Subjects of Sunday’s concert range from the Boulder star to Guaraní mythology

By Peter Alexander Nov. 9 at 3:15 p.m.

Michael Butterman heard a musical vision of a land without evil and immediately wanted to perform the piece in Boulder.

The conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic was listening to the NPR program “Performance Today” on the radio and heard La Tierra sin Mal (The land without evil) by Argentine composer and bandoneon player Richard Scofano. “I heard the last five minutes or so, which has harp and bandoneon (a concertina popular in Argentina) and sustained strings, and it’s just so beautiful,” he says. “Almost paradise-like music.”

Scofano’s piece was the starting point for a program titled “Visions of a Brighter Tomorrow” that the Phil will perform Sunday (7 p.m. in Macky Auditorium). Scofano will perform as the bandoneon soloist for his piece, which will feature dancers from Boulder’s 3rd Law Dance Company. The program also includes the world premiere of Beacon, a new piece by CU professor Jeffrey Nytch that celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Boulder Star; and Brahms’s First Symphony.

“I love the way that Scofano integrated the bandoneon with the rest of the orchestra,” Butterman says. “It’s a featured instrument, but I would not call it a concerto. He uses the bandoneon as just another color, part of the orchestral texture.”

The idea of the piece came from a myth of the Guaraní people, an indigenous group from Paraguay and Argentina. According to their mythology, they are searching for a place revealed by their ancestors where people live without suffering, what they call “the land without evil.” 

“I wondered whether there was a narrative arc to this piece,” Butterman says. “I could imagine a filmmaker being inspired to create something visual to go with it. So I approached 3rd Law, one of the wonderful dance companies we have in Boulder, and (asked) if they might be interested in setting choreography to this work.

“I don’t know what approach they are taking, and I don’t think (Scofano) knows either, but he was game to allow us to do it. (La Tierra sin Mal) would be a lovely piece as music, but I’m intrigued by the possibility that dance will bring to the work as well.”

Butterman was looking for a piece to go with the Scofano on the first half of the program when Nytch approached him with an idea. Nytch learned that this year is the 75th anniversary of the Boulder Star that is lit during the Holidays and wanted to write a piece to celebrate the occasion. 

“They normally light (the star) right around Veterans Day, which is almost exactly when we will perform this concert,” Butterman explains. “I know the star very well from my years in Boulder, and it’s always a heart-filling sight. Since it’s our mission as an orchestra to reflect our community, it just seems an absolutely appropriate idea.”

Nytch was inspired to write Beacon when he attended the lighting ceremony for the star a year ago. “There are those rare occasions where you get a spark of an idea, and you immediately know what it should be,” he says. “Before I got home that night I knew I wanted to write an orchestra piece and call it Beacon. I was already hearing musical ideas. It was incredible how quickly this just locked into place.”

Especially inspiring to Nytch was the fact that the Star has been displayed at times of community tragedies, including the Marshall Fire and the King Soopers shooting, as well as the Holidays. “That was a really powerful idea, that there’s this beacon that shines over the city during good times and bad times,” he says.

As director of the Entrepreneurship Center for Music at CU, Nytch knew how to move forward. He worked with the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, who are responsible for the star, and put together funding for the composition and the performance. “We have 10 individual donors, coordinating through the Chamber, and Premiere Members Credit Union stepped in to help with the production costs,” he explains.

With the funding in place, he went to Butterman and the Phil. Nytch had written other successful pieces for the orchestra, and since Beacon was already paid for, and especially because it fit the date and the program so well, they were delighted to present the premiere.

Both Butterman and Nytch describe the opening of the piece as “sparkly,” portraying the brightness of the star in the Holiday season. Nytch says he thought, “O my gosh, I’m using every high, sparkly instrument there is—piano and harp and glockenspiel and piccolo!”

To contrast with the brightness of the opening fanfare, he wanted to write something that reflected the more sombre moments when the star has been lit. He remembered the cello student at CU, Louis Saxton, who had just left the King Soopers store before the shooting there, and later brought his cello to the makeshift memorial outside the store and played Bach cello suites. 

“I couldn’t get that image out of my head,” Nytch says. “That idea of meeting horrific violence with beauty is the turning point, where we go from this dark place back into this place of light and hope. And so there is a quote of the Bach Cello Suite. It’s a little snippet that drifts in and then the music turns the corner and begins to build back up again.”

Later Nytch realized that the sparkly fanfare unintentionally shared the bass line and musical gestures with the Bach. “When I realized that my brain just exploded,” Nytch says. “That’s when you know that something is right.”

To complete the program, Butterman chose the First Symphony of Brahms. It seemed to fit the occasion, he thought, because the final movement has a theme that famously resembles the theme to Beethoven’s jubilant “Ode to Joy.” The Symphony progresses from C minor to C major, ending with “a very uplifting and positive feeling,” Butterman says. “It has an epic quality that seems appropriate when one is contemplating the idea of utopia.”

Nytch agrees completely. “When I saw the rest of the program, I thought, this really is perfect, because I adore that symphony,” he says. “It’s my favorite of the four Brahms symphonies. It has moments of struggle and reflection but the end is just so gloriously hopeful. 

“It just lifts you up.”

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“Vision of a Brighter Tomorrow”
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Butterman, conductor
With Richard Scofano, bandoneon, and 3rd Law Dance/Theater

• Jeffrey Nytch: Beacon (world premiere)
• Richard Scofano: La Tierra sin Mal (The land without evil)
• Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C major

7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12
Macky Auditorium

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