OKC PHIL program magazine 2018-2019 Edition 3

GRAND ROMANTICISM Stewart Goodyear, piano

E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL IN CONCERT

FANTASTIC CONTRASTS Natasha Paremski, piano

DEEP GERMAN ROMANTICISMS Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

DANCES OF THE SEASONS Gregory Lee, violin

March 16, 2019

March 29-30, 2019

April 6, 2019

May 11, 2019

June 1, 2019

PG 25

PG 33

PG 41

PG 49

PG 57

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TERESA COOPER, President Oklahoma Philharmonic Society, Inc. It is a joy and an honor to welcome you to the OKC Philharmonic’s 30th season. We are all thrilled to welcome to our Philharmonic family and community our new Music Director, Maestro Alexander Mickelthwate, who follows the beloved Joel Levine, Founder and Music Director Emeritus. We encourage all of you to welcome him and his family to Oklahoma.

The greater Philharmonic organization is comprised of several entities, each working to promote and support our outstanding orchestra and working to bring you exciting, beautiful and interesting music and to make it successful. Working with the amazing staff lead by our Executive Director extraordinaire Eddie Walker, the OKC Philharmonic is privileged to enjoy the support of the Orchestra League which provides critical financial support along with numerous educational programs and the Associate Board which encourages support from our new generation leaders. Together we encourage appreciation of our fabulous musicians who make the music happen.

We are so grateful to you —­ our audience, patrons, donors and supporters who help make everything possible. Please share your joy for orchestral music with friends, family and colleagues so that they too can “Phil the Electricity” as we approach our 4th decade of bringing you the gift of music.

WENDI WILSON, President Oklahoma City Orchestra League On behalf of the Oklahoma City Orchestra League, I welcome you to the 30th Season of the OKC Phil! We too are celebrating a milestone, as we embark on our 70th year - our platinum anniversary celebration! Over the last 69 years we have been a continual supporter of orchestral music in our community, through our educational programs, to our musical competitions, volunteerism, and of course our financial support of the OKC Phil. We believe that music is to educate, enrich and inspire people of all generations.

As you enjoy this most anticipated season with new Music Director Alexander Mickelthwate, we too are looking forward to our coming year. Our annual Maestro’s Ball will be a celebration to remember as we, and Honorary Chair Lee Allan Smith, exalt and welcome Mrs. Josephine Freede into our Maestro’s Circle. Become a League member and be “in the know”. Find out more at www.okcorchestraleague.org.

Now, enjoy the talents of tonight’s special guest artist and our amazing OKC Philharmonic musicians, and thank you for helping to support music in our community. Que the Maestro!

JOHN P. CANNON, President Associate Board It is my honor to serve as President of the Philharmonic’s Associate Board and to welcome each of you to our inaugural season with Music Director Alexander Mickelthwate.

He has prepared a challenging and exciting series for the Classics and Pops, which offers something for everyone.

This year, the Associate Board is dedicated to finding and fostering the next generation of symphony enthusiasts by bringing classical music to our community. The Philharmonic presents an opportunity unlike any other in Oklahoma City to experience orchestral music, while learning and supporting the arts.

The Associate Board, through its signature Overture program, offers a great way for you or someone you know to get involved and experience the Philharmonic in a deeper way. On behalf of the Associate Board, welcome to the 30th season of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and enjoy the show.

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ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE German Conductor Alexander Mickelthwate is the newly appointed Music Director of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and Music Director Emeritus of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in Canada.

Since starting his Winnipeg tenure in 2006 he played a pivotal role in the rejuvenation and turn-around of the Winnipeg Symphony which culminated in a highly successful and critically acclaimed performance at Carnegie Hall in May 2014. The New York Times noted the performance was “conducted expertly,” and the New York Classical review stated “under music director Alexander Mickelthwate, they play with excellent intonation and such a fine overall blend and balance of sound that, on their own terms, they may be the best orchestra to appear in the week’s worth of concerts.”

Deeply rooted in his German heritage, Norman Lebrecht wrote about Mickelthwate’s interpretation of Mahler’s 10th Symphony with the Winnipeg Symphony: “Both Mahler 10 performances were intense and engaging. Every twist and turn in the score was fresh and surprising to my ears.”

And his interpretation of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 prompted the pianist Anton Kuerti to write a letter to the newspaper saying, “I would like to call attention to the stunning performance heard after the intermission. To play Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 with the passion, profundity, emotional intensity, subtlety and degree of perfection achieved by conductor Alexander Mickelthwate and the Winnipeg Symphony can only be called miraculous.”

In North America Alexander has guest conducted the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Saint Luke’s, Milwaukee Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony, among others.

His European debut was with the Hamburg Symphony. He also conducted the BBC London, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Royal Scottish, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and NDR Hannover. Other notable performances include the Sao Paulo Symphony and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Venezuela. He made his Australian debut with the Adelaide Symphony and the Tasmania Orchestra where he recorded the Mozart piano concerti Nos. 7 and 10 with the Silber Garburg Duo. Alexander Mickelthwate has worked several times with Dame Evelyn Glennie conducting the world premiere of two new percussion concerti by Vincent Ho. He also worked with Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Yuja Wang, Dawn Upshaw, Plácido Domingo,

Ben Heppner, Horacio Gutiérrez, Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Sarah Chang, among many others, and he worked very closely with a wide range of composers including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Sofia Gubaidulina, Kaija Saariaho, John Adams, John Luther Adams and Mason Bates.

After guest conducting the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and experiencing the life-changing power of the El Sistema program in Venezuela for underprivileged children, Alexander played an instrumental part in creating Sistema Winnipeg.

For three years Alexander created a critically acclaimed Indigenous Festival in Winnipeg. Passionate to connect with all cultures, he created artistic collaborations between First Nations and western cultures that culminated in the performances of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Revueltas’ La Noche de los Mayas with new choreographies of contemporary and First Nations dance.

The Winnipeg New Music Festival is an international institution.

Alexander broadened the repertoire and created many new collaborations connecting with different audiences. Because of the programming of the festival the WSO was chosen to perform at the Spring for Music Festival at Carnegie Hall in 2014.

A few of the most creative projects of the festival for Alexander were the performance of movie director Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon a Brain with narration by actress Isabella Rossellini, the workshopping of a new opera Tesla by movie director Jim Jarmusch and composer Phil Klein, and a production of Gavin Bryar’s The Sinking of the Titanic inside PanAm Pool.

Alexander has conducted for President Jimmy Carter and the Queen of England, and he received the Queen Diamond Jubilee Medal and the Key to the City of Winnipeg.

Born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany to a musical family, Alexander received his degree from the Peabody Institute of Music.

He studied conducting under Fredric Prausnitz and Gustav Meier as well as with Seiji Ozawa, Andre Previn, Daniel Barenboim and Robert Spano at Tanglewood. Following his tenure as Assistant Conductor with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which he completed in 2004, Alexander was Associate Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for three years, under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen.

He is married to fashion designer Abigail Mickelthwate and has two sons.

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9617 S. Pennsylvania Avenue • Oklahoma City, OK 73159 • Tel. 405.691.3111 • www.okccosmeticsurgeon.com

OKLAHOMA PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY, INC.

P R O V I D I N G

I N S P I R A T I O N

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J O Y

T H R O U G H

O R C H E S T R A L

M U S I C .

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Officers

Lifetime Directors

Teresa Cooper President

Jane B. Harlow Patrick Alexander

Jeff Starling President Elect

Directors

Brent Hart Vice President Tony Welch Treasurer Kathy Kerr Secretary Louise Churchill Immediate Past President

Steve Agee J. Edward Barth Lori Dickinson Black John Cannon Robert Clements Lawrence H. Davis Veronica Pastel Egelston Joseph Fleckinger Jane Jayroe Gamble Dean Jackson Michael E. Joseph Wesley Knight

Bradley W. Krieger David McLaughlin Margaret Freede Owens Donald Rowlett Melissa Scaramucci John Shelton Jerrod Shouse Glenna Tanenbaum J. Mark Taylor Donita Thomas Cheryl Brashear White Renate Wiggin Wendi Wilson

Honorary Directors Josephine Freede Richard Sias

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF Katie Barrick Education Coordinator

Stephen Howard Database/Records Manager

Ulises Serrano Digital Strategies Coordinator

Tara Burnett Development Manager

Daryl Jones Box Office Manager

Chris Stinchcomb Concert Operations and P.R. Coordinator

Daniel Hardt Finance Director

Kris Markes General Manager/ Interim Executive Director

Eddie Walker Executive Director

Whitney Hendricks Customer Service Representative Judy Hill Administrative Assistant

Jennifer Owens Development Director

Susan Webb Marketing & P.R. Director

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Classical KUCO 90.1 Garman Productions George Ryan

Heritage Integrated Solutions Oklahoma City Police Association Production Essentials, Inc.

Stubble Creative, Inc. The Skirvin Hotel

Photographers: Brittany Smith, David Bricquet, Michael Anderson, Mutz Photography, Rick Buchanan, Shevaun Williams and Associates, Ulises Serrano

THE OKLAHOMA PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY, INC. 424 Colcord Drive, Ste. B • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102 Tickets: 405-842-5387 • Administration: 405-232-7575 • Fax: 405-232-4353 • www.okcphil.org

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OKLAHOMA CITY ORCHESTRA LEAGUE

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Wendi Wilson Heather Walter President Membership VP

Lisa Reed OCOL Executive Director, Ex-Officio

Judy Moore Treasurer

Eddie Walker Executive Director Oklahoma City Philharmonic (Ex-Officio, Advisory)

Martha Pendleton Education VP

Julia Hunt Sandi Garrett Secretary Competitions VP Kristen Ferate Ways & Means VP

Carol McCoy Past President, Ex-Officio

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Judy Austin Newt Brown Joan Bryant Helen Chiou Rachel Geiger Debbie Minter

STAFF Rachel Morris Kirstin Reynolds Matt Thomas Polly Worthington

Lisa Reed Executive Director Grace Medina Office Administrator Katie Barrick Phil Education Coordinator

PAST PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL Katherine Kirk Janelle Everest Lael Treat Josephine Freede Jane Harlow Jane Rodgers Joyce Bishop Ann Taylor Lil Ross Sandra Meyers Mona Preuss Iva Fleck

Priscilla Braun Susan Robinson Minna Hall Yvette Fleckinger June Parry Jean Hartsuck Judy Austin LaDonna Meinders Dixie Jensen Lois Salmeron Glenna Tanenbaum Debbie McKinney

ORCHESTRA LEAGUE OFFICE 3815 N. Santa Fe Ave., Ste. 105 • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73118 Phone: 405-601-4245 • Fax: 405-601-4278 Hours: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. • E-mail: orchleag@coxinet.net Website: www.okcorchestraleague.org

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Anna McMillin Sue Francis Peggy Lunde Cathy Wallace Sharon Shelton Cindy Raby Debbie Minter Deanna Pendleton Julia Hunt Carol McCoy

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ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE, Music Director and Conductor JOEL LEVINE, Founder and Music Director Emeritus EDDIE WALKER, Executive Director

FIRST VIOLIN

Gregory Lee, Concertmaster Gertrude Kennedy Chair Marat Gabdullin, Associate Concertmaster Densi Rushing, Assistant Concertmaster Ai-Wei Chang Lu Deng Sam Formicola Janet Gorton Deborah McDonald Benjamin Shute Beth Sievers James Thomson Hong Zhu

SECOND VIOLIN

Katrin Stamatis, Principal McCasland Foundation Chair Catherine Reaves Sarah Brown Mary Joan Johnston Corbin Mace June McCoy Angelica Pereira Sophia Ro Brenda Wagner Laura Young Cindy Zhang TBD

VIOLA

Royce McLarry, Principal Mark Neumann Donna Cain Brian Frew J. Michael Garland Joseph Guevara Kelli Ingels Lacie Savage Steve Waddell Shaohong Yuan

CELLO

Jonathan Ruck, Principal Orchestra League Chair Tomasz Zieba, Associate Principal

Meredith Blecha-Wells Rob Bradshaw Angelika Machnik-Jones Jim Shelley Jean Statham Emily Stoops Valorie Tatge Ann Wilson

BASS

George Speed, Principal Anthony Stoops, Co-Principal Christine Craddock Kara Koehn Larry Moore Mark Osborn Parvin Smith Jesus Villarreal

FLUTE

CONTRABASSOON Barre Griffith

HORN

Kate Pritchett, Principal G. Rainey Williams Chair Nancy Halliday Mirella Gable Frank Goforth

TRUMPET

Karl Sievers, Principal Jay Wilkinson Michael Anderson

TROMBONE

Philip Martinson, Acting Principal David Giaco, Acting Second John Allen, Bass Trombone

Valerie Watts, Principal Parthena Owens Nancy Stizza-Ortega

TUBA

PICCOLO

PERCUSSION

Nancy Stizza-Ortega

OBOE

Ted Cox, Principal David Steffens, Principal Patrick Womack Roger Owens

Lisa Harvey-Reed, Principal Dan Schwartz Katherine McLemore

TIMPANI

ENGLISH HORN

HARP

Dan Schwartz

Gaye LeBlanc Germain, Principal

CLARINET

PIANO

Bradford Behn, Principal Tara Heitz James Meiller

BASS/E-FLAT CLARINET James Meiller

Lance Drege, Principal

Peggy Payne, Principal

PERSONNEL MANAGER/LIBRARIAN Michael Helt

STAGE MANAGER Leroy Newman

BASSOON

Rod Ackmann, Principal James Brewer Barre Griffith Larry Reed

Please Note: The seating positions of all string section musicians are listed alphabetically and change on a regular basis.

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PLANNED GIVING

O F T H E O K L A H O M A P H I L H A R M O N I C S O C I E T Y, I N C .

The Oklahoma Philharmonic Society, Inc. is honored to recognize its Encore Society members — visionary thinkers who have provided for the future of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic through their estate plans.

Anonymous (3)

Joel Levine

Steven C. Agee, Ph.D.

John and Caroline Linehan

Mr. and Mrs. Patrick B. Alexander

Mr. and Mrs. Marvin C. Lunde, Jr.

Gary and Jan Allison

Mrs. Jackie Marron

Dr. Jay Jacquelyn Bass

Mr. and Mrs. John McCaleb

Louise C. Churchill

Jean and David McLaughlin

Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Clements

R.M. (Mickey) McVay

Thomas and Rita Dearmon

Robert B. Milsten

Dr. and Mrs. James D. Dixson

W. Cheryl Moore

Paul Fleming

Carl Andrew Rath

Hugh Gibson

Michael and Catherine Reaves

Pam and Gary Glyckherr

Mr. and Mrs. William J. Ross

Carey and Gayle Goad

Drs. Lois and John Salmeron

Mr. and Mrs. J.A. Gowman

Mr. and Mrs. William F. Shdeed

Carol M. Hall

Richard L. Sias

Ms. Olivia Hanson

Doug and Susie Stussi

Jane B. Harlow

Larry and Leah Westmoreland

Dr. and Mrs. James Hartsuck

Mr. John S. Williams

Mr. and Mrs. Michael E. Joseph

Mr. and Mrs. Don T. Zachritz

THANK YOU The Oklahoma Philharmonic Society, Inc. is grateful for the support of caring patrons who want to pass on a legacy of extraordinary music to future generations. You can join this special group of music enthusiasts by including a gift for the OKC Philharmonic’s future in your own will or estate plan. For more information on how to become an Encore Society member, contact Jennifer Owens at (405) 231-0148 or jennifer@okcphil.org or Eddie Walker at eddie@okcphil.org.

