JSO Holiday Concert on JTV

JSO Holiday Concert airing Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 24 and 25 at 1:00 and 7:00 PM.....on JTV via Comcast 90, AT&T U-verse 5380, Broadstripe 10 and 161 and via LIVE stream on www.jtv.tv.  Enjoy!

JSO Awarded "JSO Goes to School" Educational Initiative

“The Jackson Symphony Orchestra Association has been awarded a grant of $15,000 to JSO Goes to School Educational Initiatives developed as a part of the $3.4 million dollar JSO Sound Vision Campaign,” Mary Spring, JSO Development Director said today.

According to Spring, the grant will be used to assist in bringing important music education into county schools through the JSO Pied Piper music enrichment program.

Since the inception of the JSO Community Music School and JSO Goes to School in 1992, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra has committed nearly 20% of its overall budget annually to provide effective music education programs for Jackson County Schools and residents. The grant from the Community Foundation will give the JSO important resources to continue to work in our schools with the intent of utilizing music to enhance over all education and create pathways to higher education for Jackson County students.

This grant was made possible from the Unrestricted Community Needs Endowment Fund, a component fund of the Jackson Community Foundation. This is the third Community Foundation grant provided to the JSO Sound Vision education initiative. Total Jackson Community Foundation support for Sound Vision education programming stands at $75,000. The most recent $15,000 grant is being matched dollar for dollar by the Weatherwax Foundation $500,000 Challenge grant as the final phase of the JSO campaign draws to a close.

JSO HOLIDAY CONCERT DECEMBER 11

Holiday Concert
with the Jackson Chorale and Children’s Choir
Music from The Nutcracker

Sunday, December 11, 2011 4 PM
Jackson Community College
2111 Emmons Rd., Jackson

$15 - VIP Section A Seating
$10 - General Admission Section B Seating
$5 - Students and Children

Tickets: Online - www.JacksonSymphony.org
Phone - 517-782-3221
Mail or walk in - 215 W. Michigan Ave.
Jackson 49201

Community Strings Free Concert December 10

Free Concert!!
The Jackson Symphony's
Community String Ensemble
"Christmas Concert!!"

7 PM--December 10th 2011
JSO Hall 215 W. Michigan Ave.

Performed will be:
Exciting Baroque music of Bach and Corelli
Beautiful Romantic music of Kreisler
The Lovely "Ave Maria" of Schubert
And the Humorous music of
Almon Bock
Then a host of wonderful Christmas Music!!

Please join us for the concert and refreshments afterward!!

-And remember-
Admission is free!!
Good will donations gratefully accepted and appreciated!

JSO 2011 Holiday Concert

JSO to present Holiday Concert with Jackson Chorale, Children’s Choir, JYSO

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra’s December family outing for concertgoers of all ages will feature a variety of holiday music as well as music makers. Joining the orchestra for this festive annual program are the Jackson Chorale, Wendy Treacher, conductor; Jackson Chorale Children's Choir, Jackie Livesay, conductor and Jackson Youth Symphony Orchestra David Schultz conductor.

The music begins at 4 p.m. Dec. 11 at Jackson Community College’s Potter Center,
2111 Emmons Rd., Jackson.

A few highlights of the program include:

• Chorale and JSO joining forces for Joy to the World and Rutter's Angel Carol.

• The Chorale and Children's Choir performing a very entertaining and clever version of the 12 Days of Christmas with the orchestra.

• The Jackson Youth Symphony Orchestra (JYSO) presenting selections from Swan Lake.

• The Children’s choir singing arrangements of the 1953 song Zat You, Santa Claus? Children’s Choir Coordinator Jackie Livesay, a Jackson music teacher, says she expects about 30 participants from numerous schools in Jackson County as well as home schoolers. They range from grade four through high school.

Music from The Nutcracker, which is a life-long favorite of Maestro Stephen Osmond, also will be on the program. Osmond probably has performed this work more than any other — at least 20 performances with four different ballet companies.

“This year we will focus on the music with slides of various productions on stage instead of dancers and with an original suite that includes several of the magical scenes not included in the traditional suite such as the Battle and the Ascension of the Tree,” Osmond says. "While I love working with dancers, it will be a real treat to conduct the music the way I hear it as opposed to the needs of the dancers."

Baker College and County National Bank are sponsoring the Holiday Concert.

Ticket prices are as follows:

$15 - VIP Section A Seating
$10 - General Admission Section B Seating
$5 - Students and Children

To order tickets, call 782-3221, ext. 118; visit www.jacksonsymphony.org; or stop by the orchestra’s downtown office at 215 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson.

Special Subscription Series Note: If you missed the first two concerts of the JSO’s regular subscription, but still want to attend the remaining three concerts, the JSO is offering the tickets at a discount. The three-concert mini-series pricing is as follows:

$75 A ($21 savings)
$65 B ($16 savings)
$40 C ($14 savings)

(The restaurant discount card offered to season ticket holders is not included in this three-concert package.)

To order tickets, call 782-3221, ext. 118; visit www.jacksonsymphony.org; or stop by the orchestra’s downtown office at 215 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson.

From the Studio of Carol Ivkovich

Stephen Foster, son of Steve and Shelby Foster, participated in Albion College's Piano Festival on Oct. 29. Stephen took 3rd place in his age division for his performance. Way to go!!

Friday night's recital was a huge success. We had 125 people attend. Lots of great costumes and performances by 36 students. I put the piano in front of the glazed red wall. (so I reversed the standard set up of the room and provided "balcony" seating.) I got many comments on how striking the piano looked against the glazed wall. :-)

Program Notes for November 12 by Dr. Bruce Brown

Program Notes

November 12, 2011

By Composer in Residence

Bruce Brown

The JSO’s “New Horizons” seasons will continue with two masterworks of the Romantic era that are eternally fresh in the variety and depth of their emotional expression.  Pianist Arthur Green will join the orchestra for Brahms expansive second piano concerto, and the evening will conclude with Tchaikovsky’s thrilling fifth symphony.

Both of these works broke significant new ground when they were written, and the “new horizons” that Brahms and Tchaikovsky explored in these landmark compositions were part of a rich climate of change at the height of the era we now call the Romantic period.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Opus 83

            Johannes Brahms (1883-1897) was always a very deliberate composer.  He toiled on his first symphony for over twenty years before he was satisfied with it.  He hesitated for a similar period – almost twenty years – before writing a second piano concerto after his first one received a rocky reception in 1859. 

            He started work on the second concerto in 1878, and toiled on it over the next three years, along with several other projects including his monumental violin concerto.  He dedicated the new piano concerto to his teacher, Eduard Marxsen.

            Brahms was the soloist for the premiere performance in Budapest on November 9, 1881, and he soon played the concerto throughout Europe.  This second concerto, unlike the first, was a resounding success, both with critics and with audiences.

            The English musicologist Jeremy Siepmann penned a very apt description of Brahms second concerto:

There is perhaps no great piano concerto grander than the Brahms B flat. With the spaciousness of a symphony, the drama of an opera, the intimacy of a lullaby and the intertwining raptures of the greatest love songs, it touches on almost every emotion with extraordinary immediacy and power. Its virtuosity is spellbinding, yet always substantial.

            The last sentence above refers to the fact that Brahms’ music is never a flowery display of technical skill for its own sake.  There is always musical depth and meaning, but the technical demands can also be very daunting!

