Orchestral Weekend Will Feature Collaborations and a World Premier
Associate Professor of Music and Department Chair Jennifer Stasack composed the "Crossing Rivers" series.
|
11/15/2006
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
by Adam Martin ' 06
The Davidson College Music Department and Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (CSO) will team up November 17-18 for a weekend of musical events. The highlight occurs Saturday evening with the world premiere of Crossing Rivers V, a piece that the CSO commissioned from Associate Professor of Music Jennifer Stasack.
Stasack said Crossing Rivers V is the latest in a series of compositions inspired in 1994 by a three-dimensional art piece about a Buddhist bodhisattva (“enlightened being”) created by her spouse, Cort Savage, a sculptor and associate professor of art at Davidson. Stasack explained that the bodhisattva seeks enlightenment for all people, and that Crossing Rivers V likewise explores the theme of transformation and spiritual growth.
Stasack has written music for twenty-five years, but this is her first composition for a full orchestra. She said, “Writing for chamber groups, as with the four previous Crossing Rivers pieces, is like driving a sports car. But writing for full orchestra is like driving an eighteen-wheeler! That was the biggest challenge, how to take the ideas I voiced for intimate ensembles, and voice them for this magnificent collection of dozens of instrumentalists.”
The Davidson College Symphony Orchestra (DCSO) kicks off the celebratory events under the baton of maestro Tara Chamra with a Friday evening performance of works by Stravinsky, Alan Hovhaness, and Stephen Paulus. In addition, DCSO alumni from the region have been invited to join the orchestra on stage to play Shostakovich’s Festive Overture. The Friday evening concert is free of charge, and begins at 8 p.m. in the Duke Family Performance Hall.
On Saturday evening, same time and place, the CSO will perform one of its “Neighborhood Concerts” under the baton of CSO Resident Conductor Alan Yamamoto. This hour-long concert will open with Musica Celestis by Aaron J. Kernis, and close with Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2.
Prior to intermission, the CSO will perform Stasack’s fifteen minute, full orchestral Crossing Rivers V. Following intermission, the CSO will be joined on the hall’s Frazier Stage by the DCSO to play Tchaikovsky’s Waltz from Act I of Swan Lake. The full ensemble of two orchestras will comprise about 150 musicians.
At 7 p.m. on Saturday, prior to the concert, WDAV 89.9 Announcer Frank Dominguez will moderate an on-stage interview with Yamamoto and Stasack about the new work. In the days leading up to the concert, WDAV 89.9 radio will play the movement from Stasack’s Crossing Rivers IV which sets the musical stage for Crossing Rivers V. Stasack will also be the featured guest on WDAV’s “In Person” program airing Saturday, Nov. 11, at 6:30 p.m.
Stasack explained, “The new work takes what was originally a side character of Crossing Rivers IV and makes it a featured character. This core idea is a long slow motion melody, but contrasting points of architecture around it are very energized. The main material is scored for violas, cellos, and piano, which carry the idea from the previous piece. But the brass are given the most exuberant voice, because I think the CSO brass section is dynamite!”
General admission tickets to Saturday’s show are $15 for adults, and $5 for children. Friends of the Arts at Davidson College, WDAV 89.9, and the CSO are offering a special concert package for $20 which includes a pre-concert reception, the pre-concert talk, and the Saturday night concert. For more information on the package, call 704-894-2101. For general information about the weekend, call 704-894-2135.
Yamamoto said he is looking forward to working with the Davidson musicians. “Even when you’re doing the classics, once you’ve done it ten times, pulling from the same internal source of inspiration becomes a job,” he said. “But playing with and for students is inspiring and refreshing for our adult musicians.”
Davidson students will have an opportunity not only to play with their CSO counterparts at a dress rehearsal Saturday morning, but to meet and speak with them at a luncheon for the two groups hosted by Davidson’s President Robert F. Vagt and his spouse, Ruth Anne.
“I know Crossing Rivers V is going to be an exciting piece for our orchestra and the audience,” said Yamamoto. “It’s exciting to be on the cutting edge of our art. I can’t have conversations with Beethoven or Mozart about their music. But I’ve been talking with Stasack about it throughout the commissioning process.”
In its seventy-fifth season, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra is the largest and most active performing arts organization in the central Carolinas, and regularly commissions new pieces by American composers. The CSO recently won a national award for excellence in community engagement from the American Symphony Orchestra League and MetLife Foundation for strengthening the orchestra’s role as a “cultural citizen” in the community.
Stasack said she has thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of writing her first piece for full orchestra. “I feel the metaphor of the piece, Crossing Rivers V, applies to me personally in that I had to rise to a new level of craft and compositional maturity to conceive of and handle ideas for these many musicians,” she said. “Now it’s time for the premier so we can find out if I’ve really gotten to the metaphorical other side of the river!”
Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 students. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine.
# # #
|
