Boulder Chorale and the Longmont Symphony both strike American theme
By Peter Alexander March 15 at 1:43 p.m.
Taking inspiration from former president Obama’s description of America as “a nation of immigrants,” the Boulder Chorale will present a concert celebrating many of the cultures that have contributed to our national identity.
The concert, to be presented at 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the First Methodist Church in Boulder (March 18 and 19), will be under the direction of Vicki Burrichter, artistic director of the Chorale. Violinist Leena Waite will play “Requiem for Ukraine” by Igor Loboda, and other guest artists will perform music from cultures around the world that have merged on the American continent.
Leena Waite
The program opens with an homage to America’s original inhabitants. “River of Living Waters” by Karen Marrolli, the director of music ministries at a Methodist church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is based on a Lacquiparlé Dakota melody. That is followed by two songs from Great Britain that describe the journey from the old world to the new: “The Parting Glass” and “The Water is Wide.”
Other cultures celebrated in the program include those of India and China in Asia, and Mexico and Brazil in Latin America. The tour of cultures ends with music of Broadway by Leonard Bernstein, “Take Care of This House,” which is a reminder that Americans should, as Burrichter writes in her program notes, “work together to care for our collective home.” And finally a spiritual that remembers the enslaved people of our continent, Moses Hogan’s “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord.”
“Not all of us have come here by choice,” Burrichter writes. “We hope that ending our concert with a spiritual shows our deep respect for . . . . (African-Americans’) innumerable contributions to American culture and life.”
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“A Nation of Immigrants” Boulder Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, conductor With Leena Waite, violin Ensemble of world musicians
Program includes:
Karen Marrolli: “Rivers of Living Water” (Lacquiparlé Dakota melody)
Traditional Scottish, arr. Desmond Early: “The Parting Glass”
Traditional British, arr. Craig Helala Johnson: “The Water is Wide”
Igor Loboda: “Requiem for Ukraine”
Leonard Bernstein: “Take Care of This House” from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Moses Hogan: “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”
Additional repertoire from India, China, England, Mexico, and Brazil
4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 18 and 19 First United Methodist Church, Boulder
The Longmont Symphony will present the second of two concerts in the current season focusing on American music over the coming weekend, with performances Saturday and Sunday (March 18 and 19; details below) in the Stewart Auditorium of the Longmont Museum.
Titled “The Art of Influence—America: Part II” the program features works that reflect some of the influences that have shaped the sound of American music. Under the direction of conductor Elliot Moore, the orchestra will present the Colorado premiere of Cover the Walls by Ursula Kwong-Brown, Gershwin’s Lullaby, and Aron Copland’s jazzy Clarinet Concerto with soloist Jason Shafer. The program will be filled out by Maurice Ravel’s tribute to the French Baroque tradition, Le Tombeau de Couperin (The tomb of Couperin).
The versatile Kwong-Brown describes herself as “a composer, sound designer and arts technologist” who also is active as research scientist and political activist. A 2010 honors graduate of Columbia University in music and biology, she has had works performed across the United States and overseas. Her catalog includes music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, vocal and choral works, as well as sound design for dance and theater.
Jason Shafer
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Shafer is principal clarinet of the Colorado Symphony and a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Northern Colorado. He previously appeared with the LSO in 2021, when he performed Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Aaron Copland’s Concerto was commissioned by Benny Goodman, who played the premiere with the NBC Symphony and conductor Fritz Reiner. If not exactly a reflection of Goodman’s jazz style, the concerto is a tribute to his virtuosity.
Originally composed for piano and later orchestrated by the composer, Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin was written during the difficult years of World War I. Described by the composer as an homage “less to Couperin himself than to French music of the eighteenth century” generally, the colorful orchestral suite includes movements titled Prélude, Forlane, Menuet and Rigaudon.
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“Made in American 2: The Art of Influence” Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor With Jason Shafer, clarinet
Ursula Kwong-Brown: Cover the Walls (Colorado premiere)
Copland: Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra with Harp and Piano
Gershwin:Lullaby
Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin (The Grave of Couperin)
7 p.m. Saturday, March 18, and 4 p.m. Sunday, March 19 Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum
Saturday’s concert features violinist Judith Ingolfsson
By Peter Alexander Feb. 16 at 11:05 a.m.
“Sibelius’s only desire was to depict the greatness of his native Finland,” Longmont Symphony conductor Elliot Moore wrote for the orchestra’s newsletter.
