Menuhin Competition Richmond 2021: Celebration Concert Playbill

Competition Richmond 2021 Celebration Concert May 14 & 15, 2021

..

1( 1'' Ji�

Conductor

JAHJA LING, CONDUCTOR Known for his musical integrity, intensity and expressivity, Jahja Ling is universally recognized as a conductor who has rebuilt San Diego Symphony Orchestra into a major orchestra after serving as its music director for 13 seasons, culminating in their first and historical sold out performance at Carnegie Hall and its first international tour to China.

Jahja Ling has a continuous long-standing 35-year relationship with The Cleveland Orchestra. Deeply committed to education, he served as founding Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and Director of Tanglewood/BU Young Artists Orchestra.

Mr. Ling has conducted all major symphony orchestras in the US including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. He made his European debut conducting Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and subsequently conducted many prominent orchestras in 4 continents. Previous positions include Music Director of The Florida Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Taiwan Philharmonic/NSO.

Guest Artist

A NGE L O X I A N G Y U , V I O L I N Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu, recipient of both a 2019 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2019 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, as well as Senior 1st Prize in the 2010 Menuhin Competition, has won consistent critical acclaim and enthusiastic audience response worldwide for his astonishing technique and exceptional musical maturity.

Angelo recently appeared with a number of major orchestras in North America, including San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Toronto, Vancouver, Houston, Colorado, North Carolina, San Antonio, and Charlotte Symphonies. Internationally, he has appeared with the New Zealand Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Norwegian Radio, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and the Oslo Philharmonic.

An active recitalist and chamber musician, he has performed in world-renowned venues such as the Konzerthaus Berlin, Louvre Museum in Paris, National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Victoria Theater in Singapore, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall, Oslo Opera House, Auckland Town Hall, Alice Tully Hall in New York, and Boston Symphony Hall. Angelo is also a frequent guest at major summer music festivals including Ravinia, Verbier, Grant Park, Bergen, Menlo, Sarasota, and Aspen Festivals.

Angelo currently resides in Boston. He performs on the 1715 “Joachim” Stradivarius violin, generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

Program

Richmond Symphony Jahja Ling (conductor) Angelo Xiang Yu (violin) *

Mozart Overture to Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492 Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216 * I. Allegro

Menuhin Competition Celebration Concert Friday May 14 | 7:00pm Saturday May 15 | 8:00pm Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Energy Center for the Performing Arts

II. Adagio III. Rondeau: Allegro Jessie Montgomery Starburst Mason Bates Bound Away (World Premiere) * Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 I. Poco sostenuto—Vivace II. Allegretto III. Presto—Assai meno presto IV. Allegro con brio

The opening Menuhin Competition Celebration Concert kicks off Richmond 2021 in spectacular fashion, featuring the Richmond Symphony with Angelo Xiang Yu, 2021 juror and winner of the Oslo 2010 Senior 1st Prize, and conducted by Jahja Ling. In addition to masterworks by Mozart and Beethoven, and a recent favorite by US composer Jessie Montgomery, this concert also features the world premiere of Richmond composer Mason Bates’ Bound Away, commissioned by the Richmond Symphony for the Menuhin Competition, and will also be performed later in the Competition by the Junior finalists.

Program It started as a politically revolutionary play by a French writer about servants getting even with their overlords. In the version Mozart composed in 1786, The Marriage of Figaro became a comic opera of Shakespearean scope and humanity.

With its bubbling, joyous excitement, the madly percolating Overture anticipates the plot’s bewildering twists and turns.

The opera comes from Mozart’s Vienna years, when he was shaping the genre of the piano concerto as we know it. But when he was only 19 and still in his native Salzburg, he made a creative leap with the 1775 G Major Violin Concerto.

Following the cheerful first movement, the beatific Adagio (an unusual tempo for this composer) brings to mind Yehudi Menuhin’s observation: “There is no affectation and hypocrisy in Mozart.” The rondo finale includes an innovative “Easter egg” episode that slows down to present a folk tune of the day.

Like Mozart, Jessie Montgomery has drawn inventively on folk music and politically engaged impulses. Starburst, commissioned by the Sphinx Organization in 2012, takes its name from “the rapid formation of large numbers of new stars in a galaxy at a rate high enough to alter the structure of the galaxy significantly” — a phenomenon she compares to the Sphinx Virtuosi. The brief piece unfolds, according to Montgomery, as “a play on imagery of rapidly changing musical colors.”

The charming folk tune Mozart quotes in his concerto likely started as a dance but becomes something more in its new orchestral/soloist context. Beethoven transformed the dance impulse into the driving force for one of his most original symphonies. He completed it in 1812, and the premiere was given at a benefit concert for victims of one of the major battles against Napoleon. Throughout each movement of this work, Beethoven focuses on obsessively repetitive rhythms; these are combined with other primal elements, such as scales, simple chords, and folk-like drones. Yet with these Beethoven builds an architecture that is epic in proportion. A sense of exhilarating power predominates in the Seventh — as in the whiplashing fury of the finale, which convinced some of his contemporaries that Beethoven was losing his mind.

Orchestra Richmond Symphony Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia.

The organization includes an orchestra of more than 70 professional musicians, the 200-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus and more than 260 students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra programs. Each season, more than 200,000 members of the community enjoy concerts, radio broadcasts, and educational outreach programs.

