yale philharmonia Peter Oundjian, principal conductor
Peter Oundjian principal conductor
Friday, April 26, 2019 | 7:30 p.m. Woolsey Hall
Robert Blocker, Dean
Program Joan Tower b. 1938
Made in America (2004)
Carl Reinecke 1824–1910
Flute Concerto in D major, Op. 283 I. Allegro molto moderato II. Lento e mesto III. Moderato Jungah Yoon, flute
intermission
Johannes Brahms 1833–1897
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 I. Un poco sostenuto. Allegro II. Andante sostenuto III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso IV. Adagio. Allegro non troppo, ma non brio
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Artist Profiles Peter Oundjian, principal conductor
Jungah Yoon, flute
Toronto-born conductor Peter Oundjian has been an instrumental figure in the rebirth of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since his appointment as Music Director in 2004. In addition to conducting the orchestra in dynamic performances that have achieved significant artistic acclaim, he has been greatly involved in a variety of new initiatives that have strengthened the ensemble’s presence in the community and attracted a young and diverse audience.
South Korean flutist Jungah Yoon began her studies when she was six years old. By the age of nine, she was selected as a Kumho prodigy, and held her debut recital.
In addition to his post in Toronto, from which he stepped down in 2018, Oundjian served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2010 and played a major role at the Caramoor International Music Festival in New York between 1997 and 2007. In 2012 he was appointed Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Oundjian was the first violinist of the renowned Tokyo String Quartet, a position he held for fourteen years. Since 1981, he has been on the Yale School of Music faculty. He was awarded the School’s Samuel Simons Sanford Medal for distinguished service to music in 2013 and named Principal Conductor of the Yale Philharmonia in 2015. He is Professor (adjunct) of Music and Orchestral Conducting at the School of Music.
Yoon has been a participant of several competitions including the Osaka International Competition in Japan, Asia Flute Federation Competition in China, Herald Competition in South Korea, and Yale School of Music Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition, among others. An active chamber musician, she has participated in music festivals including the Prague Spring International Music Festival and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Yoon is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at the Yale School of Music, where she studies with Ransom Wilson on a Henry and Lucy Moses Scholarship. Yoon earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Korea National University of Arts, where she graduated early as a result of academic excellence. Previous teachers include Joohee Lee and Soyoung Lee.
Program Notes Made in America tower Patrick Campbell Jankowski
Flute Concerto in D major reinecke Patrick Campbell Jankowski
Made in America is a perfect title for this grassroots composition, which exemplifies a sort of widespread interest and shared sense of artistic value that can only exist on this scale in the United States. While we are used to seeing grand commissions from a handful of orchestras and organizations, many orchestras with more modest budgets – no less critical to their communities – simply lack the means to commission new works. If regional orchestras seem to have been stuck playing the same cycle of Beethoven symphonies and Wagner overtures over and over, there are reasons. A co-commission from sixty-five orchestras (to which the consortium eventually grew) representing fifty states, Made in America is a work in which each of these communities can feel a sense of pride and ownership. Joan Tower, one of our most distinguished artistic voices, seems an ideal creative mind to produce the work. Her music is uniquely hers, yet immediately welcoming. The word “accessible” should probably be banned from the lexicon in talking about art, as it seems to cultivate bias and insulation. Tower’s composition is infused with thematic familiarity without sacrificing a wealth of orchestral color and intriguing harmonies. The story of its commission is compelling, and it has been shared by orchestras throughout the United States. That is the kind of accessibility we should praise.
Premiered in the same year as Strauss’s Elektra, and well over a decade after Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Reinecke’s flute concerto is firmly rooted in nineteenth century ideals. By comparison with those works, it seems nearly conservative in style. Let’s instead call it “nostalgic.” Romantic era composers were comparatively less generous to the flute than Baroque and Classical composers had been. The piano, violin, and even clarinet had long supplanted the instrument as a premiere solo vehicle. In that sense, Reinecke’s Romantic approach to the flute is unique. The opening movement begins rhapsodically. A brief comment from the solo flute gives way to a flowing melodic line that the soloist again rejoins. Reinecke weaves the instrument into the orchestral texture sinuously and organically. A second, more boisterous theme betrays a vaguely Spanish influence. The central movement is marked “Lento e mesto,” indications that double down on a deeply sorrowful mood. Reinecke seems deliberately to toy with our preconceptions of the flute as a voice of sprite and light. The finale begins intriguingly in a minor mode guise, as though not having fully shed the clothing of the central movement. An operatic style pervades, with frequent pivots between effervescent and dramatic themes. This outlier concerto is a lively artifact, likely to raise one or both eyebrows at least a few times.