            Brahms broke new ground in several significant ways in his new concerto.  He wrote it in four movements, more like a symphony than the customary three-movement design of a concerto.  The music begins with a very striking departure from tradition, a long French horn solo.  The slow third movement also contains an extended solo for cello. Brahms later transformed this passage into a song, Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer (“My Slumber Grows Ever More Peaceful”) incorporating lyrics by Hermann Van Ling. 

Brahms jokingly wrote to his friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg that the second movement was a “little wisp of a scherzo.”  Most scherzos are light, playful pieces and are relatively short.  This movement is written on a much grander scale and contains some very dark and stormy music!

Throughout the concerto the orchestra and soloist share in the musical dialog to a remarkable degree.  They are clearly equal partners, rather than one accompanying the other.

Symphony #5 in E Minor, Opus 64

            The fifth symphony of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was also a bold work for its time - much too bold for some!

            William Foster Apthorp, writing for the Boston Evening Transcript, wrote a particularly scathing review: “In the Finale we have all the untamed fury of the Cossack, whetting itself for deeds of atrocity, against all the sterility of the Russian Steppes. The furious peroration sounds like nothing so much as a horde of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy, the music growing drunker and drunker. Pandemonium, delirium tremens, raving, and above all, noise worse confounded!”

            In the ten years since the composition of his fourth symphony, Tchaikovsky’s international reputation had grown considerably, but the composer was plagued by professional and personal turmoil and self-doubt.

            He started to work on a new symphony in May of 1888 at his summer retreat in Frolovskoe, but he vacillated between hope that his new symphony would be a success and dread that it would be a dismal failure.

            On June 22nd, Tchaikovsky wrote to his long-time patron Nadezhda von Meck: "I want so much to show not only to others, but to myself, that I still haven't expired... I don't know whether I wrote to you that I had decided to write a symphony.  At first it was fairly difficult; now inspiration seems to have deserted me completely."

            On August 26th, the symphony was finished.  Tchaikovsky dedicated the score to the influential German musician Theodore Avé-Lallemant, who had been very kind and encouraging to him when he visited Germany.

            Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere on November 17 in St. Petersburg, and the symphony was performed several times in the coming months.  Still, Tchaikovsky remained uncertain about the piece until a triumphant performance in Hamburg in March of 1889.  "The Fifth Symphony was again performed magnificently,” he wrote, “and I have started to love it again; my earlier judgment was undeservedly harsh..."

            In the years that followed it became one of his best loved and most performed works.

            Tchaikovsky’s fifth was extremely popular during World War II.  One of the most memorable performances took place on October 20, 1941, when the Leningrad Symphony was ordered by city officials to continue with a planned concert to lift morale, even though the city was under siege.  The concert broadcast was being heard as far away as London.  Bombs began to fall near Philharmonic Hall as the second movement began, but the orchestra continued playing until the last, triumphant notes of the finale.

From Maestro Stephen Osmond

I hope you enjoyed our last program! Rich Ridenour, in addition to being a very fine pianist, certainly has a gift for connecting with an audience. Many people from within the orchestra and audience have expressed their enthusiasm for the program and we will surely invite him to return.


This concert is quite another story: Romanticism - a rich expression of love, tragedy, triumph, defeat. Not at all disguised, out there for everyone to share. The Brahms Piano Concerto #2 is one of, if not the most challenging concerti in the repertoire for any pianist. It is also the most involved for the orchestra. In most concerti the orchestra provides an accompaniment for the soloist, occasionally having a bit of its own and shares a conversation now and then. This work is a dialogue; a constant exchange of ideas and emotions. It is more of a symphony than a concerto, the orchestra being an equal partner. And the Tchaikovsky, like Beethoven and Mozart, plays itself. No question as to the intent of the composer, it right there in the notes. Dr. Brown goes into much more detail in his notes and Backstage Glimpses, I just wanted to share a few of my own thoughts.

Coming up in December our Holiday Pops, a great opportunity to celebrate the season with the Jackson Chorale and Youth Choir. And the Nutcracker, not with dancers but a surprise element. I've probably conducted the Nutcracker more than any other major work, probably 20 times in performance, it is one of my very favorites. This time we are doing our own custom suite featuring some of the music in the traditional suite but other grand music, like the battle scene and tree ascension. You won't want to miss it!

Romantic Spectacular - Second Subscription Concert

JSO’s 2nd season concert to be “emotionally charged”


Music written by two of the world’s most celebrated composers will be showcased Nov. 12 at the Jackson Symphony Orchestra’s second concert of the 2011-2012 season. On the program are Johannes Brahms’ majestic Piano Concerto #2 and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s romantic Fifth Symphony. Both works are passionate and emotional, which is why audiences find them to be so memorable.

The concert, titled Romantic Spectacular, will feature guest artist Arthur Greene, an award-winning pianist and educator, who has performed with the JSO on three earlier occasions. Greene, who studied at Juilliard, has performed with symphony orchestras in Philadelphia, San Francisco, the Czech Republic, Tokyo and the Ukraine, to name just a few. He has played recitals in Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Moscow Rachmaninoff Hall, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Lisbon Sao Paulo Opera House, Hong Kong City Hall and concert houses in Shanghai and Beijing. (For more details, see biography below.)

The program starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Potter Center Music Hall on the Jackson Community College campus, 2111 Emmons Road and is sponsored by Spring Arbor University.

Brahms, who was German, and Tchaikovsky, a Russian, were contemporaries during the musical era of “Romanticism.” Brahms wrote the demanding piano concerto between 1878 and 1881 and performed it himself at the premiere in Budapest in 1881. Tchaikovsky was the conductor for his complex symphony when it premiered in St. Peterburg in 1888.

“This Brahms’ concerto is an amazing combination of a monumental structure, like a European cathedral, and Brahmsian warm, personal one-on-one intimacy,” Greene said. “Nothing is more romantic than the cello solo at the beginning of the slow movement — too bad the pianist doesn't get it! It is one of the most difficult piano concertos, but the difficulties are not the essence. The last movement is full of sunshine and Viennese charm. It is my favorite piano concerto.”

JSO Music Director Stephen Osmond has equal praise for the Fifth.

“The Tchaikovsky has more emotional swings than any piece I know,” Osmond said. “The intensity of each movement is exhausting as a listener as well as a performer. As Tchaikovsky states in the following quote, there really are no words to describe what his music expresses so clearly.”

I should not wish symphonic works to come from my pen which express nothing, and which consist of empty playing with chords,rhythms and modulations … ought not a symphony – that is, the most lyrical of all musical forms – express everything for which there are no words, but which the soul wishes to express, and which requires to be expressed? — P. Tchaikovsky

Individual tickets to this second concert of the season are $18, $27 or $32, depending on seating. If you missed the first concert in October, but still want season tickets, the JSO is offering a subscription to the remaining four concerts at a discount. “Mini-series” subscription packages, which include concert tickets and several “perks,” are available for $55 (section C), $85 (section B) and $100 (section A). Buyers will receive many of the same extra benefits as full-season subscribers, including the JSO meal/entertainment card, which offers two-for-the-price-of-one discounts at area restaurants.

Ticket holders are invited to attend the complimentary and highly acclaimed pre-concert lecture series hosted by Dr. Bruce Brown, JSO’s Composer-in-Residence. Called Backstage Glimpses, the lectures take place at 6:30 p.m. in the Federer Rooms off the main floor lobby in the Potter Center. BSG is sponsored by Allegiance Health.

To order tickets, call 782-3221, ext. 118; visit www.jacksonsymphony.org; or stop by the orchestra’s downtown office at 215 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson.

