BOSTON UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Tsai Performance Center Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher education and research. With more than 33,000 students, it is the fourth-largest independent university in the United States. BU consists of 16 schools and colleges, along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes integral to the University’s research and teaching mission. In 2012, BU joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS Established in 1954, Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) is a community of artist-scholars and scholar-artists who are passionate about the fine and performing arts, committed to diversity and inclusion, and determined to improve the lives of others through art. With programs in Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts, CFA prepares students for a meaningful creative life by developing their intellectual capacity to create art, shift perspective, think broadly, and master relevant 21st century skills. CFA offers a wide array of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, as well as a range of online degrees and certificates. Learn more at bu.edu/ cfa.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS SCHOOL OF MUSIC Founded in 1872, Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Music combines the intimacy and intensity of traditional conservatory-style training with a broad liberal arts education at the undergraduate level, and elective coursework at the graduate level. The school offers degrees in performance, conducting, composition and theory, musicology, music education, and historical performance, as well as artist and performance diplomas and a certificate program in its Opera Institute.

PERFORMANCE VENUES CFA Concert Hall • 855 Commonwealth Avenue Marsh Chapel • 735 Commonwealth Avenue Tsai Performance Center • 685 Commonwealth Avenue Boston Symphony Hall • 301 Massachusetts Avenue October 2, 2019 Tsai Performance Center

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Joshua Gersen, conductor

Siegfried’s Rhine Journey Richard Wagner (1813–1883) from Götterdämmerung Arr. Engelbert Humperdinck

Four Sea Interludes Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a I. Dawn II. Sunday Morning III. Moonlight IV. Storm Tamara Dworetz, conductor

Intermission

Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Op. 13, “Winter Daydreams” (1840–1883) I. Dreams of a winter journey: Allegro tranquillo II. Land of desolation, land of mists: Adagio cantabile ma non tanto III. Scherzo: Allegro scherzando giocoso IV. Finale: Andante lugubre—Allegro maestoso PROGRAM NOTES

Siegfried’s Rhine Journey from Götterdämmerung On October 4, 1848, the thirty-five-year-old Second Court Conductor at the Dresden Opera, who was also the composer of several stage works, among them Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin, jotted down a brief sketch for a music-drama on the Nibelungen myth. It would be five years before he composed the first note of music for this project, twenty-six years before it was finished, and twenty-eight years before it was staged in its entirety. Complex in subject and execution, Der Ring des Nibelungen—four evenings in the theater and something like seventeen hours of music altogether—is one of the stupendous achievements of Western art. For the rest of the nineteenth century and into the present, composers would struggle to find their own artistic identities outside the long shadows cast by such works as the Ring cycle, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal. In the excerpt from Götterdämmerung [the final opera of the Ring cycle] that we hear, Siegfried and Brünnhilde have awakened from their first night together. In recognition of their union, Siegfried has taken a gold ring off his own finger and placed it on Brünnhilde’s: This is in fact the ring of the title, the ring about whose changing ownership the whole saga revolves. But Siegfried is not about to settle down in domestic bliss. Leaving Brünnhilde on the rock where he found her and where they consummated their marriage, Siegfried descends the mountain to the Rhine (along the way passing through the ring of fire he had braved to reach Brünnhilde). He is searching for a new adventure and finds it, but it will be his last. The music we hear as he makes his way along the river is the interlude that links Siegfried’s and Brünnhilde’s heroic duet and the scene at the court of the Gibichungs, where Siegfried will meet his death. The jubilant outburst with which the Rhine Journey begins is a grand transformation of Siegfried’s horn call. The music proceeds vigorously, recalling Brünnhilde, the swirling water of the Rhine, and the hymn of the Rhinemaidens to the gold they failed to protect. —Michael Steinberg for San Francisco Symphony (exerpted)

Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes “For most of my life,” Benjamin Britten wrote, “I have lived closely in touch with the sea. My parents’ house in Lowestoft directly faced the sea, and my life as a child was colored by the fierce storms that sometimes drove ships on our coast and ate away whole stretches of neighboring cliffs. In writing [my opera] Peter Grimes, I wanted to PROGRAM NOTES express my awareness of the perpetual struggle of men and women whose livlihood depends on the sea—difficult as it is to treat such a universal subject in theatrical form.” For Peter Grimes, the leading character of the opera, life was more than a struggle against the sea. Endowed with a surly nature and explosive temper, Grimes, an outsider, was feared and distrusted by the people in a fishing village on the bleak Suffolk coast of England. Unjustly accusing him of murdering his two apprentices, the townspeople finally force Grimes to sail out to sea where he purposely sinks his boat and perishes. The premiere of the opera in London on June 7, 1945 was a triumphant success. Exactly one week later, Britten conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the Four Sea Interludes from the opera to equally enthusiastic acclaim. Dawn. This section is heard between the Prologue, a coroner’s inquest into the death at sea of Grimes’ first apprentice, and Act I, in which the fishermen express their common fears as they prepare to go to sea. The cold and forbidding music, pervaded with suggestions of sea gull cries and crashing waves, comes to a close as the rising sun majestically ushers in another day. Sunday Morning. In the opera, this prelude to Act II is set in front of the church as the villagers, in a festive mood, gather for services. Despite the joyous pealing of the church bells—suggested by French horns and high woodwinds—there is a growing sense of tragedy as Grimes appears on the scene with his new apprentice. Moonlight. The introduction to Act III takes place outside the warm, brightly-lit hall where the townspeople are dancing, but somehow the music casts a dark, ominously forbidding mood. Storm. Played between the two scenes of Act I, this interlude conjures up a storm at sea that erupts with terrifying violence and fury. —Melvin Berger for Long Island Philharmonic

Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13, “Winter Daydreams” Probably no other work ever cost Tchaikovsky as much effort as his first symphony. At the beginning of 1866, the 26-year-old composer moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow to teach harmony at the newly founded Conservatory. He wrote his symphony nights and between classes, often working until exhaustion. This first major orchestral work caused him such anguish that he soon suffered from nervous PROGRAM NOTES disorders and hallucinations. But when he thought the symphony was finally finished, the drudgery was by no means over. Nikolai Rubinstein, the despotic director of the Conservatory (and Tchaikovsky’s landlord as well), demanded extensive changes before he would even consider performing it. In December 1866, the Scherzo, at least, found his approval; two months later, he accepted the second movement. But it wasn’t until February 15, 1868 that Rubinstein performed the work in its entirety. After further revisions, a first edition was published in 1874; in 1888, 22 years after Tchaikovsky had begun the composition, its final version came out. Despite all of these problems, Tchaikovsky still retained a positive attitude towards his first symphony. “Although it is immature in some respects, I consider it to be fundamentally better and richer than many other, more mature works,” he wrote in a letter. Tchaikovsky’s poetic imagination can be seen in his sub-titles. He named the entire piece “Winter Daydreams.” The first movement is entitled “Dreams of a winter journey” and the second is called “Land of desolation, land of mists.” But these titles are presumably only general associations and do not point to the musical realization of any concrete “story.” The opening “Allegro tranquillo,” for example, is a conventional sonata-form movement with two contrasting themes —while mostprogram music uses unconventionalforms. Both themes are introduced by the woodwinds, the first by the flute and bassoon and the second by the clarinet. The second movement is based on a traditional melody first presented by an oboe, then taken up by various instrumental groups and expanded upon. Oddly enough, the last two movements no longer have any titles. Tchaikovsky took the Scherzo from a piano sonata in C-sharp Minor that he had composed one year before the symphony, changing only very little. The Trio of this movement, however, is new. It seems almost to be a prototype for the later orchestral waltzes of Tchaikovsky’s that would become so successful. Like the first movement, the Finale is also a sonata-form movement with two themes. It is based on the Russian folksong Flowers bloom, which Tchaikovsky later published in an arrangement for piano. This melody is heard both in the slow introduction as well as in the lively second theme of the movement.

