MIDORI SERENADE - BRECKENRIDGE PROGRAM NOTES AND COMPOSER FEATURE

A stellar program with one of the world’s great violin stars awaits you! The dark side of love comes to the forefront as Medea’s Dance of Vengeance vividly depicts the twisted fury of love discarded. Derived from his ballet score for Martha Graham, Samuel Barber based the work on the classic Greek tale of Medea exacting bitter revenge. Skillfully set, Barber’s music evokes Medea’s intense rage at her betrayal and cold calculation as she strikes the heart of her cruel husband. The telling of such a dismal tale never had more exquisite music.

Michael Stern and the NRO welcome Midori to the stage for Leonard Bernstein’s singular Serenade (After Plato’s Symposium). Composed for and premiered by the eminent violinist Isaac Stern, Serenade represents the intersection of Bernstein’s deep literary interests and musical impulses. Inspired by Plato’s Symposium, an exploration of the nature and purpose of love, Bernstein crafted his concerto with great care and, much like the Greek dialog of its origin, a generous degree of wit. A tremendously thoughtful violinist, Midori will bring her great talent to bear on this mid-century masterpiece.

Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez describes his orchestral fantasy Luminis as “the encirclement of light by darkness.” Rodríguez provides an engaging musical prism to consider the tension inherent to that duality.

Also inspired by ancient Greek myth, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloë Suite No. 2 is drawn from the ballet score that brought him worldwide fame. This portrayal of the story is a kaleidoscope of shimmering orchestral colors and hypnotic rhythms. The travails and triumph of love are finely wrought in sensuous music, and the tale ends happily, with the two young lovers united in pastoral bliss.

© Eric T. Williams

IN RECOGNITION AND GRATITUDE OF THIS EVENING’S UNDERWRITERS:

SEASON UNDERWRITERS

Julianna Wiegand Burger

Barbara and Jim Calvin

Barbara Strauss and Paul Finkel

Robert Follett

Riverwalk Center, Breckenridge

Saturday, July 22 at 6:00 PM

Michael Stern, conductor

Midori, violin

ON THE PROGRAM

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Medea's Dance of Vengeance

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium)

Midori, violin

I. Phaedrus: Pausanias

II. Aristophanes

III. Eryximachus, the doctor

IV. Agathon

V. Socrates: Alcibiades

-INTERMISSION-

Iván Enrique Rodríguez (b. 1990)

Luminis

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2

Robin Hadley

Kathie and Michael Massey*

Anne Mills

Pam and Sonny Wiegand

SERIES UNDERWRITERS

Mark Addison

Anonymous

Robert and Cynthia Benson

Libby Bortz

Ann Brewster

M.A. Deen

Annette and Ken Hallock

Jane King

Bonnie Kirschenbaum

Patrice and Ron Lara

Helen Lemay

Anne Mead

Samuel L. Bufford and Julia Metzger

Michael Molloy

Jana Edwards and Rick Poppe

Juliet Whitcomb and Elliot Schrage

Alan and Kathy Sonnanstine

Karen and James Warrick

Pam Piper Yeung and Dr. Kai Yiu Yeung

CONCERT UNDERWRITERS

Shari and Chris Dorton

Joanne Masica

*Deceased

Composer Feature

Iván Enrique Rodríguez

Described by San Francisco Classical Voice, Boston Classical Review, and New York Concert Review as fiery, gripping, lyrical, eloquent, with a strong feeling for musical drama, and a gifted colorist with an abundance of emotional energy and the means to communicate it, Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez (b.1990) music has been performed in Puerto Rico, the United States, and throughout North/South America and Europe.

Iván won 2015’s American Composers Orchestra EarShot Program, with maestro Rossen Milanov and Columbus Symphony giving the U.S. premiere of his piece Luminis, also receiving the Audience Choice award. Rodríguez received the 2019’s prestigious ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Award and ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards’ honorable mention.

He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School. Iván is currently pursuing his Doctor in Musical Arts degree in Juilliard’s prestigious C.V. Starr doctoral program, where he has been the recipient of the Gretchaninoff Memorial Prize, the Bernard Jaffe Scholarship and Commission, the James D. Rosenthal and Marvin Y. Schofer Scholarship, the King Doctoral Scholarship and, the C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellowship.

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