Coffee Concerts
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Education & 2012-2013 Community COFFEE CONCERTS Alasdair Neale, conductor GOLIJOV Last Round BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 www.AlabamaSymphony.org About the Alabama Symphony Orchestra The Alabama Symphony Orchestra is the only full- time, professional orchestra in the state of Alabama. MEET A MUSICIAN For more than 70 years, the ASO has shared the joy of music and performances of the highest quality with Jay Evans, principal trombone audience members of all ages. The ASO gives over 140 concerts a year, including the Masterworks Se- What is it like to be a musician in an ries, Pops Concerts, Education Concerts, and special orchestra? performances with the Alabama Ballet, Opera Bir- A dream come true.....most days! mingham, and the Alabama Symphony Chorus. This Tell us about your first important mu- season also marks the third year of the new Alabama sical experience. One of the most Symphony Youth Orchestra, a full orchestra for musi- memorable musical experiences came cians ages 12 to 22. while a fellow at the Tanglewood Mu- sic Festival...I guess the icing on the cake was that the con- ductor for the weekend was none other that Leonard The ASO is led by Music Director Laureate Justin Bernstein! That’s a Tchaikovsky 4th Symphony I will never Brown, but is also conducted by Principal Pops Con- forget! ductor Chris Confessore and Assistant Conductor Ro- What advice do you have for students who want to be- derick Cox. The Orchestra is made up of 54 full-time come musicians? Go for it! Music is a part of you, wheth- Musicians. To read more about individual ASO Musi- er you play it, teach it, or just listen to it. I knew I wanted cians, visit www.alabamasymphony.org and click on music to be my focus very early on, and the most fortu- “Meet the Musicians.” nate part is that I had enabling parents who supported my sister and I wholeheartedly. What’s on your iPod? My ipod is multi-purpose. I like to run to movie music like Gladiator, Conan the Barbarian and anything by Thomas Newman, like the Green Mile or Shawshank Redemption. Or classic rock like Journey, Chi- cago, Jefferson Starship and Van Halen. For just listen- ing or studying I have Bach, Bartok, Bruckner and Mahler Symphonies, Schumann, and Shostakovich. Also, Wynton Marsalis, Frank Rosolino (jazz trombonist), Pat Metheny, Frank Sina- tra, James Taylor, then maybe some Flo-rida and Red Chili Peppers! The Instrument Families of the Orchestra Strings Brass Woodwinds There are four major instruments in the string family: violin, The main instruments of the brass family are There are three different ways a woodwind instru- viola, cello, and double bass. The body of these instruments trumpets, horns, trombones, and tuba. Brass ment produces sound: air blown across the instrument are hollow and are made of wood that is glued together. The instruments produce sound when the player (flute), across a single reed (clarinet), and across two strings are made of either nylon, steel, or animal gut and are buzzes his or her lips into a metal mouthpiece. reeds (oboe & bassoon). Reeds are small pieces of attached to a tail piece at the bottom and wrapped around To produce higher or lower pitches, the player cane that help produce sound by vibrating. A single pegs at the top stretching tightly across the bridge to pro- adjusts the opening between their lips called reed vibrates against the mouthpiece when air is duce their assigned pitches. the aperture, making it smaller for higher blown between them and a double reed produces pitches and larger for lower pitches. The long- sound when air is forced between the two reeds. er the length of tubing on the instrument, the lower the instrument sounds and the shorter the length of tubing, the higher the instrument will sound. Percussion Instruments in the percussion instruments are played by being struck, scraped, or shaken. These instruments are classified as being tune or non-tuned. Tuned instru- ments play specific pitches just like the strings, brass, and woodwinds while non-tuned instruments produce a sound with an undefined pitch such as a knock on a door. Last Round ARGENTINE MUSIC At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Argen- tina was little more than a settlement. Slowly, the British began moving in to develop the railroads ABOUT THE COMPOSER and by the early twentieth century, most of the population was immigrants from Europe. When people think of Argentina, they often think Osvaldo Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household of Tango. Tango is a type of music that is a fusion in La Plata, Argentina. Born to a piano teacher mother and physi- of many different styles of music, a result of the cian father, Golijov was raised surrounded by classical chamber cosmopolitan nature of the country. music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the