For over 60 years, the Richmond Symphony has been a stalwart leader in the City’s positive growth and key contributor to increasing the quality of life for its citizens. In recent history, it has garnered wide attention not only for offering outstanding performances, but also for being a national leader in the areas of community engagement and accessibility. Programs like the “Big Tent” initiative and Rush Hour at Hardywood have become industry examples for connecting with audiences of diverse backgrounds by creating amazing musical experiences to bring communities together.

Since March 2020, the Richmond Symphony has undertaken significant steps to adapt to the reality of operating a concert and education based performing arts institution in the face of a global pandemic which has largely prevented people from gathering together.

During this time the Symphony has continued to present live performances and retain all staff and musicians. It has been at the forefront of forging new ways to provide live concerts and music education programs in a socially-distanced world. Staff and musicians have worked collaboratively to quickly shift and reimagine: from developing an in-person concert experience to meet CDC safety standards, to live streaming around the world, to adapting the education programs into meaningful online experiences including the USA's first digital community music school (Richmond Symphony School of Music).

The Richmond Symphony is proud to be a lead creator of the world’s first virtual Menuhin Competition 2021 and thank all our partners, funders, competitors and community for keeping the music alive.

The League of American Orchestras recognized the Symphony as a leader of innovation in the orchestral field by selecting the Symphony as one of their 21 national Futures Fund orchestras and awarding the Symphony the Catalyst Grant in 2020, to help implement effective practices in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Richmond Symphony and members of the Richmond Symphony Chorus

Musician Roster

Richmond Symphony Staff

Richmond Symphony Leadership Team (from left to right): Lacey Huszcza, Gail Henshaw, Walter Bitner, Frances Sterling, Jennifer Arnold, Valentina Peleggi

Team Menuhin Competition Richmond 2021 Team, USA Executive Director Lacey Huszcza Senior Advisor to the Menuhin Competition David Fisk Project Director Miriam Fogel

Richmond 2021 Co-Hosts Richmond Symphony City of Richmond University of Richmond Virginia Commonwealth University VPM, Virginia’s home for public media

Richmond 2021 Steering Committee Terry Austin, Virginia Commonwealth University, Interim Chair of the Department of Music Jack Berry, Richmond Region Tourism, President & CEO

Marketing & Communications Manager Ashley Davis Special thanks to Becky Chilton, Aimee Halbruner and Sofia Malin

Anedra Bourne, Venture Richmond, Deputy Executive Director Ashleigh Brock, University of Richmond, Assistant to the President Ronald Crutcher, University of Richmond, President

Menuhin Competition Interns:

David Fisk, Richmond Symphony, Senior Advisor to the Menuhin Competition

Ju Hye Kim Mimi Laws

Greg Gallop, Community Foundation, Senior Program Officer, Community Vibrancy

Allison Yablonski Mandy Zhou

Sandy Goldie, Virginia Commonwealth University, Director of Music Education

Program notes by Thomas May Program designed by Wendy Daniel Logo and branding created by NDP

Laura Harrison, City of Richmond, Senior Assistant to the Mayor Shannon Hooker, University of Richmond, Assistant Director of the Modlin Center for the Arts Steve Humble, VPM, Chief Content Officer Mason Mills, VPM, Executive Producer Rick Sample, Richmond Symphony, Board Trustee Lincoln Saunders, City of Richmond, Chief of Staff to the Mayor James Wiznerowicz, Virginia Commonwealth University,

School of the Arts Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Gavin Wright, VPM, Project Manager

Symphony Board and Trustees 2020/21 Board of Directors

2020/21 Richmond Symphony Foundation Trustees

Sponsors and Donors Sponsors E. Rhodes & Leona B. Carpenter Foundation

R.E.B. Foundation

Richard S. Reynolds Foundation

Institutional Donors Anonymous through the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond Nicolae Bretan Music Foundation Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia Christophe Landon Rare Violins Inc. Florian Leonhard Fine Violins

Slatten-MacDonald Fund Henri Moerel Foundation NDP Apple REIT Mary Anne Rennolds Chamber Concerts Bob and Anna Lou Schaberg Foundation

Virginia H. Spratley Charitable Fund The Richmond Symphony Foundation Virginia Tourism Corporation Watkins Family Charitable Trust Williams Mullen The Woman’s Club of Richmond

Linhart Foundation

Individual Donors Anonymous Friend of the Richmond Symphony

Sheila Leckie

Ruth & Richard Szucs

Mr. Jonathan Moulds CBE

Mr. and Mrs. Fred T. Tattersall

Mrs and Mrs. Lemuel L. Doss

Marcia and Harry Thalhimer

Mr. and Mrs. Ellis M. Dunkum

Mr. Jose Murillo and Ms. Caroline Orlando

Dr. William Jackson Frable

Dr. and Mrs. John R. Nelson

Mr. and Mrs. Hays T. Watkins

Margaret R. Freeman

Mr. and Mrs. Stanley F. Pauley

Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Webber

Mr. and Mrs. James B. Hartough

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth M. Perry

George Welch

Dr. Eugene W. and Mrs. Katharine Pauley Hickok

Mr. Robert E. Rigsby

Mary Anne Wilson

Jane M. Jenkins

Mr. Rick Sample and Ms. Celia Rafalko

Ms. Sheila Johnson

Mr. Myron H. Reinhart

Mr. and Mrs. Frank R. Kuhn

Mr. and Mrs. Michael T. Shutterly

Supporters of the Rudy Bunzl Fund for the Future and the David J.L. Fisk Special Events Fund in the Richmond Symphony

Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Ukrop

www.menuhincompetition.org