Jackson Symphony Orchestra

Program Notes - Let's Dance - Feb 4, 2012

2012-01-15T12:43:00.001-05:00

Tonight’s program by the JSO, “Let’s Dance,” is all about rhythm. Much wonderful music has been written for ballet and the dance, but tonight’s music goes beyond that to celebrate rhythm itself, the energizing force that makes music move and makes us respond with movement of our own!

Rhythm is vital in the music of all cultures throughout history. In many societies a task like threshing grain may become an intricate rhythmic dance. Children sing rhythmic tunes as they play, not realizing they are learning to synchronize their movements. Music with energetic rhythms makes our workouts fun.

It is difficult to imagine music without rhythm’s motivating force. Tonight’s program revels in it!

The Chairman Dances

John Adams (born in 1947) is one of the most exciting composers on the American scene today. He has won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for his deeply moving work On the Transmigration of Souls, a tribute to the victims of the September 11 attacks. Adams and other minimalist composers use repetitive figures, brilliant orchestral colors and vivid imagery to write works that audiences have embraced with enthusiasm.

The Chairman Dances was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Milwaukee Symphony and first performed under the direction of Lukas Foss on January 31, 1986 and in Jackson October of 1988. Adams describes the piece as an “out-take” from his celebrated opera Nixon in China: “…a kind of warmup for embarking on the creation of the full opera.”

“The Chairman Dances,” he wrote, “began as a "foxtrot" for Chairman Mao and his bride, Chiang Ch’ing, the fabled "Madame Mao," firebrand, revolutionary executioner, architect of China’s calamitous Cultural Revolution, and (a fact not universally realized) a former Shanghai movie actress. In the surreal final scene of the opera, she interrupts the tired formalities of a state banquet, disrupts the slow moving protocol and invites the Chairman, who is present only as a gigantic forty-foot portrait on the wall, to "come down, old man, and dance." The music takes full cognizance of her past as a movie actress. Themes, sometimes slinky and sentimental, at other times bravura and bounding, ride above in bustling fabric of energized motives.”

Danses Sacrée et Profane

In 1904, Claude Debussy (1862-1918) received an unusual commission. Gustave Lyon of the Pleyel Company in Paris had come up with a new style of harp, and the firm asked Debussy to write a composition to show off the capabilities of the new instrument.

Lyon’s harp had two sets of strings that crossed in the middle and allowed any chromatic note to be played without retuning. Pleyel hoped Lyon’s new design would replace the standard pedal harp, which was developed by piano maker Sébastien Érard in Paris in 1810. Érard’s design, with its glorious sound, is the style in common use today, but it does require the player to adjust tuning pedals to create chromatic changes (for example, changing C to C-sharp).

Debussy responded to the request with these two lovely dances, now known as his “Sacred and Profane Dances,” which were first performed in Paris on November 6, 1904.

The word “profane” in the title doesn’t mean that Debussy chose to write something vulgar! It simply means “secular,” rather than sacred, and both dances are full of beauty, transparent textures and rich harmony.

Danzón No. 2

The second of the eight Danzóns by Arturo Marquez is so popular in his native Mexico that it is sometimes considered the country’s second national anthem. (Its rival for that honor is Huapango by José Pablo Moncayo, which the JSO performed in November of 2009.)

Marquez was born in 1950 in Álamos in the Mexican State of Sonora. He pursued his interest in music when his family moved to La Puente, a suburb of Los Angeles. Marquez studied at the Concervatorio Nacional (National Conservatory) in Mexico before winning a scholarship from the French government to study in Paris. He later won a Fulbright scholarship to complete his studies at the California Institute of the Arts.

The danzón is popular in Mexico and Puerto Rico and is the official dance of Cuba. The Latin form of this dance for couples evolved from the 18th-century European contradance.

Marquez conceived of the idea for his Danzón No. 2 when he traveled to the state of Malinalco in southern Mexico with painter Andrés Fonseca and dancer Irene Martínez, “both of whom are experts in salon dances with a special passion for the danzón.”

“From these experiences onward,” he wrote, “I started to learn the danzón’s rhythms, its form, its melodic outline, and to listen to the old recordings ... I was fascinated and I started to understand that the apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness, a genre which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape towards their own emotional world ...”

The music is dedicated to the composer’s daughter Lily!

Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92

Beethoven’s deafness had been advancing for at least fifteen years in 1811, when he failed miserably in an attempt to perform his own fifth concerto, “The Emperor,” and ended his playing career forever. It had been three years since the creation of his landmark fifth and sixth symphonies, but his ability to hear music in his head was still razor sharp, and he started work on his seventh symphony in the spa resort of Teplitz, near Prague, where he was taking the cure.

He finished his work in April of 1812, and dedicated his new symphony to his friend and patron Count Moritz von Fried. The 7th symphony was premiered on December 8, 1813, at a benefit concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau. The piece was an immediate hit, and it was performed three more times in the following ten weeks.

Beethoven, hardly known for his modesty, may have been ironic when he said his seventh symphony was "one of the happiest products of my poor talents." Wagner praised Beethoven’s seventh as “... the Apotheosis of the Dance itself: it is Dance in its highest aspect, the loftiest deed of bodily motion, incorporated into an ideal mold of tone."

The poignant second movement was immediately recognized as something special, and it has remained one of Beethoven’s most recognizable and enduring creations.

If you saw The King’s Speech, which won the Academy Award for the Best Film of 2010 and three other Oscars, you will recognize this dramatic music, which was woven through the film’s climactic scene in a very powerful way.

Orchestra’s Let’s Dance concert to enliven cold winter night

2012-01-10T13:25:00.001-05:00

Three 20th Century pieces and a classical masterwork will be presented Feb. 4 when the Jackson Symphony Orchestra presents a mid-winter concert meant to raise pulses and inspire listeners.

“Our theme is Let’s Dance, but rather than being a depiction of actual dancing, I’d say the concert is more a celebration of rhythm,” said David Schultz, who will conduct the concert at the Potter Center in Jackson beginning at 7:30 p.m. “Each piece of music is built upon continual rhythmic themes that the listener can easily latch onto — a significant aspect of many a popular dance tune.

“At times the rhythms are more subtle (though still present in the background), allowing gorgeous and brilliant orchestral colors to shine through,” he continued. “Then there are moments when the rhythm is so strong you can’t help but move along with it, tapping your finger or nodding your head. Audience members are strongly encouraged not to resist these impulses; I guarantee you the orchestra will be moving right along with you!”

First on the program is The Chairman Dances (subtitled Foxtrot for Orchestra) by American composer John Adams. Written in 1985, the piece is an outtake from his opera Nixon in China, which recently played at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Next is Claude Debussy’s Sacred and Profane Dances, featuring soloist and regular JSO harpist Laurel Federbush.

“Composed in 1904, the piece is a lovely tour-de-force for the harp, featuring many techniques not before seen on the instrument,” Schultz said.

The third 20th Century piece on the program is Danzón No. 2, an increasingly popular orchestral favorite by Mexican composer Arturo Marquez. Composed in 1994, the music reflects the style of a dance that originated in Cuba and remains a tradition in Mexico and Latin America.

After intermission, the program will conclude with Ludwig van Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 7 in A major. It was written in 1811 at the peak of Beethoven’s “Heroic” period. Richard Wagner later dubbed it “the apotheosis of the dance” due to its emphasis on persistent rhythmic motives. The second movement remains the most popular (it was recently used to great effect in the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech), but all four movements are dazzling strokes of genius.

“The ambition of the first movement, beauty of the second, the breathlessness of the scherzo, and relentless energy of the finale did not fail to impress audiences,” according to a National Public Radio article describing the initial 1813 and 1814 performances.

“I’m very excited to be directing this program,” Schultz said. “It’s an honor and a privilege to make music with the fine musicians of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, and I look forward to working with them in presenting the music for our community.”

Schultz was assistant conductor of the JSO for two years before his promotion to associate conductor this year.

“A fine musician with a most impressive background, Dr. Schultz has earned the respect of the musicians and audience with his numerous appearances conducting most of the Pops concerts since his hire and making several appearances on our classical series,” said JSO Music Director Stephen Osmond. “He received his Doctorate from MSU this Spring and has done a great job developing the Jackson Youth Symphony into the fine ensemble it is today.”

Consumers Energy is sponsoring the concert. Co-sponsor is Melling Engine Parts Co.

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 and are sponsored by Allegiance Health.

To order tickets, call 782-3221, ext. 118; visit http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/tickets_events/tickets.html; or stop by the orchestra’s downtown office at 215 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson. Single-show tickets range from $18 to $32. The JSO also is offering passes to the final three concerts of the season at special rates. Subscriptions for the Feb. 4 Let’s Dance!, March 17 Out of This World and May 5 New Age/Cutting Edge concerts range from $40 to $75.

JSO Holiday Concert on JTV

2011-12-22T13:34:00.001-05:00

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

2011-12-19T14:22:00.002-05:00

“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

2011-12-02T10:13:00.002-05:00

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

2011-12-02T10:09:00.000-05:00

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

2011-11-19T12:28:00.000-05:00

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

2011-11-08T10:57:00.002-05:00

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

2011-11-05T20:10:00.000-04:00

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

2011-10-30T14:30:00.000-04:00

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

2011-10-27T09:59:00.000-04:00

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

2011-10-23T16:40:00.003-04:00

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

From the Studio of Carol Ivkovich

2011-10-19T09:43:00.002-04:00

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

2011-10-17T10:32:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-10-05T09:49:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-09-30T09:19:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-21T10:48:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-07T10:59:00.002-04:00

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

2011-09-06T12:58:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-01T09:56:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-08-22T16:05:00.002-04:00

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

2011-07-27T09:13:00.000-04:00

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

2011-07-20T09:41:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-06-30T10:53:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-06-27T15:50:00.002-04:00

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

2011-06-06T20:02:00.000-04:00

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

2011-05-27T15:33:00.002-04:00

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

2011-05-16T19:54:00.000-04:00

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

2011-05-12T12:43:00.000-04:00

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

2011-05-05T16:12:00.000-04:00

“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

2011-04-27T18:15:00.002-04:00

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

2011-04-26T10:04:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-26T07:45:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-12T11:59:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-11T10:59:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-09T19:29:00.001-04:00

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

2011-04-08T12:56:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-08T11:34:00.001-04:00

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!

2011-03-29T19:51:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-03-29T19:05:00.000-04:00

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

2011-03-24T10:10:00.001-04:00

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

2011-03-14T12:19:00.001-04:00

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

2011-03-12T15:12:00.000-05:00

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

2011-03-11T12:26:00.002-05:00

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."

TICKETS - http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/ - 782-3221 - 215 W. Michigan Ave

JSO Announces Dates for Our 2011-2012 Season

2011-03-02T10:52:00.000-05:00

Save these dates for the 2011-2012 series of Jackson Symphony Orchestra Concerts!