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GIFTS TO THE PHILHARMONIC The Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the commitment and generosity of individuals, corporations, foundations, and government agencies that support our mission. To help us provide inspiration and joy to the community through performances and education programs, please contact the Philharmonic’s Development Office at (405) 232-7575.

This Annual Fund recognition reflects contributions made in the 2018-2019 season. Contributions of $100 and above are listed through January 15, 2019.

If your name has been misspelled or omitted, please accept our apologies and inform us of the error by calling the phone number listed above. Thank you for your generous support!

CORPORATIONS, FOUNDATIONS & GOVERNMENT Express their generous commitment to the community.

UNDERWRITER $40,000 & Above Allied Arts Foundation The Chickasaw Nation Devon Energy Corporation E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation Inasmuch Foundation Kirkpatrick Foundation Inc. Oklahoma Arts Council Oklahoma City Orchestra League, Inc. The Oklahoman The Skirvin Hilton Hotel

Tyler Media Co./Magic 104.1FM and KOMA W&W Steel, LLC Wilshire Charitable Foundation

Norick Investment Company Oklahoma Allergy & Asthma Clinic Testers, Inc. The Wachovia Wells Fargo Foundation

GOLD SPONSORS $5,000 - $9,999

GOLD PARTNERS $1,250 - $1,749

BancFirst The Crawley Family Foundation Garman Productions Mekusukey Oil Company, LLC The Metro Restaurant

Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages

PLATINUM SPONSORS $10,000 - $39,999

SILVER SPONSORS $3,000 - $4,999

405 Magazine Ad Astra Foundation American Fidelity Foundation The Anschutz Family Foundation Bank of Oklahoma Express Employment Professionals HSPG and Associates, PC I Heart Media Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores Mathis Brothers Furniture Co., Inc. MidFirst Bank OGE Energy Corp.

Clements Foods Foundation OK Gazette The Friday

BRONZE SPONSORS $1,750 - $2,999 The Black Chronicle BNSF Railway Globe Life and Accident Insurance Company The HoganTaylor Foundation

MATCHING GIFT COMPANIES AND FOUNDATIONS Double the impact of an individual’s gift.

American Fidelity Foundation Bank of America Matching Gifts Program

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The Boeing Company Inasmuch Foundation

SILVER PARTNERS $750 - $1,499 Flips Restaurant, Inc. The Fred Jones Family Foundation The Kerr Foundation, Inc. M-D Building Products, Inc.

BRONZE PARTNERS $300 - $749 Charlesson Foundation Garvin County News-Star Tom Johnson Investment Management LLC

BUSINESS MEMBERS $100 - $299

GIFTS TO THE PHILHARMONIC MAESTRO SOCIETY Providing leadership support.

Mr. and Mrs. Douglas J. Stussi Renate and Chuck Wiggin

Benefactor $5,000 - $9,999

Guarantor $10,000 and above Mr. and Mrs. Patrick B. Alexander Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Evans, II Mrs. Josephine Freede Mrs. Jane B. Harlow Mr. Albert Lang Joel Levine Jean and David McLaughlin Nancy and George Records Mr. Richard L. Sias

Mrs. Betty D. Bellis-Mankin Marilyn and Bill Boettger Molly and Jim Crawley Mrs. Peggy Cummings Lawrence H. and Ronna C. Davis Mrs. Carlene Edwards Mr. and Mrs. John A. Frost John and Claudia Holliman Ruth Mershon Fund Ms. Veronica Pastel Egelston Mr. H.E. Rainbolt Michael J. Sweeney, Jr. Glenna and Dick Tanenbaum Mrs. June Tucker

INDIVIDUALS Providing essential support for the Annual Fund.

Patron $3,000 - $4,999

Sustainer $1,750 - $2,999

Anonymous Steven C. Agee, Ph.D. Mr. and Mrs. John Biggs Mike and Dawn Borelli Dr. and Mrs. L. Joe Bradley Mrs. Phyllis Brawley Bruce Campbell Louise Churchill Mrs. Teresa Cooper Mr. and Mrs. Sidney G. Dunagan Paul and Debbie Fleming Mrs. Bonnie B. Hefner Kim and Michael Joseph Mr. Robert B. Milsten Mrs. Ruby C. Petty Mr. Donald Rowlett Lance and Cindy Ruffel Mrs. Anne Workman Caroline Payne Young

Dr. and Mrs. Dewayne Andrews Dr. and Mrs. John C. Andrus Dr. and Mrs. Philip C. Bird Larry and Sarah Blackledge Priscilla and Jordan Braun Dr. and Mrs. Robert C. Brown Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Browne Mr. John Crain Mr. and Mrs. David C. DeLana David and Druanne Durrett Bruce and Joanne Ewing Mr. and Mrs. George Faulk Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Fleckinger Mr. Jerry A. Gilbert Dr. and Mrs. James Hartsuck Tom and Cindy Janssen Mrs. Lois Joseph Terry and Kathy Kerr Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Levy, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Patrick McKee Bruce and Claire McLinn Annie Moreau, MD Mrs. Jeaneen Naifeh Larry and Polly Nichols

Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Norick Mr. William G. Paul Dr. Joseph H. Phillips Mr. and Mrs. Jerry W. Plant Drs. Gary and Mary Porter Mr. Joshua Powell Kathryn and Robert Prescott Mr. and Mrs. Steven Raybourn Elizabeth Raymond Mrs. Melba Rhinehart Mrs. Carol Ricks Mr. and Mrs. William J. Ross Drs. Lois and John Salmeron Todd and Melissa Scaramucci Mr. and Mrs. Fred Schmitt Ms. Jeanne Hoffman Smith Mr. and Mrs. John E. Stonecipher John Stuemky and James Brand Mrs. Billie Thrash William P. Tunell, M.D. Mrs. Janet Walker Ron and Janie Walker John and Lou Waller Mr. Tom L. Ward Dr. James B. Wise Mrs. Carol Wright Jeanise Wynn

CONTINUED ON PAGE 64

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GRAND ROMANTICISM March 16, 2019 8:00 P.M.

CLASSICS CONCERT PREVIEWS

STEWART GOODYEAR, PIANO JAMES FEDDECK, CONDUCTOR

The Oklahoma City Orchestra League presents CONCERT PREVIEWS at 7 PM, prior to each Classics Series concert in the Thelma Gaylord Theater at the Civic Center Music Hall.

Spearheading lively conversation that will focus on inspiration and insight into the musical program of the evening, Maestro Alexander Mickelthwate will also invite various special artists and guests to stop in and share unique and interesting perspectives with you.

On the evening of March 16, Guest Conductor James Feddeck will lead the Concert Preview talk.* For more detail go to www.okcphil.org/concert preview

GRAND ROMANTICISM * Stewart Goodyear, piano March 16, 2019 FANTASTIC CONTRASTS Natasha Paremski, piano April 6, 2019

SCHUBERT ....................... Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, (“Great”)

INTERMISSION

RACHMANINOFF .............. Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op 18

DEEP GERMAN ROMANTICISM Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano May 11, 2019

Andante—Allegro ma non troppo Andante con moto Scherzo. Allegro vivace—Trio Finale. Allegro vivace

Moderato Adagio sostenuto Allegro scherzando

Stewart Goodyear, piano

THIS CONCERT IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY:

DANCE OF THE SEASONS Gregory Lee, violin June 1, 2019

Text CLASSICS to 95577 to stay up to date on the latest Philharmonic info.

Listen to a broadcast of this performance on KUCO 90.1 FM on Wednesday, April 10 at 8 pm and Saturday, April 13 at 8 am on “Performance Oklahoma”. Simultaneous internet streaming is also available during the broadcast.

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GUEST ARTIST C

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STEWART GOODYEAR Proclaimed “a phenomenon” by the Los Angeles Times and “one of the best pianists of his generation” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished young pianist as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist and composer. Mr. Goodyear has performed with major orchestras of the world, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Bournemouth Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, MDR Symphony Orchestra (Leipzig), Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Goodyear began his training at The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, received his bachelor’s degree from Curtis Institute of Music, and completed his master’s at The Juilliard School. Known as an improviser and composer, he has been commissioned by orchestras and chamber music organizations, and performs his own solo works. Last year, Mr. Goodyear premiered his suite for piano and orchestra, “Callaloo”, with Kristjan Jarvi and MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig, and last summer, the Clarosa Quartet premiered his Piano Quartet commissioned by the Kingston Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Goodyear performed all 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas in one day at Koerner Hall, McCarter Theatre, the Mondavi Center, and the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas.

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Mr. Goodyear’s discography includes Beethoven’s Complete Piano Sonatas (which received a Juno nomination for Best Classical Solo Recording in 2014) and Diabelli Variations for the Marquis Classics label, Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto and Grieg’s Piano Concerto, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos No. 2 and 3, both recorded with the Czech National Symphony under Stanislav Bogunia and Hans Matthias Förster respectively, and released to critical acclaim on the Steinway and Sons label. His Rachmaninoff recording received a Juno nomination for Best Classical Album for Soloist and Large Ensemble Accompaniment. Also for Steinway and Sons is Mr. Goodyear’s recording of his own transcription of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker (Complete Ballet)”, which was released October 2015 and was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best classical music recordings of 2015.

Mr. Goodyear’s recording of Ravel’s piano works was released in the spring of 2017, and his new recording “For Glenn Gould” that combines repertoire performed by Gould in his US and Montreal debuts has been released this past March.

Highlights of the 2018-19 season are his debut with Chineke! at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, return engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria Symphony orchestras, and three recitals for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. He was commissioned to write a work for piano and orchestra for the Toronto Symphony, which premiered in January 2019.

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Forthcoming engagements this season include debuts with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Weimar and the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, and return visits to the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Orchestre National de Belgique, Residentie Orkest, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife.

In recent seasons he has also appeared with many other leading European and North American orchestras including

the Vienna Radio Symphony, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and the Toronto Symphony.

An accomplished organist, James Feddeck has also given recitals throughout Europe and North America. He studied oboe, piano, organ and conducting at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and was the first recipient of their Outstanding Young Alumni Award.

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PROGRAM NOTES

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Symphony in C major, D. 944, (“Great”) Franz Schubert First Performance: 4/6/1952 Conductor: Guy Fraser Harrison Last Performance: 10/14/2006 Conductor: Joel Levine Born: January 31, 1797, in Liechtenthal, then a suburb of Vienna, Austria (now incorporated into the city) Died: November 19, 1828, in Vienna Work composed: From Spring 1825 through Winter 1826 Work premiered: Played in a sight-reading rehearsal by the Vienna Society of Friends of Music in 1827 or 1828, but not performed publicly until after Schubert’s death: the finale alone on April 17, 1836, at the Redoutensaal in Vienna, with Leopold Jansa conducting, the entire symphony (with some cuts) on March 21, 1839, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings

This symphony, the last Schubert completed, is usually purveyed as his Ninth but you may sometimes find it referred to as his Eighth and may run across old recordings that call it his Seventh. Some sources even identify it as his Tenth.

This confusing situation arises from the fact that that not a single one of Schubert’s symphonies was published during his lifetime—nor, indeed, apart from the piece at hand, until more than half a century after his death. If they had been, Schubert doubtless would have shipped them off to his publisher as he completed them and they would have appeared in print numbered in proper chronological order.

Barring that, it was left to musicologists to try to put Schubert’s production in proper order. Modern Schubert scholarship began with the production of the complete edition of Schubert’s works issued in Germany from 1883-97,

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and then flowered in the 1910s and ’20s with the scholar Otto Erich Deutsch, whose role is immortalized by the “D-numbers” (“Deutsch” numbers) that to this day are attached to Schubert’s compositions. Following the cue of the complete edition, Deutsch catalogued Schubert’s first six symphonies correctly, but then he stumbled. It was long assumed by Deutsch and everyone else that this C-major Symphony dated from Schubert’s final year, since the first page of its manuscript bears the composer’s notation “März 1828” (March 1828). Studies involving the paper on which that music is inscribed leave no doubt that the real date of composition was a few years earlier than that. What the “March 1828” inscription referred to remains a mystery, but it simply was not the date of composition. In any case, whether the piece was written in 1828 or 1825-26, this would have been next in the line of Schubert’s completed symphonies following the first six.

But there was another important piece to be dealt with, the so-called Unfinished Symphony, which comprised only two movements (dated October 20, 1822, on the manuscript) and a sketch for a third movement. When the complete Schubert edition was finally issued the editors decided to call the Unfinished the Eighth Symphony; this, they felt, would acknowledge that enough of it existed to merit status as a full (if incomplete) symphony, and yet it would not detract from the C-major Symphony’s more honored placement as Number Seven in the line-up of completed symphonies. Then, too, several documents mentioned a symphony Schubert was working on during the summer of 1825 while on vacation in the Austrian towns of Gmunden and Gastein—a symphony for which no score could be found. Today we know that this was none other than the C-major Symphony played in this concert.

But back when people still believed that the C-major wasn’t written until 1828, and after they had allowed the Unfinished to enter the official line-up, they thought it wise to hold open spot Number Seven in the chronology for this mystery symphony, which was referred to hopefully, in absentia, as the Gastein Symphony. That accordingly made the Unfinished Symphony his Eighth and the C-major his Ninth.

Fortunately, we have nicknames at our disposal. Symphonic nicknames are usually bestowed by people other than the composer well after a piece has been written, and severe cognoscenti have therefore been known to disdain their use. But handy it is that in this case we need not lose sleep over the numbering and instead can call the principal problematic pieces the Unfinished Symphony in B minor (D.759) and the Great Symphony in C major (D.944), the latter seemingly derived (apparently by Sir George Grove, of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians fame) from the fact that Schubert mentioned in a letter to a friend that some large-scale chamber pieces he was working on would serve as preparation for a “grosse Sinfonie” (a “large” or, if you will, “great” symphony) he intended to write—which, in the event, would be this piece. It did turn out to be a “great” symphony in both quantity and quality.

PROGRAM NOTES Heavenly Length Robert Schumann, wearing his critic’s hat for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik on March 10, 1840, presented a rapturous review of Schubert’s “Great” Symphony when it was published a year after its premiere. In fact, it was Schumann who had been largely responsible for that premiere; he had “discovered” the manuscript in the possession of the composer’s brother, Ferdinand Schubert, and had passed it along to his friend Felix Mendelssohn to premiere. Wrote Schumann: Here, beside sheer musical mastery of the technique of composition is life in every fiber, color in the finest shadings, meaning everywhere, the acutest etching of detail, and all flooded with a romanticism which we have encountered elsewhere in Franz Schubert. And this heavenly length, like a fat novel in four volumes by Jean Paul—never-ending, and if only that the reader may go on creating in the same vein afterwards. … It is still evidence of an extraordinary talent that he who heard so little of his own instrumental work during his lifetime could achieve such an idiomatic treatment both of individual instruments and of the whole orchestra, securing an effect as of human voices and chorus in discourse. … The brilliance and novelty of the instrumentation, the breadth and expanse of the form, the striking changes of mood, the whole new world into which we are transported—all this may be confusing to the listener, like any initial view of the unfamiliar. But there remains a lovely aftertaste, like that which we experience at the conclusion of a play about fairies or magic. There is always the feeling that the composer knew exactly what he wanted to say and how to say it, and the assurance that the gist will become clearer with time.