Symphony No. 1 in C minor BRAHMS Patrick Campbell Jankowski The beating kettle drum and aching suspensions that begin this symphony make for an unforgettable start. The weight of something long agonized over and seriously contemplated bears down on the work. It took Brahms fourteen years to write this symphony, though he had practiced with a piano concerto on a grand symphonic scale, and two orchestral serenades. The void between Beethoven’s ninth was a looming task that Brahms had been all but chosen, as the German speaking world’s most promising composer, to fill. C minor was hardly an arbitrary choice: some of Beethoven’s heaviest work was in that key, traditionally reserved for tempestuous and angsty gestures (including lots of black keys on the piano). For Brahms, as with his predecessor, C minor creates a problem to be “solved.” Beethoven’s fifth opens in C minor and closes, transmuted, in C major. Brahms does the same, opening his symphony with grating suspensions, slowly descending half-steps, thick with dissonance. Foggy ambiguity returns in the introduction to the final movement, parting to reveal a theme in the solo horn as pure and open, both harmonically and texturally, as a melody could be (not to mention a pivot to C major). In fact, it could be played on the open tones of an Swiss Alpine Horn, which is where Brahms likely heard it. What follows is a chorale not unlike the famous “To Joy” theme from Beethoven’s final symphony, a similarity noted since the composer’s time, and which Brahms was reluctant to deny. Walking in
Beethoven’s symphonic footsteps was a daunting prospect to Brahms, yet he meets his predecessor on his own terms. Brahms evolves away from Beethoven. The tender andante is carried predominantly by singing winds. In lieu of a scherzo or minuet, Brahms ambiguously places an intermezzo, vaguely casting the whole symphony as a pseudo dramatic work, albeit one with no specific extramusical program at all. The symphony invites a dramatic reading, in the way that later composers, from Sibelius and Nielsen to Mahler and Brückner, would sometimes deliberately exploit. These are not four arbitrary movements, but a journey through transformation.
Yale Philharmonia Peter Oundjian, principal conductor Violin I Ariel Horowitz Brandon Garbot Xiaofan Liu Sirena Huang Julia Mirzoev Yeiin Min Jessy Kim Cheuk Ching Tse Maura Shawn Scanlin Beatrice Hsieh Jessie Chen Matthew Woodard Yejin Yoon Violin II Kate Arndt Emily Switzer Pei Wen Liao Jung Eun Kang Anna Leunis Yoon Be Kim Lauren Bennett Jisun Lee Dustin Wilkes-Kim Albert Yamamoto Dongsoo Cha Nuri Lim Viola Rimbo Wong Márta Hortobágyi Lambert Alex McLaughlin Minkyoung Lee Arjun Ganguly Marlea Simpson Bethany Hargreaves Minji Kim Rubina Lee
Cello Guilherme Nardelli Monegatto Youkyoung Josephina Kim Harry Doernberg Sein Lee Sophie Yu Yun Han Bo Bae Lee Anita Balázs Bass Chin To Kelvin Ng Ross Wightman Eric Timperman Kohei Yamaguchi Ying-Yin Chia Russell Thompson Flute Amir Farsi 1, 3 Brendan Dooley 2 Oboe Lauren White Amelia Merriman 1 Shawn Hutchison 2 Noah Kay 3 Elliot Lichtenberg Clarinet Ziqi Yue 1, 2 Michael Moy
3
Bassoon Dana Brink Andrew Sledge Ethan Lippert 1 Eleni Katz 2 Kristy Tucker 3
french horn Antonia Chandler 2 Gabriel Mairson Steven Harmon 3 Stephen Newberry Esteban Garcia Griffin Botts 1 Trumpet Melissa Muñoz Chloe Swindler 1 Eric Rizzo 3 Kenny Chauby Oscar Mason 2 tenor trombone Ingram Lee IV 1 William Wortley 3 bass trombone Daniel Vaitkus
Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri Assistant Manager/ Librarian Samuel Bobinski philharmonia office assistant Kristy Tucker Music Librarians Antonia Chandler Brandon Garbot Bora Kim Márta Hortobágyi Lambert Gregory Lewis Alex McLaughlin Leonardo Ziporyn
Stage Crew Héloïse Carlean-Jones Cameron Daly Jisu Jung YoungKyoung Lee Percussion Gabriel Mairson Arlo Shultis 1 Lucas Guedes Oliveira Kevin Zetina 2 Arlo Shultis Russell Fisher Andrew Sledge Russell Thompson 1 Principal on Tower Daniel Vaitkus 2 Principal on Reinecke Rimbo Wong 3 Principal on Brahms Aidan Zimmerman Timpani Arlo Shultis 3 YoungKyoung Lee 1, 2
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