THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CAROLYN WATSON, CONDUCTOR MAX GERHART, SOLOIST CARL LEJUEZ, NARRATOR MARCH 21, 2019 - 7:30 P.M. LIED CENTER OF KANSAS PROGRAM MARCH 21 | LIED CENTER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Carolyn Watson, conductor Fanfare Ritmico Jennifer Higdon (b.1962) Pavane, Op. 50 Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra Alexander Arutiunian (1920-2012) Max Gerhart, soloist Desintegración Morfológica Xavier Montsalvatge de la Chacona de J.S. Bach (b. 1947) The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) Carl Lejuez, narrator music.ku.edu PROGRAM NOTES FANFARE RITMICO Fanfare Ritmico celebrates the rhythm and speed (tempo) of life. Writing this work on the eve of the move into the new Millennium, I found myself reflecting on how all things have quickened as time has progressed. Our lives now move at speeds much greater than what I believe anyone would have ever imagined in years past. Everyone follows the beat of their own drummer, and those drummers are beating faster and faster on many different levels. As we move along day to day, rhythm plays an integral part of our lives, from the individual heartbeat to the lightning speed of our computers. This fanfare celebrates that rhythmic motion, of man and machine, and the energy which permeates every moment of our being in the new century. - Jennifer Higdon JENNIFER HIGDON BIOGRAPHY Jennifer Higdon is one of America’s most acclaimed figures in contemporary classical music, receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto and a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Concerto. Most recently, Higdon received the prestigious Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University which is awarded to contemporary classical composers of exceptional achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. Higdon enjoys several hundred performances a year of her works, and blue cathedral is one of today’s most performed contemporary orchestral works, with more than 600 performances worldwide. Her works have been recorded on more than sixty CDs. Higdon’s first opera, Cold Mountain, won the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere and the opera recording was nominated for 2 Grammy awards. She holds the Rock Chair in Composition at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her music is published exclusively by Lawdon Press. PAVANE, OP. 50 Though not as famous internationally as his teacher and friend Camille Saint- Saëns, or his pupil Maurice Ravel, Gabriel Fauré is one of the most distinguished French composers, admired especially for his piano, vocal solo, and choral music. (In 1924 the young Aaron Copland published an article entitled “Gabriel Fauré, a Neglected Master.”) Among his best-known works are his Requiem and a suite of incidental music for the play Pelléas et Mélisande. A pavane is a stately dance of the Renaissance era, originating in Italy though associated with Spain as well. Fauré’s Pavane was written as entertainment for a wealthy patroness’s summer concert, with the possibility of choreography in mind. Pizzicato strings provide the steady rhythm for much of the piece, with solo flute playing a prominent role. One critic finds the Pavane “mingling a hidden melancholy with a certain serenity,” except for its more passionate middle section. - Tony Memmel PROGRAM NOTES CONCERTO FOR TUBA AND ORCHESTRA Alexander Arutiunian’s Tuba Concerto was completed in 1992 and was premièred in May 1995 by Harri Lidsle with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra at the Church of the Cross in Lahti, Finland. This work takes its place among a series of concertos that Arutiunian has written for wind instruments. Although Arutiunian often uses popular Armenian tunes in his music, in this concerto he uses melodies exclusively of his own invention, even if a ‘folk-like’ atmosphere is still present. Although his intention was to present the tuba as an instrument also capable of playing with agility, he still decided not to display all of its technical possibilities. The most important thing was, as the composer himself has put it, ‘to let the tuba sing’. The concerto takes the classical three- movement form including the traditional solo cadenza. The first movement, Allegro Moderato, presents a theme built on the interval of a fourth, which is subsequently developed in conjunction with elements from the accompaniment. The second movement, Andante Sostenuto, is characterized by its ostinato use of the note D, played pizzicato by the double basses, above which the orchestra enters in a melancholy mood, followed shortly afterwards by the tuba. The melodic material of the impetuous finale, Allegro ma non Troppo, takes up the baroque circolo idea (a melodic figure designed in the form of a circle). In rondo form, this movement contains a succession of lively episodes interrupted by a dreamy cadenza. - Oystein Baadsvik DESINTEGRACION