—JMK

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 Sergei Rachmaninoff First Performance: 3/28/1939 Piano: Jacques Abram Last Performance: 4/6/2013 Piano: Olga Kern Born: March 20 (old style)/April 1 (new style), 1873, in either Oneg or Semyonovo, Russia Died: March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California

Work composed: The second and third movements in 1900, drawing on material written up to a decade earlier; the first movement in 1901, completed on May 4 Work dedicated: “To Monsieur N. Dahl” Work premiered: The second and third movements on December 2/15, 1900, at Nobility Hall in Moscow. The complete three-movement concerto on October 27/November 9, 1901, also in Moscow, with Alexander Siloti conducting and the composer as soloist on both occasions Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, and strings, in addition to the solo piano

You’ve got to respect a composer who gets a review like this for his First Symphony and somehow forges on: “If there were a conservatory in Hell, if one of its talented students were instructed to write a program symphony on the ‘Seven Plagues of Egypt,’ and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff’s, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would bring delight to the inhabitants of Hell.”

That review appeared in a prominent newspaper in 1897, and it must have stung all the more coming from César Cui, a more senior composer and a member of the band of Russian musical nationalists who staked a place in music-history books as “The Five” or “The Mighty Handful.” In fact, the failure of that First Symphony threatened to undo Rachmaninoff and for the next three years he didn’t write a note.

At first he had not been a standout at the Moscow Conservatory, but by the time he graduated, in 1892, he was deemed worthy of receiving the Great Gold Medal, an honor that had been bestowed on only two students previously. His talent was such that, in the psychological aftermath of his embarrassing public failure, he simply turned to a different musical pursuit and focused on conducting for the next few years. Before long he also sought the help of Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a physician who was investigating psychological therapy through hypnosis, whom he consulted through daily visits beginning CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

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in January 1900. By the end of that summer Rachmaninoff was getting back on track as a composer. He started with achievable projects—an a-cappella chorus, a love duet for an opera—and then two movements of a piano concerto that had been on the back burner for several years. These were received enthusiastically at their premiere that December.

Wrote the critic Ivan Lipayev in the Russian Musical Gazette: “It has been a very long time since I have seen such a huge audience at a concert …; and it has been long since the walls of the Hall of the Nobility reverberated with such enthusiastic, storming applause …. Rachmaninoff appeared as both pianist and composer. Most interesting were two movements from an unfinished Second Piano Concerto. This work contains much poetry, beauty, warmth, rich orchestration, healthy and buoyant creative power. Rachmaninoff’s talent is evident throughout.”

Within a few months the composer supplied the concerto’s missing first movement and the unfinished concerto became a finished one. Rachmaninoff was not entirely free of selfdoubt, and he went into something of a panic just prior to playing the premiere of the complete concerto. Nonetheless, the reviews, not to mention the public acclaim, assured him that he was wrong to discount his abilities as a composer.

A few years later he would add the obligations of a touring concert pianist to his schedule, and his numerous recordings reveal that his outstanding reputation as a performer—refined, precise, impressive of technique and analytical of approach— was fully merited.

Rachmaninoff composed four piano concertos spread through his career—in 1890-91, 1900-01, 1909, and 1926 (revised through 1941)—and was the soloist at the premiere of each. A pendant to these is a fifth, ever-popular work for piano and orchestra, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, written during the summer of 1934. Of the bunch, the plush Second Concerto and the knuckle-busting Third, along with the Rhapsody, have staked indelible places in the repertoire.

The distance separating Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto from his First is considerable indeed. The First was the work of a freshly minted conservatory graduate, and on the infrequent occasions when we hear it today it is almost always in its

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significantly revised form, which Rachmaninoff produced in 1917. The Second is altogether richer, deeper, and ultimately more original, though the composer has in no way divorced himself from the tradition of the Russian piano concerto—and particularly from the model of Tchaikovsky, as the second and third movements especially show.

Rachmaninoff Meets Tin Pan Alley Rachmaninoff can be depended on to provide a memorable “grand tune” that audiences will take home with them, and in this case the melody occurs in the third movement. The 1940s saw a vogue of adapting classical tunes into popular songs, and this one became a vehicle for Frank Sinatra under the title “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” a setting by Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman: “Full moon and empty arms / The moon is there for us to share / But where are you? …” It worked out so well that the same team quickly created a follow-up, “Till the End of Time,” based on Chopin’s Polonaise in A-flat major, which was first thrust to acclaim by Perry Como.

— JMK

JAMES M. KELLER James M. Keller is the longtime Program Annotator of the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony.

These notes originally appeared in the programs of the San Francisco Symphony (Schubert) and New York Philharmonic (Rachmaninoff) and are used with permission. ©James M. Keller

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nichols hills plaza

shoes . handbags . clothing . accessories www.ckandcompany.com 405.843.7636

E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL IN CONCERT MARCH 29, 2019, 8:00 P.M. MARCH 30, 2019, 2:00 AND 8:00 P.M.

POPS Headlining Pops presented by: JAYCE OGREN, CONDUCTOR JOHN WILLIAMS, COMPOSER

Text PhilFun to 95577 to stay up to date on the latest Philharmonic info.

A special Thank You to Patrono for providing musicians’ catering services.

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JAYCE OGREN With mounting success in both symphonic and operatic repertoire, Jayce Ogren has established a reputation as one of the finest young conductors to emerge from the United States in recent seasons.

Jayce began the 2018-2019 season with summer appearances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Brevard Music Center (NC) and his debut performance with the San Francisco Symphony at the 81st annual Stern Grove Festival, conducting Dvořák, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with Adam Golka and Sibelius’ Second Symphony.

In the course of this season, he leads performances on two different series in a return to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra with works by Berwald, Verdi, Korngold, Puccini, Mozart, Beethoven and Vaughan Williams, collaborating with mezzo-soprano Emily d’Angelo and pianist Joyce Yang; at the Santa Rosa Symphony with violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama as soloist in Harold in Italy, and at the Dallas Symphony, Omaha Symphony, and the Spokane Symphony Orchestra with Barber’s Second Essay, Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Jayce will also offer a Pops Concert with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and three film evenings conducting the scores to Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush (Casa da Musica; Porto, Portugal), these performances of John Williams’ ET, and Terrence Malick’s documentary Voyage of Time for the Wordless Music Series at the Brooklyn Academy’s Howard Gilman Opera House.

Recent seasons included return engagements with the Colorado Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, and with the Dallas, Indianapolis, and Edmonton Symphonies. Debuts have included those with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus for Terrence Malick’s The Voyage of Time at the Melbourne Festival (Wordless Music project), and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, leading the orchestra with film in Bernstein’s West Side Story.

Ogren has led the boundary-breaking contemporary Orchestra 2001 to new heights in Philadelphia, engaging new listeners through exhilarating concerts, innovative artistic collaborations, and enriched community partnerships. His

work there has included staged performances of Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King at the Philly Fringe Festival, Steve Mackey’s Slide, in Princeton at the Sound Kitchen, and at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, and the complete Yellow Shark by Frank Zappa. Also in Philadelphia, Jayce led the Symphony for a Broken Orchestra (December 2017), a work written by Pulitzer prize-winning composer David Lang for sounds that only broken instruments can make—400 of them found in the Philadelphia school system. Musicians included Philadelphia Orchestra members, Curtis Institute and Temple faculty and students, and school kids—350 players arranged in teams around the periphery of the 23rd St. Armory with the conductor in the middle. It was a huge musical event and raised funds for the repair of the instruments, which were then returned to the schools for future use.

As an opera conductor, Jayce Ogren has led the world premiere of Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis; the US premiere and recording of Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna, La Cenerentola at Music Academy of the West, and Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Bernstein’s A Quiet Place, Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto, among others at New York City Opera.

Ogren has established a notable reputation in contemporary music, having led The Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, projects with ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble) at Lincoln Center, at the Wien Modern Festival, and at Columbia University’s Miller Theater. He has led all-Stravinsky performances with the New York City Ballet and Basil Twist’s production of The Rite of Spring at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival. The New York Philharmonic enlisted him to conduct their contemporary music series, CONTACT!, leading works of living composers with members of the Philharmonic.

As a composer, Jayce Ogren’s works have been performed at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music, the Brevard Music Center, and the American Choral Directors Association Conference. His Symphonies of Gaia has been performed by ensembles on three continents.

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JOHN WILLIAMS In a career spanning more than five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and for the concert stage, and he remains one of our nation’s most distinguished and contributive musical voices. He has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films, including all eight Star Wars films, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Memoirs of a Geisha, Far and Away, The Accidental Tourist, Home Alone and The Book Thief.

His 45-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including Schindler’s List, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Indiana Jones films, Munich, Saving Private Ryan, The Adventures of Tintin, War Horse, Lincoln, The BFG and The Post. His contributions to television music include scores for more than 200 television films for the groundbreaking, early anthology series Alcoa Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, Chrysler Theatre and Playhouse 90, as well as themes for NBC Nightly News (“The Mission”), NBC’s Meet the Press, and the PBS arts showcase Great Performances. He also composed themes for the 1984, 1988, and 1996 Summer Olympic Games as well as the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Mr. Williams has received five Academy Awards and fifty-one Oscar nominations, making him the Academy’s mostnominated living person and the second-most nominated person in the history of the Oscars. He has received seven British Academy Awards (BAFTA), twenty-four Grammys,

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four Golden Globes, five Emmys, and numerous gold and platinum records. In 2003, he received the Olympic Order (the IOC’s highest honor) for his contributions to the Olympic movement. He received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in December of 2004. In 2009, Mr. Williams was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and he received the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the U.S. Government. In 2016, he received the 44th Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute – the first time in their history that this honor was bestowed upon a composer.

In January 1980, Mr. Williams was named nineteenth music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra, succeeding the legendary Arthur Fiedler. He currently holds the title of Boston Pops Laureate Conductor which he assumed following his retirement in December, 1993, after fourteen highly successful seasons. He also holds the title of Artist-in-Residence at Tanglewood.

Mr. Williams has composed numerous works for the concert stage, among them two symphonies, and concertos commissioned by several of the world’s leading orchestras, including a cello concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a bassoon concerto for the New York Philharmonic, a trumpet concerto for The Cleveland Orchestra, and a horn concerto for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Mr. Williams composed and arranged “Air and Simple Gifts” especially for the first inaugural ceremony of President Barack Obama, and in September 2009, the Boston Symphony premiered a new concerto for harp and orchestra entitled “On Willows and Birches”.

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Steven Spielberg’s film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in Concert has always held a special place in my heart, and I personally think it’s his masterpiece. In looking at it today, it’s as fresh and new as when it was made in 1982. Cars may change, along with hairstyles and clothes… but the performances, particularly by the children and by E.T. himself, are so honest, timeless and true, that the film absolutely qualifies to be ranked as a classic.

What’s particularly special about tonight’s concert is that we’ll hear one of our great symphony orchestras, the OKC PHIL performing the entire score live, along with the complete picture, sound effects and dialogue.

I know I speak for everyone connected with the making of E.T. in saying that we’re greatly honored by this event… and I hope that tonight’s audience will find great joy in experiencing this magical film.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in Concert produced by Film Concerts Live!, a joint venture of IMG Artists, LLC and The Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, Inc. Producers: Steven A. Linder and Jamie Richardson Production Manager: Rob Stogsdill Production Coordinator: Sophie Greaves Worldwide Representation: IMG Artists, LLC Supervising Technical Director: Mike Runice Technical Director: Brannon Fells Music Composed by John Williams Music Preparation: Jo Ann Kane Music Service Film Preparation for Concert Performance: Ramiro Belgardt Technical Consultant: Laura Gibson Sound Remixing for Concert Performance: Chace Audio by Deluxe The score for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial has been adapted for live concert performance.

With special thanks to: Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, John Williams, David Newman, Kristin Stark, Carol Nygren, Tamara Woolfork, Patrick Koors, Daniel Posener, Tammy Olsen, Angela Emery, Shayne Mifsud, Lauren Purnell, Darice Murphy, Chris Herzberger, Noah Bergman, Paul Ginsberg, Mark Graham and the musicians and staff of the OKC PHIL.

www.filmconcertslive.com

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OKLAHOMA PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY, INC. ASSOCIATE BOARD

FANTASTIC CONTRASTS April 6, 2019 8:00 P.M.

CLASSICS

John Cannon, President Patrick E. Randall, II, Vice President Peter Harlin, Secretary Tim Bunson, Treasurer Ashley Wilemon, Membership Chair Lexi Belvis, Marketing Chair Christa Bentley, Concert Events Chair Nina Barker, Social Events Chair Kash Barker Parker Belvis J. Cruise Berry Chris Cummings Zachary Dumas Jabee Kara Simpson Desiree Singer Jennifer Stadler Michael Sweeney Collin Walke David White Jackie Zamarippa

NATASHA PAREMSKI, PIANO ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE, CONDUCTOR

SHOSTAKOVICH ................ Suite No. 1 for Jazz Orchestra*

Waltz Polka Foxtrot (Blues)

GERSHWIN ....................... Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra* GERSHWIN ....................... Rhapsody in Blue

Natasha Paremski, piano

INTERMISSION

SHOSTAKOVICH ................ Symphony No. 12 in D minor, The Year of 1917, Op. 112*

Revolutionary Petrograd (Moderato—Allegro) Razliv (Allegro—Adagio) Aurora (Allegro) The Dawn of Humanity (L’istesso tempo)

(The movements are played without pause.)

*First performance on this series

THIS CONCERT IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY:

Text CLASSICS to 95577 to stay up to date on the latest Philharmonic info.

Listen to a broadcast of this performance on KUCO 90.1 FM on Wednesday, May 1 at 8 pm and Saturday, May 4 at 8 am on “Performance Oklahoma”. Simultaneous internet streaming is also available during the broadcast.

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NATASHA PAREMSKI “Comparisons with Argerich should not be given lightly, but Paremski is so clearly of the same temperament and technique that it is unavoidable here.” — American Record Guide With her consistently striking and dynamic performances, pianist Natasha Paremski reveals astounding virtuosity and voracious interpretive abilities. She continues to generate excitement from all corners as she wins over audiences with her musical sensibility and flawless technique.

Born in Moscow, Natasha moved to the United-States at the age of eight and became a US citizen shortly thereafter. She is now based in New York.

Natasha was awarded several very prestigious artist prizes at a very young age, including the Gilmore Young Artists prize in 2006 at the age of 18, the Prix Montblanc in 2007, the Orpheum Stiftung Prize in Switzerland. In September 2010, she was awarded the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year.

Her first recital album was released in 2011 and it debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart. In 2012 she recorded Tchaikovsky’s first concerto and Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Fabien Gabel on the orchestra’s label distributed by Naxos.

Natasha has performed with major orchestras in North America including Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony, NAC Orchestra in Ottawa, Nashville Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra. She tours extensively in Europe with such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchester, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre de Bretagne, the Orchestre de Nancy, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester in Zurich, Moscow Philharmonic, under the direction of conductors including Peter Oundjian, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Jeffrey Kahane, James Gaffigan, Dmitri Yablonski, Tomas Netopil, JoAnn Falletta, Fabien Gabel, and Andrew Litton.

