23 Season 2019-2020 Thursday, October 24, at 7:30 The Philadelphia Orchestra Friday, October 25, at 8:00 Saturday, October 26, at 8:00 Nathalie Stutzmann Conductor David Kim Violin Mendelssohn Hebrides Overture (“Fingal’s Cave”), Op. 26 Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 I. Vorspiel: Allegro moderato— II. Adagio III. Allegro energico Intermission Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo—L’istesso tempo, ma grazioso III. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)—Presto ma non assai—Tempo I—Presto ma non assai—Tempo I IV. Allegro con spirito This program runs approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes. The October 26 concert is sponsored by Allan Schimmel in memory of Reid Reames. These concerts are part of The Phildadelphia Orchestra’s WomenNOW celebration. Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM, and are repeated on Monday evenings at 7 PM on WRTI HD 2. Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details. 24 The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin The Philadelphia Orchestra community centers, the Mann Through concerts, tours, is one of the world’s Center to Penn’s Landing, residencies, and recordings, preeminent orchestras. classrooms to hospitals, and the Orchestra is a global It strives to share the over the airwaves and online. ambassador. It performs transformative power of The Orchestra continues annually at Carnegie Hall, music with the widest to discover new and the Saratoga Performing possible audience, and to inventive ways to nurture its Arts Center, and the Bravo! create joy, connection, and relationship with loyal patrons. Vail Music Festival. The excitement through music The Philadelphia Orchestra Orchestra also has a rich in the Philadelphia region, continues the tradition of history of touring, having across the country, and educational and community first performed outside around the world. Through engagement for listeners Philadelphia in the earliest innovative programming, of all ages. It launched its days of its founding. It was robust educational initiatives, HEAR initiative in 2016 to the first American orchestra and an ongoing commitment become a major force for to perform in the People’s to the communities that it good in every community that Republic of China in 1973, serves, the ensemble is on a it serves. HEAR is a portfolio launching a now-five-decade path to create an expansive of integrated initiatives commitment of people-to- future for classical music, that promotes Health, people exchange. and to further the place champions music Education, The Orchestra also makes of the arts in an open and enables broad Access to live recordings available on democratic society. Orchestra performances, and popular digital music services Yannick Nézet-Séguin is now maximizes impact through and as part of the Orchestra in his eighth season as the Research. The Orchestra’s on Demand section of its eighth music director of The award-winning education and website. Under Yannick’s Philadelphia Orchestra. His community initiatives engage leadership, the Orchestra connection to the ensemble’s over 50,000 students, returned to recording, with musicians has been praised families, and community five celebrated CDs on by both concertgoers and members through programs the prestigious Deutsche critics, and he is embraced such as PlayINs, side-by- Grammophon label. The by the musicians of the sides, PopUP concerts, Free Orchestra also reaches Orchestra, audiences, and Neighborhood Concerts, thousands of radio listeners the community. School Concerts, sensory- with weekly broadcasts on Your Philadelphia Orchestra friendly concerts, the School WRTI-FM and SiriusXM. For takes great pride in its Partnership Program and more information, please visit hometown, performing for the School Ensemble Program, www.philorch.org. people of Philadelphia year- and All City Orchestra round, from Verizon Hall to Fellowships. 25 Conductor Simon Fowler Simon Fowler Nathalie Stutzmann is in her second season as chief conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony in Norway and her third season as principal guest conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony of Ireland. Her inaugural concert with the Kristiansand Symphony, a Brahms and Wagner program, was chosen as Norway’s Concert of the Year 2018 by the Norwegian press. She is also this season’s artist-in-residence at the Rotterdam Philharmonic. She enjoys parallel careers as a world-renowned contralto and a rising-star conductor. She made her Philadelphia Orchestra conducting debut in 2016 with Handel’s Messiah and her subscription conducting debut in 2019; her performing debut was in 1997. Ms. Stutzmann began this season with her BBC Proms debut, conducting works by Wagner, Brahms, and Mozart with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In addition to these current performances, other highlights of the 2019–20 season include debuts with the London, Seattle, Atlanta, and Bamberg symphonies and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and returns to the Minnesota Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony, and