Celebrating America's Music
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Robert Vodnoy, Music Director and Conductor February 16, 2021, 5:30 & 7:30 p.m Church of the Redeemer Celebrating America’s Music Serenade for Strings in E Major, Op. 25 Arthur Foote I. Praeludium II. Air III. Intermezzo IV. Gavotte Bethena, A Concert Waltz Scott Joplin, arranged Robert Stoskopf Lullaby George Gershwin Danzas de Panama William Grant Still 1. Tamborito 2. Mejorana 3. Punto 4. Cumbia Starburst Jessie Montgomery Funded in part by an Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County’s Opportunity Grant, powered by the State of the Arts Florida license plates Additional funding through a mini-grant from the Chamber Orchestra of Sarasota Violin 1 Viola Sun-Young Gemma Shin, concertmaster Tami Guz, principal Cindi Qi Rafael Ramirez David Qi Cello Violin 2 Scott Kluuhsdahl, principal Laurie Vodnoy-Wright, principal Nadine Trudel Shawna Trost Bass Laura Smith Christopher Riley, principal Robert Vodnoy, Music Director and Conductor, is also the Music Director and Conductor of the Whiting Park Festival Orchestra (Indiana). From 2005-2018, he was the Director of the Aberdeen University-Civic Symphony and Professor of Strings at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD. Vodnoy was the music director of the Southwest Michigan Symphony, Northwest Indiana Symphony, and Huron Symphony, and has guest-conducted orchestras throughout the United States, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Laurie Vodnoy-Wright, co-founder of the Chamber Orchestra, is personnel manager/librarian. Laurie has performed throughout the United States, Austria and Israel. She is a former member of the Florida Orchestra, Sarasota Opera, Tampa Opera, Florida Opera West, Kentucky Opera, and Midwest Chamber Orchestra. She has performed with many other orchestras. Supporting the Chamber Orchestra of Sarasota Please join our 2020-2021 donors and support the orchestra with your tax-deductible contribution. The Chamber Orchestra is a 501(c)(3) organization. Your contribution will help the orchestra continue to grow. As a supporter of the arts and cultural institutions, you know that the arts enrich a community and its residents in immeasurable ways. In this challenging time, your donation is even more important and will be deeply appreciated. Please mail your check to: Chamber Orchestra of Sarasota 1709 Bonitas Circle | Venice, FL 34293 Keeping in Touch with the Chamber Orchestra Please support and thank our advertisers Learn more about the orchestra at our website: https://chamberorchestrasarasota.org/ Visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/kvodnoy for current news. You can also donate to the orchestra from the page. Chamber Orchestra merchandise such as mugs and tee-shirts are available for purchase at www.bonfire.com/store/chamber-orchestra-of-sarasota/. Email [email protected] with questions and to join our newsletter mailing list. 2 Program Notes by Robert Vodnoy This celebration of American music covers 125 years. I became aware of Arthur Foote's Serenade when I was researching Bertha Honoré Palmer because of the Sarasota County Centennial. I was looking for a piece of music for our concert that would be somehow connected to that event, and learned what a large role Bertha had in the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Dr. Frank Cassell, Chair of the Centennial Committee, encouraged me to find music by a woman composer because Palmer was such a champion of women's causes. That led me to the music of Jessie Montgomery and her masterful fanfare Starburst. These two composers form the bookends of the program. In between them are pieces by Scott Joplin, George Gershwin, and William Grant Still. The program is arranged chronologically. I love and have performed the ragtime works of Scott Joplin, but his gorgeous Bethena Waltz was a delight to encounter. I've conducted dozens of works by George Gershwin, but the Lullaby he wrote in 1919 for string quartet was new to me. We're playing it with full strings, and it's charming. To fill out our program which also honors Black History Month, I picked William Grant Still's delightful Danzas de Panama. The four characteristic dances in this suite have a delightful Latin flavor, and the subtle touches in orchestration show the hand of a real master composer at work. It's been a thrill working on these pieces, and I hope you'll enjoy experience the adventure of hearing new pieces and learning about some great composers with whom you may not be familiar. Arthur Foote: Member of the Boston Six Arthur Foote (1853-1937) was member of the Boston Six, the group of composers who flourished in Boston around the turn of the 20th century. His Serenade for Strings, Op. 