new tango of Astor Piazzolla. The major influences of Tango are: Upon moving to the United States in 1986, Golijov earned his Songs of rural gauchos Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Habanera (Cuba) George Crumb, and was a fellow at Tanglewood, studying with Oliver Knussen. Polka and Mazurka (Slavic) Contradanse (Spain) Golijov is Loyola Professor of Music at College of the Holy Cross in Flamenco (Andalucia) Worcester, MA, where he has taught since 1991. He also taught for several years at Tanglewood, has led workshops at Carnegie Hall with Italian Folk Songs Dawn Upshaw and teaches in the summers at the Sundance Compos- ers Lab. REFLECT What other genres/styles of music can be consid- ered a “fusion”? What is a “folk song”? Can you think of any American folk songs? Last Round ABOUT THE MUSIC Golijov's Last Round, for string orchestra, was commis- sioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group ASTOR PIAZZOLLA and premiered in the fall of 1996. "I composed Last Round (the title is borrowed from a short story on boxing by Julio Cortázar) as an imaginary chance for Piazzolla's spirit to Piazzolla is perhaps the most famous Argen- fight one more time," Golijov wrote. "The piece is con- tine Tango composer and bandoneón player. ceived as an idealized bandoneón. There are two move- He revolutionized the traditional tango, cre- ments: the first represents the act of a violent compres- ating his own genre known as tango Nuevo sion of the instrument and the second a final, seemingly or New Tango. Tango Nuevo was a clear re- endless opening sigh (it is actually a fantasy over the re- flection of mid-twentieth century Argentina: frain of the song 'My Beloved Buenos Aires,' composed by political, cultural, and economic turmoil. the legendary Carlos Gardel in the 1930s). But Last Round Today, Tango Nuevo incorporates elements is also a sublimated tango dance. Two quartets confront of jazz and classical music and vice versa as each other, separated by the focal bass, with violins and you will hear in the music of Golijov. A bandoneón violas standing up as in the traditional tango orchestras. The bows fly in the air as inverted legs in criss-crossed choreography, always attracting and repelling each other, always in danger of clashing, always avoiding it with the immutability that can only be acquired by transforming hot passion into pure pattern." *John Henken is the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Director of Publica- tions LISTEN & COMPARE “La Cumparsita” (Traditional Tango) Piazzolla “Libertango” (tango nuevo) Golijov “Last Round” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkfzK_nX-QM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipR7sMrhdDQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtNaNQ9pLVo “You have no idea how it feels to hear Symphony No. 1 behind you the tramp of a giant like Beethoven.” ABOUT THE COMPOSER Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Ger- - Johannes Brahms Ludwig van Beethoven many although he spent most of his life living in Vienna, Austria. He started studying piano at the age of seven and helped his impover- ished family by earning money performing at ABOUT THE MUSIC dance halls. If it weren’t for his unrelenting perfectionism, Brahms would Brahms started composing at an early age as have completed his first symphony much sooner than he did. well, although his compositions were not heard until he went on tour Brahms’ extreme perfectionism caused him to destroy some as an accompanist where he met Joseph Joachim, a great violinist. of his works. One of the biggest influences on the success of Brahms’ career as a This self-criticism is justified, however, because in the years composer was the friendship of Clara and Robert Schumann, also after Beethoven, each new symphony was scrutinized—and composers. Brahms learned from Schumann the value of studying often criticized—according to criteria that included the quali- counterpoint so he studied the manuscripts of Bach, Orlando di Lasso, ty of its individual themes; their sustainability to a symphonic and Palestrina which all had a great effect on his symphonic writing. movement; the effectiveness of the thematic work, including motivic development and counterpoint; and the unity of co- herence demonstrated by the work as a whole. One final push that convinced Brahms to complete his First Symphony, was the words of Richard Wagner. Wagner de- clared that after Beethoven’s Ninth no further symphonies in the traditional mold could be written; rather, absolute music would have to be “redeemed” in the music drama. Wagner set out to create musical dramas and produced his Ring des Nibelungen cycle. It has been suggested that it may have been the premiere of the Ring at Bayreuth in 1876 that en- couraged Brahms to complete at last his First Symphony, in order to reclaim the Beethovenian symphonic mantle.