Midori Serenade - Denver 2023 Program Book

MIDORI SERENADE - DENVER Michael Stern, conductor Midori, violin Kathie and Michael Massey Memorial Concert

Photo: Nigel Parry

NATIONAL REPERTORY ORCHESTRA

CPR Classical Presents

SUNDAY | JULY 23 | 2023 | 3:00 PM JUNE SWANER GATES CONCERT HALL The Robert & Judi Newman Center for the Performing Arts 2344 East Iliff Avenue | Denver, CO

MICHAEL STERN, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Music Lives Here!

MISSION

ABOUT THE NATIONAL REPERTORY ORCHESTRA Based in Summit County,

The National Repertory

Colorado, The National Repertory Orchestra (NRO)

Orchestra is a preeminent

is a local organization with a global reach. Under the baton of Music Director Michael Stern, the NRO develops the next generation of world-class, young professional musicians through its merit-based and tuition-free summer music festival.

intensive summer music festival developing diverse, thoughtful, and socially conscious musicians through experiential learning. We inspire young musicians to be great leaders in their communities while Changing

Photo: Joshua Geurink

Lives Through Music!

MICHAEL STERN, MUSIC DIRECTOR

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NROmusic.org | Box Office: 970-547-3100 |

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MIDORI, VIOLIN BIOGRAPHY Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience and breaks with traditional boundaries, which makes her one of the most outstanding violinists of our time. She has performed with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and has collaborated with world-renowned musicians including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, and many others. She will mark the 40th anniversary of her professional debut this season, celebrating a remarkable career that began in 1982, when she debuted with the New York Philharmonic at age 11.

This anniversary season is marked by a new recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin performed by Midori and the celebrated pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet Warner Classics. Another highlight is a project that combines two lifelong passions – the music of Bach and newly commissioned music – in a national solo recital tour featuring Bach’s six sonatas and partitas for solo violin alongside works by contemporary composers, including an appearance at Carnegie Hall in February. Midori also appears this season with orchestras around the country including the Boston and National Symphony Orchestras, and on tour in Europe and Asia.

As someone deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, she has founded several non-profit organizations to bring music to children and underserved communities. In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2021, she was named a Kennedy Center Honoree.

Born in Osaka, Japan in 1971, she began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. Midori is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and is a Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. She plays the 1734 Guarnerius del Gesù ‘ex-Huberman’ and uses four bows – two by Dominique Peccatte, one by François Peccatte and one by Paul Siefried.

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MICHAEL STERN, CONDUCTOR BIOGRAPHY Conductor Michael Stern has long been devoted to building and leading highly acclaimed orchestras known not only for their impeccable musicianship and creative programming, but also for collaborative, sustainable cultures that often include a vision of music as service to the community. He also is passionate about working with young musicians not only in music-making, but also to incorporate the idea of “service” into their experiences.

Stern currently holds three Music Director positions: with the Kansas City Symphony, where he will be concluding his 19-year tenure at the end of the 20232024 season; with the National Repertory Orchestra, a summer music festival in Breckenridge, CO; and with the newly rebranded Orchestra Lumos (formerly the Stamford Symphony). Stern was recently named Artistic Advisor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. And, following a 22-year tenure as founding Artistic Director of Iris Orchestra in Germantown, Tennessee, he now serves the newly reimagined Iris Collective as Artistic Advisor.

During Stern’s tenure with the Kansas City Symphony, he and the orchestra have been recognized for their remarkable artistic ascent, original programming, organizational development, stability, and extraordinary audience growth. Under Stern’s leadership, the orchestra explored a wide range of repertoire, including commissioned work, some of which was recorded for the GRAMMY® Awardwinning Reference Recordings. The orchestra’s next recording was released in the fall of 2022, featuring three works by Brahms arranged for orchestra by Bright Sheng, Virgil Thomson and Arnold Schoenberg.

Stern co-founded Iris Orchestra in 2000 and was Founding Artistic Director and Principal Conductor until 2021-22, when he had planned to step down from his post. With his departure, staff, community and musicians reinvented the orchestra as the Iris Collective, which will offer a spectrum of events while also prioritizing a variety of community engagement initiatives. The Iris Collective will team up with a number of creative partners, including Stern, who will also continue his involvement as Artistic Advisor.