25 was premiered at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago by the Chicago Symphony. It is an elegant and sumptuous work with Romantic and Baroque touches. The “Air” recalls Bach’s “Air on a G String”, and the “Gavotte” is a courtly dance. Besides being an important composer, Foote was the founder of the American Guild of Organists. The history of race relations at the Columbian Exposition is complex (for example, African- Americans had no presence at the Fair except at the Haitian Pavilion), but three important things did occur: Ida B. Wells came to Chicago because of the Fair, Fredrick Douglass spoke at the Fair, and Scott Joplin met Otis Saunders at the Fair and together they made ragtime an international sensation. Scott Joplin: King of Ragtime Scott Joplin (1868 – 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist. He achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the King of Ragtime. During his brief career, he wrote over 100 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag. Joplin composed Bethena: A Concert Waltz in 1905, shortly after the death of his second wife, Freddie Alexander Joplin. The work combines elements of the classical waltz and ragtime, imbued with melancholy. It is considered one of the greatest ragtime waltzes, and was featured on the soundtrack of the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Joplin’s ragtime waltz has an introduction, four distinct waltzes, and a wistful coda. 3 George Gershwin: The Jazz Age Meteor George Gershwin (1898 - 1937) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the second son of Russian immigrants. As a boy, George was anything but studious, and it came as a wonderful surprise to his family that he had secretly been learning to play the piano. In 1914, Gershwin left high school to work as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger. Within a few years he wrote many song standards, Broadway hits, Rhapsody in Blue, and his operatic masterpiece Porgy and Bess. Lullaby was composed as a string quartet in 1919, but not published. Gershwin incorporated a theme from the opening of the work in his first opera Blue Monday, then the work languished for forty years. It first re-emerged in an arrangement for harmonica quartet which Larry Adler played at the 1963 Edinburg Music Festival! In 1967, the work was finally performed as a string quartet and published in 1968 at the urging of George’s brother and collaborator Ira Gershwin. It is an ABA form, with recitative-like solos in the middle section by a solo violin and cello. William Grant Still: Dean of Afro-American Composers William Grant Still Jr. (1895 – 1978) was an American composer of nearly 200 works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, over thirty choral works, plus art songs, chamber music and works for solo instruments. Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. He is known primarily for his Afro-American Symphony (1930), which was, until 1950, the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. He was the first African-American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company, and the first to have an opera performed on national television. Due to his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, he is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance movement. Still composed Danzas de Panama in 1948. It is based on Panamanian folk themes collected by Elizabeth Waldo. He composed the four-movement work for string quartet or string orchestra. It has a distinct Caribbean color. The first and last of the four dances are Negro in origin. The second and third are of Spanish-Indian derivation. In a fascinating touch, Still requires the second violins and violas to tap their instruments to imitate the sound of native drum instruments. The “Mejorana” imitates guitars and the rabel (a three-stringed violin). The “Punto” has two sections: the toe-tapping zapeteo and a paseo (a promenade). Jessie Montgomery: A Brilliant Young Talent Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981) is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation. The Washington Post described her music as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life.” Her composition Starburst was commissioned by the Sphinx Ensemble in 2012. About it, Montgomery wrote: “this brief one-movement work for string orchestra is a play on imagery of rapidly changing musical colors. Exploding gestures are juxtaposed with gentle fleeting melodies in an attempt to create a multidimensional soundscape.” The piece is an ABA form, but the returning “A” section is considerably varied, followed by a brief, explosive coda. Recordings of this concert and past performances of the Chamber Orchestra can be found on YouTube.