau County and enjoy seeing a student smile when they hear their efforts produce a sound on a clarinet, trumpet or violin, please consider giving our Zoo some time. Call Susan Kosciulek at 904.548.0227 for more information. Our second initiative is bringing symphony ensembles to the various fifth graders. The feedback from the kids, displaying their enthusiasm for the program, is heartwarming. Now in its second year and including first and second graders, is our support for a Suzuki violin program. Instructor Shelby Trevor leads these classes and last year’s results were very encouraging.

If you are interested in joining ARIAS, please call Jack Dickison, President, at 904.277.0572.

BRASS

Beaches Residents Actively Supporting the Symphony Save the date for Wines for Music: Sunday, February 12, 2017. Premiere wines will be available for tasting and bidding. A must-do for all wine and symphony enthusiasts! Special pricing is available for members. To renew a membership or become a new member, please visit brassonline.org and select Join BRASS Today!

Take your family to the Seawalk Pavilion and Latham Path in Jacksonville Beach and play the chimes on the BRASS lifeguard chair! BRASS is a sponsor of the popular holiday light festival—Deck the Chairs—benefitting the Volunteer Life Saving Corps of Jacksonville Beach. The lighted chairs will be on display from November 27-January 1.

Celebrate the season with BRASS at Deck the Chairs in Jacksonville Beach—November 27 through January 1.

BRASS supports the Jacksonville Symphony by fostering orchestral music appreciation, promoting concert attendance, providing financial support, and facilitating music education.

Please visit brassonline.org or write to info@brassonline.org for more information.

76 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

THE GUILD The Jacksonville Symphony Guild started off its year with our Fall Membership Coffee at the Jacksonville Beach Museum and it was a good one. Not only did we find out what was in store for the season but we learned a little about the history of the Beaches.

Education is a big part of the Guild mission. Our Instrument Zoos have started.

We even have one scheduled for UNF which will include a tour of the campus.

You should have seen the beautiful painted violins by now. Don’t forget to stop by our table and buy a chance. The money raised by this effort goes to support local teachers. Of course, there is the Eleanor King Memorial Tuition Assistance Fund. We are very proud of the fact that we were able to donate $6,500 for Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras scholarships that help talented young musicians pay the tuition required to participate.

Our Holiday Luncheon has been moved to Queen’s Harbour Country Club.

Entertainment will be provided by the North Florida Women’s Chorale.

You do not have to be a Guild member to attend.

So as you can see, there are lots of ways to support the Guild. If you would like more information about any of these activities or just want more information about the Guild please contact Jennifer Behr at 904.354.2767 or jbarton@jaxsymphony.org. She will point you to the exact person to answer any questions you may have. Also, check us out on Facebook at The Guild of the Jacksonville Symphony.

Pat Manko Guild President

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Fidelity National Financial Pops Series

Sat, Feb 11 at 7 pm FILM WITH ORCHESTRA The winner of 10 Academy Awards.

See and hear it like never before as the Jacksonville Symphony gives a live performance of Leonard Bernstein’s most famous score while the newly remastered film is shown on the big screen.

IF YOU LOVE MAKING MUSIC...

904.354.5547 • JaxSymphony.org

YOU WILL LOVE BEING HERE!

2016-17

Calendar of Events

University of North Florida’s School of Music calendar is now available!

Performances feature talented students, faculty and guest artists. Annual events and concert series include the Cummer Family Foundation Chamber Music Series, Great American Jazz Series, UNF Jacksonville SINGS! Choral Invitational, Lawson Ensemble performances, opera and orchestra performances and Wind Symphony’s Upbeat Pink.

Full information on concerts and auditions can be found online at: www.unf.edu/coas/music info AUDITION DATES: January 21, 2017 February 18, 2017 March 11, 2017

T

he First Coast Community Music School serves as a notfor-profit, non degree-granting institution dedicated to bringing high-quality professional music instruction to students of all ages, from a broad spectrum of the community in order to enrich the cultural life of the Greater Jacksonville community.

