Concert Program for September 19 and 20, 2009

Transcription

1 Concert Program for September 19 and 20, 2009 SLSO Presents The Blue Planet Live! Ward Stare, conductor Tom Ackerman, narrator GEORGE FENTON Our Planet Is a Blue Planet (b. 1950) G. FENTON Dolphins G. FENTON Grey Whale/Deep Ocean G. FENTON The Sardine Run G. FENTON/ Frozen Oceans GANNON/KENT/RAM/ arr. G. Fenton Intermission G. FENTON The Coast G. FENTON The Shallow Seas G. FENTON Feeding Frenzy G. FENTON Life in the Flow G. FENTON Emperors G. FENTON Killer Whales TRENET/ LASRY/ La Mer arr. Geoffrey Alexander G. FENTON The Blue Planet The Technical Director for The Blue Planet Live! is Chris Szuberla. The Sound Supervisor is Scott Bauer. The Blue Planet Live! is presented by Charter Communications and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Blue Planet BBC Produced by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra under license from BBC Worldwide Ltd.

2 Dan Dreyfus Ward Stare American conductor Ward Stare is currently in his second season as the Resident Conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, having been appointed by Music Director David Robertson in the fall of In April 2009, he made his highly successful Carnegie Hall debut with the SLSO, stepping in at the last minute to conduct while Robertson made his debut as chansonnier in H.K. Gruber s Frankenstein!! Stare was described by Sarah Bryan Miller of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as just terrific, leading the eclectic score with confidence and style; the musicians followed along perfectly. In August 2007, Stare made his critically acclaimed debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at the famed Blossom Music Center followed by a year serving as the Los Angeles Philharmonic s League of American Orchestras Conducting Fellow, at the invitation of Esa-Pekka Salonen. Recent seasons have also included appearances with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, both in Moscow and on the orchestra s 2007 North American Tour, as well as a special performance with the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra as part of the Orchestra s Great Artists of the World series celebrating the 80th birthday of the King of Thailand. The season included Stare s debut with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, Germany, as second conductor with Sir Andrew Davis in Ives Symphony No. 4. Stare makes his subscription debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in the fall of Other upcoming engagements include Mozart s Requiem with the Memphis Symphony, as well as his conducting debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Stare was the recipient of both the Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize (2006) and the Aspen Conducting Prize (2007) at the Aspen Music Festival and returned in the summer of 2008 as Assistant Conductor to the Festival and its Music Director, David Zinman. In addition to his studies with Zinman, he has worked with János Fürst and Jorma Panula as well as working with Michel Merlet in composition and musical analysis. Following in the path of many great orchestral conductors whose careers began as instrumentalists, Ward Stare was trained as a trombonist at the Juilliard School in Manhattan. At the age of 18, he was appointed Principal Trombone of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and has performed as an orchestral musician with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, among others. As a soloist, he has concertized in both the U.S. and Europe.

3 Tom Ackerman Tom Ackerman is the Manager of Sports Operations at KMOX. He also serves as the sports anchor on Total Information A.M. Ackerman has worked at KMOX since For eight years, he hosted the nation s longest-running sports talk show, Sports Open Line. Ackerman, 34, has handled play-byplay duties for University of Missouri men s basketball, worked the sidelines on Mizzou football broadcasts, and has hosted pre-game and post-game shows for the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Blues. He also calls play-by-play on Missouri Valley Conference men s basketball games and serves as the sideline reporter for the Valley s conference tournament on Fox Sports Net. Active in the community, Ackerman volunteers for a number of charities and organizations in the St. Louis area, including: Mathews-Dickey Boys & Girls Club, Old Newsboys Day, ECHO Emergency Children s Home, Variety the Children s Charity of St. Louis, American Youth Foundation, St. John s Mercy Foundation, Catholic Charities of St. Louis, Alzheimer s Association, St. Louis Tiger Club, and the St. Louis Sports Commission. In 2004, Ackerman was included in the St. Louis Business Journal s 30 Under 30, which notes young professionals in the St. Louis metropolitan area who are on their way to establishing prominent careers. In 2003, the Riverfront Times named him St. Louis best reporter (Radio/ TV) in its annual Best of St. Louis issue. Ackerman began his broadcasting career calling play-by-play for Indiana University basketball, football, and baseball for WIUS-AM in Bloomington ( ). A St. Louis native, Tom Ackerman is a graduate of Indiana University and St. Louis Country Day School. He and his wife, Angie, live in St. Louis with their three-year-old daughter, Erika.