NOTE: The Jackson Symphony Orchestra is a community resource providing performances of the classics and popular music, a community music school with private and group instruction and numerous educational programs for students of all ages. The organization owns a 30,000-square-foot facility in the heart of downtown Jackson which not only serves as an administrative, rehearsal, and recital performance space for the orchestra but also is home to the Jackson Youth Symphony, the Jackson Chorale and Children's Choir, the Michigan Shakespeare Festival and JSO Community String Ensemble. The orchestra primarily performs at the world-class Music Hall of the Jackson Community College Potter Center and other venues in town including several churches, the County Fairgrounds and Michigan Theatre.

Arthur Greene, an award-winning pianist and educator, is chair of the Music Department at the University of Michigan. He was a Gold Medal winner in the William Kapell and Gina Bachauer International Piano Competitions, and a top laureate at the Busoni International Competition. He performed the complete solo piano works of Johannes Brahms in a series of six programs in Boston, and recorded the Complete Etudes of Alexander Scriabin for Supraphon. He has performed the 10 Sonata Cycle of Alexander Scriabin in Sofia, Kiev, Salt Lake City, and other venues. With his wife, the violinist Solomia Soroka, he recorded the Violin-Piano Sonatas of William Bolcom, and the Violin-Piano Sonatas of Nikolai Roslavets, both for Naxos. He gave the Ann Arbor premiere of John Corigliano's Piano Concerto with the University Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Kiesler conducting, in February 2006.

Greene, who studied at Juilliard, has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco, Utah and National Symphonies, the Czech National Symphony, the Tokyo Symphony, the National Symphony of Ukraine. He has played recitals in Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Moscow Rachmaninoff Hall, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Lisbon Sao Paulo Opera House, Hong Kong City Hall and concert houses in Shanghai and Beijing. He has toured Japan 12 times. He also was an Artistic Ambassador to Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia for the United States Information Agency.

The Language of Music Advocacy

http://www.artsjournal.com/state/2011/10/the-language-of-music-advocacy.html

From the Studio of Carol Ivkovich

Stacy Robert, student of Carol Ivkovich, was selected to perform at the Michigan Music Teachers Associations masterclass on Tuesday, Oct. 18 in Lansing. Stacy performed Impromptu in A flat by Schubert (op. 90). The clinician was Douglas Humphreys of Eastman School of Music. It was a wonderful opportunity for Stacy to perform among her peers and receive invaluable feedback from an excellent clinician.


Stacy will also be performing in the Albion College Piano Festival the weekend of October 29-30.

Join us for a great fall/Halloween piano recital on Friday, Nov. 4. Students of Carol Ivkovich will be holding their annual fall recital--complete with costumes and fun! "This recital has become the highlight of my students musical year...they love dressing up and "hiding" behind their costumes. Even parents join in the fun by wearing costumes."

Our "spooktacular recital" begins at 7p.m. at the JSO building. Don't be late!!

JSO offers mini-series packages for remaining four concerts

Jackson Symphony Orchestra opened its 62nd season Oct. 8 with Great Movies...Grand Pianos” featuring guest artist Rich Ridenour, who performed film favorites and delighted the audience with his entertaining stage presence.

If you missed the first concert and still want season tickets, the JSO is offering a subscription to the remaining four concerts at a discount.

“Mini-series” subscription packages, which include tickets to the remaining four concerts, are available for are $55 (section C), $85(section B) and $100 (section A), representing a savings compared to buying the tickets individually.

Buyers also will receive many of the same extra benefits as full-season subscribers, including the JSO Meal/Entertainment Card, which offers two-for-the-price-of-one discounts at area restaurants and venues.

Up next in the season is the Romantic Spectacular concert at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 at Jackson Community College’s Potter Center. Pianist Arthur Greene will perform Johannes Brahms’ “Piano Concerto #2” and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Fifth Symphony.” The other three concerts are in February, March and May, 2012.

Feb. 4, 2012 — Let's Dance/ Subscription Concert No. 3: Associate conductor David Schultz will direct John Adams’ Nixon in China.” Alberto Ginastera’s Estancia and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony #7.

March 17, 2012 — Out of This World/ Subscription Concert No. 4: Images of planets complement Gustav Holst’s The Planets and Darius Milhaud’s Creation of the World. Also, concertmaster Xie Min will perform Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.

May 5, 2012 — New Age/Cutting Edge / Subscription Concert No. 5: The cello/guitar team of Viktor Uzur and Brad Richter will premier their work for guitar, cello and orchestra. Called Mash Up, it featuring works by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Radiohead and more.

JSO concert ticket holders are invited to attend the complimentary and highly acclaimed pre-concert lecture series hosted by Dr. Bruce Brown, JSO’s Composer-in- Residence. Called Backstage Glimpses, the lectures take place at 6:30 p.m. in the Federer Rooms off the main Floor Lobby in the Potter Center. Allegiance Health sponsors this lecture series.

To order tickets, call 782-3221, ext. 118; visit www.jacksonsymphony.org; or stop by the orchestra’s downtown office at 215 W. Michigan Ave.


http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/tickets_events/tickets.html

Program Notes - Great Movies! Grand Pianos!

Program Notes
October 8, 2011
By Composer in Residence
Bruce Brown

The JSO will expand the boundaries of classical music programming with its 2011-12 season, which Maestro Osmond has dubbed “New Horizons.” The orchestra will feature music from some surprising sources, along with enduring favorites, to provide richly-varied concert experiences for its audience, and perhaps even to challenge some of our suppositions about what music should be considered classical in the first place.

Pianist Rich Ridenour will join the orchestra for the season opener, “Great Movies ... Grand Pianos,” to perform some of the most memorable music from the silver screen.

Film music borrowed freely from the classical repertoire to create its magic, but unquestionably, some of the finest music of the past hundred years was written expressly for the movies.

The earliest movies were silent, of course, and local pianists or organists often played in the theaters as the films were shown. By 1914, film companies were providing full length scores by classical composers Louis Gottschalk and Victor Herbert that could be performed with their productions

The first movies with sound tracks were shorts and the sound was relatively crude. In 1926, the feature film Don Juan, starring Lionel Barrymore, appeared with background music and sound effects. Hollywood soon figured out how to synchronize the sound with the picture, and the age of “talkies” began with The Jazz Singer in 1927.

In the thirties, a flood of musicians, artists, writers and other people who dared to think for themselves fled Europe and came to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. Many classically-trained musicians were among the refugees, and many settled in Hollywood to write music for the growing film industry.

In Hollywood’s golden age composers like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers wrote wonderful songs for the stage and screen that became huge popular hits.

In the decades that followed, movie music was influenced by almost every conceivable musical genre and style.



Captain Blood

One of the most brilliant of the refugee film composers was Erich Korngold (1897-1957) who seemed to be rising to the very pinnacle of fame. Korngold was amazingly gifted from a very early age. His father published three of his compositions when he was twelve years old, and musicians around the world soon lined up to perform his music.

Korngold wrote his first original film score for Captain Blood, a 1935 swashbuckler featuring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Within a year his music for Anthony Adverse won an Oscar, and he won a second Oscar for The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Korngold’s film scores were enormously influential and firmly established the rich, expressive sound so characteristics of movies in “the good old days.” Sadly, when he tried to return to the concert stage after the war, the public’s taste had changed. By the time of his death, he felt he had been almost forgotten.



