spring spring concertconcert - binghamton community...
TRANSCRIPT
Saturday, May 5th, 2012
at 7:00 p.m.
Sarah Jane Johnson Church 308 Main Street
Johnson City, NY 13790
Conducted by:
Dr. Jeff Jacobsen
SPRING SPRING
CONCERTCONCERT
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In addition to our Board of Directors, we offer thanks to
our volunteer leadership as listed below:
Advertising Committee Mary Diegert & Carol Smith
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BCO Board of Directors
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Jeffrey Jacobsen Nathan Raboy
Jonathan Lewis Heather Roseboom
Barry Peters Peter Roseboom
Joanne Peters Rebecca Sheriff
Thank you to the BCO Board of Directors, Binghamton
City School District, Donna Tarsia, Binghamton High School
Custodial Staff, Joel Smales, Sarah Jane Johnson United Meth-
odist Church, and Ron Bichler.
The
Binghamton Community
Orchestra
is pleased welcome
Dr. Jeff Jacobsen as
our new Music Director.
We look forward to a long,
exciting, and fun-filled
collaboration with Dr. Jacobsen.
Welcome Jeff
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Friends of the BCO:
Welcome to the final concert of our 2011-2012
season. We’ve had a good time working on the
pieces you will hear today and hope you enjoy the
performance.
We are setting up the next concert season and have
a number of collaborative events in the works. The
Board of Directors is always looking for ways to
improve the concert experience and I’m sure you
will be pleased with their efforts.
I’m looking forward to the next season and hope
you will spread the word about the Binghamton
Community Orchestra. Bring your friends and
neighbors to the concerts. We appreciate your
support.
Sincerely, Jeff Jacobsen
Music Director
Dr. Jeffrey Jacobsen, Conductor
Intrada Adolphus Hailstork
Egloga R. A. Moulds
Siegfried Idyll Richard Wagner
~intermission~
Symphony No. 1 in G minor Vasily Kalinnikov
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante commodamente
III. Scherzo
IV. Finale
This program is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, which is administered by the Chenango County Council of the Arts, with support from Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Our Conductor Dr. Jeffrey Jacobsen Dr. Jacobsen is a sought-after conductor and
clinician who has been invited to conduct orchestras at
national and international music festivals and camps. He
currently serves as Director of Orchestral Activities and
Opera at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and has
recently been appointed as Music Director of the Bing-
hamton (NY) Community Orchestra. He has conducted
numerous All-State and All-Region Honor Orchestras in the United States and
Canada as well as professional orchestras in Europe. Dr. Jacobsen served for five
seasons as the Music Director of the Orchestra of the Pines in Nacogdoches/
Lufkin, Texas, and Director of Orchestral Activities and Opera at Stephen F. Aus-
tin State University. He founded and served as Music Director of the Blue Valley
Chamber Orchestra, a regional orchestra in the Kansas City area. Jacobsen was
affiliated with the Youth Symphony of Kansas City, initially as the Music Director
of the Symphonette and later as Music Director of the Philharmonic East Orches-
tra. He taught in public schools in Overland Park, Kansas, Boulder, Colorado and
Williamsburg, Virginia.
Dr. Jacobsen's ensembles have performed at state music conventions, and
national and international music festivals. These same ensembles consistently
earned highest ratings at competitive festivals and, at several, Dr. Jacobsen was
named outstanding director. He received the Mary Taylor Award for Excellence
in Classroom Teaching at Boulder High School and was featured twice on the
KCNC-TV's "Teachers Who Make a Difference" series. Jacobsen was the Boulder
Valley School nominee for the Sallie Mae National Teachers Award, received the
Teacher Recognition Award from the University of Kansas, and was named the
Outstanding High School Orchestra Director for the Northeast District of the Kan-
sas Music Educators Association.
Dr. Jacobsen received a Master of Science degree in music education
with a secondary emphasis in performance from the University of North Dakota
and a Doctorate of Music Education degree with a secondary emphasis in jazz
pedagogy from the University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Jacobsen was selected
for the American Symphony Orchestra League Donald Thulean conducting work-
shop with the Detroit Civic Orchestra. He was invited to the International Con-
ducting Workshop in the Czech Republic and has taken post-doctoral studies in
conducting at Northwestern University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the
universities of Iowa, Illinois State and South Carolina. His instructors include
William LaRue Jones, Kirk Trevor, Mariusz Smolij, Kirk Muspratt, Tsung Yeh,
and Marvin Rabin.
