t .,. • SHEPHERD SCHOOL ...... SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

T ., "( LARRY RACHLEFF, music director

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' , MILAN MILISAVLJEVIC, viola

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. .. .. Saturday, November 1, 2003 8:00 p.m. Stude Concert Hall •

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... RICE UNNERSITY School~ ofMusic PROGRAM

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Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (Op. Posth.) Bela Bart6k (edited by Peter Bart6k, Nelson Dellamaggiore, (1881-1945) and Paul Neubauer) Allegro moderato

Lento y Allegretto

Milan Milisavljevic, soloist Marlon Chen, conductor

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INTERM!SS!ON

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The Jebediah Jones Mystical Montrose Tour Bram Barker (1999) (Premiere) (b.1970) ..

Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24 Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

The reverberative acoustics of Stude Concert Hall magnify the slightest sound made by the audience. Your care and courtesy will be appreciated. ,._ I The tak-ing ofphotographs and use of recording equipment are prohibited. J SHEPHERD SCHOOL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Violin I Cello (cont.) Clarinet Tuba Cristian Mace/ant, Aaron Merritt Alexandra Bond Aubrey Ferguson concertmaster Mok-Hyun Gibson-Lane Louis DeMartino William Samson Andrew Williams Miho Zaitsu Jennifer Driskill Victoria Lindsay Marina Comas Brian Hermanson Harp ), Lucia Hyunsil Roh Davin Rubicz Hsing-Hui Hsu Megan Levin Alessandra Jennings Yeon-Sun Joo Thomas McCarthy Yi-Qing Shen Dorian Vandenberg Francis Koiner Elizabeth Bakalyar Meng Yang Bass Clarinet Timpani and Matthew Detrick Ryan Sweeney Louis DeMartino Percussion ' Justin Bruns Victoria Bass Jennifer Driskill Brandon Bell Jessica Tong Jennifer Humphreys Evan Bertrand Caroline Shaw Spencer Doty • I- Bassoon David Ma11.1ouri Double Bass Nicholas Akdag Seth Rowoldt A Aimee Tonmes Travis Gore, Ellen Connors Brian Smith Ning Chan principal Erin Irvine Katherine Bormann Jeremy Kurtz Carin Miller Orchestra Manager Laura Geier Jory Herman Michael Muiia Martin Merritt David DeRiso ' fl Violin II Jennifer Reid Jackson Warren Orchestra Librarian Timothy Peters, Adam Trussell Charles Nilles and Assistant principal Shawn Conley Personnel Manager Contrabassoon Benjamin Whitehouse Kaaren Fleisher Anthony Flynt Jennifer Reid ~ Jessica Blackwell Andrew Stalker Adam Trussell Lucia Atkinson Assistant Stage Heidi Schaul-Yoder Fl.ute Manager Horn Francis Liu Julia Carrasco Barnett Todd Hulslander Angela Bagnetto .. Jenn(fer Leibfried Jocelyn Goranson Emily DeRohan Christina Frangos Andrea Kaplan Stage Assistants ~ Oliver Sum -Ping Christopher Hine Elizabeth Landon Michael Clayville Justin Copa! Benjamin Jaber Abigail McKee Ryan Gardner Robert Johnson Stephanie Nussbaum Claire Star::: Nicholas Masterson (' Emily Dahl Elizabeth Porter James McClarty Deborah Rathke Kyra Davies Piccolo Aaron Merritt Caroline Siverson Eli Kambunarlieva Andrea Kaplan Steven Parker Jennifer Wolfe Abigail McKee William Samson Viola Christopher Scanlon f: Fra111;:ois Vallieres, Alto Flute Trumpet Michael Selover r principal Julia Carrasco Barnett Ryan Gardner John Widmer Travis Maril Carl Lindquist John Posadas James McClarty Karoline Schwartz Oboe Library Assistants Christopher Scanlon Heidi Remick Erik Behr Marieve Bock r· Zebediah Upton Sarah lemons Andrew Dinitz Matthew Detrick ~ .. Renata Hornik Nicholas Masterson Matthew Dudzik Trombone Dana Rokosny Sheila McNally Ira Gold • Michael Clayville Andrea Hemmen way Johanna Peske Aleksandra Holowska Steven Parker ' Lauren Freeman Sonja Thoms Renata Hornik Michael Selover .. Jane Morton Meaghan Walker JieJin John Widmer Stephen Fine Cristian Macelaru English Horn Logan Wild Travis Maril .. Cello Erik Behr Ni Mei Elise Pittenger, Andrew Dinitz Bass Trombone Fran9ois Vallieres "' principal Nicholas Masterson Christopher Beaud,y Meng Yang .. WINDS, BRASS, PERCUSSION, AND HARP LISTED ALPHABETICALLY. STRING SEATING CHANGES WITH EACH CONCERT PROGRAM NOTES

Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (Op. Posth.) . . Bela Bart6k The viola, never much of a solo instrument in the past, finally started to get the attention offirst-rate composers in the early twentieth century. This was largely due to the efforts of violists Lionel Tertis and William Primrose, who had elevated the viola to the status of a solo instrument every bit as capable and ex­ pressive as the violin or cello. Realizing that the lack of viola repertoire was a major problem, Tertis and Primrose commissioned many composers to write new works. It is to them that we owe the existence offine viola music by William Walton, Arnold Bax, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Darius Milhaud. and others. But notably among these, Bart6k's Viola Concerto has been the one to arouse the most controversy and interest. When Bartok was asked by Primrose in early 1945 to write a viola piece, he was already in very poor health, living in the United States as a refugee on a very meager income. At the time, Bart6k was preparing his Piano Concerto No. 3 in secret, hoping to give it to his pianist wife as a birthday present. Well aware that he might not live much longer, Bart6k considered completing this work a top pri­ ority. In addition, Bart6k's reluctance to view the viola as a fully capable solo instrument kept him from working on the Viola Concerto. Having heard a radio broadcast in the summer of 1945 of Primrose's performance of Walron's Viola Concerto, Bart6k realized just how capable the viola truly was, thus prompting him to begin work on it in earnest. Alas, it was not to be. Bartok died in New York in September 1945 ajter he had worked on the Viola Concerto for only a few months, leaving it unfinisl1 ed. Fourteen pages of the draft were left behind, consisting of a complete vioia part and simple accompaniment sketches with some directions for orchestration. Although Bart6k had written Primrose earlier that "only the score needs to be written, which means purely mechanical work, so to speak," completing the drcift turned out to be a formidable challenge for its lack of instructions on many is­ sues. Bart6k initially wanted a four-movement piece, but the sketches do not ' contain enough material for that, and according to time markings he left in the draft, he decided on a three-movement concerto instead. There are also a few briefpassages in ritornellos that are abbreviated in such a way that onfy Bartok would have known how to write them out. Today, two authorized versions of the work co-exist. Initially, it was Bart6k's friend Tibor Serly who was asked by Bart6k's family to complete the Viola Concerto. His version was premiered in 1949 with Primrose as soloist. After the manuscript had become freely available several decades later, having mysteriously disappeared in 1950, the family com­ missioned yet another completion by composer Nelson Dellamaggiore, and it was premiered in 1995 by violist Paul Neubauer. It is this new version that we will be hearing this evening. Compared to the Serly version, the Dellamaggiure version follows the original viola part a lot more closely, without adaptations to suit Primrose's style. Of course, the orchestration and certain passages in ritor­ nellos connecting the movements are different as well. There are questions about Bart6k's Viola Concerto that remain unanswered. Some are musical, some philosophical, and some are even legal - the composer's family has vigorously fought all attempts to present the work in versions other than the aforementioned two, whatever their merits. Although the draft of the concerto presents some issues to which we may never have a complete solution, this is a work of great expression, intensity, and lyricism, and it is unmistakably Bart6kian. It is a great treasure for us to have, whatever the story of its comple­ tion may be. - Note by Milan Milisavljevic

The Jebediah Jones Mystical Montrose Tour . . Bram Barker The title of this piece came to me about halfway through composing it. I re­ alized that a subconscious reminiscence had been accompanying and influenc­ ing the music as I was writing. Thus, the piece follows me, a naive Aussie fresh off the boat as I meander through the surreal spectacle of my first Westheimer Street Festival back in 1996. Concert music influences include Samuel Barbe,~ Australian composer Carl Vine, and my principal teacher at that time, Edward Applebaum. - Note by the composer BRAM BARKER, originally from Perth, Australia, graduated with a Master of Music degree in composition from the Shepherd School of Music in 1999. Also a student offilm composition and classical guitar, he is currently teaching in Tokyo, Japan.

Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24 . Richard Strauss It is ironic that Richard Strauss became a modernist, considering how musi­ cally conservative his fathe,~ a famous horn virtuoso, had been. While, for his father Franz, Beethoven and Brahms were the alpha and omega of musical com­ position, young Richard became drawn to the musical ideas of Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. It seems that it was during his apprenticeship with conductor Hans von Bulow that Strauss became enchanted with this new music. Hans von Biilow was the music director of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, and his friend, orchestra member and violinist Alexander Ritter, befriended Strauss during the six-month apprenticeship. Ritter was married to Wagner's niece and was a committed Wag­ nerian. Through him, Strauss had a chance to learn about the music his father ,, had forbidden him to study. Among the trends of modern music that intrigued Richard Strauss was pro­ grammatic music. As a concept, programmatic music was not new; one need only remember Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony,for example. However, it became a hotly contested issue in the Brahms-Wagner feud. It was only logical that Strauss would turn to the forms programmatic music personified most clearly, and the tone poem became Richard Strauss' principal form of expression. In his early twenties, he began a series of tone poems modeled after those of Franz Liszt. Their success propelled Richard Strauss onto the international scene, assuring • his lasting fame, which was only to increase with his later operas . Death and Transfiguration was completed in 1889, a year after Don Juan had been completed. However, unlike its famed predecessor, Death and Trans­ figuration is quite loose in its reliance on a program. In fact, it seems that a definitive program followed later in the guise of a poem by Ritter, and it is also described by Strauss in a letter from 1894: • It was six years ago that it occurred to me to present in the form of a tone poem the dying hours of a man who had striven toward the high­ est idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist. The sick man lies in bed, asleep, with heavy irregular breathing; friendly dreams conjure a smile on the features of the deeply suffering man; he wakes up; he is once more racked up with horrible agonies; his limbs shake withfever­ as the attack passes and the pains leave off, his thoughts wander through his past life; his childhood passes before him, the time of his youth with its strivings and passions and then, as the pains already begin to return, there appears to him the fruit of his life's path, the conception, the ideal which he had sought to realize, to present artistically, but which he had not been able to complete, since it is not for man to be able to accom­ • plish such things. The hour of death approaches, the soul leaves the body in order to find gloriously achieved in everlasting space those things .. which could not be fulfilled below. For Strauss, the subject of Death and Transfiguration was not autobiographi­ cal, as he had not been severely sick prior to the completion of the work. Yet, his maste,y of descriptive composition had made the piece intensely personal and universal in its appeal. Strauss was not a religious man, but it's hard to find a person who won't be touched in an almost religious way when the celestial theme of Transfiguration (in C major- of course!) is intoned by the woodwind and brass, after the struggle of life and death depicted so intensely in the music. - Note by Milan Milisavljevic BIOGRAPHIES

MILAN MILISAVLJEVIC will be joining the viola section of the Royal Con­ certgebouw Orchestra in December 2003. Currently a doctoral student of James Dunham at the Shepherd School of Music, he attended Indiana University and the University of Montreal, where his teachers were Afar Arad, Jutta Puchhamme,; and Vladimir Landsman. Most recently, M,: Milisavljevic was awarded a special prize at the Eighth Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. He has also won top prizes in violin and viola at competitions such as the National Finals of the Canadian Music Competition, the Konjovic International Music Competition, and the concerto competitions at the Aspen Music Festival and the University of Mon­ treal. An avid chamber musician, Mr: Milisavljevic has performed with artists such as Ik-Hwan Bae, Myron Bloom, James Campbell, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and Kim Walker. He has attended the music festivals at Aspen, Ban.ff, Orford, and Chautauqua as a fellowship and full-scholarship student, participating in master classes by Masao Kawasaki, Karen Tuttle, and Maxim Vengerov. Mr. Milisavljevic was born in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, and moved to Canada at the age of eighteen, later becoming a Canadian citizen. He has received career grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and Le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec. Mr: Milisavljevic performs this evening as a winner of the 2003 Shepherd School Concert Competition. He plays on a viola made for him in 2002 by American luthier Geoffrey Ovington. MARLON CHEN graduated with a Master of Music degree in conducting from the Shepherd School of Music in May of 2001 having studied with Larry Rachlejf. He returns to the Shepherd School this season as staff conductor. A resident of Houston for twenty-one years, he attended the High Schaul for the Performing and Visual Arts. He studied clarinet at the University of Michigan and graduated with the Bachelor of Arts degree in music (1995 ). Mr. Chen has participated in the Aspen Music Festival's conducting seminar with Murry Sid/in and David Zinman. In the summers of 2000 and 2001, Mr. Chen studied operatic conducting with Italian conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Last summer he conducted Madame Butterfly at the English School of Opera Festival in Kingston,