Warsaw Concerto

The British composer Richard Addinsell (1904-1977) wrote The Warsaw Concerto for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight, which was released in the United States as Suicide Squadron. The hero of the film is a shell-shocked combat pilot who is also a skilled pianist and has composed a beautiful concerto that he plays to soothe his troubled spirit. Eventually, with his courage renewed, he returns to the battle against the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Addinsell was hired for the project when the producers were unable to convince Sergei Rachmaninoff to write music for the film or allow them to use any of his existing works. Addinsell’s music was orchestrated by Roy Douglas, another British composer and arranger with several film projects to his credit.

The relatively brief Warsaw Concerto, with its unique single-movement design, has become a favorite showpiece for concert programs.



Rhapsody in Blue

George Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote original scores for a handful of films, but he was infuriated when 20th Century Fox rejected most of his music for the film Delicious in 1929. He refused to write movie music until just before his death 8 years later. He didn’t live to see his Academy Award nomination for the song They Can’t Take That Away from Me, written for the film Shall We Dance. Gershwin’s music has been incorporated into countless films since then, including An American in Paris, which was based on Gershwin’s 1928 tone poem of the same name and won the Oscar for best picture in 1951.

On January 3rd, 1924, Gershwin was startled to read an article in the New York Tribune in which the famous band leader Paul Whiteman said Gershwin was writing a new jazz concerto for his orchestra. Gershwin liked the idea, but the concert was barely a month away! Gershwin set to work immediately and wrote his enormously popular Rhapsody in Blue in a frantic rush. He ended up improvising several passages during the premiere in the Aeolian Concert Hall on 43rd Street.

Rhapsody in Blue established Gershwin’s reputation as an important composer and quickly became one of the most recognizable and beloved monuments of American music.

Symphonies! Concertos! Overtures! Beards! Enmity!

Music Appreciation Series


7-8:30 PM Mondays Beginning October17


Professor Andy Mead - at the JSO
Symphonies! Concertos! Overtures! Beards! Enmity!

Prerequisite – None!


These Monday night sessions are designed to enlighten and entertain music enthusiasts, especially those planning to attend the JSO’s 2011-2012 subscription concerts. Johannes Brahms and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, two giants of the Romantic era, share a birthday and share the stage in JSO concerts this year, but they hated each other’s music. Participants in these classes will fi nd out why — and why we can love them both.


October 17 My Symphony is NOT your Symphony: How do symphonies by Brahms differ from those of Tchaikovsky? What can we admire in each? What made each shudder at the work of the other?


October 24 How can you write a piano concerto when you don’t even play the piano? For that matter, who helped YOU with that violin concerto? This class will examine the thrill of virtuosity in the concertos of Brahms and
Tchaikovsky.


November 7 You call that a waltz? I’ll show you a waltz! Professor Mead will talk about dance music written by each of these masters.


November 14 Sign in a 19th century bar - No discussions of: Religion - Politics - Wagner. Mead will explain!


November 21 You Always Hurt the One You Love: So, where did you get those tunes from, anyway? Brahms, Tchaikovsky, influence and light fingers are the topics of discussion.


$50/person
Registration and info:


517-782-3221


Email: jso2007@jacksonsymphony.org


In addition to teaching at the U of M, Dr. Mead is a composer, church organist, member of the JSO Board of Directors and resident of Brooklyn.

GREAT MOVIES / GRAND PIANOS

Rich Ridenour will be our guest for our first subscription concert of the 2011-2012 Season. Click for more information about Rich and the concert and opportunities to buy tickets.

Jackson Chorale Childrens Choir Seeks New Members

If you are a student in grade 4 or above and enjoy singing, please consider joining Jackson Chorale Children’s Choir. The choir is a community organization composed of singers with unchanged voices.

Choir members are selected by audition and rehearse on Tuesdays at the JSO building from 4:15 – 5:15. First semester begins on Tuesday, September 27.

Cost is $35 per semester/ $50 for both semesters if paid by September 27. Scholarships are available.

The choir has sung at numerous community events in the past few years. Included in the 2011-12 first semester are the following performances:

Jackson Chorale Concert on November 6

JSO Holiday Pops Concert on December 11

Auditions on September 20 may be scheduled by calling 581-0559 or emailing jackielivesay@comcast.net.

JSO Promotes David Schultz

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra is pleased to announce that Assistant Conductor David Schultz will be promoted to Associate Conductor for the 2011-2012 season. As part of his promotion, he will be directing the entire February 4, 2012, concert – featuring David Adams’s The Chairman Dances and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 – as well planning and conducting virtually all pops, education and chamber music events. He will also continue in his capacity as Production Manager, Community Music School Director, and Music Director of the Jackson Youth Symphony.

“Over the past two years, David has demonstrated exceptional skills as a conductor and administrator,” JSO Music Director Stephen Osmond said. “He has gained tremendous respect from both the musicians and staff of the orchestra.” Osmond was Associate Conductor from 1977-1978 before being appointed Music Director.

In May, David received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting at Michigan State University under the guidance of Leon Gregorian and Raphael Jimenez. Prior to his doctoral work, he graduated magna cum laude from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin with a Bachelor of Music degree in Viola Performance where he studied with Matthew Michelic. During his time at Lawrence he studied conducting with both Bridget-Michaele Reischl and David Becker, and also spent a semester in Vienna, Austria, where he studied both viola and conducting with Matthias Maurer. Schultz has studied conducting with Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier at the Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, with Harold Farberman and Leon Botstein at the Conductors Institute at Bard College in New York, and with Christophe Chagnard of the Northwest Sinfonietta. He has been a participant at the Aspen Summer Music Festival in Colorado. In 2008 he received his Master of Music degree in Viola Performance at Michigan State University under the tutelage of Robert Dan, with additional studies as a Master’s Conducting Apprentice.

Dr. Schultz is an adjunct faculty member at Michigan State University, serving as Music Director of the contemporary-music ensemble Musique 21. Previously, he held positions with the Mason Orchestral Society as Music Director of the Mason Philharmonic and Assistant Conductor of the Mason Symphony. An active professional violist as well, he is a member of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra; his playing experience also includes the Battle Creek and Jackson symphonies in Michigan, the Green Bay Symphony and Fox Valley Symphony in Wisconsin, and the Northwest Sinfonietta and Tacoma Symphony Orchestra in Washington. Also active as a professional film composer and arranger, he has scored films in Sisbro Studio’s Riddle Solvers series, including Riddle in a Bottle and the upcoming release Shark Riddle.

Music School Open House September 9

The Jackson Symphony Community Music School is throwing a party!

Come to our beginning of the year Open House on Friday September 9 from 6-8 pm.

-Take a tour of our renovated facilities!
-Meet the faculty!
-Receive information about our new programs!
-Listen to performances by music school faculty and students!
-Play music games!
-Refreshments will be served!

All current and potential students and their families are invited to attend!

EDUCATION EXPLOSION!

It’s new at the JSO! New classes in our newly remodeled and technologically updated Music School. Whether you are taking a new class or coming to us for private music lessons

we hope you will enjoy our newly renovated facilities! Classes in Theory/Ear Training, Composition/Arranging, Conducting, Chamber & Percussion Ensembles!

Summer Pops and Boxed Meal Tickets

Have you ordered your summer pops tickets?
July 30 7:30 PM Pops concert in JCC’s Sheffer Hall
VIP $15,
General Admission $10,
Students with ID and Children $5


3-7 Pop Up Art Gallery and Music on the Lawn
at Jackson Community College

$6 boxed meals* are available at 6 PM at JCC concessions.
Orders must be placed with the JSO by 10 AM Thursday morning.