As a professional musician, Dr. Jacobsen has served as principal bassist
of numerous ensembles, including the Tabor Opera Company (Denver) and the
Liberty Symphony Orchestra (Missouri). Jacobsen is currently Principal Bassist
of Millennium Orchestra and a recording artist for Naxos and ERM. He per-
formed on a regular basis in the jazz clubs of Williamsburg, Kansas City and Den-
ver, and along with other members of the ensemble, received a Grammy Award
nomination for the jazz recording "Hot IV."
Flute
Beth Wiemann, Principal
Heather Kriesel
Betsy Bartz
Oboe Kathleen Karlsen, Principal
King Wiemann
Clarinet
Carol Smith, Principal
Sean Denninger
Bassoon
Dana Gleason, Principal
Melinda Lewis
French Horn
Beth Lewis, Principal
Jeff Barker
Kris Bertram
Diana Amari
David Banner
Trumpet
Michael Steidle, Principal
Robert Crissman
John Ruth
Jonathan Sorber
Trombone
Steven Hine, Principal
Raymond Avery
Dana Tirrell
Tuba
Loren Small
Timpani
Nate Palmer
Percussion
Andrew Hahn
Adi Sagar
Violin I
Douglas Diegert, Concertmaster
Peter Roseboom
Maria Sanphy
Joan Hickey
Michelle Swan
Kent Stannard
Violin II
Linda Best, Principal
Tamara Nist
Marian Sanphy
Lynn Aylesworth
Lee Shepherd
Renee Hewett
Jennifer Reyes
Melissa DeWalt
Lara Rogan
Viola
Laura Hine, Principal
Mary Diegert
Shelley Zacks
Amanda Schmitz
Cello
Ruth Fisher, Principal
Emily Creo
Joni Cermak
Stephanie Radzik
Alicia Kuehn
Cecily O’Neil
Marianne Myers
Laura Pratt
Bass
Elizabeth Bartlett, Principal
Tim Roossien
Julian Shepherd
Keyboard
Nathan Raboy
Program Notes
Intrada Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941)
Adolphus Hailstork received his doctorate in composition from Michigan
State University, where he was a student of H. Owen Reed. He completed earlier
studies at the Manhattan School of Music under Vittorio Giannini and David Dia-
mond, the American Institute at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger, and Howard
University with Mark Fax.
Dr. Hailstork has written in a variety of genres, producing works for cho-
rus, solo voice, piano, organ, various chamber ensembles, band, and orchestra. His
early compositions include Celebration, recorded by the Detroit Symphony in
1976; and two works for band (Out of the Depths, 1977, and American Guernica,
1983), both of which won national competitions. Consort Piece (1995), commis-
sioned by the Norfolk Chamber Ensemble, was awarded first prize by the Universi-
ty of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music.
Dr. Hailstork’s works have been performed by such prestigious ensembles
as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the New York Philhar-
monic, under the batons of leading conductors such as James DePreist, Daniel Bar-
enboim, Kurt Masur, and Lorin Maazel. Tonight’s piece, Intrada was commis-
sioned by the Baltimore Symphony for its 75th anniversary.
1999 saw the premieres of Dr. Hailstork’s Second Symphony, commis-
sioned by the Detroit Symphony, as well as his second opera, Joshua’s Boots, com-
missioned by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Kansas City Lyric Opera. Dr.
Hailstork’s second and third symphonies were recently recorded by the Grand Rap-
ids Symphony Orchestra, under David Lockington, on a Naxos label disc released
in January 2007.
Recent commissions include Earthrise, a new large scale choral work
premiered by James Conlon and the 2006 Cincinnati May Festival, Three Studies
on Chant Melodies for the American Guild of Organists 2006 National Conven-
tion, and Whitman’s Journey, a cantata for chorus and orchestra, premiered by the
Master Chorale of Washington, D.C. (under Donald McCullough) at the Kennedy
Center in April 2006. Rise for Freedom, an opera about the Underground Railroad,
premiered in the fall of 2007 by the Cincinnati Opera Company. Other premieres
in the spring of 2008 were Serenade for chorus and orchestra, commissioned by
Michigan State University, and Set Me on a Rock, also for chorus and orchestra,
commissioned by the Houston Choral Society.
Dr. Hailstork, who has received honorary doctorates from Michigan State
University and the College of William and Mary, resides in Virginia Beach, Vir-
ginia, and serves as Professor of Music and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion Uni-
versity in Norfolk.
