MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Transcription

1

2 MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) gave its inaugural performance at Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (DFP) on 17 August With the initial search for outstanding musicians involving a worldwide audition tour, the result was a symphony orchestra made up of musicians from 25 nations, including Malaysians, a remarkable example of harmony among different cultures and nationalities. A host of internationally-acclaimed musicians have performed with the MPO including Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Joshua Bell, Harry Connick Jr., José Carreras, Andrea Bocelli, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Chris Botti and Branford Marsalis, many of whom have praised the MPO for its fine musical qualities and vitality. With each new season, the MPO continues to present an exciting programme of orchestral music drawn from over three centuries, as well as the crowd-pleasing concert series. Its versatility transcends genres, from classical masterpieces to film music, pop, jazz, traditional, contemporary and commissioned works. The MPO regularly performs in major cities of Malaysia. Internationally, it has toured Singapore (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2018), Japan (2001, 2009 and 2017), Korea (2001), Australia (2004), China (2006), Taiwan (2007) and Vietnam (2013). The MPO has also released 21 commercial CDs. Its Education and Outreach Programme (ENCOUNTER) reaches beyond the concert platform to develop musical awareness and appreciation through dedicated activities at such diverse venues as schools, colleges, hospitals and community centres. The MPO s commitment to furthering musical interest in the nation has been the creation of the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (MPYO); its debut concert at DFP in 2007 was followed by a Peninsula Malaysia tour. The MPYO has also performed in Sabah and Sarawak, Singapore, Brisbane and Hong Kong. The MPO remains steadfast in its mission to share the depth, power and beauty of great music. Its main benefactor is PETRONAS and its patron is YABhg. Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Haji Mohd Ali.

3 Fri 8 Mar 2019 at 8.30 pm Sat 9 Mar 2019 at 8.30 pm Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Jessica Cottis, conductor PROGRAMME BORISOVA-OLLAS Angelus 20 mins KATS-CHERNIN Mythic 11 mins INTERVAL 20 mins PEJAČEVIĆ Symphony in F sharp minor 47 mins All details are correct at time of printing. Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS reserves the right to vary without notice the artists and/or repertoire as necessary. Copyright 2019 by Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (Co. No X). All rights reserved. No part of this programme may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright owners.

4 Jessica Cottis conductor Jessica Cottis possesses intellectual rigour, innate musicality and an easy authority; she is a charismatic figure on the podium who brings dynamism, intensity and clarity of vision to all her performances. Highlights of recent seasons include performances with the New Zealand and BBC Symphony Orchestras, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Concert Orchestra and l Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, and a recording with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The 2017/18 season marked a return to the prestigious BBC Proms as well as debuts with the Houston, London, Gavle and Malmö Symphony Orchestras, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Kaupo_Kikkas In 2018/19 season, she will make a debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra as well as returns to the City of London Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, laverdi (Milan) and the OBC (Barcelona). She returns to the Royal Opera House in London and her native Australia to conduct Canberra Symphony Orchestra and Monash Academy Orchestra in Melbourne. Cottis continues her string of well received Film with Live Orchestra productions for movies such as ET, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Casino Royale, Hitchcock s Vertigo, Disney s Fantasia and The Addams Family. Her international career was launched through working relationships with mentors including Vladimir Ashkenazy and Donald Runnicles. From 2009 to 2011, she was Assistant Conductor at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and from 2012 to 2014, Assistant Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Born in Australia and a dual British-Australian citizen, Cottis was awarded a first class honours degree in organ, piano and musicology from the Australian National University and continued her studies as an organist with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris, winning awards from the Royal Philharmonic Society and Royal College of Organists. A wrist injury halted her playing career and, after reading Law, she began conducting studies with Colin Metters and Sir Colin Davis at the Royal Academy of Music. She was awarded the Academy s top conducting prizes upon graduation in

