Classics 3 Earth & Space April 2024 by IBPSA

April 13th, 7:30 PM

April 14th, 3:00 PM

Classics 3

Space & Earth

Daniel Cho, Guest Conductor Atkinson Recital Hall

Letter from the President

Dear Patrons,

Welcome to our 2023-24 season of the fnest symphonic music, performed by our dedicated orchestra under the directon of Maestro Ming Luke. This will be a season of change as we try new things and collaborate with other arts organizatons in excitng ways. Whether it be joining our music with the arts of ballet and drama, the joining of cultures in celebraton of Día de los Muertos, the joining our instruments with choral voices for the holidays, or just humming along with our favorite tunes from the movies, we recognize that music has the ability to touch everyone. As the saying goes, “Where words fail, music speaks”.

We also recognize our responsibility to educate and develop the next generaton of musicians through the development of our The Las Cruces Symphony Youth Orchestra and our newly formed Junior Orchestra! We are excited that the Youth Orchestra will again be joining us onstage, not once, but twice this season.

Our mission is to present and promote music of the highest quality for the region’s enrichment and to serve our community. This would not be possible without the fnancial support of you who are here, our season sponsors, business advertsers, and donors. We are truly thankful for your generosity and look forward to your contnued support.

Sincerely,

Michael Chang LCSA President

Las Cruces Symphony Association

The mission of the Las Cruces Symphony Associaton is to present and promote music of the highest quality for the region’s enrichment, and to serve our community as a musical, cultural, and educatonal resource

2023-24 Board of Directors

Michael Chang

Larry Hill

Tom Marconi

Scot Lucas

Marc A. Mofet

Barbara Ross

Larry Snyder

Executve Board

Michael Chang, President

Marc A. Mofet, Vice-President

Larry Hill, Secretary

Carmen Rustenbeck, Treasurer

Ex-Ofcio

Carmen Rustenbeck

Laura Self

Catherine Zaharko

Carmen Rustenbeck, Interim Executve Director

Ming Luke, Music Director

The Las Cruces Symphony Associaton is the administratve and governing arm of the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra, governed by a Board of Directors composed of local community members.

A successful symphony orchestra is a partnership between the music director, musicians, administratve staf, board of directors, donors, and patrons. Actng on behalf of all who have a vested interest in the LCSO, the Board of Directors is responsible for the good stewardship of the Symphony.

For more informaton about the LCSA Board o f Directors and membership possibilites, please contact the LCSA at 575 -646-3709.

Classics Three: Space & Earth

Sponsored by A Circle of Symphony Friends

The Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Cho, Conductor in collaboraton with Las Cruces Symphony Youth Orchestra

Dawn at San Juan Mesa — Michael Mauldin (side-by-side with the Las Cruces Symphony Youth Orchestra)

Die Moldau — Bedrich Smetana

Hebrides Overture— Felix Mendelssohn

~ Intermission ~

Les Toreadors from Carmen Suite No. 1— Georges

Bizet

Tatsu Miyzaki , Guest Conductor (Saturday night only!)

La Mer — Claude Debussy

Program Notes: Mauldin

Michael Mauldin (b. 1947)

Program notes from the composer

Dawn at San Juan Mesa was commissioned by the Albuquerque Youth Symphony for the Albuquerque Junior Symphony, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the AYS program, and premiered by the AJS April 20, 1996 in Popejoy Hall at the University of New Mexico, conducted by Bruce Dalby.

This work was inspired by my many visits to an unexcavated Anasazi city on top of San Juan Mesa in the Jemez Mountains. Within view of Sandia Peak in the distance (where KHFM has its broadcasting tower), I brought my young son, Kendall, here once when my Petroglyph for Strings was on the air. I mused at the irony. Before his birth, that piece had begun in that place. But now I heard the music-fleshed out-and the laughter of a child in a plaza that once rang with the laughter of many children. Since then, it seems as if the spirits there welcome me and the children I bring to see the petroglyphs and pot fragments. Often I go away with a new fragment of insight, usually into the needs of children. So years later, when I was commissioned by the AYS program, the magic of the mesa and its people seemed an appropriate inspiration for a piece to be performed by children.

Michael Mauldin

Robbtrust.org

Program Notes: Smetana

Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)

Compared to other well-known composers of the Romantic era, Bedřich Smetana’s compositional output is perhaps a bit less important. In no way is this to imply his creations are inferior, merely that they are generally less popular beyond his few big “hits.” Several of his works are excellent examples of the nationalistic movement of the nineteenth century, and his composition titled The Moldau is one of the most picturesque tone poems ever composed. Smetana is from Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic, and he is frequently mentioned as their greatest composer. Today, his most important works are his two string quartets, a folk opera titled The Bartered Bride, and the tone poem featured on today’s concert.

