“Basically Bernstein” Dr
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“Basically Bernstein” Dr. Edward C. Harris, conductor Michelle McDaniel, soprano Alexandra Sessler, soprano Andrew Metzger, tenor Sunday, October 15, 2017, 3:00 PM McAfee Performing Arts Center, Saratoga, California Diamond Jubilee Fanfare (World Premier) ............. Scott Pierson COMMISSIONED FOR SAN JOSE WIND SYMPHONY’S 60TH SEASON Symphonic Suite from Carousel ...................... Richard Rodgers Suite from Candide ..........................................Leonard Bernstein adapted by Clare Grundman 1. The Best of All Possible Worlds 2. Westphalia Chorale and Battle Scene 3. Auto-da-Fe (What a Day) 4. Glitter and Be Gay 5. Make Our Garden Grow Three Dance Episodes from On the Town ............................................Leonard Bernstein transcribed by Paul Lavender 1. The Great Lover 2. Lonely Town: Pas de Deux 3. Times Square: 1944 I N T E R M I S S I O N Suite from West Side Story ....................................Leonard Bernstein arranged by Jacco Nefs Michelle McDaniel, Maria Alexandra Sessler, Anita Andrew Metzger, Tony ABOUT THE ARTISTS D. E C. H was appointed the music and artistic director for the San Jose Wind Symphony in 2002, only the second conductor in the group’s 60-year history. Under his leadership, SJWS has distinguished itself as one of California’s premiere concert bands with performances at the 2009 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles Conference, and the California Music Educators Association Conference. Dr. Harris recently retired as the Director of Bands at San José State University. M MD is relatively new to the Bay Area, but not new to the stage. Two weeks after graduating magna cum laude from California Baptist University with two degrees in Vocal Performance and Music Education in April 2016, she was off ered a teaching position. She currently teaches weekly general music to about 800 elementary students throughout the northern part of the peninsula and enjoys it immensely. Yet Michelle has always had a passion for performance, and grew up singing on musical theater stages throughout Southern California, Peru, and Italy. During her time at University of Nevada, Reno, Michelle discovered a passion for opera and classical choral singing, and has spent the last six years pursuing a professional career in that fi eld. In May 2012, she was honored to perform Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Dr. Paul Torkelson. However, she is very excited to return to her roots for this performance of Maria with the San Jose Wind Symphony, and hopes it will be the start of many future performances with this ensemble. A S, described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “superb” and delivering a “tender, radiantly pure-toned” sound, has garnered a reputation as a powerful leading lady, a dedicated actress, and an ambassador of classical vocal music. In addition to her active performance schedule, Alexandra dedicates time to sharing her knowledge with younger generations of singers, holding a teaching studio and music directing at Spindrift School of Performing Arts in Pacifi ca, Ca. She frequently performs recitals with her pianist fi ancé, and they have two opera-loving cats. A M fosters a varied repertoire that ranges from Monteverdi to works newly written. Highlights from his 2016-2017 season include the tenor solos in Orff ’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and the role of Lord Cecil in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux. In the coming season, the tenor will sing the role of Happiness in the workshop premiere of Aleksandra Vrebalov’s Abraham in Flames with the San Francisco International Music Festival. He will also participate in the west coast premiere of Hector Armienta’s Bless me Ultima, singing the role of Pedro. Mr. Metzger is a graduate of the Opera San Jose Summer Program and the OperaWorks Advanced Artist Program. He holds a M.M. in Vocal Performance from the University of Redlands and a B.A. in Music from Santa Clara University. PROGRAM NOTES Diamond Jubilee Fanfare Scott Pierson (b. 1949) Scott Pierson is the Director of the San Jose State University Spartan Marching Band. He composes and arranges all of the music performed by the marching band. Before coming to SJSU, he taught at Piedmont Hills High School in San Jose, as well as acting as an instructor with many drum and bugle corps, including the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps. He was the outdoor entertainment coordinator at California’s Great America thteme park, and has written arrangements for bands and drum corps throughout the United States. In 2014, Mr. Pierson won the Dallas Wind Symphony’s annual fanfare contest with his composition Sir Richard’s Fanfare. The work was premiered at Dallas’ Meyerson Symphony Hall in March of that year. Diamond Jubilee Fanfare was commissioned by the San Jose Wind Symphony to open its 2017-2018 steason. The work celebrates the ensemble’s 60 years of artistic leadership in the San Jose community. Symphonic Suite from