Adam Stern, Music Director and Conductor. Sunday, June 10, :00 p.m. EASTLAKE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER. Friday, June 15, :30 p.m.

Transcription

1 Adam Stern, Music Director and Conductor Sunday, June 10, :00 p.m. EASTLAKE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Friday, June 15, :30 p.m. MEYDENBAUER THEATRE Fire and Sentiment Tchaikovsky s Fifth Adam Stern, conductor Allion Salvador, conductor * SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN ( ) Overture, H. M. S. Pinafore EDVARD GRIEG ( ) Lyric Suite, Op. 54 * Shepherd Boy Norwegian Peasant March Nocturne March of the Dwarfs INTERMISSION PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY ( ) Symphony No. 5 in e, Op 64 Andante; Allegro con anima Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza Valse. Allegro moderato Finale. Andante maestoso; Allegro vivace Please turn off all cell phones and pagers. No audio/video recording or flash photography is allowed during the performance.

2 Orchestra Management BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOUNDING DIRECTOR Joyce Cunningham MUSIC DIRECTOR & CONDUCTOR Adam Stern PRESIDENT Shelby Eaton VICE PRESIDENT Mark Wiseman TREASURER Michael Wennerstrom SECRETARY Fran Pope CONCERTMASTER Allion Salvador DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE Kathy Boudreau Heather Raschko Linda Thomas Miranda Thorpe Melissa Underhill HONORARY BOARD MEMBERS Don Gerend Council Member, City of Sammamish Skip Rowley Chairman, Rowley Properties Nancy Whitten Former Council Member, City of Sammamish PERSONNEL Kathryn Boudreau, Ensemble Coordinator Armand Binkhuysen, Grants Adam Stern and Marla Zylstra, Concert Program Haley Schaening, Librarian Barbara Ethington, Logistics Loryn Bortins, Personnel GFCW Cascade and Cindy Hamilton, Lobby Management Renee Kuehn, Ticket Sales Jayne Marquess, Logistics Lynne Martinell, Member Communications Liaison Barbara Ethington, PR & Marketing Mark Wiseman, Webmaster Phillip Chance, Sound Recording CONDUCTOR S NOTE I know this goes counter to some modes of thinking, but it always rubs me the wrong way when I hear music being touted as a means of escape, a haven from the cares and stresses of daily life, a refuge from childcare worries, household expenses and personal or professional spats. Great music is a reflection of a composer s take on the world expressed in sound; it merits one s full openness and attention, and should not be used as an anesthetic or a soporific. We hope that the ca. two hours you re spending with us will provide stimulating insights into the personalities of three supreme creators, as performed by a marvelous orchestra, and two conductors who are grateful to be collaborating with them. With all best wishes, Adam Stern Music Director and Conductor, Sammamish Symphony Orchestra ADAM STERN ADAM STERN, Music Director and Conductor of the Sammamish Symphony, is one of the region s busiest musicians. Since arriving in Seattle in 1992, he has been active as a conductor, composer, pianist, educator and lecturer. He has been leading the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra since 2003, during which tenure he has brought numerous world, U.S., West Coast and Northwest premieres to the Puget Sound community. Stern s unique programming combines beloved masterworks with must-hear rarities; his programs are not merely concerts, but true musical events. Stern was born in Hollywood in He began his musical studies at age five as a piano student, and began flute lessons two years later. At 15, Stern was accepted at California Institute of the Arts, where he initially majored in flute performance, but changed his major to conducting in his second year at the urging of the late Gerhard Samuel, a noted conductor and educator. Stern was graduated in 1977 with an MFA in conducting at 21, the youngest Masters degree recipient in CalArts history. From 1996 until 2001, Stern was the Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony (after having served as Assistant Conductor from ). He led numerous concerts in all of the orchestra s series, including the orchestra s first performances of Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 and Elgar s Symphony No. 2. In addition, he led many pops concerts and was the happy collaborator of such artists as James Taylor, Art Garfunkel, Judy Collins and Frank Sinatra, Jr. 2