Natasha has toured with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica in Latvia, Benelux, the UK and Austria and performed with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in Taipei.

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Natasha has given recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Schloss Elmau, MecklenburgVorpommern Festival, Verbier Festival, Seattle’s Meany Hall, Kansas City’s Harriman Jewell Series, Santa Fe’s Lensic Theater, Ludwigshafen BASF Series, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Tokyo’s Musashino Performing Arts Center and on the Rising Stars Series of Gilmore and Ravinia Festivals.

With a strong focus on new music, Natasha’s growing repertoire reflects an artistic maturity beyond her years. In the 2010-11 season, she played the world premiere of a sonata written for her by Gabriel Kahane, which was also included in her solo album. At the suggestion of John Corigliano, Natasha brought her insight and depth to his Piano Concerto with the Colorado Symphony. In recital, she has played several pieces by noted composer and pianist Fred Hersch.

Natasha continues to extend her performance activity and range beyond the traditional concert hall. In December 2008, she was the featured pianist in choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s Danse Concertantes at New York’s Joyce Theater. She was featured in a major two-part film for BBC Television on the life and work of Tchaikovsky, shot on location in St. Petersburg, performing excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and other works. In the winter of 2007, Natasha participated along with Simon Keenlyside and Maxim Vengerov in the filming of Twin Spirits, a project starring Sting and Trudie Styler that explores the music and writing of Robert and Clara Schumann, which was released on DVD. She has performed in the project live several times with the co-creators in New York and the UK, directed by John Caird, the original director/adaptor of the musical Les Misérables.

Natasha began her piano studies at the age of four with Nina Malikova at Moscow’s Andreyev School of Music. She then studied at San Francisco Conservatory of Music before moving to New York to study with Pavlina Dokovska at Mannes College of Music, from which she graduated in 2007. Natasha made her professional debut at age nine with the El Camino Youth Symphony in California. At the age of fifteen she debuted with Los Angeles Philharmonic and recorded two discs with Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under Dmitry Yablonsky, the first featuring Anton Rubinstein’s Piano Concerto No. 4 coupled with Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody and the second featuring all of Chopin’s shorter works for piano and orchestra.

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Suite No. 1 for Jazz Orchestra Dmitri Shostakovich First Performance on this Series Born: September 12 (old style)/25 (new style), 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia Died: August 9, 1975, in Moscow, U.S.S.R. Work composed: February 1934 Work premiered: March 24, 1934, in Leningrad Instrumentation: Three saxophones (soprano doubling alto; alto; and tenor), two trumpets, trombone, snare drum, woodblock, cymbals, glockenspiel, xylophone, banjo, Hawaiian guitar, piano, violin, and double bass

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as “Tahiti Trot.” Inserted as an entr’acte into the composer’s The Age of Gold ballet, it was the only movement to be routinely encored.

For all that it glorified the proletariat, the Soviet government was never comfortable leaving common citizens to their own devices. Assuming that music enjoyed by so many people could not possibly be healthy, the policy-makers moved into action to fix that which was not broken. In 1929, the government denounced jazz for its “bourgeois decadence.”

The campaign against jazz met with little success, and in 1932 the Association of Proletarian Musicians was dissolved. Jazz immediately bubbled to the surface again, spurred especially by the 1934 release of Grigoriy Alexandrov’s internationally popular movie musical Vesyolye rebyata (translated at the time as “Gay Youngsters”), a comedy of errors in which Utesov portrays a Crimean shepherd who is mistaken for a famous jazz singer and ends up being paired with the glamorous screen star Lyubov Orlova in a musical revue, all to a swinging score by Dunayevsky. At about the same time, the pianist and conductor Alexander Tsfasman started touring the Soviet Union with his jazz band, a group in the

Shostakovich generally knew how to behave in shifting political winds (not that he was always successful at it), and in 1934 he tried to tread a safe path in a declaration about jazz in the pages of the magazine Sovetskoye Iskusstvo:

In 1934, when he composed his Suite No. 1 for Jazz Orchestra, the 28-year-old Dmitri Shostakovich was enjoying pretty much everything a young composer in the Soviet Union could hope for. He had already shown overwhelming brilliance in large-scale genres—three symphonies, two operas, two ballets, a piano concerto—and he enjoyed a certain celebrity among more popular audiences thanks to his scores for films and stage plays. Nothing in his life foretold the crisis that lay just around the bend, when (in 1936) he would find himself abruptly condemned—and his music silenced—by a reversal in the halls of Soviet officialdom.

That same Stalinist crackdown would also try to put a stop to American-style jazz, which had made a hit in Russia during the preceding decade. As early as 1928 the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians was churning out bland marches and workers’ anthems, but the populace far more eagerly embraced the lighter material that they heard during Sidney Bechet’s six-month visit in 1925, and that continued to waft in on the radio waves. Cabaret flourished and dance bands—led by such forgotten stars as Matvei Blanter, Isaak Dunayevsky, and Leonid Utesov—set toes tapping. One number sure to draw applause was Shostakovich’s crisp and satirical arrangement, from 1927, of Vincent Youmans’ “Tea for Two,” which, for some reason or another, became known in Russia

Just as we are willing to learn from the best foreign performers, it seems only sensible by analogy also to make use of what is best in Western composition techniques.

This we do not do, although we import incredible amounts of jazz music which, together with our own home-grown jazz, threatens to swamp the Soviet variety stage entirely.

I am not against jazz as such. But I do object to the ugly forms which the universal, almost mindless enthusiasm for the genre has assumed.

I react strongly to the vulgar trash which can be heard for days on end from every café, restaurant, public house, cinema, and music hall. The former chaste horror of the word “jazz” has given way to veritable “jazz-bacchanalia.” The irony of the whole thing lies in the fact that we have not yet managed to assimilate the real jazz culture. What we have is largely very inferior. Yet the gullible public naively admires this provincial hotchpotch ....

—JMK

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Paul Whiteman mode that always scored a hit with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

In 1934 the apparatchiks announced a commissioning program to elevate and codify the popular-music tastes of the people. Shostakovich came immediately to mind; even decades later, in 1962, he would still be called on to head the sessions of the Composers’ Union convention that dealt with estradnaya muzyka (variety-stage music). The title of his resulting commission speaks volumes: not much in this Suite for Jazz Orchestra actually suggests the musical processes of jazz apart from its orchestration, rich in the timbre of saxophones and making telling use of other instruments with jazz associations, such as trumpets, trombone, and such plucked string instruments as banjo and Hawaiian guitar.

and the composer as piano soloist Instrumentation: For the Second Rhapsody (in the 1932 symphonic orchestration by Robert McBride), two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, trap set, xylophone, two woodblocks, cymbals, suspended cymbal, bass drum, snare drum, harp, and strings, in addition to the solo piano; for Rhapsody in Blue (in the 1926 symphonic orchestration by Ferde Grofé), two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, two alto saxophones and one tenor saxophone, three horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, triangle, gong, banjo, and strings, in addition to the solo piano

Its three movements are essentially café music with an extra degree of sophistication, derived more from the Vienna of Johann Strauss, Jr.—though with up-to-date side-stepping of harmonies—than from the New Orleans of Jelly Roll Morton.

The Waltz, its opening phrase modulating drunkenly, wends its way through surface complexities in a spirit of selfdeprecation as the theme is passed about from trumpet (muted) to soprano saxophone to trombone (with an “Old Vienna” overlay from the violin), and so on. Listeners may find more of the composer’s characteristic fingerprint in the circus atmosphere of the ensuing Polka, a sort of modernist take on Leon Jessel’s famous “Parade of the Tin Soldiers,” a light classic from 1905. The final Foxtrot (Blues), however lovable, is an amalgam of styles, although the spirit of Kurt Weill certainly hovers around its edges, especially when it turns overtly parodistic in its trio, an out-of-tune duet emphasizing Hawaiian guitar and trombone.

Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra George Gershwin First Performance on this Series

Rhapsody in Blue George Gershwin First Performance: 4/7/1946 Pianist: Jesus Maria Sanroma Last Performance: 3/20/2010 Pianist: Orion Weiss Born: September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York Died: July 11, 1937, in Hollywood, California Works composed: The Second Rhapsody in 1931, apparently from March 14 through May 23, with Robert McBride’s symphonic orchestration following in 1932; Rhapsody in Blue from January 7 to February 3, 1924, with the symphonic scoring by Ferde Grofé (1892-1972) being realized in 1926 Works premiered: The Second Rhapsody on January 29, 1932, at Boston’s Symphony Hall, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with the composer as soloist; Rhapsody in Blue on February 12, 1924, at New York’s Aeolian Hall, with Paul Whiteman leading his orchestra

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George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was so successful at its premiere and so beloved in the ensuing years that it all but eclipsed his Second Rhapsody, which he wrote seven years later in hopes of a follow-up success. In the years between, he had industriously turned out many musical-theatre shows: George White’s Scandals of 1924 (which opened in June 1924), Primrose (September 1924), Lady Be Good! (December 1924)), Tell Me More (April 1925), Tip-toes (December 1925), Song of the Flame (December 1925), Oh, Kay! (November 1926), Strike Up the Band (September 1927), Funny Face (November 1927), Rosalie (January 1928), Treasure Girl (November 1928), Show Girl (July 1929), a remake of Strike Up the Band (January 1930), and Girl Crazy (October 1930). Among the approximately 140 songs in those works were “Fascinating Rhythm,” “The Man I Love,” “Lady Be Good,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Strike Up the Band,” “’S wonderful,” “The Man I Love,” “Embraceable You,” “I Got Rhythm,” and “But Not For Me.” That’s another way of saying that, in the period connecting the Rhapsody in Blue to the Second Rhapsody, Gershwin created many essential entries in what is familiarly known today as the Great American Songbook.

PROGRAM NOTES But acclaim on Broadway and in London’s West End did not fully satisfy Gershwin’s aesthetic yearnings. He also aspired to achieve greatness as a concert composer. In those same years, he wrote two major concert-hall pieces: his Piano Concerto in F (1925) and his tone poem An American in Paris (1928). He was at the top of his game.

In late 1930, Gershwin was in Hollywood with his lyricistbrother, Ira, writing songs for a film titled Delicious, which introduced six George-and-Ira songs. The movie involves the hopes and travails of immigrants coming to America in an ocean liner and taking their first steps in their new world.

The climax comes in a rather surreal sequence in which one of them, Heather (a Scottish immigrant), is buffeted by the sights and sounds of Manhattan. This provided George with an opportunity to write an extended episode with a concert-like feel. In the course of production, this segment was referred to by various names—Manhattan Rhapsody, New York Rhapsody, Rhapsody in Rivets—but in the end it was Gershwin’s original title that stuck: Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra. What he wrote was perhaps overly ambitious for the film—a 14-minute rhapsody that the film’s director shortened to half that length. In the movie, its composer, the Russian immigrant Sascha, explains the piece to Heather: “It begins like we all see the city first. The great towers almost in the clouds. Down below in the long furrows—human seeds trying to grow to the light … and noise. Riveters—drumming your ear from every side. And this is the night motif—night silencing the rivers.”

Serge Koussevitzsky had invited Gershwin to write a work they could introduce with the Boston Symphony, which he directed. Gershwin made some alterations to the full version of the Rhapsody, which had been so condensed in the movie, and, shortly after the film was released, they did premiere the piece—two performances in Boston, another a few days later in New York’s Carnegie Hall. It received mixed reviews (some were downright hostile), often being compared unfavorably to Rhapsody in Blue, and Gershwin effected a major overhaul.

Notwithstanding its cinematic origins, Gershwin wrote in a 1931 letter to a friend: “There is no program to Rhapsody. As the part of the picture where it is to be played takes place in many streets of New York, I used as a starting point what I called ‘a rivet theme,’ but, after that, I just wrote a piece of music without any program.” Although it has evaded repertoire status, it remains a fascinating work. It reveals a darker side of Gershwin than we encounter in Rhapsody in Blue or An American in Paris, a work that still boasts melodies of infectious sweep but that points ahead to the “serious composer’s voice” that would reach its highest fruition in 1935, in his opera Porgy in Bess.

George Gershwin, his brother Ira, and the songwriter “Buddy” De Sylva were killing time in a pool-hall on January 3, 1924, when Ira, engrossed in the New-York Tribune, happened on an article announcing that the bandleader Paul

The Rhapsody in the movie Delicious The film Delicious, which was the fountainhead of Gershwin’s Second Rhapsody has a sort of upstairsdownstairs plot involving wealthy Americans on the first-class deck of an ocean liner and a group of immigrants from various countries traveling in steerage to their new country. One of the latter, Heather (played

by Janet Gaynor), is refused entry at Ellis Island, but she sneaks in by hiding in a horse-carrier. She tracks down one of her fellow voyagers, the Russian Sascha, a would-be pianist and composer (played by the curiously cast Raul Roulien, a Brazilian actor you might possibly remember as a “Latin lover” in the 1933 Fred-and-Ginger flick Flying Down to Rio). She agrees to marry him, although she really loves Larry, who had also been on the ship, in first class, with his girlfriend.

Learning that Heather has sneaked into the country, the girlfriend reports her to the police, and Heather goes on the lam, wandering in a daze around Manhattan, to the accompaniment of a truncated version of the Second Rhapsody. She finally surrenders to the police, who are pursuing her. They put her on a boat to deport her back to Scotland. But, Larry, shocked by his girlfriend’s lack of charity, dumps her and races to the quay, where in the nick of time he joins Heather on the ship and proposes to her as they leave for their future together.

—JMK

Whiteman, a one-time violist with the Denver and San Francisco Symphonies but now a leading light of popular music, would shortly present a concert in New York that promised to broaden concert-goers’ conception of what serious American music could be. Neither Ira nor his brother were prepared for the article’s revelation that “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto, Irving Berlin is writing a syncopated tone poem, and Victor Herbert is working on an American suite.” A new Gershwin jazz concerto was news to Gershwin.

A phone call to Whiteman the next day elicited the explanation that the bandleader had been planning such a concert for some time in the future; but a rival conductor had suddenly announced plans for a similar program of pieces drawing on both the classical and jazz styles, a development that forced Whiteman to move up his schedule if he didn’t want to look like a mere copycat. Whiteman also reminded Gershwin that he had broached the idea of such a work a year and a half earlier, when his orchestra had unveiled Gershwin’s song CONTINUED ON PAGE 46

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Listen For The famous ascending glissando with which the clarinet launches this piece is one of the most instantly identifiable sounds in all of music. It is said to have been essentially the invention of Ross Gorman, the clarinetist of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Gershwin had written the opening measure as a low trill followed by a scale rising rapidly through 17 notes. The tale is told that Gorman, growing either exhausted or bored as the piece began yet again in the course of a long rehearsal, simply elided the disparate notes into a sweeping, rather suggestive ribbon of uninterrupted pitches—after which there was no turning back —JMK

ings by James Abbot McNeill Whistler. Whistler was drawn to titling his paintings—no matter how representational—with completely abstract titles, such as the famous “Arrangement in Gray and Black” (popularly nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother”).

The Gershwin brothers took a shine to the concept and found a musical equivalent in the title Rhapsody in Blue. The word “blue” naturally evokes “the Blues,” and, by extension, jazz.

