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Concert Guide Concert for Children Concert Guide Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra presents The American Dream November 19, 2019 1:15pm BJ Haan Auditorium TABLE Of CONTENTS 3 Preparing for the Trip 4 Preparing for the Concert 5 Guide to the Orchestra 6 Concert Program 7 Meet the Performers 9 Meet the Conductors 11 Meet the Composers 12 Boyer: Ellis Island: The Dream of America 14 Gershwin: Concerto in F 16 Feedback 17 Rose: Hymn for the Heartland 18 Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man 21 Printables 24 Parking Information 25 Credits WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT DORDT UNIVERSITY PREPARING FOR YOUR TRIP We want you and your students to have a GREAT DAY at Dordt University. Please see the campus map on page 22 for parking instructions. Please help us by Following these simple guidelines: Homeschoolers: Please park private vehicles in Lot #_____ Schools arriving by bus: please keep a single file line from your bus to your assigned seats. Please check-in at the head table. We ask that you be prepared with payment to NISO if you have not paid in advance. Cost is $1.00 per student. SEATING We have assigned your school to a specific section of BJ Haan Auditorium. An usher will escort your school to the assigned area. Ask her/him if you have any questions. A seating chart will be sent approximately 1-week before the concert. ONCE YOU ARE SEATED Please let the usher seat your group before: • Sending students to the restrooms. To avoid interruptions during the concert, please strongly encourage your students to use the restroom before the concert begins. • Please have an adequate number of adults to chaperone your students. Also, make sure that your chaperones are evenly interspersed between students. Remind your students that each person must be completely quiet so that others may enjoy the concert. CONCERT START TIME The concert will begin promptly at 1:15pm so we are able to dismiss schools on time at 2:15pm to meet their school dismissal schedules. DISMISSAL We will dismiss the schools from the farthest distance first. An usher will signal to you when it’s your turn to be dismissed. A dismissal order will be sent approximately 1- week before the concert – if you are traveling by bus, please give a copy to your bus driver and ask that they line-up at dismissal time in that order. EVENING CONCERT Our evening concert will be held at 7:30 pm. We hope that you will be able to attend that concert as well! PREPARING FOR THE CONCERT Whether your student learners are brand new to the orchestra or veteran classical music listeners, here are some steps you can take to prepare for the concert! REVIEW CONCERT ETIQUETTE REVIEW INSTRUMENTS OF THE LISTEN TO THE MUSIC ORCHESTRA Use the concert etiquette pdf to help To listen, click on the title of the piece of prepare for attending this concert: Go to page 5 to learn about the music on the activity pages. https://niso.dordt.edu/wp- instruments of the orchestra. You’ll content/uploads/2012/04/Concert- discover what the instruments look like (Disclaimer: These are YouTube links and have Etiquette-copy.pdf and where they are located within the been vetted for their audio content. However, advertisements may appear on the screen prior to symphony orchestra! To hear what each the video that contain unsuitable content for instrument sounds like, visit: children so please plan accordingly.) https://www.mydso.com/dso-kids/learn- and-listen/instruments **When introducing a new piece of music to your students, consider asking the following questions to create an inquiry-based, focused discussion in class. (Review these questions prior to listening to the music for the first time.) 1) What did you hear? 2) What did you hear that makes you say that? 3) What more did you hear? *GUIDE TO THE ORCHESTRA STRINGS WOODWINDS BRASS PERCUSSION violin piccolo French horn bass drum viola flute trumpet snare drum cello oboe trombone gong double bass clarinet tuba timpani harp bassoon xylophone CONCERT PROGRAM THE AMERICAN DREAM Tuesday, November 19, 2019 COPLAND Fanfare for the Common Man ROSE Hymn for the Heartland GERSHWIN Concerto in F John Walker, piano BOYER Ellis Island: The Dream of America Dordt University Student Readers Kaitlyn Baljeu Johanna Christensen Hans Dykstra Katherine Fictorie Dakota Klein Zach Sanford Renee Seam MEET THE PERFORMERS The Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra is comprised of the finest musicians in northwest Iowa and southeast South Dakota. The orchestra’s membership includes adults of all ages as well as gifted music students from high school through college. High School students are eligible to apply for scholarships from the Friends of the Symphony for the purpose of continuing their private music instruction. Over 25 students from Dordt University Music Department are members of the orchestra and several members of the Dordt University music faculty perform as teaching principals in the orchestra. MEET THE PERFORMERS John Walker Piano John Walker holds a D.M.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an M.