He so far succeeded, Moore noted, that he became a potent symbol of his nation and its people. And it was Finland’s resistance to Russian control, symbolized in Sibelius’s music, that inspired Moore to choose Sibelius as the subject of a musical portrait, just as we all observe the struggle of Ukraine against Russian control.
Jean Sibelius in 1890.
That musical portrait will be the next concert of the Longmont Symphony, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 18 in Vance Brand Civic Auditorium). The concert will open with Finlandia, the composer’s most overt expression of Finnish nationalism and patriotism, and close with the Second Symphony, which Sibelius called “a confession of the soul.” The program will also feature violinist Judith Ingolfsson playing Sibelius’s Violin Concerto.
Finlandia was written specifically for a celebration of the Finnish press in 1899, which was intended to protest Russian censorship. Originally performed under other names to avoid Russian suppression, the score later became Sibelius’s best known work and has been performed widely around the world.
Judith Ingolfsson
Completed in 1902, Sibelius’s Second Symphony was written soon after the premiere of Finlandia. The final movement, with a powerful transition from minor to major, was associated by many with Finland’s struggle against Russia, and at one time the piece was popularly known as the “Symphony of Independence.” Though no longer called by that name, the Second Symphony remains one of the composer’s most performed works.
Sibelius wrote his Violin Concerto—his only concerto for soloist and orchestra—in 1904, but that original version was not a success and is rarely performed. The revised version was premiered the following year with Richard Strauss conducting the Berlin Court Orchestra and violinist Karel Halíř. Sibelius removed passages that he thought had not worked, but this slightly easier version is still one of the leading virtuoso concertos in the violin repertoire.
Ingolfsson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and moved to the United States at the age of 14. She studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Cleveland Institute. She currently lives in Europe where she teaches at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart and is co-artistic director and founder of the Festival Aigues-Vives en Musiques in France.
At the age of eight she played as a soloist with the Iceland Symphony. She won the gold medal in the 1998 Indianapolis International Violin Competition, and was a prize winner at the Paganini Competition in Genoa and the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York. In 1999 she was named “Debut Artist of the Year” by NPR’s “Performance Today.”
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“Sibelius: A Portrait” Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor With Judith Ingolfsson, violin
Sibelius: Finlandia —Violin Concerto in D minor —Symphony No. 2 in D major
Attorney Cameron A. Grant will narrate two favorites
By Peter Alexander Jan. 17 at 3:05 p.m.
Attorney Cameron A. Grant will join the Longmont Symphony (LSO) as narrator for their annual Family Concert. The concert, conducted by Elliot Moore, will be at 4 p.m. Saturday (Jan. 21) in the Vance Brand Civic Auditorium.
The program features two works that have been favorites in past family concert performances: Selections from Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals and Lucas Richman’s Behold the Bold Umbrellephant. Both works use texts by the popular children’s author Jack Prelutsky, the first-ever U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate who personally read his poems when the LSO performed both works in 2018.
Cameron A. Grant
Prelutsky’s book Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant is a set of poems about fanciful creatures that are part animals and part inanimate objects, such as the umbrellaphant, the panthermometer and the clocktopus. Richman’s music takes eager advantage of all the musical hints in the poems. Every piece has its own character, across a wide variety of styles and musical types. The Umbrellaphant features horn calls that recall elephants’ trumpeting, while the Panthermometer is a cool cat who can tell you the temperature.
With it’s musical portraits of lions, donkeys, fossils and swans, Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals is widely performed today, but it was unknown during the composer’s lifetime. Saint-Saëns had prohibited public performances, thinking that such frivolous music would damage his reputation. It was not published until 1922, the year after the composer’s death, and it has been one of his best known and most popular works since.
The American humorous poet Ogden Nash had written a set of poems to accompany The Carnival of the Animals in the 1940s, but Prelutsky’s publisher, considering Nash’s poems to be outdated, wanted new texts. He called Prelutsky and asked him to write poems to go along with Saint-Saëns’ music. Originally reluctant, Prelutsky quickly turned out a new set of poems.
Grant is a prominent attorney in Longmont, where he is a managing shareholder in the firm Lyons & Gaddis, but he is also familiar with the performing world. He holds an undergraduate degree in English and vocal music performance from Colorado College, and attended the Aspen Opera Theater Center. He has been an active member of the local community, including a spell as president of the Longmont Council for the Arts.
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Family Concert Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor With Cameron A. Grant, narrator
Saint-Saéns: Selections from Carnival of the Animals
Concerts by Sphere Ensemble and the Longmont Symphony
By Peter Alexander Nov. 16 at 2:50 p.m.