Subscription Series: New Horizons
October 8, 2011
November 12, 2011
February 4, 2012
March 17, 2012
May 5, 2012

Summer Pops location and date TBA.
Holiday Pops - December 11

Other events and dates including a possible Halloween program and Chamber Music events will be posted when the information is complete.

Get Ready for Flavors of France!

2011-03-01T18:02:00.000-05:00

Jetting off to France on March 19, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra will present a program of French music that spans the period from the late 1800s to the mid 20th Century. The program is a mix of both familiar repertoire and lesser known works.

Included are two pieces that led up to the 20th Century — Hector Berlioz’ March to the Scaffold from Symphony Fantastique, a familiar piece to anyone who knows French music, and Georges Bizet’s Roma-Suite/Symphony. This music captures the lyricism of Bizet's music in much the same way as his popular opera, Carmen.

The next four compositions on the program — Claude Debussy’s orchestration of Erik Satie's piano piece Gymnopedie, Gabriel Urbain Fauré's Pavane and masterpieces by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel — will bring a transition to the Impressionist period and beyond.

“Fauré's Pavane is to many the most beautiful and sublime piece of music ever written,” said Music Director Stephen Osmond.

The Debussy selection, Nocturnes, isn't as well known as his Afternoon of a Faun or La Mer but the beauty of the music is no less profound, Osmond said.

The program will conclude with La Valse, Ravel's interpretation of the collapse of post-romantic Europe. Ravel described La Valse with the following preface to the score: "Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B. Set in an imperial court, about 1855."

“The evening will transport the listener from the diabolical to the ethereal and many colorful stops in between,” Osmond said.
Titled Flavors of France, this is the 4th concert in the JSO’s 2010-2011 Subscription Concert Series. The 2011-2012 program will be announced at this concert. The 5th and final concert of this season will be on May 7 and will feature the premiere of Bruce Brown’s latest opus. Brown is JSO’s Composer-in-Residence. Also on the program May 7 are Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, Joseph Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante and Charles Griffes’ Poem for Flute and Orchestra. Several JSO members will perform solos, including principal flutist Richard Sherman.

Both concerts begin at 8 p.m. at the Potter Center Music Hall at Jackson Community College.

The March 19 concert is sponsored by Great Lakes Home Health and Hospice and the May 7 concert is sponsored by Willis & Jurasek, CPAs & Consultants. Guest artist sponsor is Melling Automotive.

An after-concert party, Une Soiree en France, will be held at Johnstone Supply, 903 Belden Road, immediately following the March 19 concert. Erin Mazur and Marco Pullan are sponsoring late-night refreshments ala francais. The Jackson French Quarter Dixieland Band will entertain. Special ticket packages are being offered. Two concert tickets and party pass for two is $35. JSO season ticket holders may attend the party for $15 per couple.

Individual tickets for the March 19 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 series hosted by Dr. Bruce Brown, JSO Composer-in-Residence. Backstage Glimpses 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.

Concert Organist

2011-03-01T13:48:00.000-05:00

The Music Department of the First United Methodist Church, 275 West Michigan Avenue is excited to announce that Ken Cowan, a Concert Organist on Staff at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey will be coming to the First UMC to present a concert of Organ Music. This is Mr. Cowan’s second recital on the church's Ott Organ. His first was just after the organ was installed in 2002 as a way of introducing the instrument to the Jackson community. Mr. Cowan is a very exciting recitalist presenting most all of his selections by memory. This concert is scheduled for Sunday, April 3 at 3:00pm. While this concert is free and open to the public a Free-will offering will be most gratefully accepted.

What a wonderful opportunity to share this wonderful instrument with the community. We hope that you will plan now to join us and will invite your family and friends to join you!

Tim Meunier
Director of Music
First United Methodist Church
Jackson, MI

Pianos!

2011-02-24T10:07:00.002-05:00

The Sound Vision Campaign has brought a new "sound" to Orchestra Hall! A newly refurbished Steinway Grand Piano along with 3 excellent studio uprights arrived today to the delight of piano teachers, students and all musicians connected with the orchestra. The Steinway has the warm sound and rich bass associated with the model and brand.

"This will be an extremely versatile instrument not only shining as a solo instrument but a fine partner for chamber music and recital accompaniment. When I first heard it in the hall this morning it was a perfect match. Often an instrument will have one sound in the showroom and another in it final home. Here at the JSO is even better than the showroom. It makes even me want to practice."

What a Weekend!

2011-02-24T10:04:00.002-05:00

An amazing weekend musically speaking, for Jackson. On Friday night the Sheila Landis Quartet performed some elegant Jazz at the Daryl's Downtown to a capacity crowd. Presented by the Jackson Symphony Guild was a very successful fundraiser. Kudos to all Guild members who played a role in making the evening such a success.

Then on Saturday at Orchestra Hall David Schultz and 15 of his colleagues from MSU presented a challenging program, Memories of the Past, Visions of the Future. The performers pulled of very polished performances of challenging literature. Stravinsky's Octet for Wind Instruments and Schoenberg's pre-serial Verklerte Nacht were both exceptional in their execution and expression. Truly amazing.

March 22 Chamber Concert

2011-02-23T11:28:00.001-05:00

6 p.m., Tuesday, March 22

Brad Richter and Viktor Uzur, Guitar/Cello Duo

Join us for a special event with these wild and crazy guys,
known around the world for their “Mash-ups” music inspired
by Spanish classical guitar music, 20th century Russian cello
music, as well as rock bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd
and Radiohead, funk beats such as Herbie Hancock and
Headhunters, and folky american and exotic eastern melodies.

Hear for yourself why these guys are such a favorite of
NPR’s Performance Today.

Admission $15 - Light refreshments
JSO Music Hall
215 W. Michigan Ave.

Une soiree en France

2011-02-16T15:20:00.001-05:00

2 concert tickets and 2 after party passes $35

Celebrate all things French with the JSO!
Join us for an evening of great music featuring selections by Bizet, Debussy and Ravel then….

Unwind with late night refreshments ala francais and amusant entertainment.

March 19, 2011
Concert at 8:00pm, Jackson Community College
Complimentary Backstage Glimpse lecture series at 7:00pm
Federer Rooms, JCC

After Party directly following the concert in the Johnstone Supply Warehouse

903 Belden (southeast corner of Belden and Morrell St.)

Afterparty sponsored by Erin Mazur and Marco Pullan

*After Party tickets available to JSO season ticket holders $15 per couple

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

or
782-3221
or
215 W. Michigan Ave. Jackson, MI 49201

Memories of the Past, Visions of the Future - Chamber Music February 19

2011-02-09T09:26:00.000-05:00

JSO to open Chamber Music Series with
Memories of the Past, Visions of the Future

The JSO’s annual Chamber Music Series will begin February 19 with a program titled Memories of the Past, Visions of the Future. The Michigan State University Chamber Players, directed by David Schultz, will perform Igor Stravinsky’s Octet for wind instruments, Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) for string sextet and other works.

“This will be a performance of revolutionary compositions from the early 20th century that defied historical categorization and changed the course of music forever,” Schultz said.

Stravinsky and Schoenberg were two of the most famous (and infamous) composers of the time.

“Each played a large part in steering the course of musical evolution in the 20th century while at the same time meeting their own share of musical scandals,” Schultz said. “These two works each mark turning points in the composers' musical output and each exemplify ways in which the composers both take cues from the past and look to the future.”

Octet, composed in 1923, was written partially as a reaction against the excessive indulgence of late 19th-century romanticism.

“Stravinsky looked back to the music of Bach and Mozart to highlight elements of formal structure and a more subtle emotional palate,” Schultz said. “He fused these ideas with his own innovations of complex rhythms and meters, and complex instrumental effects to create music that is at the same time distinctly old, distinctly new, but most of all, distinctly Stravinsky.”

Schoenberg also was rebelling against indulgent 19th-century romanticism when he wrote Verklärte Nacht in 1899.

“The work features free forms, lush melodies and chromatic harmonies, all designed to depict the torrential nature of human emotion,” Schultz said.

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in the JSO’s Peter A. Weatherwax Hall, 215 W. Michigan Ave. in downtown Jackson.

Sixteen music performance majors and graduate students from MSU — plus recent graduate Ji Hyun Kim — will perform at this concert. Kim teaches at Spring Arbor University, the JSO’s Community Music School, Ezra Eby Elementary School in Napoleon and Paragon Charter Academy in Summit Township.

Admission is $10. Tickets available at http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/tickets_events/tickets.html , 782-3221, or at 215 W. Michigan Ave. in Jackson

Two additional concerts in the series are scheduled for 7 p.m. March 22 (the Richter Uzur Duo), admission $15, light refreshments will be served, and an April concert with concertmaster Xie Min, time and date to be announced soon.

SYMPHONY GUILD JAZZ NIGHT FEBRUARY 18

2011-02-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

Friday, Feb. 18, 2011, 7:30-10:30 PM
Daryl’s Downtown, 151 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson

Sheila Landis, seven-time winner of “Outstanding Jazz Vocalist” in the annual Detroit Music Awards, will perform at the Jackson Symphony Guild’s Night of Jazz and Blues on Feb. 18.

Vocalist with passion for Jazz to be featured performer at Guild event

A seven-time winner in the Detroit Music Awards will be the star of the Guild’s 12th Annual Night of Jazz and Blues. Vocalist and bandleader Sheila Landis has been tapped to perform her unique style of jazz, Latin and blues at this year’s event from 7:30-10:30 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Rose Room at Daryl’s Downtown, 151 W. Michigan Ave., downtown Jackson. She won her Detroit Music Awards for “Outstanding Jazz Vocalist.” She draws her inspiration from Classic jazz vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday as well as from such modern artists as Joni Mitchell, the Beatles and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Accompanying Landis will be musicians with impressive credentials. Rick Matle, a performer for over 25 years, his formative studies included jazz and classical guitar. Keyboard player Duncan McMillan, began studying piano at age 5. He is in demand as both a pianist and organist. Jazz percussionist David Taylor studied percussion performance under various teachers. He has performed shows at the Fox, Fisher Theatre and with the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra.

The Landis Quartet will be performing selections from the well-loved repertoires of Duke Ellington‘s I’m Beginning to See the Light, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Girl from Ipanem, Stevie Wonder’s Another Star, Louis Jordan’s Knock Me a Kiss. Included also will be songs of George Gershwin, Peggy Lee and Burt Bacharach.

Landis began her music career in 1973 and formed her own company in 1981. Since then she has produced more than 20 LPs and disks. She is a regular participant in jazz festivals, and she performs regularly at nightclubs, restaurants, art fairs, fund-raising events, corporate events and universities.