—Jürgen Ostmann for Deutsche Radio Philharmonie (Translation: Elizabeth Gahbler) JOSHUA GERSEN, CONDUCTOR

Joshua Gersen recently concluded his tenure as the Assistant Conductor of the , where he most notably made his subscription debut in 2017 on hours notice to critical acclaim. Previous conducting posts include the Music Director of the New York Youth Symphony, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony. He made his conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony in the fall of 2013 and has been invited back numerous times, most recently replacing Michael Tilson Thomas on short notice for a subscription series in June 2019. Other recent guest conducting appearances include performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Hannover Opera, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, and the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Gersen was the recipient of a 2015 and 2016 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. He won the Aspen Music Festival’s prestigious 2011 Aspen Conducting Prize and their 2010 Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize, and served as the festival’s assistant conductor for the 2012 summer season under Robert Spano. Also a prolific composer, both Mr. Gersen’s String Quartet #1 and Fantasy for Chamber Orchestra have been premiered in Jordan Hall. His works have been performed by the New Mexico Symphony and the Greater Bridgeport Symphony. His work as a composer has also led to an interest in conducting contemporary music. He has conducted several world premieres of new works by young composers with New York Youth Symphony’s esteemed First Music Program and New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program. He has collaborated with many prominent composers including John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Christopher Rouse, Steven Mackey, Mason Bates, and . He was principal conductor of the Ojai Music Festival in 2013, leading works by Lou Harrison and John Luther Adams, among others. Mr. Gersen made his conducting debut at age 11 with the Greater Bridgeport Youth Orchestra, and made his professional conducting debut with them five years later in the performance of his own composition, A Symphonic Movement. Mr. Gersen is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied conducting with Otto Werner Mueller, and the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied composition with Michael Gandolfi. As an educator himself, Mr. Gersen has worked often with students and ensembles at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, Boston University, and the Curtis Institute of Music. He serves as the interim Director of Orchestral Activities at Boston University for the 2019-20 school year. TAMARA DWORETZ, CONDUCTOR

Second prize winner in the Boston Pops’ Bernstein-inspired conducting competition, Tamara Dworetz recently served as assistant conductor to Bramwell Tovey, Principal Conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, at the 2019 Proms in London. Tamara was selected as one of 6 conductors to participate in the Dallas Opera’s prestigious Hart Institute for Women Conductors to take place in October of this year. Previously, Tamara served for 2 years as Assistant Conductor for the Austin Symphony Orchestra, and was a Conducting Fellow for the 2019 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for which she received the Bruno Walter Conducting Fellowship. In various capacities, Tamara has conducted the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, New Symphony Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Butler Opera Center, DeKalb Symphony Orchestra, Indiana University Brass Choir, University of Texas Symphony Orchestra, and Boston University Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated and enthusiastic music educator, Tamara has served as the conductor for the Austin Youth Orchestra, the co-music director/conductor of the University of Texas University Orchestra, as well as Director of Orchestras of the 150-student orchestra program at Lakeside High School in Atlanta, Georgia. Tamara has additionally conducted numerous rehearsals with the Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra Repertory & Junior Repertory Orchestras, and Boston University All-Campus Orchestra. Additionally, Tamara is currently organizing a consortium for regional and collegiate orchestras to commission a new symphonic work by composer Adeliia Faizullina. This new composition will be written in commemoration of the end of WWII and in honor of the Tatar poet and Nazi resistance fighter, Musa Jalil. The work is set to be premiered during the 2021-22 season. BOSTON UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 1st Violin Cello Flute Michael Duffett, Yeji Yoo, principal Casey Dumford l concertmaster Yu-Ning Huang Hayden Tutty Huiying Ma Michael D’Arrigo Madeleine Horvat ª Isabel Oliart Esther Benjamin Olivia Iverson Xinyuan Wang Allen Maracle Jisun Oh v Ava Figliuzzi Annalise Schlaug Ka Chun Leung Minyung Suh Piccolo Jessica Tovey Molly Farrar Madeleine Horvat l Clara Montes Jewel Kim Olivia Iverson ª Sandya Kola Sofia Puccio Hayden Tutty v Samuel Chung Christina Han Reyna Flores Joel Osinga Oboe Jacqueline Bensen Alessandro Ciraficil ª Bass Hannah Staudinger 2nd Violin Noëlle Marty, Katrina Kwantes Sarah Elert, principal principal Rodion Belousov v Freya Liu John DeMartino Allie Wei Sarah Wager English Horn Sean Lee Pablo Kennedy Katrina Kwantes Anna Harris Alyssa Brown Catherine Miller Nicholas Caux Clarinet Ana-Sofia Pozo Lillian Young Tinghua Wu lª Maya Lynn Lindy Billhardt Lorena Acosta William Peltz Smalley Meghan Davis v Ghazal Faghihi Stella Faux Grace Wodarcyk E-flat Clarinet Noah Smith Lorena Acosta

