Photo: Mark Holston Welcome to the January 2021 Newsletter! Message from the Maestro In this issue John Zoltek, Music Director and Conductor Your empowering monthly music Why do we call this Etude (ay-tude)? Dear Teachers and Students! WAM!!!! – Well, an etude in music is literally a Welcome to our first edition of Etude, a musical newsletter for this January 2021! video learning experience “study” of some musical technique that This is the premier edition of what we hope will be a useful tool for exploring the Let’s Meet the Composers – Wolfgang requires practice. We hope this will be world of Classical Music with your students. Each monthly edition of Etude will offer musical performances, interviews, composer info, games and much more. Amadeus Mozart & Charles Tomlinson Griffes a fun way for you to “practice” learning We will also use this newsletter to inform you of our upcoming performances and about your symphony and other opportunities for student tickets! In this issue you will get to know our symphony Coming to Musical Terms “noteworthy” things! principal flutist Beth Pirrie and watch her perform in concert with the symphony Presenting Our Soloists – Sheng Cai & on our WAM video page ! We also celebrate a January 256th birthday of the amazing and important composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! Check out the Beth Pirrie performance video of one his greatest piano concertos with pianist Sheng Cai and Your Symphonic Toolbox – Soundscape our symphony. There are also fun and informative pages on composers, music terms and fun and games! Also, After you enjoy our newsletter you can also ask Experience & “Little Concerts” me a question by sending an email. If you enjoy Etude let us know. A special Ask the Maestro – John Zoltek thank you to Nancy for her help in making Etude a reality. Look for a new edition every month. Enjoy getting to know our exciting world of Classical Music! Fun and Games – Mozart Wordsearch - John Zoltek WAM!!!!! (Wild About Music) Click below for this month’s empowering music video learning experience!! Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sheng Cai, Piano with The Glacier Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Zoltek https://player.vimeo.com/video/498036831 Poem for Flute and Orchestra by Charles Tomlinson Griffes Beth Pirrie, Flute with the Glacier Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Zoltek https://vimeo.com/497047993 WAM Interview with Principal flutist Beth Pirrie and Maestro John Zoltek https://player.vimeo.com/video/500283794 Let’s Meet the coMposers • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart • Charles Tomlinson Griffes One of the most gifted, influential and famous composers who ever Charles T. Griffes was an American composer of the late lived, we celebrate Mozart this month because he was born on January 19th – early 20th centuries. He was born on September 17, 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. His father, Leopold, was a prominent 1884 in Elmira, New York. He began studying the piano at musician himself and recognized that his young son was a musical the age of 10 – his older sister was his first teacher! “Wunderkind” (“wonder child”) as early as the age of 3. Mozart was Griffes attended the local conservatory at the age of 15 and a few years later performing professionally and composing by the age of 6. He wrote and went to study at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, with the idea that he wanted produced his first opera at the age of 12. His early years were spent to become a concert pianist. But while there, he took an interest in writing travelling and performing at the courts of Europe with his father and sister Nannerl. Eventually music and began composing in 1905. Upon returning to the United States, he he returned to Salzburg and assumed a position in the employ of the court there, as his father took a post as the music director at the Hackley School for Boys in Tarrytown, had before him. Seeking larger fame and fortune he moved to Italy to compose operas in his NY, where he remained until his early death at the age of 35 (notice – the same teens and then on to Paris in his twenties. But even with his now considerable fame, Mozart age as Mozart!). He is widely considered the composer who best represents the could never find the right employment for his talent and ambitions, so he returned to Austria, “impressionist” style of music that was so popular in France during that period this time to the city of Vienna, for the last ten years of his life, 1781 – 1791. These ten years are of history and which he much admired while studying in Europe. Painters like some of the most productive and revolutionary compositional years of any composer who ever Monet, Manet and Renoir represent “impressionism” in visual art. Griffes was lived, filled with operas in both Italian and German, symphonies, concertos, chamber works and also fascinated by the mysterious sounds of Eastern Music and composers like sacred choral compositions. He also married his beloved Constanze Weber during these years. Alexander Scriabin. In our video this month we feature one of his most popular They lived an extravagant lifestyle together and by the end of his life Mozart was greatly in debt, pieces, his Poem for Flute and Orchestra with our principal flutist, Beth Pirrie as despite his successes as a composer, conductor and soloist in the Viennese community. Shortly our soloist. See if you can hear some of those “dreamy,””mysterious” sounds in before his death in December of 1791, he had begun work (some say ironically) on his famous that piece! “Requiem” mass (a church service honoring the dead). It was left unfinished and completed by one of his pupils. Along with his good friend, Franz Joseph Haydn, Mozart is considered one of the innovators in the Classical Era of classical music, advancing many forms of composition and elevating the skills needed to perform them. In our video this month you will hear an accomplished pianist play for you one of his most beloved Piano Concertos. Presenting our Soloists Sheng Cai, Piano Beth Pirrie, Flute Born in China, Sheng studied at Beth is the Principal Flutist with the Glacier Shanghai Conservatory of Music Symphony and a native of Northwest and was a top-prize winner of Montana. You can learn more about Beth in the National Competition in her interview with Maestro Zoltek in our 1998. The following year, his WAM Section above. family immigrated to Canada where he began studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Sheng Cai earned his Bachelor of Music Degree under full scholarship at the New England Conservatory in Boston. His most important teachers include legendary pianists Anton Kuerti and Russell Sherman. coMing to MusicaL terMs… • Concerto • Poem • Symphony A longer composition in several movements for A lyrical free-form piece A composition for orchestra of three a solo instrument and orchestra. The effect is a of music meant to to four distinct movements or sort of “conversation” between the soloist and invoke a certain divisions, each with its own themes the orchestra revolving around melodic themes. atmosphere or and development. Can also be used as emotional feeling. the name of the group of players who perform such works, i.e. a symphony orchestra. • Andante • Tempo • Allegro Literally, “walking” in Italian. A tempo mark “Time” in Italian. The rate It means “cheerful” in Italian. A meaning to play or sing moderately slow of speed at which a piece tempo mark which tells the and easily. of music or a section of a musician to perform at a lively or piece of music is to be brisk pace. played. Your Symphonic Toolbox! Digital Concert Platforms Adjusting to the realities of COVID-19 by providing alternative concert experiences to sustain and build new audiences for classical music SOUNDSCAPE EXPERIENCE Our initial website-based free digital experience combining in-concert films accompanied by stunning images from the natural world set to symphonic works for you to share with your students Soundscape Experience – Glacier Symphony “LITTLE CONCERTS” Outreach chamber music concert series featuring our own orchestra musicians For social media, website and educational purposes Ask the Maestro! Click here to send an email to Maestro Zoltek about any and all musical topics for him to answer in the next issue! John Zoltek, Music Director and Conductor Fun & Games Click the link below to find a fun Wordsearch Puzzle about Mozart that you can print and share with your students! https://mywordsearch.com/48 8104/Wolfgang-Amadeus- Mozart.