Admission is $40 per person in advance and $45 per person at the door (if seating is still available). Corporate tables for eight are available for $400. The table will be marked with the company or individual’s name. Reserved tables also are available for patrons with eight paid reservations. An hors d’oeuvres buffet including chicken satay, meat and vegetable wraps, penne pasta, and other delectable items will be available from 8:30-9:30 p.m. Cash Bar

To make a reservation or for more information, call the Jackson Symphony Orchestra at 517-782-3221, ext.117. Make checks payable to the Jackson Symphony Guild and mail to 215 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson, MI 49201. VISA, MasterCard and Discover are accepted. Reservation deadline is February, 12.

JSO is "Going Baroque"

2011-01-25T09:36:00.000-05:00

8 p.m. Saturday, February 5 and 3 p.m. Sunday, February 6 at First United Methodist Church, 275 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson

Concert sponsored by Consumers Energy

Guest Artists sponsored by Comerica Bank and Marcoux, Allen, Schomer, Bower, Nichols and Kendall, PC

These are challenging times for orchestras across the country and around the world. Fortunately the JSO is headed in a different direction. The third program for the orchestra's 61st season features masterpieces of the 18th Century, Bach and Handel, of course, as well as Hotteterra.

As our guest conductor and keyboard artist, Ed Parmentier describes the music, "The Bach Suite makes me think of a challenging steeplechase where the horses and their riders negotiate, elegantly and effortlessly, the hurdles and twists and turns of the course. The Handel concerto is a showcase for the prestidigitation of the organist, with bubbly themes in the outer movements and a haunting, touching theme whispered in the strings in the middle movement. The Bach g-minor harpsichord concerto is sturdy and passionate, and its romantic and emotional middle movement is Bach's answer to the Handel middle movement. The Brandenburg is Bach at his most congenial, full of good nature and conversation among the soloists, while the orchestra banters in and out with the theme in the outer movements. The harpsichord cadenza is a masterpiece of composition, re-using material from earlier in the movement but elongating and intensifying that material."

Mr. Parmentier's connection with Jackson includes not only music but golf as well. "It will be fun to do something in Jackson besides golf. I'm a long-time aficionado of Cascades and a newer-fangled lover of CCJ! But about music: I'm looking forward to working, again, with the players of JSO. And playing in that beautiful church where we did Messiah."

Mr. Parmentier will be joined by his wife, organist Shin-Ae Chun, performing one of Bach's greatest organ masterpieces, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and a Handel Organ concerto. Richard Sherman, our principal flutist, will join Mr. Parmentier for the Suite in E Minor for flute and continuo by Hotteterra, and JSO concertmaster Xie Min will join Messers Parmentier and Sherman for Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #5.

"To have all these marvelous soloists on one concert is a rare treat," says JSO Music Director, Stephen Osmond. "They all have exceptional global careers and to have them in Jackson is extraordinary, truly great people making great music. The last time Mr. Parmentier performed with us I had difficulty concentrating on my conductorial responsibilities as it was so fascinating to hear how he embellished and brought fresh life to rather ancient music. It was true Jazz of the 18th Century."
The program will be presented twice, our usual Saturday night 8 p.m. time, and for those who prefer daylight concerts, the program will be repeated Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.

Individual tickets for the February 5th and 6th concerts 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 JSO ticket holders are invited to attend the complimentary and highly acclaimed pre-concert lecture series hosted by Dr. Bruce Brown, JSO Composer-in-Residence. Backstage Glimpses takes place in the FUMC Fellowship Hall one hour before each of the above mentioned concerts.

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.

Open Registration for Community Music School Spring Session

2011-01-25T09:29:00.000-05:00

Jackson Symphony Orchestra Community Music School open registration begins for Spring 2011 classes

Music lessons provide an educational experience that will last a lifetime!

Spring JSO Community Music School registration for new students begins January 24. 15-week sessions are available in piano, violin, viola, cello, bass, oboe, trumpet, percussion, String Team, and Early Childhood. New group classes for beginning violin students are also available.

Come to the JSO Music School, 215 W. Michigan Ave. in downtown Jackson to see the facility and register for Spring music lessons.

Classes begin the week of January 31.

For more information call the Liz DeLano at JSOCMS, 517-782-3221 ext. 118 or online at http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/.

Ed Parmentier on music for the Feb 5-6 concert

2011-01-14T08:45:00.000-05:00

These are challenging times for orchestras across the country and around the world. Fortunately the JSO is headed in a different direction. The third program for the orchestra's 61st season features masterpieces of the 18th Century, Bach and Handel, of course, as well as Hotteterra.

As our guest conductor and keyboard artist, Ed Parmentier describes the music, "The Bach Suite makes me think of a challenging steeplechase where the horses and their riders negotiate, elegantly and effortlessly, the hurdles and twists and turns of the course. The Handel concerto is a showcase for the prestidigitation of the organist, with bubbly themes in the outer movements and a haunting, touching theme whispered in the strings in the middle movement. The Bach g-minor harpsichord concerto is sturdy and passionate, and its romantic and emotional middle movement is Bach's answer to the Handel middle movement. The Brandenburg is Bach at his most congenial, full of good nature and conversation among the soloists, while the orchestra banters in and out with the theme in the outer movements. The harpsichord cadenza is a masterpiece of composition, re-using material from earlier in the movement but elongating and intensifying that material."

Jackson Symphony Orchestra Community Music School open registration begins for Spring 2011 classes

2011-01-12T08:59:00.002-05:00

Music lessons provide an educational experience that will last a lifetime!

Spring JSO Community Music School registration for new students begins January 24. 15-week sessions are available in piano, violin, viola, cello, bass, oboe, trumpet, percussion, String Team, and Early Childhood.

Come to the JSO Music School, 215 W. Michigan Ave. in downtown Jackson to see the facility and register for Spring music lessons.

Classes begin the week of January 31.

For more information call the Liz DeLano at JSOCMS, 517-782-3221 ext. 118 or online at www.JacksonSymphony.org.

A NIGHT OF JAZZ AND BLUES

2011-01-11T13:42:00.000-05:00

Sheila Landis, seven-time winner of “Outstanding Jazz Vocalist” in the annual Detroit Music Awards, will perform at the Jackson Symphony Guild’s Night of Jazz and Blues on Feb. 18.

Vocalist with passion for Jazz to be featured performer at Guild event

A seven-time winner in the Detroit Music Awards will be the star of the Guild’s 12th Annual Night of Jazz and Blues. Vocalist and bandleader Sheila Landis has been tapped to perform
her unique style of jazz, Latin and blues at this year’s event from 7:30-10:30 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Rose Room at Daryl’s Downtown, 151 W. Michigan in downtown Jackson.

She won her Detroit Music Awards for “Outstanding Jazz Vocalist.” She draws her inspiration from Classic jazz vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday as well as from such modern artists as Joni Mitchell, the Beatles and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Accompanying Landis will be musicians with impressive credentials. Rick Matle, a performer for over 25 years, his formative studies included jazz and classical guitar. Keyboard player Duncan McMillan, began studying piano at age 5. He is in demand as both a pianist and organist. Jazz percussionist David Taylor, studied percussion performance under various teachers.

He has performed shows at the Fox, Fisher Theatre and with the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra. The Landis Quartet will be performing selections from the well-loved repertoires of Duke Ellington‘s I’m Beginning to See the Light, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Girl from Ipanema,
Stevie Wonder’s Another Star, Louis Jordan’s Knock Me a Kiss. Included also will be songs of George Gershwin, Peggy Lee and Burt Bacharach.

Landis began her music career in 1973 and formed her own company in 1981. Since then she has produced more than 20 LPs and disks. She is a regular participant in jazz festivals and she performs regularly at nightclubs, restaurants, art fairs, fund-raising events, corporate events and universities.

Admission is $40 per person in advance and $45 per person at the door (if seating is still available). Corporate tables for eight are available for $400. The table will be marked with the company or individual’s name. Reserved tables also are available for patrons with eight paid reservations. An hors d’oeuvres buffet including chicken satay, meat and vegetable wraps,
penne pasta, and other delectable items will be available from 8:30-9:30 p.m. Cash Bar

To make a reservation or for more information call the Jackson Symphony Orchestra at 782-3221 extension 117. Make checks payable to the Jackson Symphony Guild and mail to
215 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson, MI 49201. Or buy tickets at www.jacksonsymphony.org/tickets_events/tickets.html .
VISA, MasterCard and Discover are accepted.

Reservation deadline: February 12.

Thank You!

2010-12-22T16:16:00.003-05:00

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra has enjoyed a rewarding year because of the people who attend our events and support us in various ways. The musicians, Board, Guild and staff thank you for your involvement and wish you the best for the Holidays and the New Year. We hope you continue to make music and the JSO an important part of your life.

JSO Holiday Pops Concert is at 4 p.m.

2010-11-30T13:33:00.000-05:00

There has been some confusion about the time of the Holiday Pops Concert. It is at 4 p.m. at First Church of the Nazarene.

Review of Nov 13 JSO Concert by Andy Mead

2010-11-30T13:29:00.000-05:00

The evening of November 13th saw the second in this year's series of Jackson Symphony Orchestra concerts, this one entitled "Not Just for Kids." The concert featured a selection of old favorites, nominally written for children, but clearly providing lots of musical interest for their elders as well. These were preceded by a suite of music from John Williams's score for the first of the Harry Potter movies.

In this, as well as in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals, and Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, the orchestra shone with strong string playing, incisive brass, elegant woodwind solos and crisp percussion. The first-chair winds, seated out front as soloists during the Prokofiev, demonstrated great charm and elegance in their characterizations of the tale's protagonists, and the horns were wonderfully menacing in their role as the wolf.

Two solo pianists, Audrejean Heydenburg and the orchestra's own Anita Fobes, joined the ensemble for a rousing performance of the Carnival of the Animals, which featured, in addition to the pianists's articulate limning, some striking solo playing by both principal cellist Daniel Thomas and principal bassist Andrew Hawks.

The closing work, written by Benjamin Britten to accompany a film introducing the instruments of the orchestra, allowed every member of the ensemble to contribute in a series of endlessly exposed passages. This showed off the general high quality of playing that the orchestra has been able to achieve throughout its sections.

Special Guest Craig Richard Nelson joined Maestro Osmand on stage following the Williams to voice the narration of the three remaining pieces. The concert marked Nelson's return to Jackson following his performance with the orchestra in Kismet a couple of years ago, and his obvious congeniality and familiarity with the ensemble, along with his insertion of a number of topical references to local events and places, added to the pleasure of his presentations.

The music and words from the stage were enhanced by the projection of a series of images appropriate to each of the pieces, including some striking work by local artists. The concert's acknowledgement of local creativity was also enhanced by the latest installment of composer-in-residence Bruce Brown's account of his work in progress, a concerto for percussion and orchestra, which is scheduled to be premiered by the orchestra in the spring of 2011. The brief but moving passage for strings that was played raises some lively expectations for the coming event.