The Sphere Ensemble, a string ensemble formed by professional string players in the Denver area, will present a kaleidoscope of many American musics at the Mercury Café in Denver Friday (7:30 p.m. Nov. 18) and the Canyon Theater of the Boulder Public Library Saturday (7:30 p.m. Nov. 19; details below).
Under executive director Alex Vittal, a longtime violist and arranger with the group, Sphere has brought educational programming to marginalized audiences, including people in homeless shelters, juvenile detention centers, women’s shelters, children’s hospitals and assisted living facilities.
Sphere characteristically includes both concert music written for string orchestra and arrangements of works drawn from popular and other vernacular genres in their programs. In the case of the “Kaleidoscope” concert, that ranges from music by 20th-century African-American composer Florence Price, to the contemporary Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, to the Pulitzer Prize-winner Carolyn Shaw, to a medley of music by Prince.
Tate’s Pisach has been arranged for Sphere through a special agreement with the composer, and several of the pop pieces were arranged specifically for the ensemble. Vittal’s arrangement of the Prince Medley has been particularly popular in past performances. The concert announcement from Sphere states, “This concert program focuses on the wide range of what ‘American’ music is: with composers from diverse backgrounds, genres from classical to pop, and arrangements written by Sphere musicians.”
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“Kaleidoscope” Sphere ensemble
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate: Pisach. (adapted with permission of the composer by Alex Vittal and Alejandro G. Gullien)
Caroline Shaw: Entr’acte
Florence Price: “Juba” from Second String Quartet
Tan Dun: Symphony for Strings
Gordon/Warren: “At Last,” arr. Chris Jusell
Prince: Prince Medley, arr. Alex Vittal
Randy Newman: “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” arr. Sarah Whitnah
Scott Joplin: “Wall Street Rag,” arr. Alex Vittal
Louis Moreau Gottschalk: Souvenir de Porto Rico, arr. David Short
The Longmont Symphony Orchestra and conductor Elliot Moore will focus on America in two of their subscriptions concerts this year. The first of these, “Trail of Tears: America—Part 1” will be presented Saturday at the Vance Brand Auditorium (7:30 p.m. Nov. 19; details below).
The concert takes it title from composer Michael Daugherty’s “Trail of Tears” Flute Concerto, which will be performed by soloist Brice Smith and the orchestra. Smith teaches flute at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colo.
The concerto is named for the route that Cherokees and other Native Americans were forced to travel from their ancestral homes in Southeastern states to reservations in present-day Oklahoma. In his program notes, the composer has described the piece as “a musical journey into how the human spirit discovers ways to deal with upheaval, adversity and adapting to a new environment.”
Other works on the program are the Overture to The Song of Hiawatha by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and the Symphony No. 8 in G major by Dvořák. Coleridge-Taylor was a mixed-race British composer and conductor who had a significant career in both England and the United States, where he was known as “the African Mahler.”
His trilogy of cantatas The Song of Hiawatha was written 1898–1900. The first part to be performed, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, became popular world-wide and earned praise from leading English musicians including Sir Arthur Sullivan.
Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony is one of the composer’s most popular and joyful pieces. It was composed in 1889, soon before the composer’s famous and fateful trip to the United States in 1892. More than any of the Dvořák’s symphonies, it draws on the music of the composer’s homeland, giving it a uniquely relaxed and folkish quality.
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“Trail of Tears” Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore conductor With Brice Smith, flute
Samuel Coleridge Taylor: Overture to Song of Hiawatha
Longmont Symphony at Stewart Auditorium, Colorado Chamber Players in Broomfield
By Peter Alexander Oct. 21 at 5:15 p.m.
The Longmont Symphony nears the end of its Beethoven symphony cycle this weekend at the intimate Stewart auditorium of the Longmont Museum.
Conductor Elliot Moore leads the orchestra in the next-to-last of the composer’s nine symphonies, in a cycle that was begun in 2018 and continued nearly unabated through the recent pandemic. The Symphony No. 8 in F major, op. 93, will be joined on the program by the Symphony in G major by Beethoven’s contemporary and lifelong friend Anton Reicha.
The concert will be presented twice, at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 2s2, and 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23. Tickets are available here.