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IN MEMORY

ON THE PROGRAM

CPR Classical Presents

CPR Classical Presents

MIDORI SERENADE DENVER

MIDORI SERENADE - DENVER In memory of Kathie and Michael Massey.

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Medea’s Dance of Vengeance

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium) Midori, violin

Photo: Jenny Cvek

I. Phaedrus: Pausanias II. Aristophanes III. Eryximachus, the doctor IV. Agathon V. Socrates: Alcibiades

-INTERMISSIONKathie and Michael spent their lives giving back to the communities they loved and supporting organizations that spoke to their many passions. Kathie enjoyed music, reading and volunteered for organizations like the Mile High Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse and the Junior League of Denver.

Iván Enrique Rodríguez (b. 1990) Luminis

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2

Michael graduated summa cum laude from the University of Denver and kept a long relationship with his alma mater, including serving as past president of the DU National Alumni Association. He was also editor-in-chief of the Denver Law Review and the founder and longtime leader of the nationally recognized Professional Mentoring Program at the Sturm College of Law.

The only thing the pair enjoyed more than contributing to their most special causes was spending time with their daughter Michele and son-in-law Tim Alexander. In September 2021, Kathie and Michael celebrated 50 years together.

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Photo: Nigel Parry

Kathie and Michael’s enthusiasm for music brought them to become involved with the National Repertory Orchestra. Michael was president of the NRO Board of Trustees from 2019 until his passing.

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PROGRAM NOTES SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981)

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)

Not long after her 1944 triumph with Aaron Copland in Appalachian Spring, dancer and choreographer Martha Graham was the creative nexus for another American masterpiece: Samuel Barber’s Medea. Premiering on May 10, 1946 in New York City, the ballet was initially called Serpent Heart, drawing on the ancient Greek tragedy of Medea and Jason by Euripides.

In the 1950s, Leonard Bernstein wanted and seemed to have it all: a burgeoning conducting career; composing for the concert hall, opera stage, film, and Broadway; a growing family; and opportunities beckoning in the new medium of television. It would be a prolific decade for him, in all respects. Bernstein’s mentor, longtime Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky, had established the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in 1942 following the death of his wife Natasha. In 1951, Koussevitzky died and the foundation commissioned a work in his memory from Bernstein. Contending with the press of too much work and too few hours, Bernstein put off the commission. Among many commitments was the promise of writing a concerto for his friend, violinist Isaac Stern. Finally during the summer of 1954, Bernstein began working on the concerto as a way to fulfill the Koussevitzky commission. The work proceeded well as he and his family vacationed on the Massachusetts’ island of Martha’s Vineyard and was completed on August 7, 1954.

Medea’s Dance of Vengeance, op. 23a (1955)

Barber’s music for the ballet was deemed “brilliant” but critical reviews of the dance and its drama prompted revision. The updated version, now titled Cave of the Heart, was first performed on February 27, 1947 in New York City. The ballet has remained in the Martha Graham Dance Company’s repertory ever since and was one of Graham’s favored works.

Photo: Joshua Geurink

Barber extracted a concert suite from the ballet, which premiered on December 5, 1947, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. While Graham preferred Cave of the Heart as a title, Barber opted to name his concert suite after the tale’s central protagonist, Medea. A few years later, he reworked and condensed the music to a single movement called Medea’s Dance of Vengeance.

Searing drama calls for equally compelling music and Barber delivered a score well suited to the task. Whether conveying the rabid viciousness of Medea’s bleak mental state or the pained helplessness of the Greek chorus as they observe the unfolding tragedy, the music is by turns filled with rage, coolly calculated, agonizing, tender, ferocious and disconsolate. ETW

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Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium) (1954)

Our soloist today has a unique connection with the Serenade.