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Faculty of music professionals distinguished in their field Offering private lessons, chamber music and musicianship classes Instruction on all major orchestral and band instruments, guitar, voice and piano Tuition scholarships available Founding member school of the Royal Conservatory of Music Development Program Summer camps

w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / U N F S c h o o l o f M u s i c Located on the campus of FSCJ/South 11901 Beach Blvd, Jacksonville, FL

(904) 515-5092 info.fccms@gmail.com www.fccmusicschool.com

78 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

MEET THE MUSICIANS

BRIAN MAGNUS CELLO Brian and his wife, Stephanie, also a musician, hail from Dallas, Texas but are happy to relocate to Jacksonville where they say the weather is decidedly better. The beach is already a family favorite for them and their two rescue dogs, Grantham and Jackie.

A longtime cello player, Brian became a musician because of the influence of his family.

His older sister plays the viola professionally, and his two older brothers were high school orchestra musicians. After earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in cello performance at Southern Methodist University, Brian performed with symphony orchestras of Austin, Waco, Las Colinas, and Dallas before joining the Jacksonville Symphony.

An avid camper, he has travelled to many of America’s National Parks. In his spare time he also enjoys running and has run several marathons. Though he doesn’t run competitively, he still enjoys the challenge.

While he loves Ravel, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, you’ll find R.E.M., James Taylor, Donald Fagen, Michael Jackson and the Eagles on his iTunes list.

And to totally prove that you can’t take the Texas out of the man, ask him for his homemade sweet potato taco recipe!

Photo by Tiffany Manning

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MEET THE DONOR Wes Jennison, Board Member “It’s very important to the quality of life in any community to have a symphony that is well done.”

Wes Jennison and his daughter, Caroline DiQuisto, at the 2016 Symphony Gala

Wes Jennison is the first to admit that he doesn’t know all he needs to know about symphonic music. He will tell you that the experience of listening to the Symphony is one that he enjoys.

Just like the fine wines, symphonic music can be pleasing without the listener knowing why. The Symphony makes you pay attention.

It demands that one thinks about which is being heard.

“For us it is a very pleasant activity. We prefer to experience Symphony with family,” he said. “We have tickets to Masterworks and

some Pops. Recently my grandson (Bodhi, age 6 years) came to the Disney Broadway’s Hits performance. He loved it!”

Wes can claim to be an almost native of St. Augustine. Mother Clarinda Jackson was born and raised here. Wes remembers living in the North Florida area for years at a time depending on what his Dad’s military orders had him doing. Every summer, regardless of Dad’s current station, his Mom would load up the car and drive the family south to St. Augustine.

Wes graduated from the University of North Florida, and received his degree in Finance. Then he did what he always wanted to do, follow in his dad’s footsteps to have a career related to Wall Street. His Dad went to work for E.F. Hutton & Co. after he was retired. Starting out at E.F. Hutton, where Wes trained and worked as an Advisor.

Wes worked 28 years in the industry, most of which was in Los Angeles, CA. He retired from UBS as Managing Director in 2008.

Wes foresees only great things for the Jacksonville Symphony, and recognizes the talent when he sees it. He knows that this current Symphony has the potential to be special, both in programming and in magnitude of the organization.

Congregation Ahavath Chesed The Temple

Salutes the Jacksonville Symphony

“a jewel in our community”

We thank Arlene Wolfson for her leadership in bringing the VIOLINS of HOPE concert to our community.

Congregation Ahavath Chesed  8727 San Jose Boulevard  Jacksonville, Florida 32217 Everyone is welcome at Temple. For more information contact us at (904) 733-7078  www.TheTempleJacksonville.org

80 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

BUS PACKAGES Don’t like to drive at night? Don’t want to worry about parking? Leave the car close to home, relax and ride with fellow concertgoers. Make your advance reservations for specially packaged evenings from St. Simons Island, St. Johns/Mandarin, Palm Coast and The Villages.

Hemming Plaza Jewelers

For more information about group sales, bus/dinner packages and restaurant discounts, please call Group Sales at 904.356.0426.

