D E K A L B Y O U T H S Y M P H O N Y O R C H E S T R A COME HEAR THE FUTURE T U E S D A Y M A Y 2 5 , 2 0 2 1 7 P M 5 4 T H S E A S O N D E K A L B Y O U T H S Y M H O N Y . C O M 54th season DYSO 2020-2021 From the Artistic Director Dear DYSO patron, Normally, when we look back at the past, we try to romanticize it with stories of exciting adventures and larger-than-life characters. The further back you go into the past, the more colorful the stories become. Until eventually, we turn our past into legends. Unlike the myths and legends of old, our reality over the past year has been anything but a romanticized adventure. Nearly every aspect of our lives has been recast in new and challenging contexts, transforming everyday experiences and tasks from simple and ordinary to difficult and extraordinary. This year has shown us the importance of persevering during difficult times and making a positive impact where we can and when we can. The way I see it, becoming a legend is not only reserved for mythological characters or figures of folklore. I have watched in awe, as a group of young musicians have become modern day legends by making a positive impact moment by moment, note by note. All in one night! Thank you for being with us to help create this modern day legend! PhilipBarnard Philip Barnard, Artistic Director Dekalb Youth Symphony Orchestra P.S. We can’t wait to see you for another incredible year of music making next season! Curious to learn more about next season? Visit www.dekalbyouthsymphony.com. LEGENDS Dekalb Youth Symphony Orchestra May 25 2021 54th season DYSO 2020-2021 LEGENDS DEKALB YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA In DYSO’s 54th season, the orchestra has explored legends brought to life in music. And in a difficult year, through hard work and determination, this orchestra has become something of a legend itself. Program Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus Ludwig van Beethoven Beethoven put aside work on his Second Symphony in 1800 when he received an important and unexpected commission for a ballet designed by the famous ballet master Salvatore Viganò, to be presented at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. Beethoven was thrilled to be composing for the court stage and enthusiastically embraced the scenario of the Greek Prometheus myth, reinterpreted in the spirit of the Enlightenment. The Prometheus of myth is severely punished for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans. In the ballet he brings two statues to life and enlightens them with knowledge and art. Instead of depicting the prolonged martyrdom of Prometheus, the ballet presents his death, rebirth, and the subsequent celebration of his creatures, who begin to understand his heroism. The Creatures of Prometheus opened on March 28, 1801, for 28 performances, a modest success compared to other ballets, but ironically, as pointed out by David Wyn Jones, the largest number of public performances of any of Beethoven’s works in his lifetime. The ballet has hardly ever been revived, nor has Beethoven’s complete music—an overture and 17 numbers—become a feature of concert programs. Only the Overture has survived in the concert hall. In The Steppes of Central Asia Alexander Borodin Many notable figures in history have displayed talents in more than one field. Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the most outstanding example, but there have been many others both before and after. One such man was Alexander Borodin, who turned to composition while simultaneously pursuing an illustrious career as a research chemist, publishing numerous scholarly papers, and inventing analysis techniques that were still in use half a century after his death. When Alexander II of Russia held his Silver Jubilee, in 1880, he commissioned Borodin to compose a symphonic poem. It was intended to be the soundtrack to a tableau vivant – a slightly curious and now largely forgotten art form in which actors pose, motionless, in a set, often lit to resemble a painting. The ‘production’ was called off after an attempted assassination plot. A contemporary of Borodin, Rimksy-Korsakov, rescued the piece, though, and programmed it for the 1880 season with his Russian Opera Orchestra and it has since become a concert favorite. It’s not hard to see why. The music, as well as being full of great melodies, is beautifully understood by the audience's ear; the listener can easily hear the Russian troops and Central Asians travelling across the steppe. Both have their own melodies, which briefly meet, working perfectly over each other, before the Asian music wafts off into the distance and the Russian theme is left alone. Ritual Fire Dance from El Amor Brujo Manuel de Falla In his ballet El Amor Brujo, Manuel de Falla focused on the dark core of Spanish-gypsy