3 Orchestra Members FIRST VIOLIN Allion Salvador Concertmaster Tim Strait Associate Concertmaster Kristin Edlund Sarah Lintakoon Lynne Martinell Heather Raschko Haley Schaening Kolleen Uppinghouse SECOND VIOLIN Shelby Eaton MeMe Birchfield Alan Bleisch Barbara Ethington Matthew Guenther Elizabeth Heitkamp Paula Libes Fran Pope Miranda Thorpe VIOLA Camber Charlot Kathryn Boudreau Dan Pope Loraine Terpening Barb Thorne (on Leave) Zann Tipyasothi CELLO Shiang-Yin Lee Juha Niemisto Assistant Loryn Bortins Hannah Chernin Andy Hill (On Leave) Brendan Kellogg Michelle Miller Gail Ratley Joyce Sanford Joan Selvig (On Leave) Kathleen Spitzer Sandra Sultan BASS Jarod Tanneberg Manhattan Lowell Natalie Schlichtmann FLUTE Melissa Underhill Tori Berntsen Elana Sabovic-Matt PICCOLO Elana Sabovic-Matt OBOE Susan Jacoby Jim Kobe CLARINET Jayne Marquess Kathy Carr BASSOON Abigail Heyrich Kipras Mazeika FRENCH HORN Evelyn Zeller Dan Chernin William Farmer Craig Kowald Nels Magelssen TRUMPET Abram Sanderson Andy Loats TROMBONE John Ochsenreiter Rob Birkner BASS TROMBONE Michael Wennerstrom TUBA Mark Wiseman TIMPANI Eric Daane PERCUSSION Susan Leslie HARP Bethany Man Section members are listed in alphabetical order. Sir Arthur Sullivan Edvard Grieg Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 3

4 4

5 Third Generation Violin Maker Voted Evening Magazine s Best of Western WA! Sales Appraisals Repairs Rentals Cascade Woman s Club Living the Volunteer Spirit The GFWC Cascade Woman's Club is a non-profit charitable organization bringing together women from surrounding areas to promote community service and welfare locally, regionally and internationally. Anyone interested in learning more and contacting us visit our website at: gfwccascadeclub.weebly.com The Sammamish Symphony would like to thank Gordon Brown and the Gordon Brown Foundation for the generous contribution for music to build the Symphony s library. Gordon has been an active member and contrabassoon player with the symphony for many years. Are you interested in playing with us? Start with a smile at smile.amazon.com/ch/ when you buy through Amazon, and Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase price of your eligible purchases to the Sammamish Symphony Orchestra. The Sammamish Symphony Orchestra is composed of adult volunteer musicians dedicated to performing concerts and maintaining outreach programs serving Eastside communities. Rehearsals: Thursdays 7:15-9:45 p.m. at Eastlake High School auditions@sammamishsymphony.org 5

6 Contributors In addition to the following donors we gratefully acknowledge those individuals and families who purchased donated goods and services at our Sammamish Symphony Auctions. PATRONS ($1,000+) Anonymous Sandy Anuras The Boeing Company The Charles Maxfield and Gloria F. Parrish Foundation Andrew Coldham Expedia Mr. and Mrs. Martin Friedmann Garneau-Nicon Family Foundation Gordon Brown Foundation Allyn & Pat Hebner Ruth & Preben Hoegh- Christensen King County 4Culture King County Employee Giving Program Kevin & Lynne Martinell Microsoft Corporation Skip Rowley Rowley Properties City of Sammamish Harry & Claradell Shedd Tim Strait Swedish Hopital PATRONS ($ ) Continued Symetra University House Mark & Linda Wiseman Patty Zundel BENEFACTORS ($ ) Benevity Community Impact Fund Henry Bischofberger Violins Shelby Eaton Cathy Grindle Scott Selfon Dan & Melissa Truax David E. Van Moorhem SPONSORS ($ ) Pete & Andie Adee ArtEAST Patricia Bice Armand & Claudia Binkhuysen Verna Borup Ava Brock Daniel & Jan Chernin SPONSORS ($ ) Continued Eric & Pat Daane Don & Sue Gerend GlassyBaby Todd Gugler Dennis Helppie Ron Hindenberger Nancy & Paul Johnson Jim Kobe Shrikant Kulkarni Shannon Krzyzewski Victoria LaBerge Helen Lau Paula Libes Nels H. Magelssen & Evelyn M. Zeller Ted & Lenore Martinell Joan McNeil John & Sally Morgan Juha Niemisto Thomas Pinto & Vicky King Fran & Dan Pope Heather & Michael Raschko Gail Ratley Mark Rentz SPONSORS ($ ) Continued Daphne & John Robinson John & Ruth Rugh Carl Schwartz & Wilda Luttermoser The Seattle Foundation s GiveBIG Linda M S Thomas Miranda & Dave Thorpe Herman & Myrl Venter Verizon Debra Williams SUPPORTERS ($25-99) Ann & John Backman Theresa Bosworth Kathy Carr Cindy Jorgensen Ann Kalas Donna Mansfield Donna Onat in Memory of Ruth & Preben Kimberly Russ David & Penny Short Kathryn Vaux The Sammamish Symphony Orchestra Association (SSOA) is a Non-Profit Corporation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service. For further information, contact the SSOA: P.O. Box 1173, Issaquah, WA You can now donate via Paypal on our website at ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have worked together to make our community orchestra possible. They have given of their time, talent and energy. Thank you! FACILITIES Meydenbauer Center Eastlake High School REHEARSAL SPACE Eastlake High School Discovery Elementary Sammamish Presbyterian Church LOBBY SERVICES GFCW Cascade REFRESHMENTS Safeway/Costco Klahanie QFC/Pine Lake QFC PERCUSSION EQUIPMENT Marianna Vale Beaver Lake Middle School Eric Daane and Craig Wende RECORDING ENGINEER Phillip Chance 6