Beethoven referred to his Eight Symphony, one of his lighter and more cheerful works, as “my little symphony in F.” It is more classical in structure and style than either the Sixth or Seventh symphonies, which were more revolutionary than the 8th. Written while Beethoven was trying to prevent his brother Nikolaus Johann from marrying, the score reveals none of the emotional turmoil that both were undergoing at the time.
Reicha became Beethoven’s friend when both played in the court orchestra in Bonn. Only a few of his wind quintets are known today, and his orchestral works, because they were never adequately catalogued, are almost never played. The Longmont Symphony is calling their performance of the Symphony in G “its premiere performance as a fully restored work after a very long 200 year wait.”
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Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor
Anton Reicha: Symphony in G major (premiere of restored version)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F major, op. 93
7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23 Stewart Auditorium, Longmont Museum
The Colorado Chamber Players aim to transport listeners into the “Twilight Zone” for the Halloween season.
The program, subtitled “Strange and Supernatural Music of the Baroque,” will be presented in Denver (Oct. 21), Montclair (Oct. 22) and Broomfield (7:30 p.m. Broomfield Auditorium; details below). The music selected for the program has been incorporated into a musical and poetic hybrid theater work by John Harwell. Music will be performed by members of the Colorado Chamber Players, and narration and poetry recitation by actor Chris Kendall.
The Baroque era is usually defined as music of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Many of the works from this era, particularly music by Vivaldi, Handel and Bach, have become very popular today, but the word “Baroque” was not originally meant as a compliment. Meaning “bizarre” or “oddly shaped,” it was applied to music that broke from the patterns of Renaissance music in various unexpected ways. As such, programming of Baroque music for Halloween makes sense.
Some of the musical pieces portray grotesque subjects, such as Marin Marias’ Tableau de l’Operation de la Taille (A description of the operation of the stone) for bass viola da gamba and narrator. Others, like Henry Purcell’s Fantasia No 4 in E minor for viols, are included for their unusual and unsettling sound content.
Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” Sonata for solo violin and bass is included for it’s legendary origin in a dream where the composer saw the Devil playing the violin. Other works on the program are by Heinrich Biber and Anthony Holborne.
Now in their 29th season, the Colorado Chamber Players have grown from a string trio in 1993 to a mixed ensemble of 10 players today. The versatile group includes a string quartet, string bass, flute, harp, piano, viola d’amore and voice. Located in Denver, they perform concerts, educational programs and broadcasts of collaborative chamber works throughout the Denver and front-range region.
“Twilight Zone: Strange and Supernatural Music of the Baroque” Music/theater hybrid work by Josh Hartwell Poetry and narration performed by Chris Kendall Music performed by Colorado Chamber Players
Program includes:
Henry Purcell: Fantasia No 4 in E minor for viols
Marin Marais: Tableau de l’Operation de la Taille (A description of the operation of the stone) for bass viola da gamba and narrator
Giuseppe Tartini: Violin Sonata in G minor (“Devil’s Trill”)
Music by Heinrich Biber and Anthony Holborne, and poetry by Emily Dickinson, Moya Cannon and Robert Herrick
Ars Nova Singers, Boulder Chorale and Seicento lay out plans for 2022-23
By Peter Alexander Oct. 12 at 2:52 p.m.
The Ars Nova Singers, the Boulder Chorale and Seicento Baroque Ensemble—three of Boulder’s leading choral groups—have distinct qualities, in terms of repertoire and performance style. All three groups have now announced their concert schedules for the 2022–23 season:
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Under director Tom Morgan, Ars Nova generally avoids the historical middle of standard repertoire, preferring music either side of the 18th and 19th centuries—the Renaissance or the 20th and 21st centuries. Their concerts are challenging to the singers, and can be equally so to audiences, but they are always interesting as well.
On Nov. 4 they will be the first of the three to present a concert this season (see time and place below). Their opening program is devoted to one of the most fascinating figures of the late Renaissance. Carlo Gesualdo, the Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, was the composer of harmonically advanced, highly chromatic madrigals unlike anything else of their time. He was also known for having murdered his first wife and her lover when he found them together in bed, a fact that has not gone unnoticed in appreciation of his extreme music.
Performances of Gesualdo’s music are rare, as is often the case with Ars Nova programming, so this performance is worth noting.
One major event of the Ars Nova season will be the presentation in March of the world-touring British a cappella group Voces 8. Their two performances under Ars Nova’s auspices will be Wednesday March 1, 2023 in Macky Auditorium (7:30 p.m., details below) and Thursday, March 2, at St. John’s Cathedral in Denver (7:30 p.m.; tickets on sale Oct. 15). Please note that these are two separate programs. (details below).