The concert was very well attended, with many children swelling the audience nearly to capacity. To this writer's eyes, there was remarkably little fidgeting, and a lot of close listening going on, and it is hoped that this sort of presentation can help to build the audience of the future for the Symphony.

JSO plans festive concert to begin holiday season

2010-11-18T10:26:00.001-05:00

Continuing a holiday tradition, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra will present a Holiday Pops Concert and Sing-a-long at 4 p.m. Dec. 5 at the First Church of the Nazarene, 3905 Clinton Road, Jackson.

The Jackson Chorale, Children’s Choir and First United Methodist Church Chancel Choir will join the orchestra to present seasonal favorites and that will inspire young and old with the spirit of the season. The audience will be encouraged to join in on popular songs such Christmas Song, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Joy to the World, Deck the Halls and O Come all Ye Faithful.

“The orchestra looks forward to continuing this annual observance in a new venue with a new audience," said JSO Music Director Stephen Osmond. “The selections, as well as the audience participation, are designed to put everyone into the holiday spirit.”

“The Chorale will sing a Christmas bells medley of Ding Dong Merrily on High and Carol of Bells as well as a beautiful arrangement of Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” said Wendy Treacher, Music Director. “The Chorale also will present the King’s Singers / Mormon Tabernacle Choir arrangement of the the Twelve Days of Christmas.”

The Children’s Choir will join the Chorale and Orchestra for a new version of The Little Drummer Boy. Ask the Moon and Hanerot Halalu, a song about the lights of Hanukkah, are the other songs the Children’s Choir will perform.

“The symphony orchestra’s holiday concert is the high point of the holiday season for the Children’s Choir,” said Director Jackie Livesay. “Singers and families are looking forward to it.” About 32 children in grades 4-8 will participate.

The First United Methodist Church Chancel Choir plans to sing Christmas Is Coming, Rejoice, and The First Noel.

Baker College and County National Bank are sponsoring the concert.

Tickets are $10 for children and students with identification. Adult tickets are $15.

They may be purchased online at http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/; by phone at 517-782-3221; or in person at the JSO Box Office, 215 W. Michigan Ave., downtown 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.

JSO on WKAR 11/17/10

2010-11-17T07:23:00.002-05:00

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Schultz, will play the "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughan Williams at about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, November 17 on 90.5 Classical. The Orchestra was recorded live in concert February 13, 2010 in the Potter Center Music Hall at Jackson Community College.

“Not Just for Kids” Artwork on display at the JSO

2010-11-11T07:18:00.001-05:00

Take a stroll downtown and come in and view the artwork by seventeen area artists. Their work is on display at the Jackson Symphony Orchestra Music Hall at 215 W. Michigan Ave., downtown Jackson. The public is invited to enjoy the artists’ interpretations of the music from “Peter and the Wolf” and “Carnival of the Animals” during regular business hours, Mon.-Thurs. 10-5 PM, Fri 10-1 through December 15. Or the pieces can be viewed online at www.JacksonSymphony.org.

Jammin' at the JSO - November 26

2010-11-11T07:13:00.000-05:00

Melodic, experimental rock for all ages - in Jackson

– Jammin’ at the JSO
7-11 p.m. Friday, November 26th at the Jackson Symphony Orchestra Hall, downtown at 215 W. Michigan Ave. $4 cover charge.

Sterratic - This will be the band's first performance. Kind of pop, kind of punk

Admiral Apricot and the Marigolds - Jackson's local garage fuzz-punk group, appearing as a 3 piece this time!

theillalogicalspoon - Headed up by local musician Jeremy Siegrist. Folk music meets punk and poetry. This band is very unique, and they have a message that needs to be heard.

Secret Twins - A duo from Ann Arbor. This band has excellent experimental vocals that pair surprisingly well with the raw sound of just one electric guitar and a drummer.

The Templetons - A group consisting on two Jackson born and raised musicians, a reunion show of sorts.

The cover is $4 at the door. Come enjoy a great musical performance and support local music!

Leisure Suits

2010-11-10T08:14:00.000-05:00

For those of you unfamiliar with this weekend's guest, Craig Richard Nelson, you wish to check out this clip from Fernwood Tonight.

Spooktacular Piano Concert

2010-10-28T23:02:00.000-04:00

Join us for a "Spooktacular Piano Concert" on Saturday, October 30 at 6:30 p.m. at the JSO building. Piano students of Carol Ivkovich will be presenting this recital. It's our first recital of the year. This is a great opportunity for students to experience performing in front of others in a fun, safe atmosphere - hiding behind costumes is always a big hit! Join us for a fun evening!

Greg Sandow's Blog

2010-10-21T19:48:00.000-04:00

From Greg Sandow's blog:
Go to his blog at http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/ for comments and further posts about the JSO.

Something new

Still catching up. I want to talk about my visit to Jackson, MI a couple of weeks ago (and apologies to my old and new friends there, who might have expected to see something about them here earlier).

The outline: Stephen Osmond, an old friend of mine from graduate studies at the Yale School of Music (he was a tenor, I was a composer), is both music director and executive director of the Jackson Symphony. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but no way. Steve is outstanding in both roles. And fearless, I must say, in confronting his orchestra's future. Like most orchestras, they face diminished funding as they look at their future. Steve faces that manfully, and brought me out to help with what seems to be needed, a new way of engaging with the city of Jackson.
I'll have more to say on what happened at my visit, and, how, exactly, an orchestra might engage the community. But since time is tight today, I'll start with something really terrific that the orchestra is doing, something I've never encountered before.

Like many orchestras, they have a composer in residence, Jonathan Bruce Brown, chair of the music department at Spring Arbor University, near Jackson. Bruce (whom I enjoyed meeting during my visit) is a good choice, I think. His expertly crafted music is a pleasure to hear, and I'd guess goes down well with both the orchestra and the audience.

But get this -- the way the orchestra is introducing the piece they've commissioned from Bruce this year. It'll be premiered on the last concert of the season. And at each concert before that, Bruce will come on stage and present his work at whatever stage it's reached. That won't mean performing the entire work in progress (which might, at any stage, be a work in fragments). But Bruce will talk about the piece, and maybe the orchestra (or individual musicians) will play parts of it.

I think this is a fabulous idea. I heard the first installment, at the first concert of the year (an engaging glimpse at various aspects of romantic music, featuring Ian Hobson making his expert way through the Schumann piano concerto). All Bruce did was talk about what he was going to do -- what the piece would be, and what the preview process would be like. He was hard to resist, and I'm sure he drew everyone in. At the next concert, I'm sure all the subscribers will be wondering what he'll have to show them.

As I said, I've never run into this idea before. Has anyone else ever done it? If so, I'd love to hear about it. Certainly it's an idea that others should steal.

Program Notes for Nov 13 Concert - Not Just for Kids

2010-10-20T17:41:00.000-04:00

Program Notes
November 13, 2010
By Composer in Residence
Bruce Brown

Tonight’s program of music is truly “Not Just for Children.” Many stories are written so that children can read them at one level while adults recognize deeper meaning. In the same way, many pieces of music are both entertaining for children and rich for adults, and grownups might even savor them as a memory from their own childhood.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books certainly appeal to readers of all ages! They have sold over 400 million copies and been translated into at least 67 languages.

Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra is a wonderful introduction to orchestral instruments, but it is a very effective concert piece without the explanatory narration. Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals depicts beasts and birds in a very entertaining way, but the music is beautiful and colorful on its own merits. Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf weaves a spellbinding tale of the courage of impetuous youth. Its memorable themes have made the piece a perennial favorite of orchestral audiences all over the world.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Several composers have been involved in writing music for the enormously popular Harry Potter movies, but the first three were scored by John Williams (b. 1932), the composer of many of the most memorable themes in Hollywood history.

In his illustrious, six-decade career, Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and 21 Grammy Awards. His enormous output includes music for dozens of films, four Olympic Games, the NBC Nightly News and the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, and he has also written several concert works. Williams is the laureate conductor of the world famous Boston Pops orchestra and regularly makes guest conducting appearances with the finest orchestras in the United States and Europe.

On June 30, 1997, J.K. Rowling introduced her phenomenally successful series of books with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or “the Philosopher’s Stone” outside the United States). Rowling sold the film rights for her first four books to Warner Brothers in 1999, reportedly for 1 million British pounds. That’s the equivalent of 1,982,900 American dollars! Filming began in October of 2000, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in London on November 14, 2001.

In his score, Williams fashioned two themes for the diabolical Voldemort; two themes for the stately school, Hogwarts; a theme for Diagon Alley, the off-kilter marketplace; a tune for the sport of Quidditch, played on flying brooms; a flying theme; a friendship theme; and the main theme – representing the bumbling, lovable Hedwig – which has been used in all films so far.

Peter and the Wolf

The brilliant, irascible Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory when he was only thirteen and proceeded to give his teachers fits. “I didn’t show my compositions to Liadov,” he once said, “because, if I did, he probably would expel me from the class.” When admirers expressed pleasure at meeting him, he would curtly reply “On my part there is no pleasure!”

Prokofiev left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and he was an internationally famous composer when he returned in the 1930s. By an odd coincidence, he died on the same day as Joseph Stalin, March 5, 1953. Prokofiev’s funeral took place with paper flowers and a recording of the funeral march from his ballet Romeo and Juliet; the real flowers and live musicians were all taken for Stalin’s state funeral!

Natalia Satz, the director of the Moscow Children's Musical Theater, asked Prokofiev to write a musical symphony for children in 1936. Her aim was to encourage "musical tastes in children from the first years of school." Satz and Prokofiev agreed the music would tell a story and themes heard in instrumental solos would represent animals and characters in the tale. One of Satz’s friends wrote a text, but Prokofiev rejected it immediately saying it had too many rhymes. It only took him four days to write his own text and a piano version of "How little Peter fooled the Wolf!” The orchestral score was finished a week later.

The reaction to the first performance, on May 6, 1936, disappointed Prokofiev, but the piece quickly became enormously popular.

The Carnival of the Animals

The history of music is full of astounding child prodigies, but Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was certainly one of the greatest. He wrote his first composition when he was three, and when he gave his first recital at the age of ten, he offered to play any one of Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas as an encore! Saint-Saëns toured as a virtuoso pianist, and Franz Liszt called him “the greatest organist in the world.”

Saint-Saëns wrote his Carnival of the Animals (Le carnaval des animaux) in 1886 while he was vacationing in Austria. The menagerie of musical portraits is full of humor and playfulness, and Saint-Saëns includes wryly-distorted quotes from famous composers – Rameau, Offenbach, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Rossini and himself – to add to the fun.