Bus Transportation from Amelia Island All Friday Masterworks Nights: Bus from Amelia Island at Harris Teeter.

For more information or reservations, please call Patron Services at 904.354.5547.

GET INVOLVED As a not-for-profit organization, the Jacksonville Symphony is a member-supported community asset.

Tahitian Pearl Necklace Valued at $8,740.00 Priced at $2,900.00

Get involved by giving a gift, joining an auxiliary group, serving as an usher or singing in the chorus.

The Jacksonville Symphony offers a variety of rewarding opportunities.

231 North Hogan Street Call the Patron Engagement Manager at 904.354.4092 or email kenriquez@jaxsymphony.org for more information.

Jacksonville, Florida

904 | 354 | 5959 HemmingPlazaJewelers.com ENCORE 81

JACKSONVILLE SYMPHONY ADMINISTRATION EXECUTIVE OFFICE Robert Massey, President and Chief Executive Officer Sally Pettegrew, Vice President of Administration Cayte Connell, Executive Assistant ARTISTIC OPERATIONS Tony Nickle, Director of Artistic Operations Nidhi Gangan Every, Production Manager Ray Klaase, Stage Manager Kelsey Lamb, Principal Librarian Luke Witchger, Orchestra Personnel Manager Shamus McConney, Technical Director James Pitts, Stage Associate Kenneth Every, Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager Debby Heller, Assistant Librarian Annie Morris, Bowing Assistant David St. George, Artistic Advisor DEVELOPMENT Megan Wenrich, Interim Vice President of Development Michelle Barth, Individual Giving Officer Jennifer Behr, Director of Patron Engagement Amanda Lipsey, Director of Grants and Sponsorships Lorraine Roettges, Director of Leadership Giving Jessica Mallow, Assistant Director of Corporate Relations Anna Marie Ball, Development Operations Manager Kyle Enriquez, Patron Engagement Manager

82 JAXSYMPHONY.ORG – DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Kathryn Rudolph, Director of Education and Community Engagement Brian Ganan, Education and Community Engagement Manager Scott Gregg, JSYO Music Director Judith Steinmeyer, JSYO Assistant Conductor Rocky DiGeorgio, JSYO Assistant Conductor Marj Dutilly, JSYO Assistant Conductor Peggy Toussant, JSYO Site Coordinator Jill Weisblatt, Chorus Manager Linda Holmes, Ballet Coordinator FINANCE Bill Murphy, Chief Financial Officer Mark Crosier, Senior Accountant Sydna Breazeale, Staff Accountant Eric Joseph, Receptionist MARKETING Peter Gladstone, Vice President of Marketing Amy Rankin, Director of Public Relations Scott Hawkins, Patron Services Manager Christie Helton, Marketing Manager Caroline Jones, Sales Manager Anna McGee, Digital Marketing Manager Ken Shade, Graphic Designer Pam Ferretti, Assistant Patron Services Manager Betty Byrne, Patron Services Associate Nadia Della Penta, Patron Services Associate Tara Paige, Patron Services Associate Cori Roberts, House Manager

THE

Active

Life filled with o p p o rt u n i t i e s

JS Encore16-88145

Fleet Landing stands out for its overall sense

of community, excellent dining and fitness opportunities, the quality of services and staff, and its engaging residents with plenty of opportunities to connect. My life is quite comfortable here and so fulf illing! Come to Fleet Landing as soon as you can to enjoy all it offers.� — Izzy Spence, Retired Executive Director, Leadership Jacksonville, Current Resident Pursue a retirement lifestyle of endless possibilities.

For a private tour, call today: (toll free) 1.877.509.8466 or (local) 904.242.6572 One Fleet Landing Boulevard | Atlantic Beach, FL 32233 | www.fleetlanding.com

Can design elevate performance? we make it certain.

Design is a means to a greater end. The best designs solve problems and create opportunities while meeting human needs. Our philosophy of mindful design embraces our client’s objectives as our own.

Just as an intricately designed musical instrument elevates performance, our designers lift even the smallest details into creative environments where exceptional events unfold.

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