Viola Bass Clarinet Deberly Kauffman, Meghan Davis principal Yonsung Lee Bassoon Benjamin Burgdorf Zijie Cai lª Hyojin Kim Julia Klauss Celia Daggy Katherine Muñoz v Chloe Aquino Yen-Chi Chen Contrabassoon Teresa Bloemer Julia Klauss Maurya Dickerson Hannah Hooven Carlos Parra Suarez continued BOSTON UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Horn Personnel Managers Christian Gutierrez l Katrina Kwantes, lead Sarah Gagnon v Kar-Chun Chiu Mitchell Parus Allen Maracle Jessica Young ª Sophia Addi Justin Gaskey l Principal in Wagner ªPrincipal in Britten Trumpet v Principal in Tchaikovsky Peter Everson l Doug McCurdy Zoe Ronen Kyra Hulligan ª John P. Johnson Cheryl Przytula v

Trombone Adam Hanna lª Kar-Chun Chiu Julio Rivera Skye Dearborn v Tianyu Xue

Bass Trombone Alek Mansouri lª Kar-Chun Chiu v

Tuba Ben Vasko lv Colin Laird ª

Harp Ruth Mertens l Caroline Mellott ª

Timpani Jeffrey Sagurton l Jack Barry ª Jake Darnell v

Percussion Jeffrey Sagurton ªv Jack Barry l Jake Darnell SCHOOL OF MUSIC STRINGS VOICE HISTORICAL MUSIC EDUCATION Steven Ansell viola * Penelope Bitzas * PERFORMANCE Kevin Coyne Edwin Barker double bass * Sharon Daniels * Aldo Abreu recorder Diana Dansereau * Heather Braun violin James Demler * Sarah Freiberg Ellison cello Ruth Debrot * Lynn Chang violin Lynn Eustis * Greg Ingles sackbut André de Quadros * ++ Phyllis Hoffman Hye Min Choi viola Laura Jeppesen viola da gamba Andrew Goodrich * (SOT) Betsy Polatin Christopher Krueger Carolyn Davis Fryer double Tara Stadelman-Cohen Karin Hendricks * bass pedagogy baroque flute Ronald Kos * Daniel Doña pedagogy, Douglas Sumi * vocal Catherine Liddell lute Tavis Linsin * chamber * coaching and repertoire Robinson Pyle Tawnya Smith * Franziska Huhn harp Kevin Wilson pedagogy natural trumpet Kinh Vu * Mihail Jojatu cello Gonzalo Ruiz baroque oboe Bayla Keyes violin * WOODWINDS, BRASS & Aaron Sheehan voice ENSEMBLES Danny Kim viola PERCUSSION Jane Starkman baroque Jennifer Bill Hyun-Ji Kwon cello Ken Amis tuba violin/viola Leland Clarke * Michelle LaCourse viola * ++ Jennifer Bill saxophone Peter Sykes harpsichord * ++ Joshua Gersen * Kyle Brightwell percussion Aaron Goldberg * Warren Levenson guitar Geralyn Coticone flute Benjamin Levy double bass MUSICOLOGY AND Genevieve LeClair Terry Everson trumpet * ETHNOMUSICOLOGY Lucia Lin violin * John Ferrillo oboe William Lumpkin * ++ Dana Mazurkevich violin Timothy Genis percussion Marié Abe * David Martins * Yuri Mazurkevich violin * Nancy Goeres bassoon Michael Birenbaum Quintero* Mark Miller Richard Nangle guitar Bruce Hall trumpet Victor Coelho * ++ SAB S’20 Jason Saetta Michael Reynolds cello * John Heiss flute Brita Heimarck * Mariah Wilson SAB F’19 Renee Krimsier flute Miki Kaneda * Rhonda Rider cello Gabriel Langfur Joshua Rifkin * OPERA INSTITUTE Todd Seeber double bass tenor/bass trombone Andrew Shenton * (STH) Rita Cote Kai-Yun Lu clarinet Thomas Van Dyck double bass Rachana Vajjhala * Gary Durham Don Lucas trombone * ++ Jeremy Yudkin * Angela Gooch Michael Zaretsky viola David Martins clarinet * Peter Zazofsky violin * Melodie Jeffery Cassell Mark McEwen oboe COMPOSITION Matthew Larson * Jessica Zhou harp Toby Oft trombone AND THEORY William Lumpkin * Elizabeth Ostling flute Vartan Aghababian PIANO Robert Patterson * Emily Ranii Tanya Gabrielian * Margaret Phillips bassoon Martin Amlin * ++ Nathan Troup Gila Goldstein * ++ Andrew Price oboe Deborah Burton * Allison Voth * Linda Jiorle-Nagy * Kenneth Radnofsky Justin Casinghino Pavel Nersesiyan * saxophone Richard Cornell * EMERITUS Boaz Sharon * Mike Roylance tuba/ Joshua Fineberg * David Hoose conducting euphonium Samuel Headrick * Ann Howard Jones conducting COLLABORATIVE Eric Ruske horn * David Kopp * SAB F’19 Mark Kroll historical performance PIANO Robert Sheena English horn Rodney Lister * Joy McIntyre voice Javier Arrebola * ++ Samuel Solomon percussion Mary Montgomery Koppel William McManus Shiela Kibbe * SAB Richard Stoltzman clarinet Ketty Nez * music education Robert Merfeld Linda Toote flute * Andrew Smith Sandra Nicolucci music education ORGAN John H. Wallace * SAB S’20 Peter Sykes * ++ Steven Weigt * STAFF PIANISTS Jason Yust * SAB S’20 Michelle Beaton voice Anna Carr voice Siu Yan Luk strings Clera Ryu voice Lorena Tecu * strings

* Full-time faculty LOA Leave of Absence (SOT) School of Theatre ++ Department Chairs (SAB) Sabbatical (STH) School of Theology ADMINISTRATIVE PRODUCTION AND PERFORMANCE Gregory Melchor-Barz Director Christopher Dempsey Director, Production and Performance Oshin Gregorian Managing Director, Opera Institute Meredith Gangler Librarian, Music Curriculum Library and Opera Programs Mary Gerbi Ensembles Manager Jill Pearson Business Manager Alexander Knutrud Stage Manager Cami Sylvia, Staff Assistant Xiaodan Liu Senior Piano Technician/Restorer John Langston Piano Technician ADMISSIONS AND STUDENT SERVICES Daniel Vozzolo Administrative Coordinator Laura Conyers Director of Admissions Megan Anthony Admissions Coordinator UNIVERSITY ENSEMBLES Barbara Raney Student Services Manager Michael Barsano Director, University Ensembles Benjamin Court Administrative Coordinator, Sharif Mamoun Assistant Director, Athletic Bands Performance & Applied Studies, and Ensembles Gilberto Cruz Administrative Coordinator, Composition/Theory, Music Education, and Musicology/Ethnomusicology Departments