5 2009, the same month she was appointed to positions at the BBC SSO and RCS, and also Manson Fellow in Composition at the Academy. A gifted communicator, Cottis is an inspiration to the younger generation. She has filmed projects for Play School (ABC Australia), CBeebies (BBC) and the Royal Opera House, conducted projects with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and Sistema Scotland, and led courses for female conductors with London s Royal Philharmonic Society. A frequent contributor to BBC radio and television, Cottis taught Dame Jenni Murray the basics of conducting for a BBC Woman s Hour special and spoke about Verdi s heroines. She commented on women issues in music for the World Service and the Today Programme. She also appeared on the BBC2 series Maestro at the Opera as a mentor. In 2014, Cottis became Conductor of the Glasgow New Music Expedition, and in 2015, was appointed Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM). She makes her home in South London and spends her free time taking helicopter-flying lessons. PROGRAMME NOTES The MPO audiences are in for a real surprise and a treat with tonight's programme. All the composers are women and all the compositions are outstanding representations of their work. Until fairly recently, women composers had next to no presence on concert programmes, especially orchestral programmes. In fact, music history is replete with women composers, going all the way back to Hildegard von Bingen in the 12 th century, but their contributions have long been discouraged, overlooked, or largely forgotten. Musically knowledgeable concertgoers will recognize names such as Fanny Mendelssohn (sister of Felix, ), Clara Schumann (wife of Robert, ), Lili Boulanger ( ), Germaine Tailleferre ( ) and, more recently, the Americans Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b.1939), Joan Tower (b.1938) and Jennifer Higdon (b.1962). Malaysia s own Vivian Chua (b.1974) also comes to mind. Tonight s concert will prove unequivocally that women can write music just as well as men.

6 expressen.se VICTORIA BORISOVA-OLLAS (b.1969) Angelus ( ) The Background Victoria Borisova-Ollas was born in Vladivostok, Russia but has lived in Sweden since She came to international attention in 1998 with her orchestral work Wings of the Wind, which won second prize in the 1998 Masterprize International Competition for Orchestral Composition. Borisova-Ollas does not regard herself as a Russian composer, nor a Swedish one. She describes her music as just a healthy blend of everything, and her compositions often bear titles relating to spirituality, religion or nature. Sacred texts often serve as sources of inspiration, and she says that after settling on one image form, she chooses a title, and this determines the music that follows. Angelus fits this mold perfectly. The twentyminute work was first performed by the Munich Philharmonic in 2008 with Sylvain Cambreling conducting. The Music Angelus is the result of a commission from the Munich Philharmonic to write a composition commemorating the 850 th anniversary of its city. The composer visited Munich in September 2006 and spent a Sunday strolling about the city. She heard the tolling bells from, among others, the Peterskirche in the early morning, the renowned glockenspiel in the Rathaus (Town Hall) at noon (the Jetzt gang i ans Brünnele melody by Friedrich Silcher), and the bells announcing the Angelus service in late afternoon. Afterwards, says the composer, I joined the crowd attending the Gottesdienst der Nationen, quite a remarkable evening service held in five different languages. By the end of that memorable day, the title and the structure of the future composition were clear to me.

7 ELENA KATS-CHERNIN (b.1957) Mythic (2004) The Background Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Uzbekistan when it was part of the Soviet Union, but in 1975, settled in Australia where she now resides. Her musical studies were undertaken in Russia (the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow), Germany (with Helmut Lachenmann) and Australia (the Sydney Conservatorium). She spent the 80's and early 90's in Europe limelightmagazine.com working in the musical centres of Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg, and returned to Australia in Aside from six operas, most of her catalogue consists of instrumental music, both orchestral and chamber. Kats-Chernin s compositions often bear enigmatic, curious or playful titles such as Butterflying, Blue Silence, Page Turn, Schubert Blues, Wild Rice, Singing Trees and The Witching Hour (a concerto for eight double basses and orchestra commissioned for the Australian World Orchestra in 2016). In 2000, her music was heard around the world as part of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games held in Sydney. In January this year, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the performing arts, particularly to music. She is currently writing a new opera entitled Whiteley (on the Australian artist Brett Whiteley), scheduled to be premiered this July by Opera Australia. The Music Mythic was commissioned by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. It grew out of a passacaglia-like chordal progression, writes the composer, that had grabbed hold of me and wouldn t let go. I wanted to attempt a direction I had not explored previously, and that was to stay in a slow, dark mood for a lengthy period and to see where that took me. Eventually it grew into a kind of a hymn with variations, sometimes almost romantic, that made extensive use of the orchestra s brass section. The title Mythic refers to this mental image I had of musically entering into a large, mythical cave (a passacaglia is a succession of variations written over a bass line or chordal progression). The eleven-minute, richly scored Mythic was first performed on 12 August 2004 by the Tasmanian Symphony conducted by Ola Rudner.

