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.