Midori was a young Juilliard student when Bernstein requested that she perform the concerto with him and the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood on July 26, 1986. She had never played the work before and so Bernstein coached her on the piece at his Manhattan apartment before they rehearsed it with the symphony. At the concert, all was going well until the fifth movement when the E string on her violin snapped. Following protocol, she traded violins with the concertmaster and continued playing. Just moments later, the E string on this violin broke and another exchange of instruments took place. She finished the concerto using the associate concertmaster’s violin, garnering praise for her artistry — and composure. She performed the work again with Bernstein and the London Symphony Orchestra in Sapporo, Japan in 1990. In an interview with violinist Stefanos Melas, she commented: This piece is fantastic for showcasing the violin. Bernstein really knows how to bring out so many potential ideas that we can accomplish on the instrument, as well as great emotional contrasts…Bernstein loved to dance, and so there are parts where the rhythm really takes off. There has to be a feeling of dance. ETW

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PROGRAM NOTES IVÁN ENRIQUE RODRÍGUEZ (b. 1990)

MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937)

Luminis is a set of fantasy variations on original musical motifs. The Latin term “luminis” (singular genitive of “lumen” in English) represents the possession of Light. Throughout the piece, the original motifs remain relatively unchanged. However, the surrounding musical environment changes constantly.

As the variations develop, they progressively describe the encirclement of light by darkness. Even when describing musically what could be total darkness, the original motifs remain relatively untouched. This is intended to give Light a ubiquitous quality to state that regardless of the conditions surrounding it, the energy emanating from this point—whatever it may symbolize for us individually—reinforces an inextinguishable radiancy and omnipresence. The tempi markings for the variations are:

Maurice Ravel had completed several of his now best-known works when impresario Serge Diaghilev approached him for a ballet for his new Ballets Russes in 1909. The composer of Pavane pour une infante défunte, String Quartet, Rapsodie Espagnole, Miroirs, and Ma mère l’Oye was delighted at the prospect of working with Russian choreographer Michel Fokine to create a new work.

Luminis (2015)

• • • • • •

Muy brillate (very bright) Tenue, opaco, débil (Dim, opaque, weak) Rodeado de sombras (Surrounded by shadows) Total oscuridad (Total darkness) Poca luz, tenue, distante (Low light, dim, distant) Luz absoluta (Absolute Light)

Photo: Joshua Geurink

As the two elements of light and darkness are opposite in that one is the absence of the other, the effect of no change on the original motifs despite the constant change of the musical variations might suggest that, although opposite in nature, they conceive their existence within the same vertex.

— Iván Enrique Rodríguez

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Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé (1909-1912)

Fokine was enthusiastic about the notion of a ballet based on the ancient Greek story of Daphnis and Chloé. He and Ravel began with a retelling of Longus’ 2nd century C.E. tale by 16th century French poet Jacques Amyot. The fanciful plot involves infants Daphnis and Chloé abandoned by their respective families. A goatherd discovers Daphnis and raises him; a shepherd finds Chloé and raises her. The two grow up together, herding flocks for their respective foster parents. Of course, they fall in love due to the influence of the god Eros. Daphnis is taught lovemaking by a woman from the nearby city and there are several suitors for Chloé. She is abducted by pirates and Daphnis is disconsolate. Nymphs entreat the god Pan to save Chloé, which he does.

The young couple consummates their love, are recognized by their birth parents, get married and live happily ever after in the countryside.

Ravel described his concept of Daphnis et Chloé as “a great choreographic symphony...a vast musical fresco, less scrupulous in questions of archeology than faithful to the Greece of my dreams, which identifies quite willingly with that imagined and depicted by late 18thcentury French artists. The work is constructed symphonically according to a strict tonal plan, by means of a small number of motifs, whose development assures the symphonic homogeneity of the work.”

Ravel’s music is brilliantly atmospheric, evoking scenes through stunning orchestration. Each section is a kaleidoscope of shimmering orchestral colors and hypnotic rhythms. The travails and triumph of love are finely wrought in sensuous music. From the luxurious sunrise at the opening to the orgiastic closing bacchanal, the musical journey is utterly captivating. ETW

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NATIONAL REPERTORY ORCHESTRA

Riverwalk Center, Breckenridge

DISNEY’S “THE LION KING”

$5 - $30 $5 - $45

Season Sponsor

Additional Support

In Concert Live to Film 2019 Live Action Remake - Rated PG Saturday, July 29 - 11:00 AM / 6:00 PM Jason Seber, conductor

Directed by Jon Favreau, Music by Elton John, Lyrics by Tim Rice, Score by Hans Zimmer

PROKOFIEV - ROMEO AND JULIET In memory of Charles “Chas” Wetherbee

$5 - $45 Pink Concert

Wednesday, August 2 - 6:00 PM JoAnn Falletta, conductor Roberto Sierra, Jonathan Leshnoff, Pablo de Sarasate, Sergei Prokofiev