Here is a full listing of the Ars Nova 2022–23 season:
“Wonder” Ars Nova Singers, Tom Morgan, director With Sandra Wong, violin and nyckelharpa, and Ann Marie Morgan, viola da gamba Carlo Gesualdo: Madrigals from Books 5 and 6
7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4 St. John Episcopal Church, 1419 Pine St., Boulder
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov5 Stewart Auditorium of the Longmont Museum
4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6 St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 1600 Grant St., Denver
“Solstice” Ars Nova Singers, Tom Morgan, director With John Gunther, woodwinds Music for the Winter Solstice and Christmas
CORRECTION: The two programs by Voices 8 March 1 and March 2 were originally listed incorrectly. The correct information is “Choral Dances” on March 1 and “Lux Aeterna” on March 2, as now shown above.
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The Boulder Chorale is actually three different groups, and serves a role in music education as well as performance—in the words of the Web page, “for singers aged 5 to 85.” The Concert Chorale, the Chamber Chorale and the Children’s Chorale—the last divided by age into four different ensembles—perform separately as well as together. Under director Vicki Burrichter, the repertoire of the adult groups is eclectic, notably including world music, traditional styles from both European and non-European sources, and new works. As in the current season, their repertoire has often included work for chorus and orchestra.
Boulder Chorale opens their season Nov. 5, one day later than Ars Nova. Their opening weekends overlap, but you can easily plan to attend both. The chorale’s program is an example of their pursuit of world music. Titled “Origins: The Fertile Crescent,” the program highlights music from the Middle East and North Africa, including the Chorale’s own arrangements by Adam Waite of music from Israel, Afghanistan, Spain, Morocco and Syria.
Later in the year, the Chorale partners with the Longmont Symphony for performances of Handel’s Messiah (Dec. 17) and a Messiah singalong (Dec. 18; details below); and with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra for performances of Beethoven’s Mass in C.
Here is the full listing of the Boulder Chorale 2022–23 season through April 2023:
“Origins: The Fertile Crescent” Boulder Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, conductor, with Catrene Payan, vocalist, and Middle Eastern instrumental ensemble, David Hinojosa,leader
4 pm. Saturday, Nov. 5, and Sunday, Nov. 6 First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce Street, Boulder, CO
“A Celtic Winter” Boulder Chamber Chorale and Concert Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, director, and Boulder Children’s Chorale, Nathan Wubbena, director
4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, and Sunday, Dec. 11 First United Methodist Church, Boulder 1421 Spruce Street, Boulder, CO
Handel’s Messiah Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor With the Boulder Chamber Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, director
CORRECTION: The concert “Story of My life,“ previously listed here, was included by error. That is a performance by the Boulder Children’s Chorales, and has been removed from this listing. Also, clarification has been added as to which of the three chorales is performing in each of the concerts.
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Seicento specializes in Baroque music of the 17th (“Seicento” in Italian) and 18th centuries performed with, to use the currently accepted language, “historically informed” performance practice, including period instruments. Today they are directed by the group’s founder, Evanne Browne.
Founded in 2011, Seicento launches its second decade in December with “Nöel: Christmas in the late Renaissance and Early Baroque” (December 2–4), a program that includes carols still familiar today as well as little known choral works. The major event of the season will take place in May, when Seicento will be joined by an orchestra of historical instrument performers to present Colorado’s first historically informed performance of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion.
Here is the full listing of Seicento’s season:
“Nöel: Christmas in the late Renaissance and Early Baroque” Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Evanne Browne, conductor
7:30 p.m. Friday Dec. 2 St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1600 Grant St., Denver
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3 First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder
3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4 First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1500 9th Ave., Longmont
J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion (BWV 245) Seicento Baroque Ensemble and historical instrument orchestra, Evanne Browne, conductor
7 p.m. Friday, May 5 Arvada United Methodist Church, 6750 Carr St., Arvada
7 p.m. Saturday, May 6 St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1600 Grant St., Denver
3 p.m. Sunday, May 7 Mountain View United Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder
The Longmont Symphony will open its 2022–23 season at with a concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 8) in the Vance Brand Civic Auditorium in Longmont.
Music director Elliot Moore will conduct the concert, which features a world premiere and guest artist Clancy Newman, cello. The world premiere, written specifically for the time after the COVID pandemic, will be Symphony for the Great Return by John Hennecken. Newman will play Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor, the most popular cello concerto. Other works on the program will be Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings.