8 muih.hr muih.hr DORA PEJAČEVIĆ ( ) Symphony in F sharp minor, Op.41 ( ) I. Andante maestoso Allegro con moto II. Andante sostenuto III. Scherzo: Molto allegro IV. Allegro appassionato The Background Dora Pejačević goes down in music history as the first Croatian composer of note. She was born in Hungary but her father was descended from a noble family from the eastern region of Croatia (Slavonia) so her nationality was Croatian. In her brief life of 38 years (she died of complications from childbirth), she produced 58 opus numbers, mostly songs, short piano pieces and chamber music. Despite the volatile, rapidly-changing musical landscape in Europe during the early 20 th century, Pejačević s musical vocabulary, like that of her contemporary Rachmaninoff, was firmly entrenched in the late 19 th century. Pejačević s orchestral output is limited to barely half a dozen works but her Symphony in F sharp minor reveals her to have total mastery of the medium. This is believed to be the first symphony composed by a Croatian since the Classical period. She worked on the symphony from 1916 to 1917, revised it in 1920, and saw its premiere in Dresden that year conducted by the renowned Arthur Nikisch. The 47-minute work is laid out in the traditional four-movement format with energetic, powerfully directed outer movements framing a slow second movement and a scherzo third. The scores of Richard Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Respighi, and Franck seep through its pages. As the title indicates, it is tonal, and though the symphony opens and closes in F sharp minor, far more often Pejačević visits other keys, mostly in the major mode, lending an upbeat, optimistic flavour to the whole.

9 The Music The dramatic opening gesture might almost have come from the pages of a swashbuckling film score immediately arresting, commanding attention. When this settles down, we hear the first theme (descending scale patterns in strings and woodwinds), followed a few minutes later by another one of the symphony s many lushly lyrical themes (violins). This material is all worked into a loose sonata-form movement surging with romantic flair, dense with counterpoint, richly textured with harp arpeggios and opulently orchestrated. The movement ends with a brief recall of the opening gesture. Poetic impulses infuse the second movement, music of yearning, sighing, restrained rapture and sombre moods. The third movement is a scherzo, its rapid triple metre suggestive of a swirling dance. Alternating between boisterous, rollicking and jaunty, it frames a short central passage of welcome calm. The final movement is marked appassionato, and indeed it is passionate and stormy for much of its duration. Enormous emotional forces are at work here. In addition to several new themes, some from previous movements make return appearances. Like many symphonies of a romantic persuasion, this one ends in a blaze of sound for the full orchestra.