the Rotterdam, Oslo, Royal Liverpool, and Royal Stockholm philharmonics. Ms. Stutzmann is also establishing a strong reputation as an opera conductor. This season she leads Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades at La Monnaie in Brussels. She recently conducted Boito’s Mefistofele at the 2018 Chorégies d’Orange festival in Provence, which followed a production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser at Monte Carlo Opera in 2017. Ms. Stutzmann began her studies in piano, bassoon, and cello at a very young age. She studied conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula and was mentored by Seiji Ozawa and Simon Rattle. Each season she undertakes a few projects as a singer, performing song recitals and concerts with her Stutzmann Camerata. In January 2019 she was admitted into the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor, at the rank of Chevalier. She is also Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. Ms. Stutzmann is an exclusive recording artist of Warner Classics/Erato, as both singer and conductor. 26 Soloist Jessica Griffin David Kim was named concertmaster of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1999 and holds the Dr. Benjamin Rush Chair. Born in Carbondale, IL, in 1963, he started playing the violin at age three, began studies with the famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay at age eight, and later received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. Highlights of his current season include teaching/performance residencies and master classes at the University of Texas at Austin, the Manhattan School of Music, Bob Jones University, the Taipei Academy and Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival; continued appearances as concertmaster of the All-Star Orchestra on PBS stations across the US and online at the Kahn Academy; as well as recitals, speaking engagements, and appearances with orchestras across the US. Each season Mr. Kim appears as a guest with the famed modern hymn writers Keith and Kristyn Getty at such venues as the Grand Old Opry, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. A recent Getty Music CD includes Mr. Kim featured in a solo role. In August he returned to Nashville to perform at the Getty Music Worship Conference—Sing! 2019. He is the founder and artistic director of the annual David Kim Orchestral Institute of Cairn University, where he is also a professor of violin studies. Additionally, he serves as distinguished artist at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University. Mr. Kim performs as soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra each season as well as with numerous orchestras around the world. He also appears internationally at such festivals as Arizona Musicfest, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, and the Taipei Music Academy and Festival. He frequently serves as an adjudicator at international violin competitions such as the Menuhin and Sarasate. Mr. Kim has been awarded honorary doctorates from Eastern University, the University of Rhode Island, and Dickinson College. His instruments are a J.B. Guadagnini from Milan, ca. 1757, on loan from The Philadelphia Orchestra, and a Michael Angelo Bergonzi from Cremona, ca. 1754. Mr. Kim resides in a Philadelphia suburb with his wife and daughters. He is an avid runner, golfer, and outdoorsman. He endorses and uses Thomastik Dominant strings as well as the AirTurn hands-free page turning system. 27 Framing the Program The brilliant young Felix Mendelssohn recorded his Parallel Events impressions of a grand European tour in vivid letters, 1829 Music beautiful drawings, and marvelous music. The time the Mendelssohn Rossini 20-year-old composer spent in Scotland inspired several Hebrides William Tell compositions, including the evocative Hebrides Overture Overture Literature (also known as “Fingal’s Cave”), which captures an Balzac unforgettable experience he had in a stormy steamship Les Chouans crossing to the island of Staffa. Art Turner Although Max Bruch was one of the most versatile German Ulysses Deriding composers in the second half of the 19th century, his Polyphemus reputation now rests principally on a small number of History pieces for violin or cello with orchestra, notably his First Slavery Violin Concerto, the Scottish Fantasy, and Kol Nidrei. Bruch abolished in began composing the Concerto at age 19, although it took Mexico some eight years to finish and then another couple more of revision (with the help of the great violinist Joseph Joachim) 1864 Music Bruch Offenbach to get it just right. But get it right he did and Joachim, to Violin Concerto La Belle Hélène whom the work is dedicated, gave the triumphant premiere No. 1 Literature in January 1868. Tolstoy Bruch was five years younger than Johannes Brahms War and Peace but completed a first symphony, which he dedicated “in Art friendship” to Brahms, years earlier than his colleague did. Homer Indeed, it took Brahms decades to finish his first, which Haymaking History triumphantly premiered in 1876 when he was age 43.