The Moldau comes from a cycle of six individual tone poems Smetana titled Má vlast (My Homeland), which he composed between 1872 and 1880. Each work carries a programmatic story drawn from Bohemian history, folklore, or, in cases such as The Moldau, inspiration was simply drawn from scenes in the countryside. This particular work traces the Moldau River from its headwaters, as two small streams converge to create the river (a clever duet between two flutes), all the way to its arrival in the city of Prague, where we travel past the castle Vyšehrad. Along the way, different sections of the composition paint vivid musical portraits of scenes including a peasant wedding, a hunting party, a gentle scene from the river at night, and a wild ride through the rapids of St. John. Each musical scene is tied together with one main theme that represents the river itself. In addition, right at the end of the work a new theme is introduced, the Má vlast theme, which Smetana used to unify all six of his tone poems in the cycle .

A statue, in the city of Prague, of composer Bedřich Smetana. © Shutterstock.com

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Jupiterimages, Corp.

Perhaps even more than Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn can be viewed as a transitional composer whose works help bridge the Classical and Romantic periods in music. He adheres closely to the styles of Haydn and Mozart in terms of formal structures, but the heightened emotional content of his works, his interest in nature, and his use of general programmatic ideas in his instrumental works all point to the Romantic era. Felix Mendelssohn was born into a wealthy Jewish family. His grandfather was the famous philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and his father, Abraham, was a successful banker. Abraham Mendelssohn made the decision to have his family convert to Christianity in the hopes that they could avoid some of the prejudice many Europeans felt toward the Jewish community. After conversion, the family added the last name Bartholdy, and today you will sometimes see concert programs and recordings that list the composer as Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

Mendelssohn began to excel in the arts when he was quite young. He played the piano and the violin, composed music, wrote poetry, and even took up painting. While still a teenager, he created a number of successful works that are still performed today, including the Octet, Op.20, and the overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21, based on Shakespeare’s play. Mendelssohn traveled extensively, particularly exploring England, Scotland, and Italy. These travels led to the composition of several popular programmatic works including his Symphony No. 3 ( Scottish), Symphony No. 4 (Italian), and the Hebrides Overture, which is also known as Fingal’ s Cave. At the age of 26, Mendelssohn was appointed conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Under his direction the orchestra became a very successful performing organization, a position it maintains in the world of music to this day.

Notes: Mendelssohn

Program

Program Notes: Mendelssohn

While in Leipzig, Mendelssohn also became the director of a new music conservatory there. Throughout all of his travels and conducting activities, Mendelssohn continued to be a very prolific composer. In terms of compositional temperament, he has been compared to Mozart. Music flowed easily from his pen, and he seemed to always have a perfect sense of orchestration and formal structure.

As mentioned above, Mendelssohn, unlike many Romantic period composers, was rather well off and never really had to “suffer for his art.” As such, he enjoyed the means to travel extensively, and his travels clearly influenced several of the works he created, including the Hebrides Overture featured on this concert.

Though it is clearly titled “overture,” many do view this work as being written more along the lines of an early romantic tone poem, musically painting a rather vivid sonic portrait of islands about 50 miles off the Scottish coast. His more extensive Third Symphony, which carries the subtitle Scottish, was also inspired by this same visit, though it took him over 12 more years to finish that work. The subtitle of Fingal’s Cave was actually added to this overture by Mendelssohn’s publisher a few years after the work was first performed. According to Wilderness Scotland: In the Celtic world the cave was a place of myths and legends. Known as Uamh-Binn, or “The Cave of Melody,” in the common imagination it has always been linked to the Giant’s Causeway of Northern Ireland…. After 1829, the cave was made even more famous by the visit of the German composer Felix Mendelssohn. He took the steamer service from Oban to visit the island, but the day was wild, and all the passengers were ill. Mendelssohn was so seasick that he couldn ’t have enjoyed his visit, but the sound of the waves crashing into the cave must have impressed him so much that he wrote his famous Hebrides Overture after the experience.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Library of Congress

Claude Debussy attended the Paris Conservatory, and while he was a student there, his radical harmonic concepts earned him the disapproval of the theory and composition faculty. He spent two summers working in Russia as a pianist for Tchaikovsky’s patron, Madame von Meck. Like the unconventional Berlioz before him, Debussy won the Prix de Rome in 1884 and spent two years in Italy, where he met both Verdi and Liszt. Not long after, Debussy began to explore the writings of Symbolist poets Mallarmé and Verlaine, among others. In 1899 he attended the Paris World Exhibition, where he was introduced to music from various Eastern cultures, most importantly, the Javanese gamelan. The gamelan is a type of Asian orchestra that makes use of percussion instruments and plays with rhythmic and harmonic structures that are very different from typical Western music. Debussy began introducing some of these “non-Western” Oriental elements into music. Most important to our discussion are the use of non-Western scale patterns including the wholetone and pentatonic (five-note) scales. The whole-tone scale is kind of “dreamy” sounding, and, in fact, is frequently used to indicate a dream sequence in a movie or on TV. The pentatonic scale is commonly used to portray the arrival of the Japanese army/navy/air force in WW II action movies. Debussy also began to incorporate a technique called parallelism, which he would use to move large, extended-harmony chords up and down in direct parallel motion. Beyond these harmonic techniques, which in and of themselves lead to a general breakdown of tonality, Debussy also made use of a heightened sense of chromaticism, using more notes that do not “belong” to a given key center, again helping to weaken the ear ’s ability to clearly identify a particular chord as tonic.

