WHAT’S INSIDE Welcome | 3 2020 Season Calendar | 4 Chopin and The Growth Of Genius | 6 Black Classical Music Pioneers | 10 Mozart’s Last Melodies | 15 Music + Prose | 25 Missa Solemnis | 30 National Philharmonic Orchestra | 40 National Philharmonic Chorale | 41 Board of Directors | 42 Supporters | 42 Heritage Society | 47 National Philharmonic Staff | 47 ADVERTISING Onstage Publications 937-424-0529 | 866-503-1966 e-mail: [email protected] www.onstagepublications.com The National Philharmonic program is published in association with Onstage Publications, 1612 Prosser Avenue, Dayton, Ohio 45409. The National Philharmonic program may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Onstage Publications is a division of Just Business!, Inc. Contents © 2020. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. 2 NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC Welcome elcome to National Philharmonic’s Wwinter and spring concerts of 2020! Pianist Brian Ganz appears in February in his tenth National Philharmonic piano recital on his quest to perform the complete works of Fryderyk Chopin. February is also Black History Month. Grammy Award-winning violinist Melissa White, most recently featured on the soundtrack of Jordan Peele’s film, Us, joins the National Philharmonic for a concert of Black Classical Music Pioneers, featuring works by William Grant Still, Florence Price, Wynton Marsalis and Washington’s own, George Walker, the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. National Philharmonic’s March presentation features two of the final three works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra with clarinetist Jon Mallin credit Jay Photo Manasse, and the Requiem, prominently featured in the Oscar-winning film Amadeus. In April, the National Philharmonic is joined by Metropolitan Opera soprano Danielle Talamantes and another Grammy Award-winning artist, cellist Zuill Bailey, for a concert entitled Music & Prose. The program, in addition to Samuel Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal and the award-winning work for cello and orchestra, Tales of Hemingway, will feature two world premieres by local composers: Henry Dehlinger and Alistair Coleman. The National Philharmonic 2019-20 season closes in May with Ludwig van Beethoven’s monumental Missa Solemnis, in anticipation of the great master’s 250th anniversary in December 2020. I am delighted to share all of this wonderful music with you, our audience! Piotr Gajewski Music Director & Conductor NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC 3 NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC 2020 CALENDAR PIANIST BRIAN GANZ MUSIC + PROSE 10th SAT APRIL 18, 2020 8PM CHOPIN—THE GROWTH OF GENIUS Year! SAT FEB 1, 2020 8PM 6:45-7:30PM: Meet the Composers Note: No pre-concert lecture Member Encore Q&A Featuring Chopin masterpieces such as the great Polonaise- Danielle Talamantes, soprano Fantaisie, the Funeral March, Waltzes, Op. 34 and Nocturnes, Zuill Bailey, cello (three-time Grammy winner) Op. 27, along with the surprisingly engaging youthful efforts Piotr Gajewski, conductor that made them possible. Samuel Barber Overture to The School for Scandal Henry Dehlinger The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: BLACK CLASSICAL MUSIC PIONEERS A Rhapsody for Voice and SAT FEB 22, 2020 8PM Orchestra (orchestral premiere) Alistair Coleman Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Melissa White, violin (Sphinx Competition winner) (world premiere) Piotr Gajewski, conductor Michael Daugherty Tales of Hemingway Wynton Marsalis Wild Strumming of Fiddle Sponsored by the Prufrock Fund (from All Rise) Florence Price Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major George Walker Lyric for Strings BEETHOVEN’S MISSA SOLEMNIS William Grant Still Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American”) SAT MAY 30, 2020 8PM For Young People: Participate in the Sponsored by Patricia Haywood Moore & Roscoe M. Moore, Jr. Color the Music Project Esther Heideman, soprano MOZART REQUIEM Shirin Eskandani, mezzo-soprano SAT MARCH 21, 2020 8PM Norman Shankle, tenor Member Encore Q&A Kerry Wilkerson, baritone Suzanne Karpov, soprano National Philharmonic Chorale Magdalena Wór, mezzo-soprano Piotr Gajewski, conductor Norman Shankle, tenor Kevin Deas, bass Jon Manasse, clarinet National Philharmonic Chorale Free pre-concert lectures are offered 75 minutes Piotr Gajewski, conductor before concerts throughout the season. Please check W. A. Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A Major nationalphilharmonic.org for up-to-date information. Requiem in D minor 4 NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC 5 CHOPIN AND THE GROWTH OF GENIUS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2020, 8PM The National Philharmonic Piotr Gajewski, Music Director and Conductor CHOPIN AND THE GROWTH OF GENIUS Brian Ganz, piano Mazurka in C Major, Op. Posth. Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) Mazurka in A-flat Major, Op. Posth. 