MORFOLOGICA DE LA CHACONA DE J.S. BACH The stated purpose of this piece is to put the famous Ciaccona from Partita II in d-minor within a new context and restructure it, having previously taken it apart harmonically, tonally and dynamically in search of new and unfamiliar sounds, always derived from the Ciaccona’s substratum. It is not meant to be another set of variations, or even less a simple re-orchestration of the original for violin solo, but rather an in-depth look into the living and ever-present mystery that seems to be at the heart of all of Bach’s music governed by classical coordinates. The piece opens with the first chords of the Ciaccona with its original harmony; but from this point on there is a gradual move away from all of that until we finally reach a complete disintegration. Then, in the last few bars, it returns to the genuine reality of the score. - Xavier Montsalvatge YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO THE ORCHESTRA In 1945, just after the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes, Benjamin Britten was asked by the British Ministry of Education to compose the music for a film to be called Instruments of the Orchestra, designed to acquaint young people with the characters of the various instruments and instrumental choirs that make up the modern orchestra. He went to work on this assignment early the following year, turning to the variation form that figures so prominently in his catalogue of works and taking his theme in this case from the Rondeau Henry Purcell PROGRAM NOTES composed in 1695 for a play by Aphra Behn called Abdelazer, or The Moor’s Revenge. For the film version, a spoken text, to introduce the respective variations and instruments, was written by Eric Crozier, who was to provide Britten in the next few years with librettos for three operas and the cantata Saint Nicolas. Some six weeks after the concert premiere, in the fall of 1946, the film had its first showing in London; within a year or so The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra was well on the way to establishing itself as the most widely known work composed by an Englishman since Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches and, like those marches, a stunning showpiece for the virtuoso orchestra. The theme itself is given a full workout before the sequence of variations begins. It is stated first by the full orchestra, then given to the woodwinds, then to the brass, then (in slightly varied shape) to the strings and harp, and finally declaimed rhythmically by the percussion before being restated by the orchestra at full strength. The various choirs having been thus introduced, we proceed to the chain of variations, 13 in number, in which the individual instruments are spotlighted. Each of the variations reflects a different character; some tender, some slightly sardonic, some mysterious, some straightforwardly humorous, all charged with great originality and within the following sequence: (1) flutes and piccolo, with harp accompaniment; (2) oboes; (3) clarinets; (4) bassoons; (5) violins; (6) violas; (7) cellos; (8) double basses; (9) harp; (10) horns; (11) trumpets; (12) trombones and tuba; (13) percussion. The timpani begins the final variation, and provides a ritornello between the appearances of the other instruments: bass drum with cymbals, tambourine with triangle, snare drum with wood block, xylophone, castanets with gong, and finally the whip. The entire percussion section then celebrates the end of the chain of variations, subsiding to permit the xylophone to lead into the fugue. In this final section, Britten puts his fragmented orchestra back together in the grandest style, beginning with the piccolo, moving through the other instruments and choirs, and concluding with a glorious proclamation of the original Purcell theme by the brass as the woodwinds and strings exult in the fugue theme and the percussion link the two in a festive frame. - Richard Freed PERFORMERS CARL LEJUEZ Carl W. Lejuez was named interim provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of Kansas in spring 2018 and began his responsibilities on April 30, 2018. He began his tenure at the University of Kansas as dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at KU on Feb. 1, 2016. Prior to joining KU, Lejuez was professor of psychology and associate dean of research for the Col- lege of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland. MAX GERHART Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Max Gerhart is pursuing his doctorate in tuba performance at the University of Kansas. Maintaining an active schedule as a performer, Gerhart has played with ensembles including the Kansas City Symphony, the Fountain City Brass Band, and many chamber groups. He also teaches private lessons in the Lawrence area as well as serving as a graduate teaching assistant at KU. Gerhart received his BM from Ohio University and his MM from KU, both in tuba performance.