Saint-Saëns refused to allow the music to be performed during his lifetime, thinking such “frivolous” music would damage his reputation as a serious composer. Only one movement, Le cygne (“The Swan”) was performed and published while he was alive. The first public performance of the full suite was given on February 26, 1922, about two months after his death.

Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was another child prodigy who began to compose at age five, started piano lessons when he was eight and took up the viola two years later. By the time he was fourteen he'd written ten piano sonatas, six string quartets, three piano suites, an oratorio and "dozens of songs." Britten became famous when his opera Peter Grimes premièred in London in June of 1945. That November he wrote to a friend “I have a small film to write for the Board of Education.” The goal of the project was to create a piece of music that would entertain schoolchildren and teach the instruments of the orchestra at the same time.

Britten started work on The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in mid-December, 1945 and finished at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The piece was first performed in concert the following October by the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the film debuted on November 29, 1946. Britten dedicated the piece to the four children of his friends John and Jean Maud for their “edification and entertainment.”

The work is subtitled “Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Henry Purcell.” The theme is taken from Purcell’s incidental music for the 1676 play Abdelazar, or “The Moor's Revenge,” by Aphra Behn. Britten greatly admired Purcell and later wrote “I had never realized, before I first met Purcell’s music, that words could be set with such ingenuity, with such colour.”

Britten adapted Purcell’s theme ingeniously to exhibit the unique capabilities of each instrument, and just to show off, he crafted it into a rollicking fugue that puts the orchestra back together and ends the piece with thrilling energy and enthusiasm.

November 13 Concert - Not Just for Kids!

2010-10-20T13:28:00.000-04:00

Second Subscription Concert - 61st Season
Not Just for Kids
8 p.m. Nov. 13, 2010 at Jackson Community College

For further information, contact:
Joan Cummings 517-782-3221, 517-782-3268 (Fax), joan.cummings@jacksonsymphony.org

Delight the kids, delight yourself at JSO concert

The second concert in the Jackson Symphony Orchestra’s 61st season could be dubbed a “happening” rather than a symphony concert. The program, Not Just for Kids, features popular classical works written principally for the delight of children but equally enjoyed by adults. Besides the impressive music, there will be projected visuals and the participation of Broadway, Hollywood and TV actor Craig Richard Nelson, a college friend of Maestro Stephen Osmond.

On the program are:

• Sergei Prokofiev’s playful Peter and the Wolf;

• Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals (written almost as a joke for his friends and performed publicly only after he died in 1921);

• The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra;

• and selections from John Williams’ movie scores for the Harry Potter series.

Craig Richard Nelson, who starred in Paper Chase and My Body Guard (to name only a couple of films), will be on hand to narrate the story of Peter and the Wolf, inject humor into Carnival of the Animals, a zoological fantasy, and guide the audience through the orchestra during Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Pianists Audie Heydenburg and Anita Fobes are guests for Carnival. Assistant JSO conductor David Schultz will conduct Peter and Harry Potter.

“This is not your grandfather’s average symphony orchestra concert,” Osmond said. “I like to think of it more as an event rather than a concert. The music is rather classical, although all the music is written in the 20th Century. There will be visuals and lots of them. Projected images during all the pieces will enhance the experience, especially for the first-time listener.”

”Families with small children, who are worried that their youngsters might get restless, are invited to the Dress Rehearsal at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 at JCC’s Music Hall. Because of a sponsorship from Spring Arbor University, there is no charge for this dress rehearsal. The Nov. 13 concert also is sponsored by Spring Arbor University.

“We have never produced an event with such variety and appeal,” Osmond said. “If you are a first-time attendee or wanted to introduce your family to a symphony orchestra and you were to pick one concert to attend in the next 5 years — this is it!”

The 2010-2011 year, A Season for All Ages, continues Feb. 5 and Feb. 6 with Going Baroque, March 19 with Flavors of France and May 7 with Our Own Backyard.

Individual tickets for the Nov. 13 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 JSO ticket holders are invited to attend a free pre-concert lecture hosted by Dr. Bruce Brown, JSO Composer-in-Residence. This lecture series, titled Backstage Glimpses, 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.

JSO on WKAR

2010-10-20T08:52:00.000-04:00

Thursday, Oct 21, about 10:15am - BIZET: "Jeux d'enfants" played by the Jackson Symphony, Stephen Osmond conducting. Recorded March 2008 at Jackson Community College.

Sunday, Oct 24, about 1:30pm - HANSON: Suite from "Merry Mount", played by the Jackson Symphony, conducted by Nathaniel Parker. Recorded at Jackson Community College, March 2008.

JSO "Mini-Series" Tickets Include All the Frills

2010-10-19T16:06:00.000-04:00

With one concert down and four to go in the Jackson Symphony Orchestra's 61st season, it's not too late to score as a season ticket holder - and at significant savings.

Remaining concerts include Not Just for Kids on Nov. 13, Going Baroque on Feb. 5 or 6, Flavors of France on March 19 and Our Own Back Yard on May 7.

"Mini-series" tickets, which include admission to the four concerts and all regular season subscriber benefits, are now being offered at $100 for section A, $85 for section B and $55 for section C. Buyers will receive a two-for-the-price of one Meal Card that's good at area restaurants, an annual subscription to the newsletter Interlude, an invitation to attend pre-concert lectures (Backstage Glimpses), ticket insurance (loose them and we replace) and recycling (can't attend a concert, return them and we give you a donation receipt for the value).

These "mini-series" tickets may be ordered online at jacksonsymphony.org/tickets, by phone at 517-782-3221 x118 or by stopping by the JSO's downtown office 215 W. Michigan Ave.

Review: JSO Season Opener: Strange Bedfellows

2010-10-14T09:45:00.000-04:00

The first weekend in October saw the first concert of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra's 61st season, presenting a program entitled "Strange Bedfellows." This rubric encompassed works by six composers who all were born within ten years of each other at the beginning of the 19th century, and who collectively helped establish what we often refer to as music's Romantic period. The opening work was by the oldest, and perhaps the strangest of the six, Hector Berlioz, the composer who, after Beethoven, was arguably the most significant figure in codifying the modern orchestra. His Roman Carnival Overture was lustily played by the ensemble, and featured excellent English horn solos by Matthew Yuknas as well as strong statements by the brass, led by first trumpet Joel Shaner. Berlioz's individual orchestration style also permitted the JSO viola section, led by Clyde McKaney, to shine in ways not often afforded by the standard repertoire.

The rest of the first half featured the finale to Felix Mendelssohn's E minor Violin Concerto, played by Xie Min, the orchestra's concert master who led the orchestra on a merry chase with an energetic and expressive interpretation of the solo part, as well as selections by Verdi and Wagner, two dramatically contrasted giants of 19th century opera. Both composers dealt in these works with transgressive love, but while Verdi?s Duke from Rigoletto expresses a certain terse amusement about his conquests in the aria, Questa o quella, Wagner needs considerably more time and effort to move heaven, earth and a large orchestra, in justifying his couple's coupling in Tristan und Isolde. We were treated in the former to the wonderfully characteristic singing of tenor Richard Fracker, while the orchestra limned the latter in the opera's Prelude and Liebestod. Strong string playing, along with trenchant wind work, helped bring this music to life, and wonderful solo work from all the wind principals added extra emotional impact.

The second half of the program featured music by, about, and for, Robert Schumann and Frederick Chopin. Guest soloist Ian Hobson was front and center for the entire second half, opening with his solo performance of Chopin's second Ballade, a work dedicated to Schumann. The orchestra joined him for a performance of Schumann's A minor Piano Concerto, and Hobson closed with an encore by Schumann, entitled "Chopin," from his set of piano pieces, Carnival. Hobson's playing of all three works was shapely and compelling, drawing wonderful tone from the instrument in both soft passages and loud, and guiding us surely through the maze of key relationships relating the three works to each other. The orchestra matched him stroke for stroke, with excellent ensemble work, as well as striking solos in the winds. Clarinetist Andrew Sprung stood out in his lengthy solo at the beginning of the first movement's development section, and the horns, Stephen Foster and Jessica Pierce, contributed lively work at the recapitulation of the finale. Beautiful playing was heard throughout the concert, with moments made wonderful by Tess Miller, principal flute, and Heather Peyton, principal oboe.

Andy Mead

Stories Requested!

2010-10-12T13:04:00.001-04:00

Fond memories, nostalgic feelings….

When and where did you first hear Peter in the Wolf, Carnival of the Animals, or Britten's Young People’s Guide to the Orchestra?

Music creates lasting impressions and often has a personal story attached to each listener. What is your story? Would you care to share it with us and others? We would love to hear from you. Some stories may be printed in our upcoming program book or posted on our blog. We would love to attribute the statements to you. If you prefer not, please indicate you wish to be anonymous.

From the Studio of Carol Ivkovich

2010-10-11T09:57:00.000-04:00

Stacy Robert, (15) was one of 16 entrants from across Michigan in the senior division of the Michigan Music Teacher's Association piano competition yesterday. Stacy performed beautifully, playing Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum by Debussy, and the Allego Movement of the f minor Beethoven Sonata. (op.2 #1). Stacy was the youngest entrant in her division. This was a great experience for Stacy.

Both Stacy and Michael Zeiler, students of Carol Ivkovich's, will be participating in Albion College's piano competition on October 22-24. This competition will provide them with great experience as well as the opportunities for private lessons and master classes with Drs. David and Lia Abbott.

Students Shaping the Future of Classical Music

2010-09-26T10:35:00.001-04:00

A Music Symposium:
"Students Shaping the Future of Classical Music"

3:45 PM Friday, October 1

with Greg Sandow, Classical and Rock Composer and Music Critic

For High School and College Students

White Auditorium on Spring Arbor University Campus

106 E. Main St., Spring Arbor

(M-60 to Spring Arbor, north on Cottage St., Auditorium on left. Angled parking along street or lots oin front of and behind Spring Arbor First United Methodist Church.)

517-782-3221 ext. 117 for more information

Greg Sandow's blog

JSO Adult Education - "Five Easy Pieces"

2010-09-25T21:44:00.000-04:00

Adult Ed 102
7-8:30 PM Mondays October18 to November 15
Professor Andy Mead - at the JSO

Five Easy Pieces

Prerequisite – None!

This five-week sequence of classes takes a close look at five major works of the symphonic literature, each selected to illustrate aspects of the music to be encountered in this and future seasons of the JSO. Each work is treated as an outstanding representative of a style, a genre, or a given composer's oeuvre, and while each class meeting will concentrate on the details of a single piece, the observations will be used to open doors to understanding and enjoying additional music.

1: Beethoven: Symphony no. 5

This is one of the fundamental works of the concert repertoire, and one that is so well known that we hardly seem to know it at all. A close listening will link this work to Beethoven's other symphonies, as well as to his preoccupation with the key of c minor in this and several other compositions.