music and folklore. When de Falla came to Paris to study music in 1907, he became a friend of Maurice Ravel and a member of Ravel's circle of progressive artists known as “Les Apaches.” But the beginning of World War I sent him back to his native Spain determined to write music that would exploit the concert potential of flamenco dance and the passionate Andalusian song style known as cante jondo, or “profound song”. In the autumn of 1914, the celebrated gypsy flamenco artist Pastora Imperio asked de Falla to write her a song and dance. The composer and his colleague, the poet Gregorio Martínez Sierra, were so fascinated by the tales Imperio and her mother told them that instead they created a whole ballet with song sequences, based on the lives of the gypsies living in the mountain caves near Granada. Completed in April 1915, El Amor Brujo tells of a beautiful gypsy, Candélas, who is haunted by the jealous ghost of her dead lover. Whenever she embraces her new lover, Carmélo, the ghost intervenes. Determined to exorcise the ghost, Candélas performs an incantatory dance (the nocturnal “Ritual Fire Dance”) and then asks a pretty gypsy girl to lure the spirit away. The spell is finally broken, and Candélas and Carmélo are united. Though the ballet was not a success at its premiere in Madrid, de Falla decided to revise it extensively for larger orchestra, creating in the process a concert version that triumphed in post-war Paris. And the propulsive “Ritual Fire Dance” became a runaway hit as a solo piano piece and with orchestras worldwide. A Night On Bald Mountain Modest Mussorgsky Composed in 1867, when Mussorgsky was still in his twenties, A Night on Bald Mountain is early Mussorgsky and vintage subject matter: a tone poem depicting a witches’ Sabbath occurring on St. John’s Eve, the very night (June 23) when he completed the work to his evident satisfaction. but A Night on Bald Mountain was never heard during the composer’s lifetime. The version of the tone poem that has achieved popularity among today’s concert audiences is an arrangement that Mussorgsky's friend and colleague Rimsky-Korsakov based on Mussorgsky’s original material. It received its concert premiere in St. Petersburg in 1886, five years after Mussorgsky’s death, and achieved immediate success. In the West, our vivid mental images of the windswept Bald Mountain are derived from the vivid collaboration between Leopold Stokowski and the Disney studios in the animated classic Fantasia. 2020-2021 season 1st Violin Flute Alexandra Jepson, concert master* Langley McEntyre Carol Li Nicholas Oselette* Natalie Sarzen Ryan Lovejoy Mackenzie Combs Solari Reeder* Skye Miller* Meghan Bosman Piccolo Peirong Gao Ryan Lovejoy Myles Ea Alysia Johnson Oboe Fiona Or Madeline Sheppard* Avishai Harris Natalie Beckenbaugh 2nd Violin Clarinet Jonathan Eubanks. principal Nate Kite* Deeksha Khanna Brandon Jones* Gabrielle Delgado Madelyn Wells Franchesca Clegg* Sophia Wang Bass Clarinet Sarah Wolf Madelyn Wells Tayler Hawthorne Owen Thorp Bassoon Charlie Votin Avery Watts Olivia Arcement Kevin Roach Roman Robinson Horn Viola Lyle Foley Adam Starks, principal Jackson Jeffrey Grace Nichols Sophia Shi Trumpet Millie Gotsch Adam Brock Oliva Grove Adams Hollis Ava Thomas Trombone Cello Michael Minter* Jamie King, principal Stiles Logan Isabelle Coursey Francesca Jepson Tuba Micah Burton Daniel Landis* Rowan Crow Harp Bass Evelyn Raphael* Jordan Gomez, principal Scarlett Felando Jack Bolte Xavier Moore Piano Kayla Gibbs Jordan Morrison* Sullivan Watts Sophie Li Rubin Raphael Percussion John Douglas* *Senior 2020-2021 Jordan Morrison* Phinn Adams Sydney Grove Our Directors Philip Barnard, Artistic Director Philip Barnard holds a Master of Music Degree in Orchestral Conducting from Georgia State University and a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from University of Tennessee. He is a member of the National Association of Music Education, the Georgia Music Educators Association, American String Teachers Association and the International Double Reed Society. Mr. Barnard began his career in music education in Chattanooga, Tennessee, teaching at the high school and collegiate level before moving to the Atlanta area in 2002. Mr. Barnard has been a music teacher and conductor in Dekalb County Schools for the last 18 years. Over the years, Mr. Barnard's students have preformed in venues all over the world, including most recently, at the Bach Archives and Museum in Leipzig, Germany. Tracie Moffatt, Assistant Director Tracie Moffatt is a Georgia native who began her musical studies at the age of 11 in her 6th Grade middle school orchestra. She went on to study music at Georgia State University, earning both a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Viola Performance under the instruction of Tania Maxwell Clements.