The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will present a four week "American Originals" festival, celebrating music written by American and European composers while living in America. The festival opens with a program of works by Bernstein, Barber and Rachmaninov on Thursday, October 30, 2008, and concludes with the Atlanta debut of a concert-staged production of John Adams' Dr. Atomic on Sunday, November 23, 2008.
October 30–31 and November 1, 2008, at 8:00 p.m., Mr. Slatkin will open the festival with a program of Bernstein's "Jeremiah" Symphony with mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor, Barber's Piano Concerto with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist, and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.
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Leonard Bernstein's "Jeremiah" Symphony is a musical depiction of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The work is in three movements, all featuring references to Jewish liturgical music. The final movement features a mezzo-soprano soloist, reciting text from the Book of Lamentations.
Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto was commissioned by G. Schirmer in celebration of the music publishing firm's 100th anniversary. Barber composed the work for the American pianist, John Browning (1933–2003). Browning was the soloist in the Concerto's premiere, which took place on September 24, 1962, as part of the opening week of New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Browning played the concerto in Atlanta two years later.
Sergei Rachmaninov initially scored his Symphonic Dances for two pianos, before completing the orchestration in the autumn of 1940. He dedicated the work to conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, who gave the premiere of the Symphonic Dances on January 3, 1941. The initial critical reception was not enthusiastic. However, in time, Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances have become widely admired as the composer's finest orchestral work. Rachmaninov himself was rather surprised by his accomplishment, observing, "I don't know how it happened, it must have been my last spark."
Program II
November 6–7, 2008, at 8:00 p.m., Mr. Spano will lead the Orchestra in Copland's Appalachian Spring. Also on the program is Barber's Violin Concerto with Joshua Bell as soloist, and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Appalachian Spring replaces the previously scheduled world premiere of a new symphonic work by Wynton Marsalis, American Symphony, which has been postponed until the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's 2009–10 season.
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Aaron Copland's ballet score, Appalachian Spring was premiered in October 1944, and achieved widespread popularity as an orchestral suite. The ballet, originally scored for a thirteen member chamber orchestra, was created at the request of choreographer and dancer Martha Graham and commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. While writing the work over the course of a year, Copland wrote that it was somewhat foolish to do as a ballet and its corresponding scores were historically short-lived. Copland was awarded the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the ballet. The story told is a spring celebration of the American pioneers of the 1800s after building a new Pennsylvania farmhouse. Among the central characters are a newlywed couple, a neighbor, a revivalist preacher and his followers.
Samuel Barber's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was the product of the first major commission for the composer. The commission was from Samuel Fels, a wealthy American businessman who served on the board of trustees of Barber's alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music. Fels intended the Concerto to serve as a vehicle for his protege, the young Odessa-born violinist Iso Briselli.
Bela Bartok composed his Concerto for Orchestra during a period of overwhelming adversity and despair. In October of 1940, Bartok and his wife left Hungary to escape the Nazis. During the journey to the United States, the composer wrote that the Concerto for Orchestra was the resurrection of a man who had "lost all (his) faith in men, nations, everything. The general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one."
Program III
November 13, 14, and 16, 2008. at 8:00 p.m, Mr. Runnicles will lead the Orchestra in the Atlanta premiere of John Corigliano's Percussion Concerto featuring Evelyn Glennie as soloist, for whom the work was written. Also on the program is Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 and Gershwin's Cuban Overture.
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In February 1932, American composer George Gershwin and some of his friends vacationed in Havana, where they spent "two hysterical weeks in Cuba, where no sleep was had." Gershwin was fascinated by the popular music he heard in Havana, and in particular, its use of exotic percussion instruments. Gershwin took several of these instruments back with him to New York, and incorporated them into an orchestral work he originally entitled Rumba. On August 16, 1932, Rumba premiered at New York's outdoor Lewisohn Stadium, as part of an all-Gershwin concert. For Gershwin, "it was the most exciting night I ever had." Gershwin later renamed Rumba the Cuban Overture.
John Corigliano was the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's Composer of the Year for the 2007–2008 season. The Pittsburgh Symphony performed the world premiere of Mr. Corigliano's Percussion Concerto, Conjurer. The soloist was Evelyn Glennie, for whom the Pittsburgh Symphony and five other international orchestras commissioned the work. When Antonin Dvorak arrived in America, he began to study the folk traditions of the "New World." Dvorak concluded that America's great folk music tradition was based in the music of African-Americans. He said, "The character, the very nature of a race is contained in its national music. For that reason my attention was at once turned in the direction of these native melodies...It is this spirit which I have tried to reproduce in my new Symphony ("The New World")."
Program IV
Closing the festival on November 21 and 23, 2008, at 8:00 p.m., Mr. Spano will lead the Atlanta debut of a new concert-staged production of John Adams's Dr. Atomic starring baritone Gerald Finley (Robert Oppenheimer) with soprano Jessica Rivera (Kitty Oppenheimer), contralto Meredith Arwady (Pasqualita, the nurse), tenor Thomas Glenn (Robert Wilson), tenor Richard Clement (Captain James Nolan), baritone James Maddalena (Jack Hubbard), baritone Richard Paul Fink (Dr. Edward Teller), bass Eric Owens (General Leslie Groves), and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. The director is James Alexander.
This performance marks a long-time collegial relationship between composer John Adams and Mr. Spano who have collaborated on many works and performances over the years, including the recent performance of Dr. Atomic with the Chicago Lyric Opera, during the 2007-2008 season.
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Although John Adams was originally characterized as a member of the minimalist school of composition (an approach distinguished by its harmonic consonance and repetition of motifs), his music has developed into an art rich in harmony, rhythm, and instrumental sonorities that are his alone. Dr. Atomic explores the events leading up to the first atomic blast in Los Alamos, and takes us into the minds of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues as they deal with the consequences of their invention.
Acclaimed for the beauty and expressiveness of its singing, the 200-member Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus has been directed by Norman Mackenzie since 1999, following the death of its founder, the legendary Robert Shaw, who founded the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus. Mr. Mackenzie had worked closely with Mr. Shaw for 14 years, and under his current direction, the chorus has won two Grammy Awards for Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony and the Berlioz Requiem. Mr. Mackenzie conducted the ASO Chamber Chorus in its own Telarc recording. Mr. Mackenzie has prepared the Chorus for performances with Robert Spano and the ASO at Carnegie Hall, as well as in its 2003 Berlin Philharmonic debut. In May 2008, it will return with Mr. Runnicles to Berlin for its second engagement with the acclaimed German orchestra. -- www.atlantasymphony.org
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