Various aspects of jazz vocabulary certainly are prominent in the Rhapsody in Blue—this was the point of the repertoire Whiteman programmed in his “Experiment in Modern Music”— but at heart this is a symphonic work, and its ancestry lies more in the direction of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff than Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and W.C. Handy.

Symphony No. 12 in D minor, The Year of 1917, Op. 112 Dmitri Shostakovich First Performance on this Series

“I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” in George White’s Scandals of 1922. Later Gershwin would come around to allowing that there was at least some connection between the two projects, when he wrote of the Scandals of 1922: “My association with Whiteman in this show I am sure had something to do with Paul’s asking me to write a composition for his first jazz concert. As you may know, I wrote the Rhapsody in Blue for that occasion, and there is no doubt that this was my start in the field of more serious music.”

Born: September 12 (old style)/25 (new style), 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia Died: August 9, 1975, in Moscow, U.S.S.R. Work composed: 1959 through August 22, 1961 Work dedicated: “Dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” Work premiered: October 1, 1961, in the Large Philharmonic Hall in Leningrad, with Yevgeni Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra Instrumentation: Three flutes (third doubling piccolo), three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons (third doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, and strings

He rose to the challenge, though not without extracting concessions from Whiteman. Given the short lead-time (not to mention the novelty of such a piece), a full-length concerto was out of the question. But Gershwin would commit to a free-form work, a rhapsody of some sort, that would spotlight him as the soloist backed by the Whiteman band, which was to be expanded for the occasion by quite a few instruments. Furthermore, Gershwin was uneasy about the prospect of orchestrating his piece; in his Broadway work, he had always followed the customary practice of simply writing the tunes and leaving the instrumentation to an arranger. Whiteman responded that it would not be problem, and promptly informed Ferde Grofé, his own staff arranger since 1920, to clear his desk for a new project.

The biography of Dmitri Shostakovich reads like something out of a particularly nightmarish Russian novel: Dostoyevsky, perhaps, but with more ironic jokes. His gifts were unmistakable—the world has agreed that, along with Sergei Prokofiev, he was the Soviet Union’s greatest composer—but he spent practically his whole career falling in and out of favor with the Communist authorities and he ended up battered and paranoid in the process.

On January 7, Gershwin began setting down notes for his Rhapsody, which he notated in a score for two pianos—one representing the solo part, the other the orchestra (including suggestions about possible instrumentation). Grofé later recalled, “I practically lived too in their uptown Amsterdam and 100th Street apartment, for I called there daily for more pages…. He and his brother Ira had a back room where there was an upright piano, and that is where Rhapsody in Blue grew into being.”

It was Ira, the family wordsmith, who came up with the title, inspired by a visit to a gallery showing an exhibit of paint-

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A pattern emerged: whenever he fell afoul of the whims of governmental authorities, he redeemed himself by writing something that would be deemed culturally unimpeachable.

Pieces based on historical events and political heroes were relatively safe bets, and six of his 15 symphonies accordingly carry subtitles explicitly linking them to significant incidents in modern Russian history. His Second Symphony, composed in 1927 and subtitled To October, had celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917. He returned to that subject in his Twelfth, The Year 1917, more than three decades later, in 1959-61. He hoped t o have it ready by 1960, in time for celebrations of what would have been the 90th birthday of long-departed Lenin, who led that revolution.

He finished a year late, in 1961, dedicating it all the same to Lenin’s memory and depicting a Lenin-related scene in each of the four continuous movements, presumably drawing on personal memories.

PROGRAM NOTES Shostakovich was usually reticent in discussing his compositions, but in the case of the Twelfth Symphony, he expounded in some detail in a radio interview broadcast on October 29, 1960, while the piece was a work-in-progress: I have conceived the first movement as a musical account of the arrival of V. I. Lenin in Petrograd in April 1917 and of his meeting with the toiling masses, the working class of Petrograd. The second movement reflects the historical events of November 7. The third movement tells about the Civil War, and the fourth about the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

The general programmatic conception was in place, but by the time Shostakovich finished the piece, the movements had traveled a somewhat different path. The first movement, “Revolutionary Petrograd,” relates to the mounting desperation in that city—renamed Leningrad immediately following Lenin’s death in 1924, today known as St. Petersburg. The czarist reign was crumbling, food and other resources were scarce, and during the bitter winter of 1917 the people of Petrograd signaled their frustration through strikes and demonstrations. Protesters were killed by police and military forces in February and March, and on March 23 an immense procession of funerary mourners proceeded down Nevsky Prospekt to the common grave where slain protesters were buried. This movement charts that period, and even quotes a couple of Revolutionary protest songs to make the point.

The czar abdicated and Lenin, the leader of the Revolutionary movement, began his ascent. His opponents branded him a German agent and set out to have him arrested. Lenin therefore retreated to a hut in the countryside at Razliv, where he assumed a disguise and acquired false documents that enabled him to escape to Finland, where he formulated plans for the Revolution he would lead. This is the subject of Shostakovich’s contemplative second movement.

Lenin and his Bolshevik Party moved ahead, and, in an alliance with Leon Trotsky, built up military forces in the form of the Red Guards. By late October, they were ready to attack.

They surrounded the Winter Palace, the historic home of the czars and now the base of the competing Russian government, which surrendered, ceding power to Lenin and Trotsky.

The symphony’s third movement, “Aurora,” pictures the battle cruiser Aurora, whose guns (memorably suggested in the music’s mounting percussion) signaled the attack on the Winter Palace that officially initiated the Revolution. It is a compact movement, the shortest in the symphony, and it leads directly to the finale, “The Dawn of Humanity.” This, to the Soviet mind, was the inevitable destination of the Russian Revolution—a joy-filled post-Revolution life that Lenin made possible to his fellow citizens, a life that was arguably a matter of fantasy rather than of reality.

Shostakovich Hedges his Bets The book Shostakovich: About Himself and his Times, a Soviet-approved text issued in 1981 by Progress Publishers in Moscow, includes a quotation in which the composer seems to balance delicately about whether or not he stood behind his Symphony No. 12.

My Twelfth Symphony is a kind of continuation of my Eleventh, about the first Russian Revolution [of 1905]. In it [No. 12] I tried to portray the Great October Revolution and its leader Vladimir Lenin, to whose memory the work is dedicated.

At the moment, having just completed the symphony, I am satisfied. But soon I shall see it in a more critical light. For it is a dangerous sign when one begins to like everything one writes. For this reason I must set about the new work immediately: however paradoxical it may seem, this is the only way to overcome one’s dissatisfaction with one’s previous work.

Shostakovich was well practiced in this posture.

He could hope for the best, but ultimately it was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Composers’ Union that would rule on the work’s success or failure, based principally on its political merits. The wisest course was for the composer to express that he was “satisfied,” while acknowledging that he might not be later on—an escape hatch in case the Composers’ Union condemned the piece.

— JMK

JAMES M. KELLER James M. Keller is the long-time Program Annotator of the New York Philharmonic (where he holds The Leni and Peter May Chair) and the San Francisco Symphony. His book Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press) is now available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book formats.

In earlier forms, the note on Shostakovich’s Suite No. 1 for Jazz Orchestra appeared in the programs of the San Francisco Symphony (© James M. Keller) and that on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in the programs of the New York Philharmonic (© New York Philharmonic). Other notes, © James M. Keller.

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OKLAHOMA CITY PHILHARMONIC FOUNDATION PROVIDING LEADERSHIP AND ANNUAL SUPPORT The Oklahoma City Philharmonic Foundation was established to provide leadership and endowment expertise to help ensure a stable financial base for orchestral music and musical excellence in Oklahoma City for generations to come.

Distributions from the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Foundation provide a meaningful and secure source of annual income for the Philharmonic’s operations, continually confirming the importance of endowment in an organization’s long-range planning and overall success.

Current officers and directors of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Foundation are:

DEEP GERMAN ROMANTICISM May 11, 2019 8:00 P.M.

CLASSICS JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET, PIANO ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE, CONDUCTOR

J. STRAUSS JR. ................ Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437 (Emperor Waltzes)

LISZT ............................... Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major

Adagio sostenuto assai—Allegro agitato assai— Allegro moderato—Allegro deciso; Sempre Allegro—Marziale, un poco meno Allegro—Allegro animato; Stretto (molto accelerando)

Michael E. Joseph President

(The movements are played without pause.)

Jean Ann Hartsuck Vice President

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

INTERMISSION

OFFICERS

Douglas J. Stussi Treasurer Penny M. McCaleb Secretary DIRECTORS Steven C. Agee Patrick B. Alexander J. Edward Barth L. Joe Bradley Teresa Cooper T.A. Dearmon Paul Dudman Thomas J. Enis Misha Gorkuscha Jane B. Harlow Brent Hart Harrison Levy, Jr. Duke R. Ligon Michael J. Milligan Richard L. Sias Richard Tannenbaum Charles E. Wiggin

R. STRAUSS ..................... Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Op. 40

The Hero—The Hero’s Adversaries—The Hero’s Companion—The Hero’s Deeds of War—The Hero’s Works of Peace—The Hero’s Retirement

(The sections are played without pause.)

THIS CONCERT IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY:

Text CLASSICS to 95577 to stay up to date on the latest Philharmonic info.

Listen to a broadcast of this performance on KUCO 90.1 FM on Wednesday, June 5 at 8 pm and Saturday, June 8 at 8 am on “Performance Oklahoma”. Simultaneous internet streaming is also available during the broadcast.

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JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET For more than three decades, Jean-Yves Thibaudet has performed world-wide, recorded more than 50 albums, and built a reputation as one of today’s finest pianists. He plays a range of solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire – from Beethoven through Liszt, Grieg, and Saint-Saëns; to Khachaturian and Gershwin, and to contemporary composers Qigang Chen and James MacMillan. From the very start of his career, he delighted in music beyond the standard repertoire, from jazz to opera, which he transcribed himself to play on the piano. His profound professional friendships crisscross the globe and have led to spontaneous and fruitful collaborations in film, fashion, and visual art.

In the summer of 2018, he toured Taiwan, China, and South Korea with Michael Tilson Thomas and Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra. He also expresses his passion for education and fostering young musical talent as the first-ever Artist-in-Residence at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, where he makes his home. The school has extended the residency for an additional three years and has announced the Jean-Yves Thibaudet Scholarships to provide aid for Music Academy students, whom Thibaudet will select for the merit-based awards, regardless of their instrument choice.

As one of the premiere interpreters of the solo part in Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, Thibaudet continues to perform the piece around the world as the composer’s centennial year comes to a close. In addition to playing it with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop at the orchestra’s first-ever appearance at the BBC Proms, he plays it with the Los Angeles and Brussels philharmonics and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

In 2018-19 he renews many longstanding musical partnerships, including touring a program of Schumann, Fauré, Debussy, and Enescu with Midori, touring the great concert halls of Europe with Lisa Batiashvili and Gautier Capuçon, and performing chamber music with brothers Renaud and Gautier Capuçon. With Gautier he also premieres Richard Dubugnon’s Eros Athanatos, a fantaisie concertante for cello and piano, with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. They go on to perform it with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra across Belgium, at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. With the Cleveland Orchestra and Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Thibaudet plays another piece that he introduced to the world: James MacMillan’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Other highlights include beginning 2019 with Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, then with Susanna Mälkki and the LA Phil. With Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, he takes Saint-Saëns’ fifth piano concerto on tour to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Philharmonie Essen, and the Berliner Philharmonie.

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Thibaudet’s recording catalogue has received two Grammy nominations, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the Diapason d’Or, the Choc du Monde de la Musique, the Edison Prize, and Gramophone awards. In 2017 he released to great acclaim Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, with whom he previously recorded Gershwin, featuring big jazz band orchestrations of Rhapsody in Blue, variations on I Got Rhythm, and the Concerto in F. In 2016, on the 150th anniversary of Erik Satie’s birth, Decca released a box set of Satie’s complete solo piano music performed by Thibaudet – one of the foremost champions of the composer’s works. On his Grammynominated recording Saint-Saëns, Piano Concerti Nos. 2&5, released in 2007, he is joined by Charles Dutoit and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Thibaudet’s Aria–Opera Without Words, which was released the same year, features aria transcriptions, some of which are Thibaudet’s own. His other recordings include the jazz albums Reflections on Duke: Jean-Yves Thibaudet Plays the Music of Duke Ellington and Conversations with Bill Evans.

Thibaudet has also had an impact on the world of fashion, film and philanthropy. He played Aaron Zigman’s soundtrack for Wakefield, a drama by Robin Swicord, which was the first time that the composer had allowed a pianist other than himself to perform his film work. Thibaudet was soloist in Dario Marianelli’s award-winning scores for the films Atonement (which won an Oscar for Best Original Score) and Pride and Prejudice, and recorded Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack for the 2012 film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. He had a cameo in Bruce Beresford’s film on Alma Mahler, Bride of the Wind, and his playing is showcased throughout. In 2004 he served as president of the prestigious charity auction Hospices de Beaune. His concert wardrobe is designed by Dame Vivienne Westwood.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, where he began his piano studies at age five and made his first public appearance at age seven. At twelve, he entered the Paris Conservatory to study with Aldo Ciccolini and Lucette Descaves, a friend and collaborator of Ravel. At age fifteen, he won the Premier Prix du Conservatoire and, three years later, the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York City. Among his numerous commendations is the Victoire d’Honneur, a lifetime career achievement award and the highest honor given by France’s Victoires de la Musique. In 2010 the Hollywood Bowl honored Thibaudet for his musical achievements by inducting him into its Hall of Fame. Previously a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Thibaudet was awarded the title Officier by the French Ministry of Culture in 2012.

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Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437 (Emperor Waltzes) Johann Strauss, Jr. First Performance: 4/13/1947 Conductor: Victor Alessandro Last Performance: 12/7/1980 Conductor: Kurt Woss Born: October 25, 1825, in Vienna, Austria Died: June 3, 1899, in Vienna Work composed: 1889 Work premiered: October 19, 1889, in Berlin (or possibly earlier in Vienna) Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, harp, and strings

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century drew to its close. With the genre’s popularity came strenuous objections from parties who found it dangerous for reasons both medical (it was feared that the dancers’ rapid whirling might have an ill effect on the body) and moral (since the partners held each other more closely than some thought seemly). The spinning bodies somehow survived, and as the 19th century progressed the waltz became the social dance of preference.

The much-loved Emperor Waltz is one of his late works, composed in 1889 in Vienna. Strauss lore traditionally had it that he wrote the piece to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the coronation (in 1848) of Emperor Franz Joseph, the reigning Habsburg monarch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who for years had been his most enthusiastic patron. In fact, the waltz Strauss composed for that occasion was the less famous Kaiser-Jubiläum Jubelwalzer (Emperor-Jubilee Celebration Waltz). In August 1889, Franz Joseph visited Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Prussian monarch, in a gesture of good-will following some uneasy decades that had included posturing about whether Prussia should subsume Austria-Hungary, AustriaHungary should subsume Prussia, or both should continue as separate German-speaking states (which was the eventual decision). During the 1889 visit, Kaiser Wilhelm proposed in a toast that the two nations move forward separately but “hand in hand,” and Strauss promptly submitted to his publisher, Fritz Simrock, a new waltz titled Hand in Hand.

