2021 Festival Program Book (PDF)

2021 Music On The Hill Pg 1 2021 Music On The Hill Pg 1 MAYOR FRANK J. PICOZZI VISITWARWICKRI.COM 2021 Music On The Hill Pg 1 Welcome to Music on the Hill’s 13th Festival After the long pandemic “pause”, Music on the Hill is eager to safely gather this spring and summer. Our musicians missed playing in Rhode Island in 2020. We look forward to saying “welcome back!” to both our artists and our audiences. Our 2021 festival off ers six diff erent concerts in East Greenwich, Westerly, Cranston, Warwick, and online! Many of the selections postponed in 2020 are off ered this year, in one-hour concerts presented without intermission. Our return to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Music on the Hill’s birthplace, is a special treat. The church’s new cli- mate control system provides comfort for all. Table of Contents Thanks to the Aaron Roitman Fund for Chamber Mu- Narragansett Brass Quintet........... p. 2 sic, violin virtuoso Evan Price -- “one of the world’s most confi dent voices in extra-classical string playing” -- joins us Remembrance: John Pellegrino.. P. 5 for two concerts. Evan’s unique blend of jazz and classical ........................... p. 6 will wow you, I’m certain. The Miller-Porfi ris Duo pairs Movie Night............. classic silent fi lms with unique musical selections, stream- ing live on Zoom. World-renowned piano virtuoso Joseph Glad to be Bach................................... p. 8 Kalichstein performs Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, and Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Mary Phillips sings List of Advertisers.............................. p. 11 in Westerly. Harpist Rachel Miller and cellist Trevor Handy off er glorious Bach solos. In Mozart’s Footsteps..................... p. 12 Music on the Hill’s 2021 festival is dedicated to the memory of my father, John Pellegrino, who passed away List of Donors................................. p. 15 in January. A trumpeter and lifelong music educator, he helped to establish our annual music festival 14 years ago Beethoven and Brahms................. p. 16 and served as board president for many years. Music on the Hill continues to off er free admission to students, so please Baroque and Beyond......................... p. 20 bring your young people to the festival! My deepest thanks to our supporters, now more than ever. Music on the Hill Musicians & Board of Directors... p. 24 is deeply rooted in Rhode Island, and fl ourishes thanks to you! Our festival is made possible in part by a John M . Pellegrino grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; The Carter Family Charitable Trust; The Aaron Roitman Fund for Chamber Music. We thank our many advertisers and donors that have supported us for so many years. 2021 festival dates have shifted as the pandemic Artistic Director eases, so that we can share the music safely. Pg 2 Music On The Hill 2021 Narragansett Brass Quintet Sunday, May 30, 2021 3:00 pm Clouds Hill Victorian House Museum 4157 Post Rd., Warwick, RI Narragansett Brass Quintet Joseph Foley & Richard Kelley, trumpets Kevin Owen, French horn Alexei Doohovskoy, trombone Thomas Gregory, tuba Paul Dukas (1865-1935) Fanfare from La Peri William Byrd (1543-1623) Ne Irascaris, Domine Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612) Canzona per Sonare, No. 2 Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) Canzona Bergamasca Gustav Holst (1874-1934) Second Suite in F (arr. Foley) I. March III. Song of the Blacksmith II. Song without Words IV. Fantasia on the Dargason Victor Ewald (1860-1935) Quintet No. 1 I. Moderato: Piu Mosso II. Adagio ma non troppo III. Allegro Moderato Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) West Side Story Suite I. I Feel Pretty II. Maria III. Tonight Program subject to change Meet and Greet the Musicians following the Concert 2021 Music On The Hill Pg 3 Program Notes for “Narragansett Brass Quintet” Paul Dukas (1865-1935) Fanfare from La Peri French composer, critic and scholar and teacher Paul Dukas is best known for The Sorcerer’s Appren- tice. His compositions were infl uenced by Beethoven, Berlioz, Franck and Debussy. Dukas wrote La Peri in 1911 as a Poème dansé en un tableau (“dance poem in one scene”), his last published work. Dukas was commissioned to write the music for the Ballets Russes; the production was cancelled when Diaghilev found the prima ballerina an inadequate partner for Nijinsky. La Peri is one of his most mature and skilled pieces, a mixture of Romantic tonal harmony with Impressionism, distinctly French. The ballet’s brilliant brass fanfare is often performed on its own. William Byrd (1539-1623) Ne Irascaris, Domine William Byrd is considered the greatest composer of the English Renaissance. Byrd transformed many of the main musical forms of his day and stamped them with his own identity. He assimilated and mas- tered the Continental motet form of his day, in a synthesis of English and continental models. He created the Tudor consort and keyboard fantasia, having only the most primitive models to follow. He also raised the consort song, the church anthem and the Anglican service setting to new heights. Byrd’s rise was aided by infl uential patrons, including Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Oxford. He was a devout Catholic, and was offi cially named as a “recusant” a number of times, but nonetheless he continually escaped any serious consequences for openly professing his religion. Ne Irascaris, Domine is among the best-known pieces in the 1589 collection of motets, Cantiones Sacrae. Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612) Canzona per Sonare No. 2 One of the most infl uential musicians of his time, Gabrieli represents the culmination of Venetian School style. He became St. Mark’s principal organist and composer after his uncle’s death, and added a prestigious similar post at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. His students included Hans Leo Hassler and Heinrich Schutz, and his composition was infl uenced both by his uncle and Monteverdi. Canzona per Sonare was published in 1608. Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) Canzona Bergamasca Scheidt was the fi rst major German composer for the organ, and represents the style that developed with the Reformation. Cut off from Rome and Italian styles, musicians in the newly Protestant areas developed distinct styles. Scheidt’s instrumental music include sacred and secular vocal and instrumental works, fugues, suites of dances, and fantasias. Continued on the next page Pg 4 Music On The Hill 2021 Gustav Holst (1874-1934), arr. Foley Second Suite in F An English composer best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, Holst composed in a range of genres. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many infl uences, including Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel and the English folksong revival of the early 20th century. Holst studied under Charles Villiers Stanford. He played the trombone professionally and later became a teacher—a great one, according to his colleague Ralph Vaughan Williams. He served as musical director at Morley College, and pioneered music education for women at St. Paul’s Girls’ School. In his later years his uncompromising, personal style struck many as too austere, but he was a signifi cant infl uence on younger English composers such as Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten. Victor Ewald (1860-1935) Quintet No.1 A Russian composer of primarily brass works, Victor Ewald was a professor of Civil Engineering in St. Petersburg, and was the cellist with the Beliaeff Quartet, which introduced much of the standard quartet literature to late 19th-century Russian concertgoers. He also collected and published Russian folk songs. Ewald’s professional life, like that of many of his musical contemporaries, was in an entirely diff erent fi eld; that of a civil engineer. An obituary declared “…an entire industry for the production of brick and cement manufacturing is beholden to him”. Brass players are indebted to him for a series of quintets which have become a staple of the repertoire, the most extended examples of original literature in the Romantic style, among the fi rst pieces composed specifi cally for brass quintet. Ewald was a member of a remarkable circle of amateur musicians, whose shared interest in indigenous folksong shaped a distinctive Russian national musical style. Aside from the engineer Ewald, the group included chemist Alexander Borodin, imperial guard offi cer Modest Mussorgsky and navy offi cer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) West Side Story Suite I. I Feel Pretty II. Maria III. Tonight Bernstein’s iconic 1957 musical was created with Arthur Laurents (book), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Jerome Robbins (conception and choreography). The 1961 fi lm is the musical fi lm with the most Academy Award wins (10 wins), including Best Picture. In 1961, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. Jerome Robbins created West Side Story Suite as a 1995 ballet for New York City Ballet. 2021 Music On The Hill Pg 5 Music on the Hill’s 2021 festival honors founder John Pellegrino Music on the Hill dedicates our 2021 festival to John Pellegrino (1930-2021), to honor the man who helped establish our music festival. A loving musician, teacher, brother, husband, father, friend, godfather and grandfather, John Pellegrino died January 24th, 2021 at his home in Fort Myers, FL. Born March 23, 1930, to Mary and Gerardo Pellegrino of Johnston, RI. John was the eldest of three children, with brothers Alfred R. (Sandra) of Ft. Myers, and Gerard (Carol) of Warwick, RI. John married Alice Kays on November 23, 1961 and they enjoyed a 56-year marriage until her death in 2017.

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