THE 2017–18 CONCERT SEASON AT PEABODY Peabody Wind Ensemble Wednesday, April 11, 2018 Peabody Chamber Orchestra Friday, April 13, 2018 Peabody Symphony Orchestra Saturday, April 21, 2018 Peabody Symphony Orchestra Peabody-Hopkins Chorus Peabody Singers Saturday, April 28, 2018 Peabody Modern Orchestra Wednesday, May 2, 2018 STEINWAY. YAMAHA. [ YOUR NAME HERE ] With your gift to thePiano Excellence Fund in honor of Leon Fleisher’s 90th birthday and nearly 60 years of teaching at Peabody, you can add your name to the quality instruments our outstanding faculty and students use for practice and performance every day. The Piano Department at Peabody has a long tradition of excellence dating back to the days of Arthur Friedheim, a student of Franz Liszt, and continuing to this day, with a faculty of world-renowned artists. Peabody piano students have won major prizes in such international competitions as the Busoni, Van Cliburn, Naumburg, Queen Elisabeth, and Tchaikovsky, and enjoy global careers as performers and teachers. The Piano Excellence Fund was created to support this legacy of excellence by funding the needed replacement of more than 65 pianos and the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of nearly 200 pianos on stages and in classrooms and practice rooms across campus. To learn more about naming a piano and other creative ways to support the Peabody Institute, contact: Jessica Preiss Lunken, Associate Dean for External Affairs [email protected] • 667-208-6550 When I look at our upcoming programs, it’s a challenge to decide where to focus as there is much to talk about. But it’s clear that two highlights in this month’s program inspire a “shout out.” First, we are so excited that David Zinman, internationally renowned conductor who served a 19-year tenure as music director of the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, and was music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 1998, returns to perform in Baltimore for the first time in twenty years, conducting our Peabody Symphony Orchestra. This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to learn from one of America’s most influential musicians, a renowned teacher in his own right having led the conducting program at the Aspen Music Festival for many years. Maestro Zinman’s program will include Shostakovich’s final symphonic masterpiece, the Symphony No. 15, along with the Violin Concerto of an equally renowned American composer, Christopher Rouse, who served as visiting guest artist at Peabody on a number of occasions. The program reunites two colleagues, Zinman and violin faculty member Herby Greenberg, who served as the Baltimore Symphony’s concertmaster during Zinman’s tenure. STEINWAY. Also this month, we begin celebrations for Leon Fleisher’s 90th birthday and nearly 60 years of teaching at Peabody with Mr. Fleisher as soloist and conductor YAMAHA. in an all-Mozart concert performed here at Peabody and at the Town Hall in New York. Leon Fleisher is a force of nature. I first knew Leon, as many have, through his remarkable recordings including those made with George Szell and [ YOUR NAME HERE ] the Cleveland Orchestra — the gold standard. Subsequently, I had the honor of having Leon as soloist on a number of occasions when I managed the orchestras With your gift to thePiano Excellence Fund in honor of Leon Fleisher’s in Dallas and St. Louis. And of course, many have known Leon as a teacher and 90th birthday and nearly 60 years of teaching at Peabody, you can add mentor over the six decades since he arrived at Peabody. He continues to have a your name to the quality instruments our outstanding faculty and remarkable career, making beautiful music and offering inspiring leadership on students use for practice and performance every day. making beautiful music. Whether he’s teaching in a master class, talking about his experience with his life-changing early onset of dystonia before anyone had The Piano Department at Peabody has a long tradition of excellence even heard of the affliction, or sitting in front of the orchestra conducting and dating back to the days of Arthur Friedheim, a student of Franz Liszt, teaching music, Leon is an iconic figure, and one of the warmest, most quick- and continuing to this day, with a faculty of world-renowned artists. witted people you will know. What an honor to have him in our midst — here’s to the next decade! Peabody piano students have won major prizes in such international competitions as the Busoni, Van Cliburn, Naumburg, Queen Elisabeth, and Tchaikovsky, and enjoy global careers as performers and teachers. Fred Bronstein The Piano Excellence Fund was created to support this legacy of excellence by funding the needed replacement of more than 65 pianos and the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of nearly 200 pianos on Dean stages and in classrooms and practice rooms across campus. To learn more about naming a piano and other creative ways to support the Peabody