About the Music

JOSÉ-LUIS NOVO

Photo: Tony J. Lewis JOSÉ-LUIS NOVO

CONDUCTOR

Piazzolla, Ravel, and More January 23 & 24, 2022

“Maestro Novo was featured in the League of American Orchestra’s Symphony magazine in “Podium Powers,” an article about emerging Hispanic conductors in the United States of America.” Since his appointment as Music Director and Conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra (ASO) in Maryland in 2005, Spanish born José-Luis Novo has instilled a new and vibrant artistic vision. Some of the ASO’s highlights during Novo’s tenure include numerous appearances at the Music Center at Strathmore with violinists James Ehnes, Vadim Repin, Anne Akiko Meyers, Leticia Moreno and Chee-Yun, pianist Olga Kern, late cellist Lynn Harrell, guitarist Manuel Barrueco, pipa virtuoso Wu Man and the Naval Academy Glee Club, a 2012 return appearance at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, national broadcasts on NPR’s “Performance Today” and the launching of the ASO’s first commercial CD commemorating the 300th anniversary of the signing of Annapolis’ Royal Charter.

Maestro Novo’s continuous drive for artistic excellence, innovative thematic programming, and collaborations with some of today’s most respected guest artists, have resulted in unprecedented artistic growth, praising audiences, and enthusiastic reviews from publications such as The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun.

In addition to his directorship of the ASO, in 2016 Maestro Novo concluded an impressive thirteen-year tenure as Music Director and Conductor of the Binghamton Philharmonic in New York state. Prior to this, he served as Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under both late Music Director Emeritus Jesús López-Cobos and former Music Director Paavo Järvi, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under the late Erich Kunzel. Recent and upcoming guest conducting engagements include debut appearances with the Rochester Philharmonic, the Hilton Head, Palm Beach, Alexandria and South Bend Symphony Orchestras, and return appearances with the Baltimore Symphony, the Fresno Philharmonic, Symphoria, and a Kimmel Center debut in Philadelphia conducting the Curtis Institute Orchestra. After a successful debut with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO) for the Thailand International Composition Festival in 2015, Maestro Novo has been invited back regularly to guest conduct the TPO. Other guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the Symphony Silicon Valley, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Syracuse, Modesto, Windsor, Stamford, Tulsa, and Tallahassee symphonies and most of the major Spanish orchestras. José-Luis Novo has also developed a reputation as a keen educator of young musicians. He has held conducting positions with the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra, Miami University Symphony Orchestra and National Repertory Orchestra, and has been on the conducting faculty at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina since 1999.

Maestro Novo was featured in the League of American Orchestra’s Symphony magazine in “Podium Powers,” an article about emerging Hispanic conductors in the United States of America.

He holds music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale University and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, and is the recipient of a 2010 Annie Award in Performing Arts from the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, a 2008 American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Adventurous Programming Award, and a 2005 Broome County Arts Council Heart of the Arts Award.

Praised by The New York Times as a “splendid player,” Argentinian bandoneonist Héctor Del Curto’s career, spanning for more than twenty-five years, has encompassed the traditional Tango, New Tango, Jazz, Classical and World music. As one of the most sought-after bandoneonists, he has performed with luminaries across many musical genres including the Tango legends, Astor Piazzolla and Osvaldo Pugliese, latin jazz giant Paquito D’Rivera, jazz violinst Regina Carter, saxophonist Joe Lovano, violinist Cho–Liang Lin and appeared with prestigious orchestras such as the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Mobile Symphony and Buenos Aires Symphony Orchestra.

Born into a family of bandoneon players, Mr. Del Curto was introduced to the world of Tango and bandoneon by his grandfather, Héctor Cristobal. By the age of 17, he had won the title “Best Bandoneon Player Under 25” in Argentina, and was invited to join the orchestra of the legendary Osvaldo Pugliese, the “Last Giant of Tango.” In 1999, he received the Golden Note Award from the Italian–American Network in recognition of his artistic achievements. As a music director, he directed the spectacular show Forever Tango on Broadway and founded the Eternal Tango Orchestra, a ten-piece ensemble. Since their Lincoln Center debut in 2003, the Eternal Tango Orchestra (now the Héctor Del Curto Tango Orchestra) returned to Lincoln Center for three more engagements and performed at other various venues including the Skirball Center for Performing Arts.

A musician who is dedicated to the education, outreach and preservation of tango music, Mr. Del Curto founded the Stowe Tango Music Festival, the premier tango music festival in the United States, noted both for its unique series of performances and its high level of musical training. As the festival’s Artistic Director, he directs the Stowe Tango Music Festival Orchestra, a 20- plus piece tango orchestra comprised of an extraordinary group of selected students from all over the globe and world-class artists including guest tango legends from Argentina. Mr. Del Curto recently produced and released his second album Eternal Piazzolla featuring his quintet with a sold out CD release concert at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. He was featured along with his first CD Eternal Tango on BBC News which was televised nationally and internationally and on Public Radio International’s “The World.”

