THE COLUMBIA ORCHESTRA 2020-2021 A Swingin’ Evening with the Columbia Jazz Band Saturday, June 19 at 7pm Chrysalis, Merriweather Park In partnership with: Tickets: $20 Visit www.columbiajazzband.org to purchase. THE COLUMBIA O R C H E S T R A LYRICAL MOMENTS Saturday, May 15, 2021 · 7:30pm Columbia Orchestra YouTube Channel PROGRAM Fanfare to La Péri Paul Dukas (1865-1935) Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K. 201/186a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart I. Allegro moderato (1756-1791) II. Andante III. Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio IV. Allegro con spirito Dance Interlude for Two Oboes and English Horn (2020) Karim Al-Zand (b. 1970) Lyric for Strings (1946) George Walker (1922-2018) A Wonderful Day (2013) Anna Clyne (b. 1980) Text: Willie Barbee Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24 (1947) Samuel Barber (1910-1981) Ah Young Hong, soprano Knoxville: Summer of 1915, written by Samuel Barber, used by permission of G. Schirmer, Inc. Columbia Orchestra’s 2020-2021 season is sponsored by Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors and made possible through general operating grants from the Howard County Arts Council, Howard County Government, the Maryland State Arts Council, the Community Foundation of Howard County, the Rouse Company Foundation – and donors like you! P R O G R A M N O T E S PAUL ABRAHAM DUKAS (1865-1935) FANFARE TO LA PÉRI Composed: 1912 Premiered: Paris, France, 1912 While Paul Dukas’ ballet La Péri has never become a repertory staple, the Fanfare is often performed on its own and has become almost as well-known as Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. The ballet, the last work that Dukas published, is about a prince who searches for the Flower of Immortality. The Flower is guarded by a peri—a magical, fairy-like creature in Persian mythology. While the peri is sleeping, the prince steals the Flower of Immortality but the peri awakens, retrieves the flower and the prince ultimately dies. The Fanfare was not part of the original La Péri ballet score. It features the brass section and was added later because Dukas was afraid the audience would miss the opening of the ballet, since it begins very quietly. WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) SYMPHONY NO. 29 IN A MAJOR, K. 201/186A Composed: 1774 Premiered: Unknown Mozart’s Symphony No. 29, considered by many to be the finest of Mozart’s early symphonies, was composed a few months after Mozart’s 18th birthday. Mozart’s father had taken him to Vienna the year before and there he was exposed to the emerging classical style. When he returned to Salzburg, the symphonies Mozart wrote included the classical features he had heard in Vienna. For example, the symphony has four movements, instead of the three found in earlier Italian sinfonias. The sonata form was more developed and many movements finish with a coda. This symphony must have been a favorite of Mozart’s, as the rest of his life he always kept it with him and had it performed whenever possible. P R O G R A M N O T E S KARIM AL-ZAND (B. 1970) DANCE INTERLUDE FOR TWO OBOES AND ENGLISH HORN Composed: 2020 Premiered: Houston, Texas, 2020 Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand’s Dance Interlude for Two Oboes and English Horn is a short celebratory piece that was commissioned as part of ROCO’s Fifteen Project. The project included fifteen works written by a diverse set of composers to mark ROCO’s 15th season. Due to COVID, the work was premiered online at a concert performed at Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art in Houston, Texas. Al- Zand’s compositions are known for exploring connections between music and other arts. His sources of inspiration include graphic art, myths and fables, folk music of the world, film, spoken word, jazz, and his own Middle Eastern heritage. GEORGE WALKER (1922-2018) LYRIC FOR STRINGS Composed: 1946 Premiered: Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1946 “Lyric for Strings was composed in 1946 and was originally the second movement of my first string quartet. After a brief introduction, the principal theme that permeates the entire work is introduced by the first violins. A static interlude is followed by successive imitations of the theme that lead to an intense climax. The final section of the work presents a somewhat more animated statement of the same thematic material. The coda recalls the quiet interlude that appeared earlier.” —George Walker ANNA CLYNE (B. 1980) A WONDERFUL DAY Composed: 2013 Premiered: New York, New York, 2013 “On a chilly autumn evening, I was walking down Chicago's Magnificent Mile. In front of me, an elderly man was slowly strolling; his walking-cane tapping on the concrete with each step. He was singing with a raw, slow voice, which had an immediate sense P R O G R A M N O T E S of both joy and struggle. I scurried up, and asked if he'd mind me