10 MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CORPORATE SUITE PREMIUM MEMBERS RESIDENT CONDUCTORS Naohisa Furusawa Gerard Salonga FIRST VIOLIN Co-Concertmaster Peter Daniš Ming Goh Co- Zhenzhen Liang Maho Daniš Martijn Noomen Sherwin Thia Runa Baagöe Miroslav Daniš Evgeny Kaplan Marcel Andriesii Tan Ka Ming Petia Atanasova *Liu Yi Retallick *Marco Roosink SECOND VIOLIN Section Timothy Peters Co- *Barbora Kolarova Assistant Luisa Hyams Stefan Kocsis Anastasia Kiseleva Catalina Alvarez Ionuț Mazareanu Chia-Nan Hung Yanbo Zhao Ling Yunzhi Robert Kopelman *Tan Poh Kim VIOLA Co- Gábor Mokány Ong Lin Kern Sun Yuan Fan Ran Thian Ai Wen *Samantha Lee *Ida Margit Kovacs *Ian Psegodschi *Melody Teoh CELLO Co- Csaba Körös Assistant Steven Retallick Sub- Mátyás Major Gerald Davis Laurențiu Gherman Julie Dessureault Elizabeth Tan Suyin Sejla Simon DOUBLE BASS Section Wolfgang Steike John Kennedy Jun-Hee Chae Naohisa Furusawa Raffael Bietenhader Andreas Dehner FLUTE Section *Ignacio de Nicolás Co- Yukako Yamamoto Sub- Rachel Jenkyns PICCOLO Sonia Croucher OBOE Section Simon Emes Co- Bernice Lee Wen Ting COR ANGLAIS Niels Dittmann CLARINET Section Gonzalo Esteban Co- David Dias da Silva Sub- Matthew Larsen BASS CLARINET Chris Bosco BASSOON Section Alexandar Lenkov Co- *Christoph Wichert Sub- Denis Plangger CONTRABASSOON Vladimir Stoyanov HORN Section s Grzegorz Curyla *Medet Cem Akcora Co- James Schumacher Sub-s Laurence Davies Barkin Sönmezer *Zsolt Péter Assistant Sim Chee Ghee TRUMPET Section *Douglas Carlsen Co- William Theis Sub- Jeffrey Missal Assistant Matthew Dempsey TROMBONE Co-s Fernando Borja *Marques Young Sub- *Allen Meek BASS TROMBONE *Martin McCain TUBA *Jose Manuel Redondo Contreras TIMPANI Section Matthew Thomas PERCUSSION Section Matthew Prendergast Sub-s Joshua Vonderheide Tan Su Yin HARP Tan Keng Hong PIANO *Akiko Daniš ORGAN *Lim Suat Eng Evelyn CORPORATE SUITE CLUB MEMBER PARTNER HOTELS Note: Sectional string players are rotated within their sections. *Extra musician.

11 Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Sareen Risham BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT Soraya Mansor BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Wan Yuzaini Wan Yahya At Ziafrizani Chek Pa Nurartikah Ilyas Kartini Ratna Sari Ahmat Adam Aishah Sarah Ismail Affendee MARKETING Yazmin Lim Abdullah Munshi Ariff Abu Hassan Hisham Abdul Jalil Farah Diyana Ismail Noor Sarul Intan Salim Muhammad Shahrir Aizat Ahmad Kusolehin Adha Kamaruddin CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Norhaznita Husin Yayuk Yulianawati Rila Jalwati Mohd Noor Music TALENT DEVELOPMENT & MANAGEMENT Ahmad Muriz Che Rose PLANNING, FINANCE & IT Mohd Hakimi Mohd Rosli Norhisham Abd Rahman Siti Nur Ilyani Ahmad Fadzillah Nurfharah Farhana Hashimi PROCUREMENT & CONTRACT Logiswary Raman Norhaszilawati Zainudin HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION Sharhida Saad Mas Arinah Hamzah Muknoazlida Mukhadzim Nik Nurul Nadia Nik Abdullah Nor Afidah Nordin TECHNICAL OPERATIONS Firoz Khan Mohd Yunus Mohd Zamir Mohd Isa Shahrul Rizal Mohd Ali Dayan Erwan Maharal Zolkarnain Sarman Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Sareen Risham general Manager Khor Chin Yang Soraya Mansor general Manager's office Timmy Ong ARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION Khor Chin Yang Sharon Francis Lihan Katherine Tan Jia Yiing ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT Ahmad Muriz Che Rose Sharhida Saad Fadilah Kamal Francis Shireen Jasin Mokhtar MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA Ahmad Muriz Che Rose Yazmin Lim Abdullah Fadilah Kamal Francis MUSIC LIBRARY Ong Li-Huey Wong Seong Seong Muhammad Zaid Azzim Mohd Diah EDUCATION & OUTREACH Shireen Jasin Mokhtar Shafrin Sabri Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Olari Elts, conductor LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 SIBELIUS En Saga LISZT (orch. ADAMS) Black Gondola SIBELIUS Symphony No. 5 SAT 16 MAR 2019 SUN 17 MAR :30PM 3:00PM RM141 RM113 RM84 RM56 DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS X MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA H

12 malaysianphilharmonicorchestra 2019 Season Brochure