2: Tchaikovsky: Symphonic Poem, Romeo and Juliet

What makes a work a symphonic poem? Do works that have literary programs offer the same types of listening experiences one finds in works without such associations? Like Beethoven's Symphony no. 5, this is a work so familiar that we hardly pay attention to it any more, but close listening reveals not only a passionate sequence of emotions, but a sinewy underlying structure as well.

3: Hindemith: Symphony, Mathis der Maler

A symphony drawn from an opera about a painter - symphonic structure, a program, even melodies borrowed from early church music mix in this powerful work of the last century, all in a musical language that is both familiar and unfamiliar at once.

4: Debussy: Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun and Stravinsky: Petrouchka

All right, it's six pieces, but how have the composers of these two emblematic concert works changed how we listen to music?

5: Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto no. 3

When you've written one of the most popular concertos in the repertoire (no. 2), how do you top yourself?

$50/person
Registration and info:
517-782-3221
Email: jso2007@jacksonsymphony.org

Program Notes for Oct 2 Concert

2010-09-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

Program Notes

October 2, 2010
By Composer in Residence
Bruce Brown

Tonight’s concert of music by “Strange Bedfellows” provides a fascinating study in contrasts. Five of the six composers were born in the four year period from 1809 to 1813, and Berlioz was only slightly older. All of them drew upon musical traditions in their work, and all of them contributed important innovations, but their lives and work could hardly have been more different.

Berlioz wrote daring, Romantic program music, while Mendelssohn produced equally ingenious works full of Classical balance and restraint. Schumann overcame bouts of an emotional disorder to become an important composer and influential critic, while Chopin, suffering from debilitating tuberculosis, became a supreme master of a single genre, solo piano music. Verdi rose to the pinnacle of Italian opera, while Wagner transformed opera into a new kind of total-art-work that shocked and thrilled the world.

Roman Carnival Overture

The première performance of the opera Benvenuto Cellini by Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was an unqualified disaster. Berlioz argued bitterly with the conductor, Francois Antoine Habanek, and later wondered if Habanek deliberately sabotaged the performance. The tenor soloist withdrew after three performances, and the opera closed.

Five years later Berlioz gleaned some of his favorite music from the opera and fashioned his Roman Carnival Overture, which was named for the libretto’s exotic setting. The overture’s first performance, on February 3, 1844, seemed to be doomed, just like the opera. The brass players had to miss the only rehearsal for mandatory national guard duty, but Berlioz told the musicians to watch closely and count carefully. Their sight reading must have been excellent; the audience loved the music and demanded an immediate encore!

Berlioz must have taken deep satisfaction when he saw Habanek in the audience after the performance and reportedly said “Now that is how it ought to go!”

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, Opus 64

On July 30, 1838, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) wrote to his good friend Ferdinand David: "I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor runs through my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace." David worked closely with Mendelssohn on the concerto, which wasn’t completed until six years later. David first performed the work in Leipzig on March 13, 1845, and the concerto has become one of Mendelssohn’s best loved works and an essential piece for all aspiring violinists to master.

Questo o quella from Rigoletto

Verdi’s Rigoletto, first performed in Venice on March 11, 1851, is a tragic tale of pride and unintended consequences. The story is set in 16th century Mantua, where the Duke is an incorrigible philanderer. His Jester, Rigoletto, mocks the husbands of the ladies the duke has seduced, but he tries to conceal his own daughter, Gilda, from the duke’s evil designs. Rigoletto plots to murder the duke in the end, but in one of the most famous scenes in all of opera, he discovers that his beloved daughter, not the duke, has died as a result of his plot.

Questo o quella is a glorious example of Verdi’s skill at vivid character depiction. As the duke sings, he leaves no doubt he is a rascal: “I despise a jealous husband, and I laugh at lover’s sighs,” he says, “If a beauty strikes my fancy, I defy a hundred eyes.”

Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde

In 1854, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) to write a simple work that could be performed easily to generate some much needed income. Tristan und Isolde

proved to be so difficult it wouldn’t be staged until more than a decade later, on June 10, 1865. The prelude was first performed in 1859, before the rest of the opera was even completed, and Wagner first connected the prelude and the Liebestod for concert performance in 1863.

In the story, the loyal knight Tristan is on a ship bringing Isolde to marry King Marke. They fall desperately in love, but their intense passion must remain hidden because of their duty to the king. The lovers believe they can only find peace in death. Wagner called the opera’s climactic final scene a “transfiguration” but it has come to be known as the Liebestod, or “Love-Death” music.

Giuseppe Verdi once said he “stood in wonder and terror” before Wagner’s Tristan. Clara Schumann called it “the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life.” Richard Strauss once wrote “I have conducted my first Tristan. It was the most wonderful day of my life.” The music has stirred passionate responses ever since.

Scherzo #3 in C# Minor, Opus 39

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) wrote four brilliant scherzos for solo piano between 1831 and 1842. He penned the third in 1839. A scherzo is usually a light, playful piece – the word means "joke" in Italian – but Chopin’s scherzos, especially the first three, are so dramatic that Schumann once said of them: "How is 'gravity' to clothe itself if 'jest' goes about in dark veils?”

Piano Concerto in A Minor, Opus 54

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) wrote almost exclusively for solo piano until he married Clara Wieck on September 12, 1840. He celebrated his joy by writing 168 songs in a single year!

The next year, 1841, Schumann started work on a work for piano and orchestra.

"I realize I cannot write a concerto for a virtuoso,” he wrote to Clara, “so I must think up something else…something between a symphony, a concerto and a large sonata…a self-contained movement."

Schumann was pleased with the resulting work and called it Phantasie, but no publisher was interested in a single-movement concerto, so Schumann reluctantly set it aside. In 1845, after a bout with his recurrent emotional problems, he added two movements that fit seamlessly with the one he had finished four years earlier.

Season Ticket Contest

2010-09-21T09:22:00.000-04:00

When the JSO is faced with a challenge to sell 150 pairs of season tickets where does it turn?

To those who believe in the JSO more than anyone else in the community:

The JSO Board
The Guild Board
The Musicians

Millions of dollars of research by the Knight Foundation and others have proven one major orchestral point – people attend concerts because friends and acquaintances invite them.

Inviting your friends and neighbors to buy season tickets is the best way for us to reach new audience.

Think about this:

You aren’t asking them to buy something that has no value….

Two for the Price of One Tickets at:

The Michigan Shakespeare Festival
The Bon Ton Room
The Michigan Theatre
The Purple Rose Theatre

Buy One Get One Free Entrees at:

Bella Notte Ristorante
Bone Island Grille
Charlie's Pub & Grill
Cottage Inn
Daryl's Downtown
Greystone Tavern Pub & Grill
Hudson's Classic Grill
Knight's Steakhouse & Grill
Mat's Café and Catering
Night Light
Oak Tree Lounge
Rocky Top Beer & BBQ
Ted's Firehouse Pub & Grill
Veach's Office Bar

20% off the individual ticket price and to a series of five concerts that are each unique and appealing to a broad range of musical tastes.

* * *

“In the beginning” there was the orchestra.

And amazing things have grown in this community as a result: Community Music School, Pops Concerts, the Holiday Ball, Jazz Night, Operas, Ballets, In-school programs, Early Childhood programs, Babies in Tune, Community Strings, all on the very broad shoulders of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra.

At the heart of the organization is the Subscription Series. We have a terrific core audience that keeps coming back for more. Anywhere from 78% to as high as 90% renew their season tickets each year. During the 90s we had consistent season sales of over 93%. We didn’t really have to market; we built it and they came.

Times have changed and so has the orchestra, it’s even better than it was.
Of course, there are rewards!

We are introducing a contest involving JSO Board, Guild Board and musicians in the orchestra to sell 150 pairs of season tickets by October 1. We are issuing the challenge to each group to see who can sell the most tickets. We will track progress on our front entrance wall and will offer some really nice prizes for those that have the highest number of sales.

The individual selling the most season tickets (must be over 5 pairs) will receive a JSO lifetime ticket membership.

The best seller in each group will be given a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant of their choice.
The Group selling the most tickets will be recognized from the stage on opening night.

The top five sales people will be recognized in the JSO Program Book and from the JSO stage on opening night.

If you know some one that is willing to help you sell tickets and is not officially a member of your group, that’s great, you and your group will get the credit. – As individuals they will receive the recognition, etc.

Team 1 – The JSO Board
Team 1 Coach: JSO Board Chair, Jon Lake

Team 2 – The Guild Board
Team 2 Coach – Guild Vice President, Donna Lake

Team 3 – The JSO Local Players
Team 3 Coaches – Jan Butterfield-Brown and Pat Riggs

Brochures are available at the downtown office (215 W. Michigan), and information is available online http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/ .

Best of Luck and may you be the winner.

Greg Sandow to Visit JSO

2010-09-17T11:41:00.005-04:00

On October 1 and 2, Greg Sandow will be in Jackson, talking with the board, guild board, and students and the orchestra sharing his thoughts about where classical music is going and the potential impact of an orchestra on a community.

Greg Sandow was best known for many years as a music critic, one of the few with a national reputation for writing about both classical music and pop. He’s also been one of the few classical critics who challenges the old assumptions of the classical music world.

But in recent years, he’s moved journalism to a back burner, and revived a composing career that he began in the 1970s, and then abandoned in the 1980s. He also spends much of his time working on questions about the future of classical music, pursuing these questions in an influential blog, in a book he’s been improvising online, in public appearances, and in consulting work and other special projects with major orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

He’s also a member of the Graduate Studies faculty at Juilliard, where he teaches courses on music criticism and on the future of classical music. For the past two years, he’s also taught that second course at the Eastman School of Music, under the auspices of Eastman’s Institute for Musical Leadership.

As a critic, he wrote for The Village Voice in the 1980s, when it was New York’s leading weekly paper, and was read all over the country. Lately his writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review and The Wall Street Journal, where for many years he was a regular contributor. In pop music, he was chief pop critic of the Los Angeles Herald‐Examiner, and both music critic and senior music editor of Entertainment Weekly.

His music has been played by the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Fine Arts Quartet, and St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. Major premieres are coming up this season and next with the Pacifica Quartet and the South Dakota Symphony. His music tends to be tonal, but with unexpected twists, including eruptions of 12‐tone music, jazz, and pop. (Sometimes cheesy pop.) His blog is at www.artsjournal.com/sandow. His book is at www.artsjournal.com/greg. You can read some of his writing on his website, at http://www.gregsandow.com/. And you can hear some of his music there as well, at www.gregsandow.com/music.

About our JSO Musicians

2010-09-17T11:31:00.002-04:00

Musicians not only lend us their talent they also lend us over $1,000,000 in the value of their instruments for each rehearsal and performance. Not to mention they cover the cost of insurance.