For tickets and boxed meal orders, call the JSO 517-782-3221.

*Choices: Ham, turkey or roast beef on white or whole wheat
Served with a macaroni cheddar salad, potato chips, and a chocolate chip cookie

Refreshments will be available for purchase: water, soda, wine, and beer

CONSTRUCTION ZONE

If you stop by to see us at 215 W. Michigan, please be careful of major construction at our building. We'll be posting some pictures so you can watch our progress! As always, we can be contacted at 782-3221.

JSO Summer Pops Concert Event!

All-day JSO and JCC event will make your pearly whites show!

When celebrating a 30th anniversary, pearls are the traditional gift of choice. So, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra’s plans to celebrate its 30th anniversary of Summer Pops by gifting the community with a day full of activities and a “pearl-studded” concert on July 30.

“It will be more than a concert,” says Music Director Stephen Osmond. “It will be an event! In special partnership with Jackson Community College, we have planned an entire day of entertainment leading up to the evening concert at JCC’s Potter Center Music Hall. A Dancing with the Stars party will follow with a live dance band and refreshments. We’ve enjoyed being outdoors at Ella Sharp, the Cascades and, most recently, the fair, but it will be nice to know we will be cool and dry and enjoy the great acoustics of the Potter Center. The drama of the minor tornado we experienced at the fair a couple years ago will be missed.”

This gem of a concert will include the Jackson Chorale and Clyde McKaney as special guests. The 1812 Overture, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Irving Berlin’s America and Orange Blossom Special are among musical pieces on the program.

The first scheduled event at JCC that day is a Michigan Shakespeare Festival presentation of Molière's play Tartuffe. This comical story, written by France’s most celebrated playwrights, takes place in 17th century Paris. Tartuffe, who a fraud and con man, preys on a wealthy family, convincing him he has divine authority and robbing them of everything. “Hilarious and farcical, Moliere’s 1664 comedy was an immediate audience hit and also the subject of much controversy, mirroring as it did the relationship between the church and King Louis XIV,” it says on the Michigan Shakespeare Festival website. Tartuffe (also known as The Hypocrite) is a side-splitting, ridiculous, and revered entry into the canon of Classical Comedy.”

Throughout the afternoon of the JSO’s 30th Anniversary Summer Pops, there will be art fair, featured musical groups and, at 6 p.m., a picnic dinner. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m.

VIP tickets in reserved seating are $15, general admission is $10, children and students with ID are $5. A picnic box dinner is available for an additional $5.

In addition to Jackson Community College, sponsors of this fantastic event are: The Enterprise Group, Jackson Citizens for Economic Growth, Culvers Restaurant of Jackson, JSO Community Engagement Fund and The Craft Agency.

Calling All Singers!

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra and Jackson Chorale Need YOU!


As part of its Summer Pops Concert July 30th at JCC, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra will be performing several works which include a chorus. Singers with some chorale experience are invited to join in the festivities. No audition required. There are three rehearsals for the concert, as follows:

7 p.m. Tuesday, July 19 - First Presbyterian Church, 743 W. Michigan Ave.

7 p.m. Tuesday, July 26 - First Presbyterian Church

7 p.m. Friday, July 29 - TBA

Concert is 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 30 at JCC


Please phone 782-3221 x 117 or email jso@acd.net and leave your name and voice range.

"It's always a lot of fun," says Stephen Osmond, Music Director of the JSO.

Photos from Golden Baton Award Night

Larry Bullen speaking with recipients Rick Davies, Mark Rosenfeld,
Mary Spring, John Cross and Carl English.

Golden Baton Program

Stephen Osmond, Pat McCleer and the Gel Caps
singing a song, lyrics by Pat McCleer.

JSO on WKAR May 31

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra, directed by Nathaniel Parker, will perform the Love Duet and Children's Dance from Howard Hanson's opera "Merry Mount", Tuesday, May 31 at about 12:10pm on 90.5 Classical. It was recorded March 2008 at Jackson Community College.

Golden Baton Award Recipients 2011

John Cross

John Cross, a certified public accountant in Jackson and owner of Cross & Associates, has donated time to the JSO for decades.

“When I first became involved with the JSO — to keep the books — we had office and rehearsal space in the Commercial Exchange Building, thanks to the generosity of Bob and Laurie LaZebnik. The accounting records consisted of a checkbook and spreadsheets,” he said.

Cross said he feels privileged to be a part of the many positive changes that have taken place since then, including the Capital Campaign that provided a permanent home for the JSO in downtown Jackson, the development of the music school and the steady flow of talented leadership on the JSO board.

“Personally, my family and I have enjoyed the high quality performances,” he continued. “Both my children learned to play musical instruments, and my daughter was a member of the JSO children’s choir. But most of all, we cherish the friendships we’ve developed because of our association with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra.”


Rick Davies

Rick Davies, who served as JSO Board president from 2000-2002, is retired as president of the Jackson region of Comerica Bank, Inc. He began working with Comerica in 1969. During his banking career he has been a municipal credit analyst, a bond portfolio manager, manager of bank liability positions, securities trader, commercial loan officer and commercial lending group manager.

When Davies was a member of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra board, he helped relocate the orchestra to the former J.C. Penney building downtown, then owned by Comerica, and subsequently was instrumental in Comerica’s gift of the building to the JSO.


Carl English

Carl English, vice chairman of American Electric Power in Columbus, Ohio, is a native of Jackson who contributed time, money and inspiration to many of the cities organizations, including the JSO. He was president and chief executive officer of the gas division at Consumers Energy from 1999 until 2004.

“I've had an association with the JSO since the early 1960s when my sister, Guyla, played in the orchestra,” English said. “At that time, I was just in the audience of the JSO, but became much more active through an association with Ty Cross, with whom I worked at Consumers Power Co. Through that association, I became a board member in the 1980s and ultimately board chair.”

“Since my youth, I have enjoyed classical music, and consequently have enjoyed the JSO offerings over the years,” English said. “The JSO is a wonderful combination of style and quality with Stephen and Mary bringing an excellent combination of artistry and good business sense, which has provided a unique blend for success for many years for the benefit of the Jackson Community.”


Mark Rosenfeld

Mark Rosenfeld served as Chairman of the JSO Board of Directors in the 1980s and spearheaded the recent Jackson Symphony Orchestra Endowment Campaign. Until 1996, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Jacobson’s Stores, headquartered in Jackson. Now he is Chairman and President of Wilherst Developers in Tampa, Fla. The company is a commercial real estate development and brokerage firm.

Rosenfeld said that the JSO was the leading cultural entity in Jackson when he and his wife lived here and they appreciated the sense of community the JSO offered.

“The JSO enhanced the quality of life in Jackson for my family and my business associates,” he said. “We enjoyed music, had season tickets, and contributed to the Jackson Symphony, including the fund for the new building.”

Mary Spring

Mary Spring, the JSO’s Development Director, has a very long association with the orchestra as both a volunteer and an employee.

“My first taste of the Jackson Symphony came when Nathan Rosenfeld offered discounted tickets to his employees, of which I was one,” she said “The next year we bought season tickets and the following year I was asked to serve on the Guild’s board of directors, which I did for nearly 10 years.”
In 1991, she worked to develop the JSO’s Community Music School.

