RENAISSANCE
Concerto for Orchestra
Premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN
May 30, 2024
VALERIECOLEMAN
RENAISSANCE
Concerto for Orchestra
Commissioned with the generous support of SPONSOR
For The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music and Artistic Director Premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin May 30, 2024
Co-Commissioned by New World Symphony
Atlanta Symphony Louisville Orchestra
RENAISSANCE Concerto for Orchestra
Program Notes
Renaissance Concerto for Orchestra is a three movement tone poem that connects the listener into a journey from the early to mid-20th century to present day.
The following artwork corresponds to the first movement: Jacob Lawrence painting War Series: Beachhead (bars 1-31)
War Series: Prayer (bars 31-70)
War Series: Purple Hearts (bars 31-53)
Migration Series: Panel 1 (bars 101-130) - Panel 46 - Panel 49 - Panels 50 and 51
The first movement is all about the period of the Great Migration and events adjacent to it, as told through the paintings of Jacob Lawrence. The opener correlates to the painting War Series: Beachhead. It begins with a sense of shock and devastation as if the catastrophic impact of bombs and missiles are still ringing through the air. The trumpet sounds distant wails of grief, but also a message of resilience and survival, as the moaning undercurrent of the low strings slowly churn into the next paintings from the war series called Prayer and the other Purple Hearts The latter of the two paintings is signified by the cascading trumpets and trombones calling out to each other in echo fashion. One by one, each section within the strings adds their voice..a growing consensus of a people..I envision my ancestors humming a repetitive phrase as they till the soil in fields building into a single chorus of full throated dissension and prayer. Raw guts and heartstrings of spirituals of will and survival.
A return to the Beachhead moment bookends the section. What follows is a meditational offering, a point of healing rest from war in a rubato moment of earnest conversation, handing itself off to a light and flowy transition into Lawrence’s Migration Series of paintings.
The way that Lawrence depicts the Great Migration struck me, as hope and subtle courage jumps out of the canvas, as if the necessity of leaving for a better life is simply a matter of fact. Clusters of people, wearing different hats with faces focused outward but leaning forward in a powerfully expectant way (Panel 1)... this chorus of voices had to be represented by a raspy raw rhythmic melody within the violins with support from an undercurrent of water and thumb piano sounds (channeling the Orisha of healing waters, Yemenja), created by upper woodwinds, harp, and keyboard percussion. Their arrival of hope turns into realism, as they face a different kind of racism and segregation within labor and housing (Panel 49). The grind and grit of labor camps (Panel 46), car horns beeping (french horns syncopation), the cello section bustles a riff as industrial machines in the city, and a brief moment of trombones a la Andrews Sisters reminds of that we are within the age of WWII. The movement ends with a powerful shout sitting in both 3/4 and 6/8 time, starting with the bassoons sounding out the rhythms for the word ‘F-I-R-E’ in morse code, and also ‘MARIAN’ (as in Marian Anderson - whose rhythm is shared by another work written at the same time, Fanfare for Marian).
A film noir sky view of a metropolitan city opens the curtains of second movement in grandiose flair, with fire engines and police cars screaming by as they race across the city to put out fires. The riots (Panels 50 and 51 of the series) that occurred throughout the midwest and the north (riot of east St. Louis, Tulsa massacre, and the red summer of 1919 in Philadelphia) are depicted here, as the flames turn into the smoldering embers of a tuba solo. Solo violin (and subsequently the section) takes over, singing the heart of this movement: a ballad of urban life, with all the joys and pain that come with it.
The final movement, Cotton Club Juba, emerges out of the second movement’s ending with raindrops as the scene shifts to a misty evening in Harlem, and the nightlife of big bands and clubs during the prohibition era. The movies often depict this time as a dance filled escapism, but I wanted to capture the gritty reality of the 'exoticism' and stereotype of 'jungle music' that took hold both in Harlem and ‘Le Jazz Hot’ cabaret of Paris. There is no artwork for this from Jacob Lawrence, but I hope that the audience can visualize jazz big bands, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker and many others who found release through dance and song within this era.
A slow sinister groove between the bassoons and horns as if we are riding the railways across the country. Arriving at the eastern seaboard, we are immersed into the dancing nightlife of mafia, illegal alcohol, showgirls, zoot suit fashion, and the underbelly of broadway after-hours. Small clusters of Charleston dance rhythm appear, made popular by expats Josephine Baker and Ada Bricktop Smith who gave dance lessons to the Parisian elite, alternating with slower sections dedicated to the storied writers of the era, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, and Ernest Hemingway. From the wailing sounds of the start, all the way to the rip-roaring dancing of the early twentieth century, it is my hope that the Concerto for Orchestra connects us all through story and song.
- Valerie Coleman
Instrumentation
Piccolo
Flute 1
Flute 2/Alto Flute
Oboe 1
Oboe 2
English Horn
B
Clarinet (1-3) Bass Clarinet in B♭
1
2
in F (1-4)
in C (1-3)
Tom Tom (4, incl. floor tom)
Harp
Piano
Strings