Of the 100 plus musicians associated with the JSO and cms there are more "Docs" playing in the orchestra and teaching in CMS than JPS or any other school district has in the classroom.

This is a highly trained, educated, creative group of people that the community could and should have even more access to. AND they are not going on strike.

Stephen Osmond

New Kiosk Shares JSO Events

2010-09-16T15:21:00.003-04:00

As part of the JSO Sound Vision Campaign and remodel plan, it was deemed a good idea to have a Kiosk in front of the building to inform pedestrian traffic and those using the building as to what is happening primarily with the JSO and those groups who "live" at 215 W. Michigan Ave. These groups which includes the Jackson Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Jackson Chorale, the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, Cascade Harmonizers,Community Strings and Jammin’ at the JSO. Bob LaZebnik JSO board member and Honorary Chair of the Campaign offered to donate the design, construction and installation of the work in front of the JSO. Don Harris designed the kiosk, Stan Riske built it and Alro Steel donated the steel. The city council formally approved the request to install on September 14th and the following morning it was installed. In addition to being a very attractive piece of art it will serve well communicating downtown and performing arts activities.

JSO to Open Season with "Strange Bedfellows"

2010-09-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

During the 61st concert season, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra will be “looking into the minds of composers” to see what inspires them. Each of the five concerts will feature the music of inventive composers, who approached their work in unique ways.

The concerts are scheduled for Oct. 2, Nov. 13, Feb. 5 or Feb. 6, March 19 and May 7. Throughout the year, JSO’s Composer-in-Residence Dr. Bruce Brown will work on a new piece of music and share news of his progress with audience members, giving the a chance to “witness the birth of a concert,” so to speak. The world premiere of his composition will be performed in May.

The JSO’s opening season program on Oct. 2 is sponsored by Citizens Bank and features some of the most romantic and innovative works ever written. Officially the concert is titled Strange Bedfellows because all of the composers for this program were born in 17th century Europe, but led divergent lifestyles and approached their art in dissimilar ways. The composers are Richard Wagner (German, 1813-1883), Robert Schumann (German, 1810-1856), Frédéric Chopin (Polish, 1810-1849), Hector Berlioz (French, 1803-1869), Felix Mendelssohn (German, 1809-1847), and Giuseppe Verdi (Italian, 1813-1901).

The concert begins at 8 p.m. at the Potter Center at Jackson Community College and there will be not just one, but three soloists.

• Internationally acclaimed pianist Ian Hobson will perform Schumann’s Piano Concert, having recorded it in London earlier in the week. He’ll also perform a Chopin piano solo.

• Violinist Xie Min, a member of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, a visiting professor at the Xi’an Conservatory of Music in China and Concertmaster for the JSO, will perform the final movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.

• Metropolitan Opera tenor and Jackson native Richard Fracker will perform Questa e Quella from Verdi's opera, Rigoletto. “Fracker, who had to miss the Verdi Requiem last season because of illness, will keep his hometown fans happy with a reappearance,” Maestro Stephen Osmond said.

Other pieces on the Oct. 2 program are Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod and Hector Berlioz’ Roman Carnival Overture. The Celtic legend of Tristan and Isolde, a tragic tale of two fated lovers, inspired Wagner’s composition. Berlioz’ rousing carnival scene, written in 1844, was an addition to his 1838 opera, Benvenuto Cellini. The opera’s plot is about the 16th-century painter and sculptor, who fell in love with the daughter of a Papal treasurer.

Six men. Six minds. The music of these composers, all born within a decade of each other, covers a broad spectrum.

“There’s incredible variety in their lives and music,” Osmond said. “Verdi and Wagner were the Richard Rodgers and Andrew Lloyd Webber of their day, writing for the theater at opposite ends of the musical spectrum and both very successful in their own time. Verdi took his wealth and built retirement centers for poor musicians. Wagner built theaters in his own image. Berlioz, a real maverick going in different directions, was rumored to be a serious hallucinogenic drug user. Chopin, considered the major Polish composer of all time, never lived there past childhood. Schumann had significant mental issues. Mendelssohn, a wunderkind aristocrat, was probably the ‘most normal’ of the bunch.”

THE REST OF THE CONCERTS: The Nov. 13 concert, Not Just for Kids, will feature Peter and the Wolf, Carnival of Animals and Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. For the Feb. 5 and 6 concert, harpsichordist Ed Parmentier and organist Shin-Ae-Chun will present George Frideric Bach’s Organ Concerto and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto. This concert will take place at the First United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson. All others will be at the Potter Center at Jackson Community College. The March 19 program, Flavors of France, will showcase the music of Georges Bizet, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Besides Dr. Brown’s latest opus, the May 7 program, Our Own Back Yard, will include Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky’s dazzling Capriccio Italien and JSO’s Principal Flutist Richard Sherman performing Charles Griffes’ Poem for Flute and Orchestra.

TICKETS: Season tickets include five concerts, five pre-concert lectures, a two-for-one restaurant card, entertainment offers and other benefits. Prices are: Section A-$128; B-$108; C-$72. Individual tickets for the Oct. 2 concert are $18, $27, $32. They may be purchased online at http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/; by phone at 517-782-3221; or in person at the JSO Box Office, 215 W. Michigan Ave., downtown Jackson. All JSO ticket holders are invited to attend the complimentary and highly acclaimed pre-concert lecture series hosted by Dr. Bruce Brown, JSO Composer-in-Residence. Backstage Glimpses takes place at 7 p.m. in the Federer Rooms off the main floor lobby in the Potter Center and is sponsored by Allegiance Health.

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.

Community Strings First Rehearsal Sept 13

2010-09-13T09:25:00.000-04:00

JSO Community Strings rehearsals begin tonight at 7:30 at the downtown Weatherwax Rehearsal Hall (215 W Michigan) - Everyone is welcome to come and play. Tonight's rehearsal includes refreshments and a tape & staple party!

JSO on WKAR in September

2010-09-13T07:31:00.000-04:00

September 7

Martin: Ballade for Flute, Strings & Piano; Richard Sherman, flute; MSU Sym Orch/Gregorian

Chopin: Concerto No. 2 in f minor for Piano & Orchestra; Ivan Moshchuk, piano; LSO/Muffitt

Kernis: Too Hot Toccata; LSO/Muffitt

Barber: Adagio for Strings; Jackson Sym/Osmond

September 14

Strauss: Tone Poem, "Death and Transfiguration"; MSU Sym Orch/Gregorian

Saint-Saens: Tarantella for Violin, Clarinet & Piano; Verdehr Trio

Stravinsky: Suite from "The Firebird"; Jackson Sym Orch/Nathaniel Parker

September 21 (last program in the series)

Respighi: The Fountains of Rome; MSU Sym Orch/Raphael Jimenez

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; Jackson Sym/Osmond

STRING TEAM Partnership between JSO and SAU!

2010-09-03T09:16:00.000-04:00

New Jackson Symphony Orchestra and Spring Arbor University partnership brings world-class string instruction to two Jackson County Schools

Jackson Symphony Orchestra announces new string curriculum at Ezra Eby Elementary School and Paragon Charter Academy for the 2010-2011 school year.

Jackson Symphony Orchestra and Spring Arbor University have combined resources to engage a string instructor specialist to augment and enrich both their programs. Ji Hyun Kim received her Doctor of Musical Arts from Michigan State University in May and will begin teaching and performing at both institutions in September. In addition to private instruction, she will head up the JSO String Team program which offers 4th and 5th graders small group string instruction on a semi-weekly basis. The first school to sign up for the new in-school string program was Napoleon School District’s Ezra Eby Elementary. Paragon Charter Academy quickly followed. Students will be participating in this specialized string instruction as a part of the general school day curriculum. Ji Hyun, the JSO string team’s newly appointed instructor spent most of the summer traveling and performing on stages in Australia, Luxembourg and throughout Europe. She is now enthusiastically embracing the new school program as well as her roles within the Orchestra and at Spring Arbor University.

“This is a dream come true,” stated Stephen Osmond, Music Director of the JSO. “To have someone of Ji Hyun’s caliber having their principal job be focused on the JSO and SAU is something we have been planning for years. We have always had excellent teachers, many of whom were working on degrees at U of M or MSU, but when the degree was completed they would find full-time employment which would necessitate a move from the area. This is a huge cornerstone for the future of our education and performance programs.”

Mary Spring further adds, “String instruction is something that is associated with a strong, well-rounded elementary education. The 2010 school year marks the beginning of bringing string instruction into county schools in an affordable and high quality manner. We are very proud of the program, our instructor and what this project will mean to the education of Jackson County youth. We are also very grateful to Spring Arbor University for their essential role in supporting the Arts in our community and enhancing the education of students in Jackson County.”

“We are very excited about this partnership with the Symphony and believe it will greatly enhance our music program. We are thrilled about the possibilities for helping kids in Jackson area schools discover the joy of playing a stringed instrument,” says Bruce Brown, professor of music and music department chair at SAU, as well as the composer-in-residence at the JSO.

School districts interested in hosting a String Team should contact Mary Spring at 517.782.3221. For more information about Spring Arbor University, visit www.arbor.edu. For more information about the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, visit www.jacksonsymphony.org.

Contact Information:

Spring Arbor University

Dr. Bruce Brown

750.1200

Ezra Eby Elementary School, Napoleon School District

Principal, Pam Barnes

Phone: 517.536.8667 Ext. 454

Paragon Charter Academy

Principal Kathy Watson

Phone 517.750.9500

Paragon General Music Instructor Linda Rockwell

Phone 941.4134

Jackson Symphony Orchestra

Stephen Osmond, Music Director

Mary Spring, Development Director

Jackson Citizen Patriot article about David Schultz

2010-08-25T12:30:00.000-04:00

An article about our own David Schultz appeared in the Jackson Citizen Patriot and on mlive this week!

"Hallelujah" from Pops Concert

2010-08-18T09:25:00.001-04:00

Steve Tucker with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Jackson Chorale and Children's Choir from the August 8 Pops Concert at the Jackson County Fair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twuaveU0S9A

JSO on WKAR in August

2010-08-03T10:26:00.003-04:00

Community Concerts Listings, WKAR, August

August 3
Mozart: "Don Giovanni" Overture; Lansing Sym Orch/Muffitt
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique"; MSU Sym Orch/Gregorian

August 8

Beethoven: Symphony #4 in B-flat; Jackson Sym Orch/Osmond (10:10 a.m.)