“It was then that I learned the importance of arts in the community and that the JSO was uniquely suited to serve in many areas, not simply on the concert stage,” she said. “In 1992 I was hired as the JSO Development director, along with my work in the music school, and the rest is history!”

Spring was Guild president from 1993 until 1994. In 1999, she received the Jenny Spiesberger Distinguished Service Award for her volunteer service to the Guild.

“It is my belief that music can play a major role in the lives of community residents of all ages,” she said. “The JSO stands as a beacon, a resource that brings unbelievable talent into the community, a resource for community musicians, an education center for all ages and most importantly provides an atmosphere that works to create intersections between residents and artists. The JSO is an organization of which I am extremely proud to be a part.”

Golden Baton Award

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra Board of Directors cordially invites you to the Golden Baton Award Dinner honoring

John Cross ~ Rick Davies ~ Carl English
Mark Rosenfeld ~ Mary Spring

Thursday, June 2, 2011
The Country Club of Jackson
Jackson, Michigan
6:00 p.m. Social Hour • 7:00 p.m. Dinner
Cash Bar
Entertainment
$100 per person - $75 tax deductible

The Golden Baton Award is given to individuals who, through their extraordinary generosity and years of dedicated service, have significantly advanced the vision and mission of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra.

All proceeds of this event will go to support the JSO Community Engagement Program

RSVP 517-795-2895 - Donna Lake

Review of Sunday's Concert

“When I taught German, I wanted my students to know something about German culture, too. So we had a unit on German art. They practiced adjective endings while describing paintings of German artists. For some reason, music seemed to be harder to include in regular class work. Finally I settled on having them write impromptu themes to music by the famous German composers. The only problem was that they only wanted to write to Bach – no Beethoven, Mozart, or any other German composers. All I can add to Sunday afternoon’s concert is that there would have been 20 years of delighted third and fourth year German students, as well as their teacher. It was a wonderful concert!”

Val Bullen

JSO on WKAR April 28

Music Director Stephen Osmond will lead the Jackson Symphony Orchestra in Respighi's "The Pines of Rome" at about 10:10 a.m. Thursday, April 28 on 90.5 WKAR. The Orchestra was recorded live in concert October 13, 2007 at Jackson Community College's Potter Center Music Hall.

Talented local musicians in spotlight at JSO concert

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra’s grand finale for the 2010-2011 season will feature six of the JSO’s regular orchestra members as soloists, plus the world premiere of Dr. Bruce Brown’s composition titled Conversations and Dreams.

Also on the program are Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, Joseph Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante, Charles Griffes’ Poem for Flute and Orchestra and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s overture to the opera Cosi fan tutte.

Soloists include principal flute, Richard Sherman, and other key members of the orchestra — Clyde McKaney, viola; Ji Hyun Kim, violin; Daniel Thomas, cello; Steven Newton, bassoon; and Jan Eberle, oboe.

Brown, who is composer-in-residence for the JSO, previewed portions his composition at the first four concerts of the season. The work has an unusual twist which is a secret until the performance.

“It has been most enjoyable to share the creative process with the audience this year and to have them looking over my shoulder as Conversations and Dreams took shape,” Dr. Brown said. “The piece grew out of my fascination with the ways that men and women communicate with each other, and sometimes fail to, despite their best intentions!”

“The first, third and fifth movements - Date Night, Shopping and Could It Be Love? — have some fun with conversation between men and women, which some have called a cross-cultural experience. As I worked with the music, the concept grew to include some things that I feel are among the most important in life,” Dr. Brown explained. “The Daydream movement explores our hopes, the secret things we long for and may be afraid even to tell our closest friends about. The Nightmare deals with our fears, the things we dread at our most vulnerable moments. The finale, Soaring, celebrates those joyous moments when we experience the healing and fulfilling power of love.”

The concert starts at 8 p.m. at the Potter Center at Jackson Community College. Titled Our Own Back Yard, this concert is one in a series featuring the many talented musicians who currently play in our orchestra or grew up in Jackson.

Willis & Jurasek, CPAs & Consultants, are sponsoring the concert. Melling Automotive is the sponsor for the guest artists.

Individual tickets for the May 7 concert are $18, $27, $32. They may be purchased online at www.JacksonSymphony.org; by phone at 517-782-3221; or in person at the JSO Box Office, 215 W. Michigan Ave., downtown Jackson. All ticket holders are invited to attend the complimentary and highly acclaimed pre-concert lecture that Dr. Brown hosts. Backstage Glimpses, sponsored by Allegiance Health, takes place at 7 p.m. in the Federer Rooms off the main floor lobby in the Potter Center.

NOTE: The Jackson Symphony Orchestra is a community resource providing performances of the classics and popular music, a community music school with private and group instruction and numerous educational programs for students of all ages. The organization owns a 30,000-square-foot facility in the heart of downtown Jackson which not only serves as an administrative, rehearsal, and recital performance space for the orchestra but also is home to the Jackson Youth Symphony, the Jackson Chorale and Children's Choir, the Michigan Shakespeare Festival and JSO Community String Ensemble. The orchestra primarily performs at the world-class Music Hall of the Jackson Community College Potter Center and other venues in town including several churches, the County Fairgrounds and Michigan Theatre.

Adult Education 103: Encountering Music beyond the Concert Hall

Encountering Music beyond the Concert Hall

We hear music in many situations outside of the concert hall, but often in ways that enhance and are enhanced by our experience with live performances. This series of conversations will develop some observations about our encounters with music and bring them back to our experience of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra.

1: Music in the Church

Western art music has its roots in the Church and has continued through much of its history to deal with religious issues. This lecture explores some of the more familiar examples of music in the Church, but brings in some surprises as well.

2: Music in the Home

Much of our experience of music is remarkably private, in our homes, in our cars, or even, with the advent of portable personal music systems, in our heads. We’ll question how this way of experiencing music changes our sense of music as a social act, and we’ll contrast it with earlier home music experiences, which have traditionally involved shared experiences in intimate surroundings.

3: Music in the Community

Organizations like the Jackson Chorale or Community Strings provide us with a kind of musical experience quite different from that found with professional ensembles. Members of the audience are often related to members of the ensemble, and the border between ensemble and audience is often blurred. Being able to identify with the makers of music can change our perspective on our experience of hearing them play or sing.

4. Music in the Theater

Whether we are listening to an opera or watching a movie, when we encounter music in a theatrical context, we understand it as a way of enhancing our insights into a group of characters interacting in a story. And things can get even more complex if those characters themselves are listening to music!

5. Revisiting the Concert Hall

With the insights we develop in our first four conversations, we will return to the concert hall, in the hope that what had seemed familiar and well understood can be heard anew as fresh and strange.

Monday evenings, May 9, 16, 23, June 6 and 13
JSO Board Room - 215 W. Michigan
7 to 8:30 PM
$50 per person for entire series (includes materials)
Anyone can attend - you do not need to have attended previous classes.
Register 517.782.3221 ext. 118 or sign up online http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/tickets_events/tickets.html
Taught/lead by Dr. Andrew Mead, professor of Music Theory, University of Mchigan. He is also an active composer, church organizst, member of the JSO Board of Directors and resident of Brooklyn.

JSO on WKAR

On WKAR 90.5 FM

Thursday 4/14 - 12:15pm - Bizet: "Children's Games". Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Stephen Osmond conducting. 

Monday 4/18 - 11:35am - Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5; Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Edward Parmentier conducting.