7 Program Notes FIRE AND SENTIMENT: TCHAIKOVSKY S FIFTH by Adam Stern Three supreme composers, three works composed within a fifteen-year span, three utterly different musical cultures and backgrounds on display these are the elements at play in the Sammamish Symphony s final concert of the present season. ~ acerbic observations on others music still make for provocative reading. Apropos Richard Strauss most famous opera, for example, Stravinsky had this to say: I heard Rosenkavalier for the first time after the war and I confess I prefer Gilbert and Sullivan...Sullivan has a sense of timing and punctuation which I have never been able to find in Strauss. Amen. Every one of the fourteen collaborations by Sir William S. Gilbert ( ) and Sir Arthur Sullivan ( ) yields a quantity of treasures, both musical and literary. It is generally agreed. however, that three of these are the summits of their combined talents: H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado have always been onstage somewhere since their respective premieres in 1878, 1879 and (Not to be a contrarian, but the present writer has the softest spot for their Iolanthe; I also think The Gondoliers is at least the equal of any of the others.) Gilbert seemed well-pleased with the initial plot outline and sketches for Pinafore he sent to Sullivan ( I have very little doubt whatever but that you will be pleased with it, he wrote confidently); Pinafore would bear out his self-assurance, and was the biggest success G & S had enjoyed up to that point in their association. Wikipedia neatly sums up Pinafore as a piece that satirizes...the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority and pok[es] good-natured fun at the Royal Navy and the English obsession with social status (building on a theme introduced in The Sorcerer, love between members of different social classes). I cannot resist putting in a good word for the sheer quality of Gilbert and Sullivan s operettas. Light music can still be acknowledged as being of excellent worth; witness the prickly Johannes Brahms wholehearted espousal of Johann Strauss waltzes. Gilbert and Sulivan s works have garnered many fans and adherents over the years, including some that might be surprising to some. One of these was Igor Stravinsky, whose 7 ~ What exactly is the take on Edvard Grieg ( )? The general public loves his music always has, in fact even if a relatively small portion of it is widely known: the suites from Peer Gynt, the Norwegian Dances, the Lyric Suite, the delightful Holberg Suite for strings, the charming march Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, and the ubiquitous Piano Concerto are oft-encountered in concert and are always given a warm welcome. Some connoisseurs may sneer at Grieg s creations after all, they fall easily on the ear, boast easy-to-sing and -remember tunes, and are frequently shamelessly romantic (more power to them!), all highly suspect characteristics to those who are drawn to contrapuntal complexities and more imposing structures (Grieg was essentially a miniaturist; the Piano Concerto and his early Symphony in c are rare forays into the world of larger forms, and his most popular works tend to be made up of shorter independent movements). But his exquisite compositions, for exactly the reasons they might be undervalued by the know-it-alls, stubbornly refuse to vacate their exalted positions in the public s esteem. His colleagues had a variety of opinions on his music. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who could be mercilessly tart when judging others compositions (although personally fond of Brahms, Tchaikovsky dismissed his music as that of a giftless b-----d ), was a big fan of Grieg s. In addition to finding Grieg the man most charming, interesting, original and unusual, Tchaikovsky was won