August 10
Mendelssohn: Suite from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; LSO/Muffitt
Ravel: "Le Tombeau de Couperin"; Jackson Sym Orch/Osmond
Mozart: Andante & Finale from Piano Concerto No. 21 in C; Ilya Blinov, piano; Jackson Sym Orch/Osmond

August 17
R. Strauss: "Don Juan"; LSO/Muffitt
Holst: Excerpts from The Planets; MSU Sym Orch/Gregorian 39:45

August 24
Mozart: Adagio & Fugue; Jackson Sym/David Schultz
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in c minor, Op. 67; LSO/Muffitt
Bloch: "Suite Modale" for Flute & Strings; Richard Sherman, flute;
MSU Sym Orch/Gregorian

August 31
Elgar: Cello Concerto in e minor; Suren Bagratuni, cello; MSU Sym/Gregorian
Schumann: "Manfred" Overture; MSU Sym Orch/ Gregorian
Berlioz: 3 Excerpts from "The Damnation of Faust"; MSU Sym
Orch/Gregorian
Strauss: Fanfare for the Vienna Philharmonic; Jackson Sym Orch/Osmond

Jammin' at the JSO - July 30

2010-07-21T10:21:00.002-04:00

Melodic, experimental rock for all ages - in Jackson! 7-11 p.m. Friday, July 30th Jackson City Limits presents Cardboard Cathedral, Chinook, Jolly Roger Walrus, and Blackbird Smile at the Jackson Symphony Orchestra Hall, downtown at 215 W. Michigan Ave. $4 cover charge.

Jolly Roger Walrus is the music of Jace Roffler. He’s a Parma native and has been writing and recording his own music for a while now. This show will be his debut. His music is comparable to that of Animal Collective or Beirut but with a certain uniqueness. In addition to singing, Roffler’s recordings feature him on a number of instruments ranging from ukulele to keyboards.

Another Jackson group, Cardboard Cathedral produces monumental sound with their unique approach to music. Drawing heavily on shoegaze and even blues influences, their sound is extremely raw with driving guitar rhythms but also technical and delicate with bubbling keyboard parts.

Chinook is a band out of Kalamazoo. With influences like American Football and Sharks Keep Moving, Chinook’s sound is very tight and technical. Drummer and guitarists pound out a fast-moving slurry of interlocking notes culminating into dense, catchy rhythms. These guys are a group you don't want to miss.

Blackbird Smile is from Romeo. The four piece's ambient, reverb laden sound is very smooth and ethereal. They are "the product of constant growth" and their appearance at the JSO on the 30th is one stop on their self-promoted tour from Detroit to Los Angeles.

Jackson Symphony Orchestra to open grandstand shows at County Fair

2010-07-07T13:14:00.004-04:00

Hold on to your programs because you won’t believe the new twists on this year’s Jackson Symphony Orchestra Summer Pops concert.

For three years the JSO has opened the Jackson County Fair, although this year a halftime show of “post-instrumental rock music” has been added for the specific entertainment of “young people.” In a recent contest, the local band If I Were the Sun won the honor of performing during intermission.

There are other new twists to the 2010 JSO/County Fair match-up, which begins at 7:30 p.m. August 8. Sure, the program will feature the expected patriotic music, but there will be an added theme of “where have I heard that cartoon music before?” said Maestro Stephen Osmond.

Barber of Seville Overture, Gioachino Rossini’s comic opera masterpiece, and Ride of the Valkyries, Richard Wagner’s well-known operatic battle march — featured in the 1957 Bugs Bunny animated cartoon — are among selections on the program.

“Bugs Bunny would be nowhere without the music of Rossini and Wagner,” Osmond said. “Go to You Tube and listen to What’s Opera Doc and Who Killed the Wabbit?”

Also on the program are the Jackson Chorale performing patriotic selections and hits from Richard Rodgers’ Broadway shows and guitar/piano player Steve Tucker, a member of the Gel Caps and Act III, performing Hallelujah from the sound track of the movie Shrek.

“The Jackson Chorale looks forward to once again putting on their red, white and blue clothes and joining the JSO for patriotic as well as Broadway show music on opening day of the fair,” said Chorale Director Wendy Treacher. The Jackson Chorale Children's Choir will also be performing and will join the Chorale on This Is My Country."

The disAbility Connection also will be honored on the occasion of the organization’s 85th anniversary.

$15 VIP tickets include parking, shuttle service to the fairgrounds, fair admission, concert performance, and a hot dog. For patrons who have already parked and paid admission to the fairgrounds, tickets to the concert are $5 each.

For tickets and information, please call 517-782-3221, 517-788-4405, or online.

Concert sponsors include Edward Surovell Realtors, Jackson Citizens for Economic Growth, Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, and National Endowment for the Arts. Jackson County Fair, Performance Underwriter.

Sing with the JSO at the Pops Concert!

2010-07-05T11:04:00.000-04:00

Calling all Singers!

The JSO Summer Pops program to be held at the Jackson County Fair, August 8, will include several selections for Orchestra and Chorus. The orchestra and Jackson Chorale are inviting anyone with choral experience to join them for the festivities.

Selections will include patriotic works: God Bless America, Who are the Brave, This is My Country, as well as pop hits Hallelujah, You Raise Me Up and a medley of Richard Rodgers Favorites from several of his Broadway hits.

Rehearsals will be held at the very air conditioned and comfortable JSO Rehearsal Hall at 7:00 pm

 Tuesday, July 27th - 7 to 8:30 PM

 Tuesday, August 3rd - 7 to 8:30 PM

 Thursday, August 5th - 7 to 8:30 PM

 Sunday, August 8th - rehearse @ 3:00 PM (?); concert at 7:30 PM

No audition necessary - phone 782-3221 or email jso@acd.net to let us know you are planning to attend

Listening and Hearing: Notes on the Adult Music Class

2010-06-23T08:39:00.000-04:00

This past May a group of more than 30 music lovers spent five Monday evenings talking about some of the issues that come into play when we listen to music. No-one reading this site needs to be persuaded to like music, but a little knowledge about how we take in music, both technically and emotionally, can add to the pleasures we gain from the experience. Five evenings of conversation could only begin to scratch the surface, but we were able to open some doors on issues of form, expression, meaning, humor and style. There are plans afoot for more conversations in the Fall, and we are considering some of the wonderful suggestions made by the participants of the last go-round. If you have some ideas or questions of your own, we urge you to share them with us, either on the blog, or in our next series of classes.

Andy Mead

Piano Camp - Movie and Music Madness

2010-06-21T10:57:00.000-04:00

Summer time...and the livin' is easy.... fish are jumpin.. and the cotton is high...

It's summer time at the JSO CMS and great things are happening! This summer, our piano camp features a "Movie and Music Madness" theme. Your budding musicians will explore the world of music through piano study revolving around movie themes. Students will learn 1 theme from a popular movie while developing their theory, technique, aural awareness, critical thinking skills and ensemble skills through games and large group activities. Students will make new friends and become excited about the wonderful world of music and piano study. Join us July 12-23 at the JSO. Don't miss out on our "Broadway" opportunities for your students.

More info at 782-3221 or http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/summer2010.html .

Recital Tonight (June 18)

2010-06-18T08:03:00.001-04:00

Shawna Geer, private piano student of Carol Ivkovich, will present her senior recital tonight at 7 p.m. at the JSO. Shawna is a talented pianist who has participated in various festivals and contests. Shawna's program includes pieces by George Winston, Ludovico Einaudi, Brahms, hymn arrangements and Chopin. Come enjoy a free concert by a gifted pianist!

Jazz Piano Class

2010-06-17T08:24:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the exciting world of jazz! This American art form is an important part of our musical heritage. Are you interested in jazz piano? Would you like to be able to play keyboard for your school's jazz band? Or perhaps play simple jazz pieces for your own enjoyment? Come join the introductory jazz piano class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings 5-6 p.m. July 12-23. Learn basic jazz piano skills that include jazz rhythms, scales, 7th chords and basic improvisation. Students must have 4 or more years of formal piano study. Contact: 782-3221 or JSO Website.

Recreational Music Making for Adults!

2010-06-16T08:13:00.001-04:00

"Recreational Music Making was born to create a revolution against the notion that music making is only for those with talent. Recreational Music Making dares to declare that music making is for everyone. It invites all of you who have ever dreamed of playing a music instrument--including the millions upon millions of people who wish they had never given up their piano lessons-to give it another chance." (Brenda Dillon) For those of you who believe that a world filled with music is a better world, this is an opportunity of a lifetime--the best chance to make a difference in your life and perhaps another person's life and society.

Would you like to learn to play your favorite songs? Thought it was too late to learn to play the piano? Played years ago and want to try again?

Come join the fun! Classes are taught in supportive groups and offer the following benefits:

a. a stress free/relaxed environment--beneficial to your health and well-being
b. an ideal setting for meeting new friends and having fun
c. A trained instructor will help you learn without frustration.

Take a risk and give it a try. Classes are being offered Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. or Tuesday and Thursdays from 12:15-1:15 p.m. July 12-23, 2010 at the JSO downtown (215 W. Michigan). Register at the JSO downtown office, 517-782-3221, or at the JSO website.

Jackson City Limits - Jammin' at the JSO

2010-06-01T07:58:00.000-04:00

Local indie artists/bands at the JSO (215 W. Michigan), Friday, June 4, 6:30-11:30 p.m.

Featuring:

SAFE OR BRAVE

IF I WERE THE SUN

FIELDS OF INDUSTRY

and the return of....CARDBOARD CATHEDRAL!!!!!

$4 at the door ($1 per band, support local artist!) REMEMBER, this is the pilot for this program, therefore, IF YOU WANT THIS TO KEEP HAPPENING YOU NEED TO COME TO THE SHOW! For those of you who think you can't scrounge around and come up with only $4 to support local musicians and hear some great music, think again. Hope to see you all there!

Doors open at 6:30.

Check out the facebook event page .

JSO on WKAR in June

2010-05-27T10:24:00.000-04:00

The JSO will be featured on WKAR’s Community Concerts during the month of June. 90.5 Classical’s Community Concerts are Tuesdays at 7 p.m., hosted by Dan Bayer.

June 1

Weber: Overture to “Oberon”; MSU Sym Orch/Gregorian
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; MSU Sym Orch/Gregorian
Dvorak: Finale from Serenade for Strings; Jackson Sym Orch/Min

June 22

Grieg: Excerpts from the "Holberg" Suite; Jackson Sym Orch/Osmond
Brahms: Concerto in a minor for Violin, Cello & Orchestra; Ilya Kaler, violin; Amit Peled, cello; Lansing Sym Orch/Muffitt
Berlioz: “Roman Carnival” Overture; MSU Sym Orch/Jimenez

June 29

Moncayo: "Huapango"; Jackson Sym Orch/Osmond
Holst: Suite, "The Planets"; Lansing Sym Orch/Muffitt

Summer Community Music School

2010-05-18T13:29:00.003-04:00

SUMMER COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL INFORMATION is now online at http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/summer2010.html . Check out Summer Piano Camp (themed "Movies & Music Madness"), Summer Strings, Summer String Team and Summer Early Childhood Classes.