4 George Fenton George Fenton began writing music for theater productions in 1974 after a brief career performing and song writing. He now works exclusively in film and television. His scores for TV series include The Jewel in the Crown, The Monocled Mutineer, The History Man, Shoestring, and Bergerac. He has written music for many of Alan Bennett s plays, films, and monologues as well as popular signature tunes including the BBC News and Newsnight, and the major documentary series: The Trials of Life, Life in the Freezer, Beyond the Clouds, Shanghai Vice, The Blue Planet, and Planet Earth for which he was awarded Soundtrack Composer of the Year at the Classical Brits in Following the broadcast of The Blue Planet in 2001, for which he won Ivor Novello, BAFTA, and Emmy awards for Best Television Score, he created the show, The Blue Planet Live!, which has toured both in the U.K. and worldwide, performed by many of the world s leading orchestras. He has composed for a wide variety of feature films, receiving Academy Award nominations for: The Fisher King, Dangerous Liaisons, and Gandhi and was double-nominated for Cry Freedom for Original Score and Original Song. Other Scores include: The Madness of King George, Groundhog Day, Shadowlands, Ever After, Anna and the King, Stage Beauty, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Hitch, and Fool s Gold as well as Ken Loach s films including, Land and Freedom, My Name is Joe, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and It s a Free World. Fenton writes: The Boundaries between cinema and television are becoming progressively blurred. Most films are made with the television in mind, while at the same time, more and more people are able to enjoy television on high-quality screens and with stereo sound to rival the cinema. The true difference now lies in where and with whom you watch. This show is also about being part of a theatrical experience, which involves sharing these incredible images of incredible creatures in a way that we can t in front of the television. The makers of The Blue Planet are only too aware that the oceans and their inhabitants are increasingly under threat. Attempting to understand and protect them is perhaps the ultimate aim behind these remarkable films. By joining us here in this celebration, you are vitally endorsing the sentiment.

5 The Blue Planet BY ALISTAIR FOTHERGILL, SERIES PRODUCER The real challenge of wildlife filmmaking is to try to give our audience a sense of the wonderful experiences we have on location. Pictures alone cannot convey the scale of the experience, and anyway, so far nobody has invented a TV that can reproduce the smell of the location. (This may not be such a bad thing, come to think of it.) Careful editing, a creative soundtrack and a good script are our vital tools for creating the sense of being there. But probably the most powerful emotional tool of all is music. That s why we were delighted when George Fenton agreed to write the score for The Blue Planet. Martha Holmes and I had worked with George before and knew he has an extraordinary feel and passion for wildlife films and an ability to create the mood and emotion we wanted for a series about the oceans. Each of the oceans habitats is completely different, and we are particularly delighted that George has created such completely different scores to capture their individual moods. When we were making the series, one of the greatest highs for all of us was attending the recording sessions with the BBC Concert Orchestra in London. We spent weeks on location, trying to film a particular sequence, and months in the cutting room, shaping the images into a coherent story, but it was only when George raised his baton and the orchestra struck up that the full range of emotions of being on location were rekindled. I have absolutely no doubt that The Blue Planet Live! tour will be a real high as well. There will be a massive screen and the orchestra playing live all that is missing are the smells. I hope that you enjoy the show and that it will give you a real feeling of the extraordinary spectacle and beauty that exists on our crowded ocean planet.