recording him. He said yes, and we continued to walk southward as he sang. Then he stopped and we chatted a little. I asked him his name and whether he'd mind me setting his voice to music. Willie Barbee's face lit up with the idea. A Wonderful Day sets Willie's voice—spoken and sung—with the instruments of the Bang on a Can All-Stars who provide a gentle bed of sound. My editing of the original recordings is minimal so as to preserve the directness of Willie's voice and the surrounding sounds of traffic, people chatting and the tapping of his cane. A Wonderful Day is the first in a collection of short electro-acoustic works titled Chicago Street Portraits, which combine recordings of local street musicians with live instrumental ensembles.” — Anna Clyne . SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915, OP. 24 Composed: 1947 Premiered: Boston, Massachusetts, 1948 Barber set his Knoxville: Summer of 1915 music to excerpts from James Agee’s 1938 prose poem of the same name. The poem would later become a preamble to Agee’s posthumously published, Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Death in the Family which is based on events that happened in Agee’s life in 1915, when Agee was only 6, and his father died. Soprano Eleanor Steber commissioned and premiered the work but it may also be sung by a tenor as it represents the musings of a young boy. Barber identified with the images the text portrays. Speaking about the poem he said: “Agee’s poem was vivid and moved me deeply, and my musical response was immediate and intense. … The summer evening he describes … reminded me so much of similar evenings when I was a child at home.” In fact, Barber and Agee shared similar memories. Both had backyards where their families would lie on summer evenings, both had an aunt who was a musician, and both remember parents talking quietly while rocking on the porch. M U S I C JASON LOVE D I R E C T O R Conductor and cellist Jason Love leads the Columbia Orchestra in his twenty-second year as Music Director, the fourth person to have held that post in its forty-three seasons. Praised for his “intelligent and innovative programming,” the Baltimore Sun has called the orchestra “Howard County’s premier ensemble for instrumental music,” noting that “Love has the musicians playing not only with verve and passion, but with an awareness to enter into the emotional core of the works they perform.” He has received many recognitions including the American Prize for Orchestral Programming, a Peabody Alumni Award for Outstanding Contributions to Music in Maryland, and a “Howie” Award recognizing achievement in the arts in Howard County, Maryland. Love was Artistic Director of the Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestras (now the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras) for thirteen years, and Music Director of the New Horizons Chamber Ensemble, a new-music group, for five. He has guest conducted a wide variety of ensembles such as the Baltimore Symphony, Washington Sinfonietta, Hopkins Chamber Orchestra, Bismarck-Mandan Symphony, Maryland Classic Youth Chamber Orchestra, and RUCKUS, a contemporary music ensemble at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County where he taught conducting for seven years. As a cellist Mr. Love has performed a wide array of concertos with orchestras including the North Carolina premiere of Tan Dun’s multi-media work, The Map. In recent seasons he has performed Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 with Piedmont Symphony, the Dvořák Concerto with the Frederick Symphony, and concertos by Haydn and Boccherini with the Columbia Summer Strings. His many chamber recitals include work with the Columbia Orchestra Piano Trio featuring Concertmaster Brenda Anna and pianist Nancy Smith, and the Franklin-Love Duo with pianist Rachel Franklin. A highly respected educator, Mr. Love spends part of each summer conducting at the Baltimore String Orchestra Camp. In his eleven years on the faculty of the Governor’s School of North Carolina he taught Twentieth-Century music, philosophy, and other subjects to academically gifted high school students. He led the McDaniel Orchestra Camp in Westminster, MD for five years and conducted the Repertory Orchestra of the Chesapeake Youth Symphony in Annapolis, MD for four. He has adjudicated and guest conducted at music festivals around the country. Born in Burlington, North Carolina, Love studied violoncello with Ronald Thomas and conducting with Frederik Prausnitz at the Peabody Conservatory. He is a Past President of the Peabody Alumni Association. His website is www.jasonlovemusic.com. G U E S T AH YOUNG HONG A R T I S T A soprano of "fearlessness and consummate artistry" (Opera News), Ah Young Hong has interpreted a vast array of repertoire, ranging from the music of Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Poulenc, to works of Shostakovich, Babbitt, Haas, and Kurtág.