Program Notes: Debussy

Debussy’s first composition to bring him any major attention was the tone poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun). Next, Debussy threw himself into the composition of his only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, which was based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s Symbolist play of the same title. Debussy had visited Wagner ’s famed Bayreuth festival, and he drew some inspiration from that composer ’s concept of music drama. Unlike Wagner, however, Debussy placed more emphasis on the text and made no prominent use of the Leitmotiv concept, though the opera does have some clear recurring themes. Between 1903 and 1905, Debussy composed a three-movement work titled La Mer (The Sea), which is in effect a program symphony. The English translations of the movement titles are From Dawn to Noon on the Sea, Play of the Waves , and Dialogue of the Wind and Sea. Each movement paints an evocative sonic portrait of the ocean, with complex cross-rhythms and non-traditional harmony structures that convey the basic instability of water. The work is one of Debussy’s most effective pieces and is a regular on symphonic programs. Works like these had enormous impact on a number of twentieth-century composers, including Igor Stravinsky. One often overlooked fact about Debussy’s compositional style for orchestra is the impact his music had on film composition during the twentieth century. Although Debussy’s works were not always readily accepted in his day, almost every composer who ever wrote music for a film score borrowed ideas about orchestration and lush (but inconclusive) harmonic structures from his music.

In terms of new compositional effects and new developments in music, there is much to consider in La Mer. Debussy intentionally avoided the term “symphony,” instead referring to the work as “three symphonic sketches.” The work follows a typical multi-movement layout, with broad outer movements surrounding a lighter, more playful “dance” movement, but the similarities end there. Though the composer hated the label of “impressionism” in music, much abounds here that music history clearly associates with the style he and composer Maurice Ravel almost singlehandedly created around the turn of the last century.

Program Notes: Debussy

Beyond the extended harmonies and harmonic patterns mentioned above, Debussy intentionally plays with our sense of rhythm, writing in such a way as to often obscure the basic beat, including frequently changing meters and then writing rhythms across the bar line to further blur any clear sense of downbeat/upbeat pulse. Much like trying to hold water in your hand, trying to lock into a basic pulse in this work is often simply impossible without looking at the score. And that ’s really ok. Simply read the descriptive titles of each movement and go where the composer takes you. Modern concert etiquette suggests that you hold your applause until the end of the piece so as not to break the “mood” in the silence between movements.

Program Notes by Jim Shearer. Portions of these notes are drawn from MUSIC 101: An Active Listening Guide for a Generation Online by James E. Shearer. Kendall Hunt Publishing Co. Used by permission.

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai. This work inspired Debussy to compose his three-movement program symphony La Mer (The Sea). © Shutterstock.com

Classics Three: Personnel

Conductor: Daniel Cho

Classics Three: Personnel

Trombone

Allan Kaplan*

Frank Otero

John Feeny

Tuba

Jim Shearer*

Timpani

Fred Bugbee*

~Michael Chang

Percussion

Newell Ramsey*

Gabriel Garcia-Rivera^

~Barbara Edwards

William Reeves^

~Damian & Carol Blaschka

Harp

Vanessa Gong*

Anne Eisfeller

Stage Manager

Lessie Smithhisler

Librarian

Jesse Galindo

Personnel Manager

Larry Hill

Principal * Actng Principal ** Student

~Adopt a Chair Sponsors

Las Cruces Symphony Youth Orchestra

Conductor: Michael W. Mapp

Violin

Alycia Alderete

Faris Aswad

Bella Clarke

Ella Gamache

Sophia Garcia

Mason Gardner

Austn Goodman

Staja Homeres

Mia Homsi

Brisabel Martnez

Chloe Morris

Caleb Rey

Angelica Shams

Abby Soulsby

Jarmie Williams

Victoria Wilson

Emma Wood

Viola

Camila Cardona

Fatma Carranza

Hayden Hughs

Mia Luna

Ira Luera

Cello

Sunny Ellsworth

Aneirin Hanan

Emilie Hernandez

Jayden Johansen

Stephen Neakrase

Yesenia Sanchez

Khrystal Sedor

Yulei Shu

Victoria Sohn

Spencer Southwell

Justn Shim

Christopher Walker

Nova Wood Bass

Mario Hernandez

Zuri Jenkins

Lukas Montoya

James-Dillon Silva

LCS Youth & Junior Orchestras

Art Builds Community

Every great city needs a great symphony!