MAHLER’S WORLD – SYMPHONY NO. 5 Michael Altenberg Leadership Award – Libby Bortz

$5 - $45

Saturday, August 5 - 6:00 PM Michael Stern, conductor Gustav Mahler, Robert Schumann

DVOŘÁK - AMERICAN CONNECTIONS In memory of Steven Russell

$5 - $45

Wednesday, August 9 - 6:00 PM Ken-David Masur, conductor Antonin Dvořák, Gabriela Lena Frank, Carl Nielsen

STRAUSS - A HERO’S LIFE A concert to benefit First Responders

Saturday, August 12 - 6:00 PM Michael Stern, conductor

$5 - $45

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Strauss, Christopher Theofanidis

Keep the music playing long after the concert ends. Let CPR Classical be your musical guide to world-class summer music festivals across Colorado, and hear the best of the National Repertory Orchestra with concert recordings and top-notch soloists all summer long.

Scan to see the concert calendar!

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How to Listen

Connect with tickets 24 hours a day:

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Adults: $20 - $45 Youth 17 & Under: $5

NROmusic.org

Discover an audio postcard about the NRO!

How can we continue to live in the West as it dries out?

Listen to Parched, a new podcast from Colorado Public Radio about the people who rely on the Colorado River – and have ideas to save it.

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Supported in part by:

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COMMITTEE AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES

WITH MUCH GRATITUDE TO OUR SPONSORS AND EVENT PARTNERS

CPR Classical Presents MIDORI SERENADE – DENVER COMMITTEE Michele Massey Alexander and Tim Alexander Sharon Magness Blake and Ernie Blake

CPR Classical Presents

MIDORI SERENADE - DENVER Individual and Corporate Sponsors

Libby Bortz

GOLD SPONSORS

John Hayes

Michele Massey Alexander and Tim Alexander Barbara Strauss and Paul Finkel Anne Mills Pam and Sonny Wiegand

Jana Edwards and Rick Poppe Pam and Sonny Wiegand Cap and Suzy Iliff Witzler

SILVER SPONSORS

Special Thanks to the NATIONAL REPERTORY ORCHESTRA BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Breckenridge Distillery CPR Classical John and Florence Fortune Family Foundation Annette and Ken Hallock Samuel L. Bufford and Julia Metzger Jana Edwards and Rick Poppe Alan and Kathy Sonnanstine

Pam Piper Yeung, President

BRONZE SPONSORS

Rick Poppe, Vice President

Sharon Magness Blake and Ernie Blake Jon and Kelly Edmiston Callen Carolee and John Hayes KCME Patrice and Ron Lara Cap and Suzy Iliff Witzler Dr. Glen and Bobbie Zelkind

Anne Mills, Treasurer John Landon, Secretary Sam Bufford Barbara Calvin Debra Fox Johanna Gibbs Patrice Lara

EVENT PARTNERS

Sally Queen Photo: Joshua Geurink

Beth Steele Emily Wahl Stephen Worrall

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WHAT IS #APRÈSANYWHERE? @breckdistillery ©2023 Breckenridge Distillery, 1925 Airport Rd, Breckenridge, Colorado. Please Drink Responsibly.

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YOUR SUPPORT COUNTS The National Repertory Orchestra is first and foremost an education nonprofit organization with the mission of Changing Lives Through Music!

As a sponsor or ticket buyer of CPR Classical Presents Midori Serenade – Denver, you will not only get to enjoy a mesmerizing performance by the National Repertory Orchestra and renowned violinist Midori, but you will also be supporting the future of classical music, providing the professional musicians of the National Repertory Orchestra with unparalleled training and performance opportunities.

“Our faith in what these incredible young artists will accomplish must extend well beyond the National Repertory Orchestra’s Summer Music Festival. There is no corner of the American musical landscape that has not been touched by the National Repertory Orchestra, and I invite you to build on that legacy together.

Over six decades, National Repertory Orchestra alumni have helped to shape music and the arts in our nation. Believing in their dedication now is an investment in our future, and we are going to need them more than ever.”

— Michael Stern, National Repertory Orchestra Music Director

Visit NROmusic.org/donate or call 970-453-5825x3 to support the future of classical music.

MICHAEL STERN, MUSIC DIRECTOR

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MICHAEL STERN, MUSIC DIRECTOR