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the B.M. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He studied piano pedagogy at the New School for Music Study under Frances Clark and Louise Goss in 1977-78. Dr. Walker is Professor of Music and Director of Keyboard Studies at SDSU, and the first Patricia Pierce Distinguished Artist in Residence. He also holds the position of principal piano, harpsichord and celesta for the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. He has presented numerous piano workshops to music teacher associations and is frequently called upon to serve as a piano festival and competition adjudicator. He has composed and recorded piano accompaniments to the Cyrille Rose 32 Etudes for clarinet, Ferling’s 48 Studies for Oboe or Saxophone, published by Carl Fischer. His most recent publication is a six-book series of recital pieces for various instruments entitled "In the Attic" series, also through Carl Fischer. Walker has been a featured soloist with the South Dakota Symphony and SD Chamber Orchestra, the Diablo Symphony, the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, and the Paradise and Shasta Symphony orchestras in California. His piano students include winners of the SDMTA collegiate piano competition, and the MTNA State Young Artist Competition. MEET THE CONDUCTORS Christopher Stanichar Principal Conductor “It was as though he were telling a story with his hands.” — Pravda Cevera (Russia) “One of the best musical conductors to appear in Latin America”— Diario Xalapa (Mexico) "The ever-smiling and extremely animated (Stanichar) guided the Everett Symphony through a superb performance filled with wit and charm… It was the kind of charismatic interaction with the audience and orchestra that showed the brilliance of Stanichar's directorial methods." —Mukilteo Beacon (Seattle) Christopher Stanichar (b. 1969) is an active conductor, composer, and educator. He is a popular conductor, having directed some of the finest orchestras in Europe, Russia, Mexico, and the United States. Dr. Stanichar is skilled at conducting all styles of music, whether it is the classical repertoire, new music, or pops repertoire. He has collaborated with a wide variety of artists, including Mark O’Connor, the rock band Kansas, members of St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and many other world-class musicians. He is also at home as an educator, working with ensembles of all ages, and using his passion for music as a catalyst to get the best out of the orchestras he conducts. Dr. Stanichar celebrates his ninth season as Music Director of the Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra, one of the area’s finest semi-professional orchestras, which rehearses and performs at the B.J. Haan Auditorium at Dordt University in Sioux Center, Iowa. The ensemble includes some of the finest musicians from Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Stanichar was appointed to this position in 2011, following a number of successful guest appearances. Stanichar has continues NISO’s tradition of artistic excellence, innovative programming, and collaborations with international guest artists. Stanichar leads NISO in three concerts per season, in addition to the annual Concert for Children, where the orchestra plays for over 1100 school children from the area. He has been praised for “his obvious energy, great joy directing, and outright enthusiasm.” (Peter Wagner, Northwest Iowa Review). Dr. Stanichar is Assistant Professor at Northern State University where he is also the Director of the Aberdeen University-Civic Symphony, and he is Music Director of the Worthington Area Symphony Orchestra in Southwest Minnesota (since 2010), which has been broadcast regionally in a Holiday special with the native American band, Brulé on Pioneer Television (Minnesota PBS). Most recently he was chosen as a finalist and guest conductor for Knox-Galesburg Symphony (Illinois) in a national search for a new music director, opening the season in October 2018. Christopher served as the Conducting Assistant for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the 1990s, working closely with Maestros Jesus Lopez-Cobos and Erich Kunzel. He received a Fulbright Scholarship to the Slovak Republic, allowing him to study and conduct professional orchestras in the homeland of his ancestors. Christopher is a proud student of Maestro Gerhard Samuel (now deceased), and graduated with a doctorate degree (D.M.A.) from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He has been appointed as music director to several exceptional orchestras: Seven Hills Sinfonietta (Cincinnati), Orchestra Omaha, Heartland Philharmonic Orchestra (Omaha), the Tri-City Symphony Youth Orchestra, and the founding music director of the South Dakota Symphony Youth Orchestra, to name a few. Christopher is an active composer; his works have been commissioned and performed throughout the world. You may have heard his original work, Trisagion, that was used in Ric Burns’ PBS documentary, Andy Warhol.
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