Our Own Back Yard - May 7, 2011

Drum roll, please, for the world premier of Bruce Brown's latest opus that he has developed over the course of the current season and shared with us, in part, at each of the four prior concerts. Also on the program will be Tchaikovsky' dazzling Capriccio Italien and several concerti featuring members of the JSO including principal flutist, Richard Sherman performing Griffe's Poem. Tickets: 782-3221, 215 W. Michigan Ave., online.

Trio to present Bach masterpiece for Strings - May 1

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra will wrap up its 2011 Chamber Music Series on May 1 with an ambitious program that features “Xie Min and Friends.”

The string trio will perform a monumental work by composer Johann Sebastian Bach that has been transcribed for strings. The concert begins at 3 p.m. May 1 at the JSO's Peter A. Weatherwax Hall, 215 W. Michigan Ave. Tickets are $15 per person and include light refreshments.

Titled Goldberg Variations, the piece for harpsichord was written in 1741. Talented Russian composer and violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky transcribed it in 1984 so it could be performed on strings instruments instead. Musicians performing Goldberg Variations must have virtuoso technical skills. Because of its one-hour duration, it’s also a test of concentration for the players.

The music begins with an aria followed by 30 “variations” (material repeated in a changed form). The aria reoccurs at the end. Goldberg Variations is considered by many to be the most important set of variations composed in the Baroque era. Bach named it after his pupil, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who was harpsichordist in the court of Count Keyserlingk.

When Goldberg Variations was published, the cover page read: Composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach. “Refreshing our spirits” at the JSO chamber concert will be Xie Min on violin, Roman Kosarev on viola and Andrew McIntosh on cello.

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

Xie Min is Concertmaster of Jackson Symphony Orchestra as well as ECO Violinist in the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Ontario, Canada. He graduated from Michigan State University in 2004 with a Doctor of Musical Arts in violin performance. From 1996 to 2004, Min served as Principal Second Violinist of the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Concertmaster of the MSU Symphony Orchestra, Artist-in-Residence at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and Concertmaster of the Faculty Orchestra at BLFAC.

Roman Kosarev, a doctorate student at MSU is an active solo and orchestra performer. He served as a Principal Violist with the MSU Symphony Orchestra (2004-2009), Midland Symphony (2005-2007), Greater Lansing Symphony (2006-current) and Battle Creek Symphony (2008-2009). He also plays with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra as the third chair viola (2008-current). Since 2005 he has spent summers at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, where he teaches and performs with the Festival Orchestra as Principal Viola. Kosarev studied violin at Vladimir Music College in Russia, then viola at the Glinka State Conservatory. Later he completed Post-Graduate Studies in Chamber Music at the conservatory.

Andrew McIntosh has been Principal Cellist of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra since 1997. During that time he has also been active as a freelance cellist in Ontario and southern Michigan, playing regularly with the Canadian Opera Company and Esprit Orchestras in Toronto, as well as the Detroit Symphony and Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit. McIntosh obtained a Bachelor of Music from McGill University and completed a Masters of Music from The Cleveland Institute of Music.

For additional information, please call the Jackson Symphony Orchestra at 517-782-3221.
Reservations through 517-782-3221 or jacksonsymphony.org.

"MASH UP" concert airs on JTV

The amazing and enjoyable Richter Uzur Duo "Mash Up" performed at the JSO on March 22 is showing on JTV at 3PM, 7PM and 10PM until April 19! Don't miss it!

Piano Students Shine at Achievement Event

Twelve piano students enrolled in the Jackson Symphony Orchestra’s Community Music School received very high scores at the Student Achievement Testing held March 13 at Michigan State University. The event was offered through the Michigan Music Teachers Association.

Students were required to perform three pieces from memory to demonstrate three different skills. Follow-up tests were given for sight reading/transposition, ear training, technique and theory — and the composite scores then tallied.

“Every single one of my students had a composite score between 90 and 100 percent,” said Community Music School piano instructor Carol Ivkovich said. “I was very happy with their performances.”

Two division winners, Karis Darland and Lindsay Rasmussen, were invited to perform March 18 in an honors recital in Okemos. Darland, a home-schooler, had perfect scores in technique, sight reading and ear training. Rasmussen, who attends Hanover-Horton Middle School, received perfect scores on technique, theory and ear training.

The following students also received perfect scores on individual tests:

For sight reading: Susan Hoffman, Queens Elementary School, Jennifer Hoffman, Jackson Catholic Middle School and Jovanka Koprivica, Jackson High.

For technique: Timothy Darland, Michael Lynne Foster and Matthew Pfeifer, all home-schooled.

For ear training: William Double, Jackson Catholic Middle School.

For performance: Stephen Foster, home-schooled.

Other participants scoring 90 percent or higher were: Issac Skinner, Addison Middle School, and Luke Dendy, home-schooled.

BIG THANK YOU!

Ticket renewal and contributions for the 2011-2012 JSO Season "New Horizons" are 40% ahead of where they were at this time last year.  This is most encouraging news for the Board and staff of the JSO.  Renewal activities continue through April and May until tickets go on general sale June1
 

JSO Chamber Series Off In A New Direction!

Last week the JSO Chamber Series offered a "sneak preview" of next season's guest artists for the May Concert. Approximately 50 attendees enjoyed wine, cheese and crackers and the amazing talent of Brad Richter, guitar and Viktor Uzur, cello, as they navigated music from Baroque to Led Zeppelin. The audience was so impressed with their talent, they depleted the inventory of CDs Brad and Viktor had brought with them to sell.


According to those in attendance, the unusual day, Tuesday, and start time, 6:00pm was a welcome event in the middle of the week.

Earlier in the day the duo performed for 5th and 6th graders at Warner School in Spring Arbor.

Jammin' at the JSO - April Fools Edition

April 1st is almost here! 4 bands, $4, Jackson Symphony Orchestra Weatherwax Hall, 215 W. Michigan Ave, April 1, 7:00 - 11:00.

Facebook Event Page


This months Jamming at the JSO features 4 great bands.

Omri Reid is a young Jacksonian who comes from a very musical family. His music is folky and reminiscent of Gypsy Jazz music with a modern twist. This will be Omri's first performance with a band.
Amateur Anthropologists hails from Detroit, and their music is very much in the tradition of Detroit style garage punk-rock. They recently performed at the Metro Times Blowout and were voted one of the best acts.
Long Whisker has members from all over: Jackson, Ypsilanti, and Japan. Fronted by Reagan Sova, an adjunct English Professor at JCC, and Jim Cherewick, this band has some folky, twang, and rock qualities around it. They're lyrics are steeped with quirkiness but are so catchy I know you'll enjoy it.

Streaking in Tongues is a rock band from Jackson. Ronnie Ferguson, of Jackson, performs with lots of feeling. They music ranges from blues, to really epic musical jams, and back down to soft ballads. They're really excited for this show!

On Thursday, March 31st, I'll be taking Long Whisker and Streaking in Tongues with to perform on MSU's student radio station The Impact. We will be guests on a show that features local music acts from around the state. The show starts at 8pm and goes until 10pm. Listen live at http://impact89fm.org/

Thank you for the continued support of local music!

-Aaron Wilson

Carol Ivkovich Studio at Michgan Music Teacher's Association Student Achievement Testing

Announcing the outcome of Student Achievement Testing held yesterday at MSU through the Michigan Music Teacher's Association. I took 14 students. All 14 students scored between 88%-98% on their performances, sightreading, ear training, theory and technique tests. I was very happy with their scores.:-)


Lindsay Rasmussen earned the top honors (98.5 %) in her division, and was invited to perform in an honors recital in Okemos this Friday.
Karis Darland took the top honors in her division with the highest score of all participants. She was invited to perform in an honors recital in Okemos this Friday.