A few weeks later, Strauss headed to Berlin to conduct a series of concerts at the newly inaugurated Königsbau concert hall. He took along his new piece, for which Simrock had suggested a different name: Kaiser-W. Ambiguity was built into that title. On one hand, it could be viewed as a shortened form of “Kaiser Wilhelm,” on the other, an abbreviation of “Kaiser-Walzer”—or Emperor Waltz, as it became widely known in English. Both emperors might choose to view themselves as honored by it. Strauss, of course, was Viennese to the core, and when the piece was published in its original piano edition, he (or Simrock) tipped the glory in the direction of Franz Joseph by printing the Austrian Imperial Crown on the title page.

Johann Strauss, Jr. (also known as Johann Strauss II) gained note as an orchestra leader at the age of 19 and quickly achieved such popularity as to emerge as something of a rival to his more established father. Initial uneasiness over this situation was overcome, and when Johann Sr. died in 1848, Johann Jr. merged his late father’s orchestra into his own. From 1863 to 1871 he served as director of Viennese court balls, just as his father had, and when he relinquished the position he merely handed off the reins to his brother Eduard.

Notwithstanding the reputation of his operetta Die Fledermaus, the public remembers Johann Strauss Jr. mostly as a composer of relatively short dances and especially of waltzes.

He was nothing if not prolific in this department. The opus numbers of his published pieces reach 498, of which 150 are standalone waltzes. Born of somewhat obscure origins, tripletime dances identified as waltzes became popular as the 18th

Like so many other Strauss waltzes, this one unrolls as a series of waltz episodes, each based on its own theme. It begins with a long duple-time introduction, here marked “in slow march tempo.” The music of the introduction is ethereal and even mysterious, notwithstanding the passing suggestion of a boisterous military tune; and only after two minutes do the violins, in their low register (doubled by cellos, bassoon, and horn) introduce the work’s famous triple-meter theme, marked ben legato (and, in some editions, espressivo). It is the first of four separate waltz episodes in this piece, and it returns pensively near the end of the extended coda before being cut off by the final flourishes of the full orchestra. It would be hard to maintain that any one of Strauss’ waltzes is his most elegant. On the other hand, it would be hard to nominate one that surpasses the Emperor Waltz in sheer beauty.

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So Many Strausses Sorting out all the musical Strausses can be confusing.

In the beginning was Johann Strauss (1804-1849, later known as Johann Strauss, Sr.). The son of a dance-hall proprietor, he developed into an accomplished violinist and then a terrifically successful orchestra leader and bandmaster, composing a multitude of waltzes, quadrilles, polkas, and other dances. He made up his mind that his three sons (Johann, Josef, and Eduard) should become businessmen or soldiers, and certainly not musicians. In this regard, and this regard only, he was a failure, since all three grew up to be successful composer-conductors; and his failure was perpetuated when Eduard’s son, Johann III, carried on the waltz profession until his death in 1939.

that he was an unusually busy man, traversing the salons and concert halls of Europe as the most celebrated piano virtuoso of his day during the first decade of the work’s gestation, presiding over an active musical culture as Kapellmeister-inExtraordinary to the Grand Duke of Weimar after 1848. But this is only part of the explanation. Liszt could turn out facile piano solos at the drop of a hat. On the other hand, he tended to anguish over works that he envisioned more for posterity, works in the “big” forms of the symphony or the concerto, for example.

As it turned out, Liszt’s two piano concertos are less big than one might have expected from a composer who boasted such an out-sized pianistic presence. The Second Concerto, the longer of the two, runs only about twenty minutes, which is modest for its time. Liszt first drafted the piece in 1839,

The other famous musical Strausses were sprung from separate family trees altogether. The waltzing Strausses, the eminent hornist Franz Strauss and his composer-son Richard, and the operetta composer Oscar Straus (who dropped the final “s” that appears on his birth certificate to help differentiate his lineage)— these were three unconnected clans.

—JMK

Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major Franz Liszt First Performance: 2/7/1956 Piano: Witold Małcużyński Last Perfomance: 4/9/2011 Piano: Valery Kuleshov Born: October 22, 1811, in Raiding, Hungary Died: July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth, Germany Work composed: Sketched in 1839, revisited in 1849, brought to provisional completion in 1856, revised through 1861 Work dedicated: To his piano pupil Hans von Bronsart Work premiered: January 7, 1857, in Weimar, Germany, with Liszt conducting and with von Bronsart as soloist Instrumentation: Three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, and strings, in addition to the solo piano

Franz Liszt completed two full-scale concertos for piano—his First, in E-flat major, was unveiled in 1855—but he also composed about twenty other pieces for piano with orchestra including such still-programmed pieces as his Hungarian Fantasy and Totentanz. Both of the two official, numbered concertos were composed, re-composed, and revised over the course of many years—a quarter of a century for the First Concerto, 22 years for the Second. In part this reflects

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returned to it a decade later, and brought it to a provisional completion in 1856, in which form it was premiered on January 7, 1857, in Weimar, with the composer conducting and with his pupil Hans von Bronsart, the work’s dedicatee, as soloist.

Even after that Liszt continued revising it until 1861. Throughout that process the work’s manuscripts carried the title Concerto symphonique; not until it appeared in published form, on the Schott imprint in 1863, was that heading transformed into “Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.” Liszt seems to have borrowed the term concerto symphonique from his contemporary Henry Litolff, who wrote five works so titled; one was lost, and the other four were published in 1844, ca.1846, ca.1852, and ca.1867, which corresponds quite closely to the chronology of Liszt’s Second Concerto. (Litolff is all but absent from the repertoire today with the single exception of the rollicking Scherzo from his Concerto symphonique No. 4, and even that has faded from the popularity it enjoyed until a half-century ago.) Liszt was a fan of these works, and he even

PROGRAM NOTES dedicated his First Piano Concerto to Litolff. As Litolff used it, the term was meant to designate a genre midway between a concerto and a symphony—one might say, a symphony in which the piano plays an obbligato role but is not set off “in opposition to” the orchestra, as had by then become standard practice.

And yet, considering this Liszt concerto in terms of symphonic form is not terribly helpful unless we also recall that Liszt’s symphonies moved to a playing field rather different from, say, Beethoven’s. The footprints of traditional symphonic movements can still be discerned, but Liszt promotes a more through-composed approach to symphonic writing, one that found perfect expression in his development of the new genre of the symphonic poem. So it is that this Second Concerto is cast as a single, uninterrupted span. The score comprises six distinct sections. Some musicologists have represented this plan as little more than a standard three-movement Romantic concerto that is laid out differently on paper. According to this viewpoint, the Concerto unrolls as an opening fast movement introduced by a slow introduction (Allegro sostenuto assai— Allegro agitato assai); a leisurely slow movement (notwithstanding the problematic marking of Allegro moderato, since the music cries out for much more moderato than allegro); and a fast-paced finale that encompasses the remaining three sections (Allegro deciso; Sempre Allegro—Marziale, un poco meno Allegro—Allegro animato). It may be just as profitable to go with the flow without worrying too much about demarcating the boundaries. Liszt, after all, takes pains to obfuscate them through the eliding influences of cadenzas and transitional passages.

Slivers of Liszt

Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Op. 40 Richard Strauss First Performance: 1/14/1941 Conductor:Victor Alessandro Last Performance: 10/12/2002 Conductor: Joel Levine Born: June 11, 1864, in Munich, Bavaria Died: September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany Work composed: 1897-98, completed in Berlin on December 27 of the latter year Work dedicated: To Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam Work premiered: March 3, 1899, by the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra, with the composer conducting Instrumentation: Three flutes and piccolo, four oboes (fourth doubling English horn), two clarinets plus E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, tenor and bass tubas, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, small snare drum, large tenor drum, tam-tam, triangle, two harps, and strings (including solo violin, principally portraying “The Hero’s Companion”)

One of the most enduring contributions of the 19th-century “Music of the Future” camp of Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner was the orchestral genre known as the symphonic poem or tone poem. One of the circle’s ancillary figures was Alexander Ritter, an Estonian-born violinist and composer who married a niece of Wagner’s, composed six symphonic poems of his own, and served as associate concertmaster of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, which was conducted by the eminent Hans von Bülow. In Meiningen he grew friendly with the young Richard Strauss, whom von Bülow had brought in as an assistant music director in 1885. Strauss would later say that it was Ritter who revealed to him the greatness of the music of Wagner, Liszt, and Berlioz and, by extension, opened his eyes to the possibilities of the symphonic poem.

Liszt’s objective in the compositions of his maturity was to create continuity rather than division. This proved to be a fortunate disposition in that he was also drawn to the episodic, and it would have been easy for his works to end up raggedly unstitched. The pianist Alfred Brendel observed in his book Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts: “There is something fragmentary about Liszt’s work; its musical argument, perhaps by its nature, is often not brought to a conclusion. But is the fragment not the purest, the most legitimate form of Romanticism? … It is the business of the interpreter to show us how a general pause may connect rather than separate two paragraphs, how a transition may mysteriously transform the musical argument. … Anyone who does not know the allure of the fragmentary will remain a stranger to much of Liszt’s music, and perhaps to Romanticism in general.””

In 1886, Strauss produced what might be considered his first symphonic poem, Aus Italien (it is more precisely a sort of descriptive symphony), and he continued with hardly a break through the series of tone poems that many feel represent the genre at its height: Don Juan (1888-89), Macbeth (1888/91), Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration, 1888-89), Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, 1894-95), Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1896), Don Quixote (1897), Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life, 1897-98), and Symphonia Domestica (1902-03). Eine Alpensymphonie (An Alpine Symphony, 1911-15) would become a late pendant to Strauss’ catalogue of symphonic poems. He was drawn to the idea (as he would recall in his memoirs) that “new ideas must search for new forms; this basic principle of Liszt’s symphonic works, in which the poetic idea was really the formative element, became henceforward the guiding principle for my own symphonic work.”

—JMK

Ein Heldenleben is among several of Strauss’ works that can be read as musical autobiography. By this point of his caCONTINUED ON PAGE 54

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reer—he was 34 years old when he conducted its premiere— Strauss’ sense of self-esteem was in no way underdeveloped.

He had gotten his first leg up in the music business in 1885 with his Meiningen appointment, and he proceeded from there to positions at the Munich Court Opera, the Bayreuth opera house, and the Court of the Grand Duke of SaxeWeimar-Eisenstadt. He was routinely hailed at the premieres of his new compositions, he was in demand throughout Germany as a guest conductor, he was on the verge of signing a contract to become music director of the Berlin Court Opera, and he was enjoying a deepening relationship with the soprano who would soon become his wife.

It seemed to Strauss a reasonable moment to produce a musical reflection on himself and on the struggles he had faced so far in achieving his considerable success while navigating the internecine politics of the musical establishment. The proper format would be a musical one, to be sure, and the genre of the symphonic poem provided a perfect framework for such an exercise. In the event, it would be a symphonic poem with strong Classical leanings in terms of its structure, a sort of expanded “Classical symphony.” It would be set in E-flat major, a key resonant with memories of Beethoven’s Sinfonia eroica, which was initially supposed to be a tribute to Napoleon but ended up being re-inscribed “To celebrate the memory of a great man”—an idea not so very different from that conveyed by the title “A Hero’s Life.” And, like Beethoven’s Eroica, it would be a work of hefty proportions—Ein Heldenleben typically runs to three-quarters of an hour—and its orchestration, including eight horns and five trumpets in its imposing 18-member brass section, would leave the ears highly stimulated.

Asked to explain the program of this piece, Strauss declined, insisting: “There is no need of a program. It is enough to know that there is a hero, fighting his enemies.” Of course there was a program of some sort, even if Strauss never tipped his hand about it, and commentators have spilled much ink speculating about the details of this huge score.

JAMES M. KELLER James M. Keller is the long-time Program Annotator of the New York hilharmonic (where he holds The Leni and Peter May Chair) and the San Francisco Symphony. His book Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press) is now available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book formats.

In earlier forms, the note on Strauss’ Emperor Waltz appeared in the programs of the Edinburgh International Festival (© James M. Keller) and the Liszt and Richard Strauss notes in the programs of the New York Philharmonic (© New York Philharmonic).

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Leaping to the Defense In 1924, the musicologist and early Strauss biographer Richard Specht penned an analytical foreword for a new edition of Ein Heldenleben published by the distinguished Eulenberg firm. At that time the work was resisting the popular acclaim that had been bestowed on others of Strauss’ tone poems. “This defiant confession and portrait of himself in the form of a symphony,” wrote Specht, “this satire on his opponents, this musical autobiography is even now, next to [his] Don Quixote, the least understood work of the composer.”

He continued: It is not quite easy to understand why this should be so, for the themes in the Heldenleben are more impressive, the whole composition more concise in form, the fundamental “Eroica” idea easier to grasp than any of Strauss’ earlier compositions for orchestra. … Is it because it is so personal that this work has been so absurdly misunderstood? As if Strauss had not, just in this composition, got into closer touch with the traditional symphony than in those other works in which he has symphonically characterized some romantic or mythical personality with all his singularities, and as if Strauss’ own personality were less fascinating and important than that of Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan, yes even of Coriolanus or Egmont. … Of all Strauss’ symphonies, there is none more classical in its glorious themes, none more closely knit together in the unity of its six movements welded into a single movement, none that is bolder in its heroic loftiness, or more touching in its final serene resignation, than this symphonic reflection of himself and his life’s adventure, which in conscious pride he has called “A Hero’s Life.” … The time when it is duly appreciated and loved will surely come. Be that as it may; as a musical document, as a symphonic autobiography, as a vindication of himself towards his fellow creatures, and as an expression of conscious pride and knowledge of his own worth which with the inner conviction of a noble man he impresses on the envious and indifferent, it will always retain its value. It is a free confession of a free man, and as a symphony a masterpiece.

—JMK

DANCE OF THE SEASONS June 1, 2019 8:00 P.M.

CLASSICS MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR SUNDAY, MAY 5TH, 2019

GREGORY LEE, VIOLIN ALEXANDER MICKELTHWATE, CONDUCTOR

VIVALDI ...... Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons)*

Play with the Pros

Play with the Pros offers amateur musicians in the community, ages 25 and older, the opportunity to experience life as a professional musician, with a rehearsal alongside OKC Phil musicians at the Civic Center Music Hall. Conductor, Thomas Taylor Dickey, will lead musicians through a reading session of classical, symphonic repertoire. There will also be a break in which participants can enjoy socializing with members of the OKC Phil. Space for this free experience is limited, be sure to preregister.

Concerto in E major, Op. 8, No. 1, La primavera (Spring)

Concerto in G minor, Op. 8, No. 2, L’estate (Summer)

Allegro non molto Adagio Presto

Concerto in F major, Op. 8, No. 3, L’autunno (Autumn)

Allegro Largo Allegro

Allegro Adagio molto Allegro

Concerto in F minor, Op. 8, No. 4, L’inverno (Winter)

Allegro non molto Largo Allegro

Gregory Lee, violin

INTERMISSION

BRAHMS ..... Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

Un poco sostenuto—Allegro Andante sostenuto Un poco allegretto e grazioso Adagio—Più andante—Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

*First performance on this series

THIS CONCERT IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY:

Text CLASSICS to 95577 to stay up to date on the latest Philharmonic info.

Listen to a broadcast of this performance on KUCO 90.1 FM on Wednesday, June 26 at 8 pm and Saturday, June 29 at 8 am on “Performance Oklahoma”. Simultaneous internet streaming is also available during the broadcast.