Leyenda Mística I R. A. Moulds (b. 1958)
(Mystic Legend I)
Égloga: el Sauce que se enamoró de la Caricia del Viento, Op. 78, 2002
(Eclogue: the Willow that fell in love with the Wind’s Caress)
Contrary to the common scenario of a classic Hollywood composer bio-
pic, it is actually quite rare for a composition to flow from the composer’s pen
fully formed, like Athena bursting from Zeus’ head. In fact, the compositional
histories of even the shortest pieces are often quite complicated, and this makes
me wonder at times whether tracing the peripatetic childhood of even the greatest
works is really a good idea. However, there is no denying that many listeners are
very interested in these details, even for a work that stands undeniably on its own
without any back-history at all.
The first of my Leyendas Místicas began as the pastoral opening to Act 1
of my incomplete opera, The Miracles of Monsanvierge, notated only in piano
score, and probably destined to remain unfinished. Shortly after I stopped work-
ing on the opera I became interested in writing a larger piece, but even at that point
I did not know what this new work would turn into, and certainly did not have a
portrait or a scene in mind when I began experimenting with orchestrating this
new work that was originally just meant to be an exercise in instrumental color.
Until that time I had concentrated on keyboard, vocal, and chamber works, and
was interested in seeing what I could do with a larger ensemble, although I delib-
erately limited the palette so that the piece could be performed by both chamber
and symphonic groups.
The only part of Égloga that came from the abandoned opera is the open-
ing pastoral theme in E Major for two clarinets and low strings. The following
episodes, which wander through several keys and modes, always returning eventu-
ally to the opening melody, were newly composed for the piece. As is probably
not surprising, I have often been questioned about my adherence to what some
have called my “shockingly traditional” approach, but of course the truth is that I
vary my technique according to what I want to express. Personally, I think that as
a composer in the 21st century, the ability to draw from, converse with, and refer
to all the musical monuments of the past is one of the greatest gifts we have, and I
long ago resolved to refrain from what I have come to call “proscriptive musicolo-
gy,” which dictates what is and is not acceptable for contemporary composers.
Having said that, however, there is still much about Égloga that does not follow a
19th century formula; the key scheme, for instance, is calculatedly eccentric.
There is even one final twist at the end that still bothers some analytical purists,
and even among the familiar melodies and chords which abound throughout there
are some sly harmonic tweaks. All of this, of course, is meant to add interest and
color to a landscape that should be familiar to most listeners, and was intended to
be so.
The question remains, then, how an essay in orchestration became an
emotional—almost melancholy—tone poem with a long Spanish title. At around
the same time that I stopped working on the opera (which, by the way, is set in
France during the time of Jeanne d’Arc—about as un-Hispanic as anything could
be) I became interested in Spanish and Latin American music and literature, and
did quite a bit of investigation into the music of composers I had not previously
known before, particularly that of the Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino.
When I finished what was to be Égloga and was searching for a name, my head
and ears were still full of the melancholy, the magic realism, and the beauty that
inhabits so much Latin American art and music, and with the pastoral nature of the
original opera in mind, the selection of the word “eclogue” (a classical poetic
form, often a dialogue between two shepherds) was almost natural. With that in
mind, I then cast about for two participants for the dialogue, and the romantic tone
of the piece itself more or less dictated the complete title of the Mystic Legend.
The composition has been recorded four times. The first recording was
made by the Moravian Philharmonic under Joel Suben, the second by the National
Saxophone Choir of Great Britain in an arrangement for saxophone ensemble that
was made shortly after I finished the original (and was premiered at the Edinburgh
Fringe Festival in 2006), and the third by the Millennium Symphony with Robert
Ian Winstin. Unfortunately, in all this time there had been no public performance
of the original version until I was honored by Dr. Jacobsen’s request to allow
Mansfield University’s symphony to play the piece, and that ensemble subsequent-
ly recorded the tone poem for the fourth time.
R.A. Moulds
Baltimore, Maryland
April, 2012
A Siegfried Idyll Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
It is hard to believe that the composer who once felt love as a wild, de-
stroying passion, as the love-death of Tristan and Isolde, could ever have known
domestic bliss. But Wagner did enjoy a period of relative peace and domestic ful-
fillment. In November 1870, his heart overflowing with gratitude, he composed
(as a birthday present for his wife Cosima) the blissfully contented music we know
as A Siegfried Idyll. Here, love did not mean Tristanish night, death, and dreams;
on the contrary, it meant dawn, birth, and reality. The music referred to their baby
son “Fidi” (Siegfried), but also to more intimate secrets in Richard’s and Cosima’s
past.
Cosima’s birthday fell on December 24th but she chose to celebrate it on
the 25th. In the Wagner household, this combined birthday and Christmas present
was familiarly called Die Treppenmusick (The Staircase Music) because its first
performance was played on the staircase of Villa Triebschen, their home on Lake
Lucerne. Wagner took the greatest precautions to be sure that the work and its
first performance were a complete surprise. Early on Christmas morning, 1870,
fifteen players from Lucerne, whom Wagner had secretly rehearsed, assembled
silently on the little winding stairs of the Villa, with Wagner conducting at the top.