Institute, contact: Jessica Preiss Lunken, Associate Dean for External Affairs [email protected] • 667-208-6550 HARLAN D. PARKER CONDUCTOR Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Symphonies of Wind Instruments Walter Hartley (1927–2016) Concerto for 23 Winds I. Andante - Allegro non troppo II. Vivace III. Lento IV. Allegro molto INTERMISSION Alexandra Gardner (b. 1967) Perseids Dana Wilson (b. 1946) Piece of Mind I. Thinking II. Remembering III. Feeling IV. Being Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall Concert A. Friedberg Miriam | 7:30 pm | ENSEMBLE WIND Please disable all electronic devices including phones and tablets during performances. The use of cameras and sound recorders during performances without the express prior written permission of Peabody is strictly prohibited. For your own safety, look for your nearest exit. PEABODY 11, 2018 April Wednesday, In case of emergency, walk, do not run to that exit. 2 PROGRAM NOTES Symphonies Of Wind Instruments Obviously the sound of a piece for Igor Stravinsky 23 woodwinds is something that the Born June 17, 1882, in Lomonosov, Russia audience at the 1921 London premiere Died April 6, 1971, in New York City, New York of the work (with Serge Koussevitzky at the helm) found quite disconcerting If we discount the tribute that Igor — many audiences today still find it Stravinsky composed in 1908 on the so — but coincident with that textural occasion of the death of his beloved streamlining is an even more significant teacher Rimsky-Korsakov (the work and startling architectural streamlining: was lost during the Revolution), the the entire work is based on a handful composer’s long string of in memoria of sharply defined themes and motives — by which he pays homage to some of that Stravinsky makes little or no attempt the foremost musical, literary, and even to connect in any way; he instead chooses political figures of the 20th century — to isolate them via a very careful and begins in 1920 with the Symphonies almost thematic use of silence. As a of Wind Instruments, dedicated to the result of this trimming of “extraneous” memory of Claude Debussy. detail, the work is extremely brief. Copyright © 2017 by TiVo Corporation. Here Stravinsky consciously used the Used by permission. term symphonies in the old French meaning of a sonorous piece, as in “Symphonies and Fanfares for the King’s Concerto For 23 Winds Supper.” The composition dates from Walter Hartley 1920 and grew from a short chorale-like Born February 21, 1927, in Washington, D.C. work he wrote in Debussy’s memory; Died June 30, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina this became the last section of a work about 10 minutes in length, composed Walter Hartley composed his Concerto for a rather large ensemble of 23 winds. for 23 Winds for the Eastman Wind The style and melodism of the work Ensemble in 1957 and it was premiered usually results in its being listed as the by that group during the Eastman last of the composer’s “Russian Period” School’s annual Festival of American works, but because of its austerity this Music in 1958. Hartley sent the writer tends to regard it as being the following comments to conductor first important indication that Stravinsky Frederick Fennell concerning the was ready to shift to an aesthetic that concerto: leaves behind sensual appeal. He would soon find the style of neo-Classicism; “The work is in four movements meantime, there is a sense that the roughly corresponding to those of idea behind the work is the realization the classical symphony or sonata of the harmonic clashes that result in form, but it is textually more from Stravinsky’s usual method of related to the style of the Baroque mixing two separate chords. The work concerto, being essentially a large is of more than just historical interest; chamber work in which different soloists and groups of soloists play Stravinsky was constantly treading new in contrast with each other and ground here, with effective even if not with the group as a whole. The color lovable music. The score was revised in contrasts between instruments 1947, presumably to obtain copyright and choirs of instruments are for the composer in the U.S. sometimes simultaneous, sometimes antiphonal; both homophony and polyphony are freely used. 3 The first and last movements make band of the Milky Way, pulsing the most use of the full ensemble; satellites moving quickly across the the second, a scherzo, features sky, constellations and layers of clouds, the brass instruments, the slow and of course, plenty of shooting third movement, the woodwinds. stars. Beginning with slow, overlapping The harmonic style is freely tonal layers of sound underneath a melody throughout. There is a certain that works its way through the wind three-note motif (ascending instruments, the music gradually G-A-D) which is heard harmonically coalesces into a vigorous, celebratory at the beginning and dominates verse-chorus song structure.