There is something special about live music. Something special about the moment your concert master initates the fnal tuning of the orchestra; about the moment your conductor takes the podium; about the moment Ming ’s baton drops and the frst chords from your Symphony transport you into a fabulous musical journey.

The Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra is a source of joy and discovery for the people who are engaged in this community. It is an irreplaceable chance for music lovers of all ages and backgrounds to be a part of something unique; an experience that cannot be duplicated by streaming performances online or fying to distant places to watch some other city ’s symphony. As great as those things can be, they are fundamentally diferent.

Listening today, you will not just experience beautful works of music. You will not just experience them in the company of other like -minded people. But you will experience them in the company of hundreds of your neighbors and fellow Las Crucians. In this way, these performances weave together our community.

Thank you for joining us!

Grandioso: $5,000 and up

Appassionato: $2,000-$4,999

Glennis L. Adam

Maestoso: $1,000-$1,999

David Brown & Mary Beagle

Elmer & Nancy Houghten

James Gerwels & Tifany Reimann

Richard & Joy Pearce

Julie Marineau

Philip &Louise Silano

Doug & Tina Bailey

Scherzo: $500-$999

Arturo & Maria Elena Jurado

Caryl Kotulak

Janet Hampton

Irv & Barb Ross

Richard & Susan Emery

Darrel W. Dodson

Linda A. Shubeck

Helen Zagona

Francie Casillas

LCSO Donors

Rondo: $250 -$499

Frank Belyan & Paul Mach

Ben Holberg

Shirley Cruse

Charles & Linda Tharp

Jim Maxon Dolce: $50 -$249

ee Beaty

Karen Casci

Jefrey Brown

Larry & Connie Candelaria

Thomas & Joan Dormody

Lois Grant & Richard Prat

Sally Ann Harper

Kennan Newtson

Ann Sallemi

Wayne Flowers

Garn Harris

David Card

Ellie Chalekian

Sue Lashley

Youth Orchestra Founders Circle:

Caryl Kotulak

Jennifer Taylor

Richard & Joy Pearce

Ann Carlson

Larry & Connie Candelaria

Youth Orchestra Sponsors

Marlene Mayfeld

Gordon Butler & Martha Ludeman

Jim Maxon

Lydia Evans

Thomas & Joan Dormody

Edward Aylesworth

James Gerwels & Tifni Reimann

Karen Billings

Henry & Mart Taylor

Ilse Pokorny

Susan Williams

Kennan Newtson

Juliana Boxer

Richard Hiss

Shirley Cruse

Glennis L. Adam

Frank & Cally Williams

Peter & Dael Goodman

Leora Zeitlin

Mary Ann Willson

Lois Grant

Grant & Tenya Price

Ellen Michnovicz

Jefrey Brown

Lucia Greene

Ann Goldsberry

Philip & Louise Silano

Lee Beaty

Emroy Shannon

Kathryn Treat

Gay Lenzo

Barbara C. Davis

Arturo & Maria Elena Jurado

Don & Pat Johnson

Ellie Chalekian

Doug & Tina Bailey

Roger C. Young

Shevek Barnhart

Ways to Give

Annual Fund

For more than 62 years, the LCSO has been a leader among the arts in Las Cruces, employing more than 70 musicians who live and work in our area. Ticket sales only support about 40 percent of the cost of producing concerts. That is why we depend on generous donations from our patrons.

Please consider making a contribution to support the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra at one of the suggested donation levels and help to ensure the future of a professional symphony in Las Cruces.

• Grandioso: $5,000 and up

• Appassionato: $2,000-$4,999

• Maestoso: $1,000-$1,999

• Scherzo: $500-$999

• Rondo: $250-$499

• Dolce: $50-$249

Contact the Las Cruces Symphony office at 575-646-3709 or visit our website: lascrucessymphony.com/support-us

Adopt a Chair

The Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra is a community supported orchestra, requiring the ongoing support of people willing to invest in the future of live performance. An “Adopt a Chair” sponsor provides funding for a specific musician ’s salary; thus, establishing long-term sustainable funding for our orchestra. The sponsorship is not designated for a specific musician, but rather for the “chair” or position in the orchestra.

Levels (per year)

• Music Director $5,000

• Concertmaster $1,500

• Principal $1,000

• Section Player $500

Benefits

• Name recognition on personnel page

• Name recognition on LCSO website

• Personal introduction between sponsor and musician with photo op

• Invitation to post-concert receptions and special events