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DR. GREGORY LEE An outstanding violinist with virtuosic brilliance, Gregory Lee is currently Associate Professor of Violin at the University of Oklahoma and Concertmaster of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Dr. Lee holds a degree from The Juilliard School where he studied with the renowned pedagogue Dorothy DeLay. Later, Lee studied with Paul Kantor at the University of Michigan, where he received his Doctorate.

The Sydney-born violinist started his music study at Queensland Conservatorium of Music at age of 11, where he studied with Kerry Smith and later with Carmel Kaine, who was a Galamian-taught pedagogue.

During his time in Los Angeles, he was a regular member of the Pacific Symphony and Long Beach Symphony Orchestras. In addition, he also worked with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, California Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and Australian Chamber Orchestra. He has also recorded for many Hollywood motion pictures scores at 20th Century Fox, Sony/MGM, Warner Bros, Paramount and Capital Records.

Lee’s concerto performances include the Bach “Double” Violin Concerto with violinist Cho-Liang Lin, concertos by Dvorak, Paganini, Wieniawski, Beethoven Triple, Tchaikovsky and Bruch with various orchestras. He has also appeared on ABC’s “Sunday Live” live radio broadcast in Brisbane

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Australia. His success in competitions include the Special Jury Commendation Award of Michael Hill International Violin Competition and winner of the Geelong Advertiser Instrumental competition.

Lee’s pedagogical influence comes from a combination of Dorothy Delay and Ivan Galamian. He spent three years teaching at Tunghai University before coming to Oklahoma.

Students of Dr. Lee have been accepted to prestigious schools such as The Curtis Institute of Music, University of Michigan, Rice University and Boston University. Lee’s summer activities have included teaching at the Wyoming Seminary Performing Arts Institute and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.

Dr. Lee regularly performs with the Oklahoma Chamber Players, Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble, the Holmberg String Quartet, and has been featured as a soloist with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

He has given recitals and masterclasses at the University of Iowa, University of North Texas, Arizona State University, University of Kansas, Wichita State University, University of Texas in Arlington, Renmin University in Beijing, Shanghai Conservatory and many campuses and concert halls around Taiwan.

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Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) Antonio Vivaldi First Performance on this Series Born: March 4, 1678, in Venice, Italy Died: July 27 or 28, 1741, in Vienna, Austria Work composed: ca. 1715; it was published in 1725 Work premiered: Not known Instrumentation: String orchestra and basso continuo (here consisting of harpsichord CK, cello CK, and double bass CK), in addition to the solo violin

Antonio Vivaldi’s musical output was enormous. Twenty-one of his 56 operas survive, as do dozens of cantatas and motets.

Nonetheless, it is as a composer of instrumental music that he made his most enduring mark. He penned more than 500 concertos spotlighting one or more players; most are for violin, but the rest feature an astonishing variety of instruments.

Some of these he devised for the musically adventurous young ladies of the Ospedale della Pietà, the most musical of Venice’s foundling institutions, where he taught music on and off over a period of nearly four decades, beginning in 1703.

Others he crafted for his own use as a violin virtuoso, and some he wrote for patrons in Italy or in lands to the north.

His group of four violin concertos popularly known as The Four Seasons represents the intersection of these last two types. He doubtless wrote it to reflect his own technical facility, but it was also destined for a distant patron, in this case the Bohemian Count Wenzel von Morzin, whom he served in absentia for many years as “Music Master in

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Italy.” These are the first four concertos in a collection of 12, published in Amsterdam as Vivaldi’s Op. 8, the entire collection being presented under the title Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (The Trial of Harmony and Invention) and bearing an ornate letter of dedication to the Count. “Pray do not be surprised,” he writes, “if, among these few and feeble concertos, Your Most Illustrious Lordship finds the Four Seasons which have so long enjoyed the indulgence of Your Most Illustrious Lordship’s kind generosity.” Those four concertos were clearly not new when they were published; the Count would have known them from manuscript copies Vivaldi had sent previously. The composer continues by noting that he has updated them by adding “sonnets, a very clear statement of all the things that unfold in them, so that I am sure they will appear new to you.”

It seems clear that the music came first and the sonnets later.

As literary specimens of Italian Baroque sonnets, they are not very impressive. That, combined with the fact that they display some linguistic usages that point to Venetian dialect, suggests that Vivaldi may have written them himself. Even without the sonnets attached, it would have been evident that the four concertos were illustrative, since their character changes markedly, often many times within an individual movement. The sonnets unquestionably provide the key to interpreting their “program.” In the original edition, they appear at the beginning of the solo violin part, and lines from them are also interlaced within the musical notation to show exactly which poetic descriptions relate to which musical phrases. The musical score even adds a few extra bits of explanatory text to impart yet greater specificity. In the Autumn concerto, for example, the sonetto dimostrativo (explanatory sonnet) reveals that the first movement has to do with peasants celebrating the harvest, and that “fired up by Bacchus’ liquor, / many end their revelry in sleep.” In the musical part, the spirited first movement is interrupted a couple of times by “staggering” music—lurching arpeggios and sweeping scales, and then by a passage that slows down almost to a halt; at both points, Vivaldi bluntly inserts the indication l’ubriaco (the drunkard).

Vivaldi had already gained renowned through four earlier collections of concerti grossi, all published in Amsterdam— particularly his Op. 3, titled L’estro armonico (Harmonic Inspiration), which appeared in 1711. While Op. 3 seems to have been composed as a collection and arranged according to a carefully determined key scheme, Op. 8 appears to be a selection of pre-existing pieces grouped together in looser fashion, at least following the first four concertos, which obviously stand as a unit. The Four Seasons became hugely popular as soon as they were published, particularly in France. They became fixtures of Parisian concert life and their music was even adapted for other settings, such as Michel Corrette’s 1765 motet Laudate dominum, which bizarrely assigns a Psalm text to the Spring concerto.

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Illustrative Sonnets The sonnets that accompany each of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos provide such a precise guide that listeners may want to consider them inseparable from the music. The images in the poems follow the contours of the score practically point for point. To help listeners align the two, we have inserted Vivaldi’s movement headings at the appropriate point of each text, although in the original edition the poems are printed straight-on.

Spring [Allegro] Springtime is upon us.

The birds celebrate her return with festive song, and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.

Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven, Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

[Largo] On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

[Allegro] Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.

Summer [Allegro non molto] Under a hard Season, fired up by the Sun Languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine We hear the cuckoo’s voice; then sweet songs of the turtledove and finch are heard.

Soft breezes stir the air, but threatening the North Wind sweeps them suddenly aside.

The shepherd trembles, fearing violent storms and his fate.

[Adagio] The fear of lightning and fierce thunder Robs his tired limbs of rest As gnats and flies buzz furiously around.

[Presto] Alas, his fears were justified The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail Cut the head off the wheat and damages the grain.

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Autumn [Allegro] Celebrates the peasant, with songs and dances, The pleasure of a bountiful harvest.

And fired up by Bacchus’ liquor, many end their revelry in sleep.

[Adagio molto] Everyone is made to forget their cares and to sing and dance By the air which is tempered with pleasure And (by) the season that invites so many, many Out of their sweetest slumber to fine enjoyment [Allegro] The hunters emerge at the new dawn, And with horns and dogs and guns depart upon their hunting The beast flees and they follow its trail; Terrified and tired of the great noise Of guns and dogs, the beast, wounded, threatens Languidly to flee, but harried, dies.

Winter [Allegro non molto] To tremble from cold in the icy snow, In the harsh breath of a horrid wind; To run, stamping one’s feet every moment, Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold [Largo] Before the fire to pass peaceful, Contented days while the rain outside pours down.

[Allegro] We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling.

Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.

We feel the chill north winds course through the home despite the locked and bolted doors... this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.

—JMK

PROGRAM NOTES Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 Johannes Brahms First Performance: 3/14/1938 Conductor: Ralph Rose Last Performance: 3/2/2013 Conductor: Joel Levine Born: May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany Died: April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria Work composed: On and off for about 14 years beginning in 1862; provisionally completed in September 1876 but revised substantially prior to its publication in 1877 Work premiered: November 4, 1876, in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany, with Otto Dessoff conducting the Grossherzogliche Hofkapelle Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and string

and the themes are treated with a mastery that is becoming more and more characteristic of him. It is all interwoven in such an interesting way, and yet it moves forward with such momentum that it might have been poured forth in its entirety in the first flush of inspiration.” She then jotted a musical example—essentially the spot where the main section of the first movement begins (Allegro) following the slower introduction. Calling the opening “rather strong” is surely an understatement. That first movement’s introduction is one of the most astonishing preludes in the entire symphonic literature, with throbbing timpani underpinning the orchestra’s taut phrases—a texture that seizes the listener’s attention and remains engraved in the memory.

Word got around that Brahms was working on a symphony, and he found himself having to deflect inquiries about his progress, most pointedly from his eager publisher, Fritz Simrock. Eleven years later, Simrock wrote a beseeching letter to the composer: “Aren’t you doing anything any more?

Am I not to have a symphony from you in ’73 either?” No, he was not—nor in ’74 or ’75 either. Not until 1876 would Brahms finally sign off on his First Symphony, at least provisionally, since he would revise it further prior to its publication the following year. He was 43 years old and had been struggling with the piece on and off for 14 years.

“My symphony is long and not particularly lovable,” wrote Brahms to his fellow composer Carl Reinecke when this piece was unveiled. He was right about it being long, at least when compared to other “typical” symphonies of his era. He was probably also right about it not being particularly lovable.

Even the warmth of the second movement and the geniality of the third are interrupted by passages of anxiety, and the outer movements are designed to impress rather than to charm. Brahms’ First is a big, burly symphony, certainly when compared to his next one. It is probably no more “lovable” than Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, Shakespeare’s King Lear, or Goethe’s Faust.

“I shall never write a symphony!” Brahms famously declared in 1872 to the conductor Hermann Levi. “You can’t have any idea what it’s like to hear such a giant marching behind you.”

The giant was Beethoven, of course, and although his music provided essential inspiration for Brahms, it also set such a high standard that the younger composer found it easy to discount his own creations as negligible in comparison.

Nonetheless, the young Brahms proved relentless in confronting his compositional demons. Rather than lead to a creative block, his self-criticism pushed him to forge ahead even when his eventual path seemed obscure. He drafted the first movement of this symphony in 1862 and shared it with his friend Clara Schumann. She copied out the opening and sent it along to their colleague Joseph Joachim (the violinist), with this comment: “That is rather strong, for sure, but I have grown used to it. The movement is full of wonderful beauties,

The symphony’s “purpose” is essentially articulated in its outer movements; against these, the second and third movements stand as a two-part intermezzo, throwing the weighty proceedings that surround them into higher relief. The four movements proceed according to a key arrangement of ascending thirds (remembering that A-flat is the enharmonic equivalent of G-sharp): the first movement in C minor, the second in E major, the third in A-flat major, and the finale in C minor again. In this regard we find that Brahms was decidedly not following any model he could have found in Beethoven’s symphonies, which for the most part still operated according to the harmonic relationships of the Classical era—relationships that tended to set movements at the degree of a fourth or fifth away from the work’s over-riding tonic key. In contrast, Brahms here explores an architecture based on thirds-relationships that increasingly interested composers as the 19th century progressed, an evolution in harmonic practice that would shortly lead to radical, new stances about the nature of tonality itself.

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Listen For: A Bow to Beethoven Even at the first hearing of Brahms’ First Symphony, informed listeners could not have overlooked how deeply beholden Brahms really was to Beethoven. Any symphony that begins in C minor and, following considerable struggle, concludes in C major invites comparison with Beethoven’s Fifth. Brahms almost never used slow introductions, preferring instead to jump right into the fray: yet, here he begins both his first and last movements with exordia that cement his place in the Beethoven tradition. And when people leapt to point out how the main tune of Brahms’ finale resembled the corresponding theme in Beethoven’s Ninth, Brahms responded, “Any ass can see that.”

Surely he did not evoke Beethoven merely to be provocative.

The late scholar Reinhold Brinkmann argued that, in alluding to Beethoven’s famous choral finale, but now in a strictly instrumental symphony, Brahms took back the implications of his model, restoring the tradition of the Beethovenian symphony to a purely instrumental world of expression —JMK

James M. Keller is the long-time Program Annotator of the New York hilharmonic (where he holds The Leni and Peter May Chair) and the San Francisco Symphony. His book Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press) is now available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book formats.

These notes previously appeared in the program books of the New York Philharmonic and are used with permission; © New York Philharmonic..

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Associate $1,250 - $1,749 Anonymous Mrs. Mary Louise Adams Virginia and Albert Aguilar Mr. and Mrs. Louis Almaraz Mr. Barry Anderson Mr. J. Edward Barth Dr. and Mrs. William L. Beasley Mr. and Mrs. William Beck Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Benham Nick and Betsy Berry Lori Dickinson Black and Robert Black Ms. Pamela Bloustine MAJ. GEN. William P. Bowden, Rt. Mr. and Mrs. Gary W. Bowker Mr. and Mrs. Del Boyles Carole S. Broughton Mr. Fred Brown Phil and Cathy Busey J. Christopher and Ruth Carey Ms. Janice B. Carmack Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Chambers Mrs. Anita Clark-Ashley and Mr. Charles Ashley Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Clements Rodney Coate and Juan Camarena Mr. and Mrs. Jack H. Coleman Dr. Thomas Coniglione Ms. Barbara Cooper Mr. Chuck Darr Mr. and Mrs. Mike Darrah Mr. David Daugherty Mr. and Mrs. Charles T. Davis Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Dearmon Gary and Fran Derrick Mr. Joel Dixon Mary Ann Doolen Mr. and Mrs. Joe Edwards Nancy Payne Ellis Janice Estes Dr. and Mrs. Royice B. Everett Mr. and Mrs. Gerald L. Gamble Mrs. Linda Gardner Mr. and Mrs. Kelly George Drs. Stephen and Pamela Hamilton Mr. and Mrs. Royce M. Hammons Brent Hart and Matt Thomas Walt and Jean Hendrickson Mr. and Mrs. John D. Higginbotham Mr. and Mrs. Joe R. Homsey, Jr.