Carousel Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) With the collapse of Rodgers’ partnership with his brilliant but increasingly unreliable lyricist Lorenz Hart in 1942, the already-famous composer began a partnership with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, who had spent much of the 1930s writing shows that fl opped. Their fi rst eff ort, Oklahoma! reintroduced the “book musical” to Broadway, a format whose only real predecessor, Show Boat (Hammerstein and Jerome Kern, 1927), ended its Broadway run after barely one year. After years of shows fi lled with jokes, weak plots, and lines of dancing girls (all known as “revues” or “follies”), Oklahoma! neatly blended all elements of the stage – story, lyrics, music, dance, mood, scenery – to advance a cohesive plot that could be counted on to draw a multifaceted emotional response from the audience. Almost on a dare from their producers, the composers agreed to write a musical play based on a dark romance by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár, called Liliom. Liliom (Lily, or “tough guy” in Budapest street slang), the headstrong antihero of the story, is a barker on a carousel who falls in love with servant girl Julie Zeller, but neither is willing to admit their feelings to the other. Rodgers and Hammerstein moved the story from Budapest to the coast of Maine and changed the names to Julie Jordan and Billy Bigelow. After a botched robbery to earn money for the impending birth of his child, a humiliated Billy dies by his own hand. At this point, Hammerstein bathes the story in a subtly religious atmosphere, with a revamped ending. Billy, from “Up There,” manages to give hope to his unhappy daughter and to Julie. Up to the time of this musical (1945), redemption of a main character was rarely experimented with, since previously the emphasis was always on a single emotion from the audience – laughter. In 1999 TIME Magazine named Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th Century. It is Rodgers’ most beautiful score and Hammerstein’s most aff ecting story-telling. When asked their favorite show, both Rodgers and Hammerstein unhesitatingly named Carousel. When singer Mel Tormé told Rodgers that “You’ll Never Walk Alone” always made him cry when he heard it, the composer replied, “You’re supposed to.” This suite features “The Carousel Waltz,” “When I Marry Mister Snow,” “Blow High, Blow Low,” “If I Loved You,” “June is Bustin’ Out All Over,” “This Was a Real Nice Clambake,” “What’s the Use of Wondrin’,” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Suite from Candide Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990), adapted by Clare Grundman The son of Russian immigrants, Leonard Bernstein began life in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He studied composition at Harvard University, where he fi rst met Aaron Copland. They later worked together at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bernstein achieved instant fame at the age of 25 when he conducted a broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Symphony with 16 hours’ notice, after the scheduled guest conductor became ill. Bernstein composed symphonies, ballets, an opera, a fi lm score, works for violin and chorus with orchestra, four Broadway musicals, and several works for solo and chamber music groups. His music features characteristics of both classical music and the jazz and Tin Pan Alley sounds of popular America. Composer William Schumann said of Bernstein, “He is an authentic American hero, a new breed of hero, an arts hero, showing that America does honor her artists.” Candide was Bernstein’s third Broadway musical. It was not a commercial success when it opened in New York in 1956. Adapted from Voltaire’s 18th-century satire on blind optimism, the story concerns Candide, a young man who has been led to believe that everything is for the best “in this best of all possible worlds,” according to his tutor Dr. Pangloss. Candide journeys with Pangloss and his sweetheart Cunegonde to Lisbon, Paris, Buenos Aires, and the legendary El Dorado, only to encounter harsh reality in the crime and social suff ering he observes. He returns to Venice with Cunegonde, stripped of his idealism. His ultimate emotional maturation concludes in the fi nale with these lyrics: “…And let us try before we die To make some sense of life We’re neither pure nor wise nor good We’ll do the best we know.” Three Dance Episodes from On the Town Leonard Bernstein, transcribed by Paul Lavender Bernstein writes, “It seems only natural that dance should play a leading role in the show On the Town, since the idea of writing it arose from the success of the ballet Fancy Free…. The story of On the Town is concerned with three sailors on 24-hour leave in New York, and their adventures with the monstrous city which its inhabitants take so for granted.” The fi rst episode is “Dance of the Great Lover,” in which the romantic sailor Gabey falls asleep on the subway and dreams of sweeping Miss Turnstiles off her feet; the eff ervescent music underlines Gabey’s naiveté as well as his determination.