4 Mazurkas, Op. 33 No. 1 in G-sharp minor No. 2 in D Major No. 3 in C Major No. 4 in B minor Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72, No. 1 2 Nocturnes, Op. 27 No. 1 in C-sharp minor No. 2 in D-flat Major Polonaise in B-flat Major, Op. 71, No. 2 Polonaise in C-sharp minor, Op. 26, No. 1 Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61 INTERMISSION Funeral March in C minor, Op. 72, No. 2 Frédéric Chopin Funeral March in B-flat minor (from Op. 35) Waltz in E-flat Major, Op. Posth. Waltz in G-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 1 3 Waltzes, Op. 34 “Grande Valse Brillante” No. 1 in A-flat Major “Grande Valse Brillante” No. 2 in A minor “Grande Valse Brillante” No. 3 in F Major “Grande Valse” in A-flat Major, Op. 42 All Kids, All Free, All the Time is sponsored in part by Mrs. Patricia Haywood Moore and Dr. Roscoe M. Moore, Jr. and Dieneke Johnson The Music Center at Strathmore Marriott Concert Stage ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Brian Ganz, piano fabulous musician who lives music with a generous urgency and brings his public Brian Ganz is widely into a state of intense joy.” regarded as one of the leading pianists of his In January of 2011, Mr. Ganz began a generation. A laureate multi-year project in partnership with the of the Marguerite Long National Philharmonic in which he will Jacques Thibaud and the perform the complete works of Frédéric Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Chopin at the Music Center at Strathmore. Piano Competitions, Mr. Ganz has appeared After the inaugural recital, The Washington as soloist with such orchestras as the Post wrote: “Brian Ganz was masterly in St. Louis Symphony, the St. Petersburg his first installment of the complete works Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, [of Chopin].” Tonight’s recital marks the the National Philharmonic, the National tenth in the series. Symphony, the City of London Sinfonia, and the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr. Ganz is on the piano faculty of St. and has performed with such conductors Mary’s College of Maryland, where he is as Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Mstislav artist-in-residence, and is also a member Rostropovich, Piotr Gajewski and Yoel Levi. of the piano faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. He is the artist-editor of the The Washington Post has written: “One Schirmer Performance Edition of Chopin’s comes away from a recital by pianist Preludes (2005). Recent performance Brian Ganz not only exhilarated by the highlights include Chopin’s Piano power of the performance but also moved Concerto No. 2 at the Alba Music Festival by his search for artistic truth.” For many in Italy, Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 466 years Mr. Ganz has made it his mission to with the Virginia Chamber Orchestra and join vivid music making with warmth and the Annapolis Symphony, Beethoven’s intimacy onstage to produce a new kind of “Emperor” Concerto with the Billings listening experience, in which great works Symphony, and a solo recital for the come to life with authentic emotional Distinguished Artists Series of power. As one of Belgium’s leading Santa Cruz, California. newspapers, La Libre Belgique, put it, “We don’t have the words to speak of this NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC 7 PROGRAM NOTES Frédéric Chopin respectively. They are both lively, virtuosic (born March 1, 1810 in Żelazowa Wola, dances marked by rich chromaticism; both Poland; died on October 17, 1849 in are on the cusp of Chopin’s full maturity. Paris, France) The one in A-flat Major was positively identified as a Chopin mazurka only Chopin was the consummate poet of the in 1930. The four Mazurkas Op. 33 are piano, a composer who almost single- justly celebrated as one of Chopin’s most handedly reinvented piano music for captivating sets of mazurkas. They cover the Romantic century and fashioned a a wide range of forms, techniques, and style that, although influential on several emotions, from the waltz-like rhythm of generations of composers, remained Op. 33/1, to the irregular accents of exquisitely personal and unique. To Op. 33/2, the simplicity of Op. 33/3, and commemorate the tenth year in his journey the rondo-like form of Op. 33/4, one of through Chopin’s complete oeuvre in the longest mazurkas. Altogether, they partnership with the National Philharmonic, showcase the quintessential style of Brian Ganz came up with a format that Chopin’s mazurkas: intimacy, rhythmic beautifully illustrates the growth of Chopin’s inventiveness, harmonic daring, and style by juxtaposing early and late works formal experimentation. in the same genre, performing a kind of “musical time-lapse photography” that The nocturne for piano was not invented allows us to peer into Chopin’s creative by Chopin (the creator of the genre was process and stylistic evolution. Of the five the Irish composer John Field), but Chopin musical genres represented in the program, gave such a unique voice to this genre four are inextricably associated with and brought it to such an unsurpassed Chopin’s personal and cultural experiences, level of compositional refinement and either because of their deep national expressive nuance, that it has become associations (mazurka and polonaise) forever associated with him.