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Thomas and Elizabeth Hrubik Mr. and Mrs. J. Clifford Hudson Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Johnson Mr. Dan Kennedy and Dr. Diana Kennedy Mrs. Lou Kerr Ms. Claren Kidd Debra and Kristian Kos Mr. and Mrs. Brad Krieger Dr. and Mrs. H. T. Kurkjian Scott Davis and David Leader Dr. and Mrs. Jay E. Leemaster Drs. Jason and Julie Lees Barbara Masters, M.D. Mr. and Mrs. William Matthey Mr. and Mrs. John A. McCaleb Cindy and Johnny McCharen Mr. and Mrs. Tom J. McDaniel Mr. Jeffrey McDougall Mrs. Debra McKinney John and Celestine McKnight John and Anna McMillin Mr. and Mrs. K. T. Meade, Jr. Mrs. Deann Merritt Parham Mrs. Sandra Meyers Tom and Katherine Milam Chip and Michelle Mullens Dr. and Mrs. Gene L. Muse Dr. O’Tar and Elissa Norwood Mr. J. Edward Oliver Mr. Chip Oppenheim Mrs. Barbara Pirrong Mr. Larry Reed Ernesto and Lin Sanchez Dr. and Mrs. Hal Scofield Janet and Frank Seay Mr. and Mrs. John M. Seward Mr. and Mrs. William F. Shdeed Sharon and John Shelton Robert and Susan Shoemaker Mr. and Mrs. Jerrod Shouse Drs. Paul and Amalia Silverstein Dr. Richard V. and Jan Smith Rick and Amanda Smith Mr. and Mrs. John S. Spaid Sr. Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Starling Bill Stewart Rob Teel Joseph and Theresa Thai Mr. and Mrs. Frederick K. Thompson Ms. Betsy Timken Robert Varnum and Sharon Varnum, LCSW Tony Vaughn

Mr. Robert Weiss Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth K. Wert Larry L. and Leah A. Westmoreland Mrs. Carol F. Williams Mr. John S. Williams Mrs. Martha V. Williams Larry and Paula Willis Robert and Lorraine Wilson John and Linda Withner M. Blake and Nancy Yaffe Mr. and Mrs. Ron Youtseyffe

Friend $750 - $1,249 Anonymous Hugh G. and Sharon Adams Zonia Armstrong Tom and Fran Ayres Mr. and Mrs. Van A. Barber J. M. Belanger and Sarah Sagran Jackie and Jerry Bendorf Bart Binning Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Blumstein Carole and Deal Bowman Mr. and Mrs. Bob G. Bunce Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Calvert Mr. and Mrs. Earl J. Cheek Drs. Fong Chen and Helen Chiou Joseph and Valerie Couch Mrs. Patricia Czerwinski Tony and Pam Dela Vega Richard and Cindy Dugger Dr. Thurma J. Fiegel John and Sue Francis Brenda Freeman Dr. and Mrs. Ralph G. Ganick Melvin and Bobbie Gragg Mr. and Mrs. Nick S. Gutierrez, Jr. ,M.D. J. Mark and Ruth E. Harder Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence K. Hellman Frank and Bette Jo Hill Terry and Betty Hollrah Julia and Dick Hunt Colonel (ret.) Dean and Mrs. Jeanne Jackson Mr. and Mrs. David R. Johnson Mr. and Mrs. L.J. Johnson Mr. and Mrs. Drake Keith Ms. Mary Jane Lawson Mr. and Mrs. Paul Lindsey Brad and Janet Marion

Anita R. May Ronald T. and Linda Rosser McDaniel Ms. Vickie McIlvoy Ronald L. and D. Yvonne Mercer Richard and Gayle Parry Dr. and Mrs. William L. Parry Donita and Curtis Phillips Mr. and Mrs. Ray H. Potts Mr. and Mrs. Lynn Pringle Gary and Tommie Rankin Carl and Deborah Rubenstein Mr. and Mrs. John Santore Dr. and Mrs. Olaseinde Sawyerr Mary Sherman Mr. Frank J. Sonleitner Judith Clouse Steelman Jim and Debbie Stelter Dr. and Mrs. James B. Stewart, Jr. Paula and Carl Stover Mrs. Marilyn Summers Donita and Larry Thomas Dale Toetz and Charlotte Gibbens Mr. Phillip S. Tomlinson Mrs. Donna Vogel Denver and Yvonne Woolsey Jim and June Young Mr. and Mrs. Don T. Zachritz Linda and Mike Zeeck

Partner $300 - $749 Dr. Gillian Air Ms. Mary Allred John and Nancy Alsup Arden Barrett Ms. Sherry K. Barton Mr. and Mrs. David G. Bryant Mr. and Mrs. F. M. Buxton Mrs. Jo Carol Cameron Nancy Coats-Ashley Carol Combs Ms. Betty Crow Dr. Madeleine W. Cunningham Dr. Shirley E. Dearborn Brandon Downey Ms. Melinda Finley Mrs. Betty Foster Mr. George R. Francis, Jr. Joe and Tjuana Gilliland Mr. and Mrs. Keith G. Golden John and Judy Gorton

Mr. Herbert M. Graves David and Marilyn Henderson Judy Hill Lois and Roger Hornbrook Mrs. Lily R. Hummel K. Robert and Juanita Johansen Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Johnson Mr. and Mrs. Alfred H. Karchmer Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth T. Lease Ms. Allison Matoi Mr. Joe A. McKenzie Monireh Mohamadi Dorman and Sheryl Morsman Gary and Deborah Myers Rudi Nollert and Mary Brodnax The O.K. Detrick Foundation Fund Mike and Cathy Perri Dr. and Mrs. Laurance Reid Shirley and Ben Shanker Mr. Lee Allan Smith Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Specht Ms. Susan Sutter Mrs. Evelyn Margaret Tidholm Mr. and Mrs. Sammy Todd Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Towell Mr. Curtis VanWyngarden Albert and Elaine Weise John and Cheryl White Jim and Polly Worthington

Member $100 - $299 Mrs. Joan Allmaras Ms. Beth M. Alonso Mr. David Andres Judy Austin Mrs. Patricia Austin Mr. Paul D. Austin and Jane Ford Austin Judy Barnett Ms. MarEllen Benson Morris and Linda Blumenthal Ann Borden Dr. and Mrs. Harry Boyd Rev. Thomas Boyer John D. Bradley Joan Bryant James Burns Elizabeth and Richard Buschelman Vikki Ann Canfield, M.D. Ms. Kathryn Carey Terry and Linda Carr

Dr. and Mrs. Don R. Carter Mr. Michael P. Cassidy Ms. Henrie Close Ms. Susan Coatney Ms. Rosemarie Coulter Ms. Carol A. Davito Diane and Ken Dragg Mr. W. Samuel Dykeman David Eaton Richard and Marilyn Ehlers Ms. Elizabeth K. Eickman Dr. and Mrs. Robert Epstein and Scott Epstein Mrs. Barbara L. Eskridge Mr. and Mrs. John E. Frank Stephen P. and Nancy R. Friot Mr. and Mrs. Robert Garbrecht Barry and Gay Golsen Mr. Steven Graham and Ms. Vicky Leloie Kelly LTC and Mrs. Walter A. Greenwood Bob Gregory Mr. and Mrs. Barre Griffith Dr. and Mrs. John E. Grunow Mr. and Mrs. John Gunter Pat Hackler Mrs. Diane Haser-Bennett and Mr. Ray Bennett Ms. Zoe Haskins Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Herriage Charles and Joyce Hladik Carol and George Hoebing Mr. Jerome A. Holmes Dr. Sonja J. Hughes, M.D. Nasrin Jalilvand Ms. Mary Lu Jarvis Jann Jeffrey Mrs. Janice C. Jenkins Judy and Jerry Johnson Mr. Richard Johnson Edwina Johnston Ms. Young Y. Kim Edith and Michael Laird Mr. Robert Leveridge David and Lynne Levy Bob and Kay Lewis Diane Lewis Ms. Hilda Lewis Rosemary and Paul Lewis Charles Lodge Roy and Sharon Love

CONTINUED ON PAGE 66

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GIFTS TO THE PHILHARMONIC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 65

INDIVIDUALS Providing essential support for the Annual Fund.

Robert Lynn Mrs. Patricia Matthews Mrs. M. Geraldine Mayes Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth R. McAlister Ms. Carol McCoy, Ph.D. Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. McKown Ms. Ann McVey Terry L. Mock Judy and Wes Morrison Ms. Sylvia Ochs Larry and Deanna Pendleton Michael and Ginger Penn Robert and Karen Petry Dr. and Mrs. Marvin D. Peyton Kent and Susan Pinson Mr. William Powell Ms. Jan Prestwood Roger and Joy Quinn Mr. and Mrs. Ray Reaves Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon M. Reznik Tom and Fran Roach Dr. and Mrs. Michael Fred Robinson James and Sherry Rowan Mr. Arthur J. Rus Gary and Carol Sander Hank and Anne Schank Gayle Scheirman Ms. Geraldine Schoelen Dr. and Mrs. Richard Shough Mr. and Mrs. R. Emery Smiser Tom and Venita Springfield Ms. Kathleen Starrett Mrs. Joyce Statton Jonathan and Andrea Stone Reta and Richard Strubhar Ms. Xiao-Hong Sun and Mr. Xiaocong Peng Greg Taber David and Peggy Tanner Paul Thomason Jan and Paul Tisdal LTC Ret. and Mrs. George B. Wallace Ms. Cheryl Weintraub Mr. and Mrs. Ted Wernick Mr. Phillip Whaley David Williams Ms. Ghita Williams Wendi and Curtis Wilson Ruth and Stanley Youngheim Rachel and Leon Zelby Helene Zemel

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SPECIAL GIFTS TO THE PHILHARMONIC Honor loved ones, celebrate occasions, recognize achievements and support the Philharmonic’s mission.

In Memory of Charles “Charlie” Ashley Nancy Coats-Ashley

In Memory of James O. Edwards, Jr. Mrs. Carlene Edwards

In Honor of Candy Barnard Kim and Michael Joseph

In Memory of Jack Gunter Colonel (ret.) Dean and Mrs. Jeanne Jackson

In Memory of Robert H. Brady Judy and Jerry Johnson

In Memory of Rubye M. Hall Suzette Hardeman

In Memory of Jackson Cash Pam and Gary Glyckherr Joe Howell and Jennifer Owens

In Honor of Joel Levine Judy Austin Nancy Payne Ellis Kim and Michael Joseph

In Memory of William B. and Helen P. Cleary Steven C. Agee, Ph.D. Marilyn and Bill Boettger Louise Churchill Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Evans, II In Honor of Louise Cleary Churchill Kim and Michael Joseph In Memory of Douglas Cummings Mr. and Mrs. Patrick B. Alexander In Memory of Sam Decker Colonel (ret.) Dean and Mrs. Jeanne Jackson

In Honor of Philharmonic Musicians and Staff Matthew Troy In Memory of Kenneth A. Nash Elizabeth Roewe In Memory of William and Jessie Bruce Pequignot Kim and Michael Joseph In Memory of Grace Ryan Marilyn and Bill Boettger In Memory of Dr. Kenneth Tucker Mrs. June Tucker

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THANK YOU

Endowment Campaign Donors In celebration and in honor of Maestro Joel Levine and the founders of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

Louise C. Churchill In Memory of Bill Cleary Lawrence H. and Ronna C. Davis The Estate of Lois Marie Fees The Kirkpatrick Family Fund Joel Levine Michael and Catherine Reaves Susan Robinson Glenna and Dick Tanenbaum Ms. Barbara Crabtree The Payne Family Mrs. Josephine Freede Pam and Gary Glyckherr In Memory of Jackson Cash Lamb Jane B. Harlow Kim and Michael Joseph Doug and Susie Stussi Dr. and Mrs. Dewayne Andrews Anonymous In Honor of June H. Parry Mr. J. Edward Barth Valerie and Joe Couch Molly and Jim Crawley David and Jan DeLana Annie Moreau, M.D. Mr. William G. Paul Presbyterian Health Foundation Leah and Larry Westmoreland Anne W. Workman Mr. and Mrs. Don T. Zachritz Karen Beckman Linda and Morris Blumenthal Jo Carol Cameron Ms. Janice B. Carmack Shirley E. Dearborn, M.D. Gwen Decassios

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Charles and Dorothy Ellis John and Sue Francis Stephen P. and Nancy R. Friot Ms. Joan Gilmore Jerry H. and Judy Johnson L. M. Johnston, Ph.D. The Kerr Foundation, Inc. Gerry Mayes Ronald T. and Linda Rosser McDaniel Mr. and Mrs. Michael R. Perri Dr. and Mrs. Marvin D. Peyton Gary and Carol Sander John W. and Rose Steele Mrs. Dorothy J. Turk Dr. Don and Eleanor Whitsett Anonymous Dr. and Mrs. John C. Andrus Norwood Beveridge Carla Borgersen In Honor of Maestro Joel Levine Mr. and Mrs. Bob G. Bunce Dr. and Mrs. Don R. Carter Ms. Martha A. Custer Mr. and Mrs. Sam Decker Sarah Jane Gillett In Memory of Ken McKinney Julie and Dick Hunt Colonel (ret.) Dean and Mrs. Jeanne Jackson Patricia Matthews Ms. Carol McCoy Cheryl Moore Judy and Wes Morrison Michael and Ginger Penn Ms. Margaret L. Price Tommie and Gary Rankin Dean Rinehart Janice and Lee Segell Cindy Solomon Tom and Venita Springfield K. Kay Stewart Paula and Carl Stover Dorothy and Udho Thadani

HOUSE NOTES

RESTROOMS are conveniently located on all levels of the theater. Please ask your usher for guidance.

LATECOMERS and those who exit the theater during the performance will be seated at intermission or during the first convenient pause as determined by the management.

ELECTRONIC DEVICES must be turned off and put away during the performance (no calling, texting, photo or video use please).

FOOD AND BEVERAGES: Bottled water is permitted in the theater at the Classics Series concerts. Beverages are permitted in the theater at the Pops Series concerts; however, bringing coffee into the theater is discouraged due to the aroma.

Snacks, drinks and desserts are available at the Civic Center Café on the main floor and snack areas located on floors 1-4.

SMOKING in the Civic Center Music Hall is prohibited. The Oklahoma City Philharmonic promotes a fragrance-free environment for the convenience of our patrons.

FIRE EXITS are located on all levels and marked accordingly. Please note the nearest exit for use in case of an emergency.

ELEVATORS are located at the south end of the atrium of the Civic Center Music Hall.

CHILDREN of all ages are welcome at the Philharmonic Discovery Family Series and Holiday Pops performances; however, in consideration of the patrons, musicians and artists, those under five years of age will not be admitted to evening Classics and Pops concerts unless otherwise noted.

BOOSTER SEATS for children are available in the Civic Center event office. Please inquire at the Box Office.

STUDENT RUSH TICKETS are $6 each and available with a high school or university I.D. and email address at the Box Office 45 minutes prior to the start of each Philharmonic performance. Tickets are offered based on availability only and seats may be located throughout the theater.

VIDEO MONITORS are located in the lobby for your convenience.

WHEELCHAIR AVAILABLE SEATING – Persons using wheelchairs or with walking and climbing difficulties will be accommodated when possible. Those wishing to use the designated wheelchair sections may purchase the wheelchair space and a companion seat. Please inform the Philharmonic or Civic Center Box Office staff of your need when ordering tickets so that you may be served promptly and appropriately. Please request the assistance of hall ushers to access wheelchair seating.

HEARING LOOPS have been installed. Ask your audiologist to activate the telecoil in your hearing aid or cochlear implant.

Due to the mechanics of the stage, the hearing loops do not reach the pit section but are available at concession stands, the Box Office and the Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre. The copper wire in the floor and telecoil work together to connect the hearing device to the theater’s sound system using a magnetic field which dramatically improves sound clarity for patrons using hearing devices.

LOST & FOUND is located in the Civic Center office (405-297-2584) weekdays 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

PHILHARMONIC TICKET OFFICE may be contacted by calling 405-TIC-KETS (405-842-5387) or you can visit the Philharmonic Ticket Office located on the first floor of the Arts District Garage at 424 Colcord Drive in Suite B. The Philharmonic Ticket Office is open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and by phone on concert Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

CIVIC CENTER BOX OFFICE hours are Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and two hours prior to each performance. (405-297-2264) Artists and Programming Subject to Change.

MIDTOWN 432 N.W. 10th Street (E. of St. Anthony Hospital) (405) 602-6333

MOORE 1611 South I-35 Service Rd. (S.of Warren Theater) (405) 794-3474