Cosima was overwhelmed and wrote in her diary:
As I awoke, my ear caught a sound, which swelled fuller and fuller; no
longer could I imagine myself to be dreaming: music was sounding, and
such music! When it died away, Richard came into my room with the
children and offered me the score of the symphonic birthday poem. I was
in tears, but so was the rest of the household.
The Idyll was a private and personal document, never intended for the ears of the
outside world. Only years later, under grim financial pressure and to the distress
of both Wagner and Cosima, was this music published – under the official title of
A Siegfried Idyll.
The Idyll’s first and principal theme is a beatific melody that precedes
Brünnhilde’s words in the last act of Wagner’s opera Siegfried. A soft continua-
tion from the opening theme leads to the old German cradlesong Schlaf, Kindchen,
schlafe (Sleep, Little Child, Sleep) brought in very simply by the oboe. Is it only a
coincidence that the lullaby consists of the notes of the Idyll’s first theme, but re-
versed? Or is the opening theme derived from the lullaby? This is followed by
the woodwinds introducing another melody from Siegfried. All these melodic
structures work up to a brief climax which is suddenly cut off as a solo horn intro-
duces the energetic theme associated in the opera with Siegfried as a young man.
The song of the forest bird from Act II murmurs in the foreground and other
themes from the opera are used to create another brief climax. Finally, the lullaby
returns and the close of the Idyll suggesting the approach of peaceful sleep.
Symphony No. 1 in G minor Vasily Kalinnikov (1866-1901)
Kalinnikov might have developed a reputation to match those of the lead-
ing Russian romantic composers of his day had he lived a normal lifespan. Unfor-
tunately, the tuberculosis from which he suffered led him to spend the rest of his
short life in the warmth of the Crimea, at Yalta. Further complicating the sad ac-
count of his life is the family poverty which prevented him from getting the kind
of professional training that would have been called for as soon as his musical
talent showed itself in his youth. Kalinnikov studied at the local seminary and
took over the choir at the age of fourteen. Scholarship support allowed him to
attend the Philharmonic Society School in Moscow, where he took lessons on bas-
soon and had some composition lessons, though not with the leading figures at the
conservatory. Again, lack of funds forced him to leave the conservatory and work
as an instrumentalist, playing bassoon, timpani, or violin in theater orchestras.
Through his continuing composition, he attracted the attention of im-
portant people, including Tchaikovsky, who recommended him for appointment as
conductor at the Malïy Theater in Moscow and a year later at the Moscow Italian
Theater. This last appointment lasted only a few months before his health forced
him to leave Moscow for Yalta where he concentrated on composition. He was
helped by the young Rachmaninoff, who arranged for a leading Russian publisher
to acquire some of Kalinnikov’s songs and other works, providing a small, but
steady income.
During this period he composed his two symphonies, premiered in 1897
and 1898, respectively. The first symphony was an instant success and was soon
performed in Vienna, Berlin, and Paris as well as Russia. It is the one work of
Kalinnikov that remains firmly in the repertory today. As an admirer of the writer
Turgenev and the way Russian life was portrayed in his novels, Kalinnikov want-
ed to accomplish much the same sort of thing in his music without attempting a
narrative style. His themes, while original, are designed to evoke elements of
Russian folksong.
Composers often find various ways to bind the movements of a sympho-
ny. Beethoven used the famous motif that opens his 5th Symphony as a recurring
comment throughout the work. Kalinnikov went further, using his opening melo-
dy throughout all the movements of his Symphony No. 1; transforming it, altering
it, disguising it in different contexts including using the melody as a harmony.
Listen for the opening melody at the beginning of the first movement; it is repeat-
ed three times to be sure we have it in our ears. Almost every major theme
throughout the four movements is a variation or restatement of this opening idea.
The first movement grows out of a melody with a typical Russian styling and is
later heard in a vigorous, march-like mood. The second and third movements
were both encored at the symphony’s premiere which shows their immediate at-
tractiveness to the audience. The second movement, with its sadly sweet oboe
melody and swelling answer in the strings, is one of the passages that is most rep-
resentative of Kalinnikov’s supporter Tchaikovsky. The Scherzo is indicative of a
lively Russian dance and returns to more melancholy material in the middle sec-
tion. The finale recalls elements that have gone before – including the opening
melody – combining these with new material to build to a triumphant finale.
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