Stephen Foster earned a perfect score on his performance.

Susan Hoffman and Michael Lynne Foster earned perfect scores on their technique tests.

It was a good weekend for all involved!

Carol Ivkovich

Guild Solos - Flavors of France - March 19

If you will be attending this JSO concert by yourself (SOLO) and you would like to meet and enjoy the company of other SYMPHONY SOLOS, please join them for dinner before the concert at Knight's Steak House  located on Ferguson Road at S. Jackson Road. Food will be ordered individually from the menu. Guests are welcome.

5:15 PM First seating for persons going to Backstage Glimpses.

6:00 PM Second seating for persons NOT going to Backstage Glimpses. (You may choose to go to the 5:15 PM seating if you wish.)

7:00 PM Backstage Glimpses presented by Dr. Bruce Brown.

8:00 PM The concert begins!

Reservations by Thursday, March 17, 2011. Call the JSO Office, 782-3221.

Program Notes - Flavors of France - March 19

Program Notes
March 19, 2011
By Composer in Residence
Bruce Brown

Tonight’s concert by the JSO explores the musical “Flavors of France” which, like its culinary delights, are numerous and varied.

The French journalist Marcel Rouff, a contemporary of Debussy and Ravel, once wrote "light, refined, learned and noble, harmonious and orderly, clear and logical, the cooking of France is, in some strange manner, intimately linked to the genius of her greatest men.” The same words could easily be used to describe French music.

Composers like Claude Debussy can also sound very mystical about their music. “Music is the expression of the movement of the waters,” he once said, “the play of curves described by changing breezes.” Another time he said “music is the silence between the notes.”

We hope you enjoy tonight’s banquet of music from France!



Roma Symphony

The composer of Carmen, Georges Bizet (1838 – 1875), wrote two symphonies, both in the key of C major. The first came in a burst of youthful enthusiasm when he was a 17-year-old student at the Paris Conservatoire. He toiled on the second for eleven years, and he was probably still dissatisfied with it when he died tragically at the age of 36.

In 1857 Bizet got a break that transformed the careers of many composers; he won the Prix de Rome, which would allow him to study for two years in Rome and a year in Germany at no cost. After his stay in Rome, he spent some time touring Italy and mapped out the scheme for a symphony. The first movement was to be dedicated to the city of Rome, the second to Venice, the third to Florence and the finale to Naples.

By 1861, he had written the scherzo, which was performed poorly on January 11, 1863 and received a frosty reception. It fared better in a second performance on January 18th, but Bizet had lost his ebullient confidence and the revising process began. The work in its present form wasn’t performed until after his death.



Pavane

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), probably best known for his glorious Requiem, was born into the humble family of a village schoolmaster in the Ariège district in southern France. When his musical talent became apparent he was sent to Paris to study, and he became an excellent organist and a professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire. He was forced to retire by increasing deafness, but continued to write excellent music until his death almost 20 years later.

In a letter to his wife, Fauré wrote an intriguing account of the inspiration for his Pavane: "While I was thinking about a thousand different things of no importance whatsoever, a kind of rhythmical theme in the style of a Spanish dance took form in my brain.... This theme developed by itself, became harmonized in different ways, changed and modulated; in effect, it germinated by itself."

Fauré wrote the Pavane during the summer of 1887 as a purely orchestra piece, but he soon decided to add choral parts and dance, probably to please his patron, Elisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe. The orchestral version received its première on November 25, 1888 and the choral version was heard only three days later at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique. The full “choreographic spectacle” was first heard at a garden party held by the comtesse in the Bois de Boulogne, a beautiful park near Paris. The piece is most often performed in its purer original form, which is much more suited to the nostalgic beauty of the music.





Gymnopédie

The eccentric pianist and composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) was fond of paradoxical titles like Flabby Preludes for a Dog and Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear. His unconventional music was often accompanied by strange performance instructions like “as light as an egg.”

Satie wrote three piano pieces called Gymnopédies in 1888. The title might refer to the war-dance festivals of ancient Sparta, known as Gymnopaedia, but the music hardly sounds like a war dance. It might just have been an exotic sounding word that caught Satie’s fancy.

By 1896, Satie had fallen on hard times and a rising star, Claude Debussy, arranged two of the Gymnopédies for orchestra to help draw attention to his friend. Some critics have suggested that Debussy changed the music from what Satie would have intended, but other scholars insist Debussy closely followed Satie’s own tastes in his orchestration.



“March to Scaffold” from Symphonie fantastique

The Symphonie fantastique of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is a landmark work in almost every sense of the word. The music is famous for the way Berlioz wove a poignant theme through all its movements and for innovations like the use of four timpani to simulate thunder and the first-ever inclusion of the tuba in the orchestra.

Berioz wrote a detailed program to explain his vision of the piece, saying in part: “the author imagines that a young, vibrant musician, afflicted by the sickness of spirit which a famous writer has called the wave of passions [la vague des passions], sees for the first time a woman who unites all the charms of the ideal person his imagination was dreaming of, and falls desperately in love with her…”

In the fourth movement, the March to the Scaffold, the artist, “convinced that his love is unappreciated … dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his own execution…”

Berlioz wrote the Symphonie fantastique to express his love for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson after seeing her perform the role of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet on September 11, 1827. Smithson refused to see him despite his numerous love letters, but when she heard the symphony, two years after its premiere on December 5, 1830, she was deeply flattered to be the object of such grandiose affection. The two were married on October 3, 1833, but their marriage was short and bitter. Be careful what you wish for!



Nocturnes

Music changed forever when Claude Debussy (1862-1918) appeared on the scene. “There is no theory,” he said famously, “you only have to listen,” and he proceeded to write music that his professors hated and audiences loved.

Debussy wrote his three Nocturnes within days of the dawn of the twentieth century, completing them on December 15, 1899. The movements we will hear tonight, Nuages and Fêtes, were first performed in Paris on December 9 of the following year.

In an introductory note to the music, Debussy said "The title Nocturnes is to be interpreted here in a general and, more particularly, in a decorative sense. Therefore, it is not meant to designate the usual form of the Nocturne, but rather all the various impressions and the special effects of light that the word suggests.”

Nuages, he said, “renders the immutable aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in grey tones lightly tinged with white. Fêtes, he continued, “gives us the vibrating, dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with sudden flashes of light. There is also the episode of the procession (a dazzling fantastic vision), which passes through the festive scene and becomes merged in it. But the background remains resistantly the same: the festival with its blending of music and luminous dust participating in the cosmic rhythm.”



La Valse

The music of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is often associated with dancing, and La Valse (“The Waltz”) was written in 1919 both as a dance and as a work about dance. Ravel said he hoped to create “a sort of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz,” but Serge Diaghilev, who had commissioned the music for his famous Ballets Russes, rejected the work saying it was not suited for the stage. Ravel was deeply hurt, and the music was not performed as a ballet until many years later.

Ravel himself said the music was inspired by the waltzes of Johann Strauss, and La Valse does capture echoes of glorious old Vienna, but it also carries a sense of despair that brings it into his own time in war-torn Europe.

Ravel also described his music with a program note inscribed on the score: "Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished.” He wrote, “The clouds gradually scatter: one sees … an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo .... Set in an imperial court, about 1855."

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