He appears in numerous recordings with artists such as Osvaldo Pugliese and Astor Piazzolla on Finally Together (Lucho), Pablo Ziegler on the albums Asphalto, Quintet for the New Tango (BMG), and Tango & All That Jazz, Paquito D’Rivera on Funk Tango, Jazz-Clazz and Panamericana Suite, Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri on Masterpiece, Plácido Domingo’s Encanto del Mar (Sony Classical), Erwin Schrott on Rojotango (Sony Classical), Denyce Graves’ The Lost Days (BMG), Absolute Ensemble on Bach Reinvented (Sony Classical), Fernando Otero on Plan, Vital and Pagina de Buenos Aires, Ricardo Arjona’s Quién Dijo Ayer and Santo Pecado (Sony International), and Shakira’s Laundry Service.

HÉCTOR DEL CURTO

Photo: Sergio R. Reyes HÉCTOR DEL CURTO

BANDONEON

Piazzolla, Ravel, and More January 23 & 24, 2022

“A musician who is dedicated to the education, outreach and preservation of tango music, Mr. Del Curto founded the Stowe Tango Music Festival - the premier tango music festival in the United States, noted both for its unique series of performances and its high level of musical training.”

ABOUT THE MUSIC

by Jonathan Aceto

Suite No. 1 from The Three-Cornered Hat

(El sombrero de tres picos) Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Manuel de Falla was born in Cádiz in Andalusia, Spain. He started piano lessons at a young age and later attended the Royal Conservatory in Madrid where he studied composition with Felipe Pedrell. It was from Pedrell’s encouragement that Falla became interested in Andalusian music, especially flamenco and cante jondo, the local folksong. After winning a few awards, he moved to Paris in 1907 and began to absorb the avant-garde music being composed by Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky. It was through Stravinsky that Sergei Diaghilev, the impresario of the Ballets Russes, met Falla in 1916. Diaghilev later commissioned music from Falla to go with a ballet based on the novel The Governor and the Miller’s Wife by Pedro de Alarcón. This was to be a unique production in that the choreography would be rooted in Spanish dance rather than classical ballet. Diaghilev and the choreographer Leonide Massine, the successor of Nijinsky, traveled all around Spain, learning everything they could about regional dances. Eventually, El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) premiered in London in 1919 with costumes and sets designed by Pablo Picasso and the orchestra conducted by Ernest Ansermet, Falla needing to be home in Granada for his dying mother.

Suite No. 1 contains five scenes from the ballet. The Introduction is a true introduction, simply setting the mood for the ballet or, in this case, the suite. The first proper scene is the Afternoon, which shows us the home of the miller and his wife. They are trying to train a blackbird, heard in the piccolo, in addition to doing their chores. The local Governor has made advances on the miller’s wife and she decides to tease him by dancing a fandango (Dance of the Miller’s Wife). The Governor, or Corregidor, is represented by the bassoon and he approaches the wife. She greets him graciously with an elegant melody in the strings and later tempts him with grapes. Although he tries to grab her as well as the grapes, she always avoids his hands. The piece ends with the miller and his wife dancing the fandango together in triumph over the Governor.

Concerto for Bandoneón, “Aconcagua”

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

The son of Italian immigrants, Astor Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata along the coast of Argentina. Shortly after, the family moved to New York City where Piazzolla began playing the bandoneon at age 8. He also was exposed to a wide range of music, from his father’s recordings of traditional tango, to his music teacher’s lessons in Bach, to the cutting edge of New York jazz. Piazzolla returned to Argentina in 1936 and began playing in several tango orchestras including those of Elvino Vardaro and Anibal Troilo.

In 1941, at the encouragement of pianist Arthur Rubinstein who was then living in Buenos Aires, Piazzolla began studying with Alberto Ginastera and learning about the music of Stravinsky, Bartók and Ravel. His focus on composing paid off when one of his works won a French grant to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Being ashamed of his tango background, he played only his classical pieces for Boulanger. She was unimpressed. Finally, he played for her his recent tango “Triunfal” and then she really took notice, telling him that the tango was where his real inspiration lay. For the rest of his career, Piazzolla championed

his nuevo tango throughout the world with several different groups. This new style, using elements of jazz, classical counterpoint, unique harmonies and chromaticism, has not always been embraced in his homeland of Argentina but has won accolades everywhere else. He was also quite prolific; scholars estimate Piazzolla wrote as many as 3,000 pieces. The Concerto for Bandoneón was written in 1979 for string orchestra, harp, piano, and percussion. Piazzolla’s publisher, Aldo Pagani, gave it the title “Aconcagua” because he believed the piece, like the highest mountain in South America, represented the peak of Piazzolla’s work. The first movement opens with an intensity that is almost chaotic yet remains firmly in control with the help of sustained chords from the strings. There is a contrasting lyrical middle section and two short cadenzas to listen for.

The second movement is more introspective with the bandoneon starting alone, then later is joined by the harp and one violinist playing high harmonics. The last movement is based on a tango Piazzolla wrote for the film Con alma y vida. Halfway through, the bandoneon takes over with a new tango theme, charming and tuneful as if Piazzolla meant to say, “Yeah, I can compose this way if I want to.” Finally, the piece dissolves into a four-note descending bass line that keeps repeating, building and building to the last chord.

Overture to Los esclavos felices

Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (1806-1826)

Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga was a gifted Basque composer born in Bilbao, Spain. He is often referred to as the “Spanish Mozart” and for good reason; they were both extremely talented, both died at a young age, and, unfortunately, both were buried in an unmarked grave. Arriaga entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1821 and studied violin with Pierre Baillot, counterpoint with Luigi Cherubini, and harmony with François-Joseph Fétis. It was not long before Arriaga was made an assistant to Fétis, largely from earning the praise of both faculty and students.