8 Program Notes over by the Norwegian s creations (...what charm, what inimitable and rich musical imagery! What warmth and passion in his melodic phrases, what teeming vitality in his harmony, what originality and beauty in the turn of his piquant and ingenious modulations and rhythms, and in all the rest what interest, novelty, and independence! ). Another supporter was Franz Liszt; when Grieg was still in his mid-twenties the older composer admonished him, Keep steadily on, I tell you. You have the talent and ability; don t let anyone intimidate you. About Brahms assessment of Grieg s music there seems to be some doubt. Some accounts have it that Brahms liked Grieg s compositions, but a famous anecdote tells the story of Grieg playing his (Grieg s) Piano Concerto for Brahms at Brahms apartment. Brahms studio was on the second floor, and several minutes into Grieg s performance Brahms got up and stood on his balcony for a few moments. He returned to the balcony several times stretching, waving to passersby and shopkeepers, smoking his cigar. After the fourth or so such balcony excursion, Grieg stopped in midperformance to ask why Brahms was so restless. Young man, Brahms is said to have replied, everyone in the neighborhood knows that I compose at the piano. I didn t want anyone to think I was playing. Claude Debussy, capable of cattiness equal to Tchaikovsky s, famously dismissed Grieg s music playfully as bonbons wrapped in snow. On the other hand, Maurice Ravel, so often lumped together with Debussy (amusingly, in that their music is more different than it is similar) highly prized Grieg s music, especially the solo piano literature. Grieg himself was described as pure, kind-hearted and generous by biographer David Dubal. While some artists philosophies and outward aspects seem to belie what they have created, this little snippet from Grieg s pen seems a perfect complement to his music: The artist is an optimist. Otherwise he would be no artist. He believes and hopes in the triumph of the good and the beautiful. He trusts in his lucky star till his last breath. ~ Tchaikovsky does not belong in the company of the great of music. Paul Henry Lang, Music in Western Civilization I hate Tchaikovsky and I will not conduct him. But if the audience wants him, it can have him. Pierre Boulez Tchaikovsky s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music which stinks in the ear. Eduard Hanslick I am assuming that most, if not all, of you in attendance are fully cognizant that a symphony by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ) will occupy the final half of today s concert, and are perhaps a little perturbed by the polemics quoted above. Them fightin words frank points of view from three well-respected names in the world of classical music are not exactly uncommon; in spite of its enduring popularity, Tchaikovsky s music is not as unversally loved and accepted among professionals as you might think. For myself, pacifist and small potatoes though I am, I would gladly put up my argumentative dukes against any of the gentlemen who spake those provocative statements. For I love Tchaikovsky, both as a musician and a listener; he entranced me somewhere in my second year (one of the first recordings I discovered in my parents library was the complete Nutcracker with Artur Rodzinski and the Royal Philharmonic), and I unhesitatingly list him among my most favorite composers, in the exalted company of Mozart, Haydn and Vaughan Williams. Simply put, I couldn t live without him. 8

9 Program Notes Like Mozart, his favorite composer, Tchaikovsky wrote superb music in every form he tackled. By far his bestknown pieces are from the canon of orchestral works: six symphonies, three ballets, several concertos and shorter works for solo instrument and orchestra, four suites, and a generous handful of symphonic poems and pièces d occasion; so well-known are fifteen or so of these that some music-lovers are surprised to learn that Tchaikovsky also wrote some first-class chamber works and solo piano music, over one hundred songs, choral music both sacred and secular, and a dozen-minus-one operas. This is an impressive output by any standard, especially when one remembers his relatively short lifespan, the fact that he wasn t a prodigy and didn t begin composing in earnest until his early twenties, and the many personal and professional demands made on his time, particularly as a conductor of his own works. initial ominousness eventually giving way to hard-won triumph in the finale. With all due respect to Tchaikovsky, I should point out that, far from having written himself out, the Symphony No. 5 was by no means his last significant work: ahead of him still lay, among others, Sleeping Beauty, the Hamlet overture, the opera Pique Dame, the symphonic poem The Voyevode and, best of all, The Nutcracker and the Symphony No. 6 ( Pathétique ). Would that we were all so creatively barren Sammamish Symphony Orchestra Association An outspoken critic of others music (see his remark re Brahms in the Grieg notes above), Tchaikovsky could be just as ruthlessly self-critical; some of his most beloved and frequently-performed works were the recipients of his scathing assessments. Swan Lake he called trash ; the 1812 Overture was dismissed as a very noisy piece, and the Symphony No. 5 in e was, to him, the confirmation that he had gone dry and had written himself out. (At least these works survived his wrath; he was not above consigning some of his failures to the fire.) Posterity has not borne out any of these judgments; in the present instance, the Symphony No. 5 is not only one of the oft-encountered of Tchaikovsky s works in concert, but one of the most popular of all symphonies from the Romantic era. In simultaneous nods to Beethoven (cf. that composer s Fifth Symphony and its portentous opening motif ) and Schumann (whose Symphony No. 4 threads several themes throughout its four movements), Tchaikovsky opens his Symphony No. 5 with one of his darkest utterances, a doom-laden theme in the clarinets said to represent Fate. This theme makes an appearance in every movement of the symphony, its 9

10 Sponsors For more information please visit The Sammamish Symphony Orchestra would like to thank the City of Sammamish for their support Bryce Van Parys General Manager th Ave NW, Suite 100, Issaquah WA The Sammamish Symphony Orchestra is grateful for the generous support of the Garneau-Nicon Family Foundation. 10