Hennecken’s Symphony is in three movements. The first, “Dark Spring Horizon,” represents the feeling in early 2020, when there was a sense of foreboding but the pandemic had not yet broken out widely. The second, “Windows,” uses the disparate sounds of solo violin and timpani to represent social distancing and sense of isolation during the pandemic. And the finale, “The Great Return,” was written during the upheaval following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and uses a variation on African-American composer George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, also heard on the program.
Longmont Symphony and conductor Elliot Moore
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor With Clancy Newman, cello
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
George Walker: Lyric For Strings
John Hennecken: Symphony for the Great Return (world premiere)
Season includes Beethoven cycle, Handel’s Messiah, world premieres
By Peter Alexander June 8 at 1:54 p.m.
The Longmont Symphony recently announced their 2022–23 season of concerts. The season features six mainstage concerts, three chamber orchestra concerts, and a Messiah singalong during the Holiday season (Dec. 18; see full season listings below).
The Beethoven symphony cycle will continue with Symphony No. 8 (Oct. 22 and 23), and other familiar orchestral repertoire will be represented by works of Dvořák and Sibelius. There will also be works by less familiar composers, including two world premieres, adding up to a season with intriguing discoveries to be made on most programs.
Composer John Heineken
The first of the two world premieres is Symphony for the Great Return by American composer John Hennecken on the opening night of the new season, Oct. 8. With it on the same program are Dvořák’s familiar Cello Concerto, played by Naumburg Competition winner Clancy Newman, Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, and George Walker’s elegiac Lyric for Strings.
The next installment of the LSO’s Beethoven cycle will feature the Eighth Symphony, possibly the least familiar of the canonical nine symphonies (Oct. 22 and 23 in Stewart Auditorium). Sharing the same chamber orchestral program is a symphony by Anton Reicha, a contemporary and friend of Beethoven. An adventurous and experimental composer for his times, Reicha is little known today, but his work serves to fill in the context in which Beethoven worked.
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate
The major work on the November mainstage concert (Nov. 19) will be Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 in G major, a cheerful and upbeat piece that was written shortly before the composer’s 1892–93 visit to the United States. It will be preceded by three works that reflect the native American experience: Overture to the choral-orchestral Song of Hiawatha by the black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; American composer Michael Daugherty’s Trail of Tears for flute, strings and harp, inspired by the forced removal of Cherokees from their homeland; and Chokfi’ (Rabbit) for strings and percussion by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, a composer who is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. Flute soloist for Trail of Tears will be Brice Smith.
The LSO will celebrate the Holidays with a complete performance of Handel’s Messiah (Dec. 17), followed by an audience-participation truncated Messiah “singalong.”
Silvestre Revueltas
The new year begins with a family concert (“Painting the Orchestra,” Jan. 21, 2023), followed by an all-Sibelius program (Feb. 18, 2023). Sibelius is generally under-represented in orchestra repertoire now, so it’s good to have a complete concert of his music, even if the program sticks to his more familiar works—Finlandia, the Violin Concerto with soloist Judith Ingolfsson, and the Symphony No. 2 in D major.
March 18 and 19 will see the second concert of the “Made in America” series, opening with Alcancías (Penny banks) for chamber orchestra by the 20th-century Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. Jason Shafer, principal clarinet with the Colorado Symphony and a previous soloist with the LSO, returns to play Copland’s Clarinet Concerto. Completing the program are Gershwin’s Lullaby and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, written for piano as a tribute to the Baroque composer François Couperin and later transcribed for orchestra.
Tyler Harrison
The season’s second world premiere will be the Symphony No. 3 by pianist/composer and CU, Boulder, alumnus Tyler Harrison. It will be paired with Tchaikovsky’s brooding Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique,” in a program titled “Darkness and Light” (April 15).
The 2022–23 concert season wraps up May 6 with a lighter program, “LSO Goes to the Movies,” featuring music by John Williams, Ennio Morricone and Hans Zimmer. Subscriptions are available through the LSO Web page. Tickets to individual concerts will go on sale Friday, July 29.
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2022–23 Concert Season Longmont Symphony Orhestra
Longmont Symphony and conductor Elliot Moore
“The Great Return” Elliot Moore, conductor, with Clancy Newman, cello
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
George Walker: Lyric For Strings
John Hennecken: Symphony for the Great Return (World premiere)
Longmont resident Michael Udow’s Ancient Echoes inspired by archaeological finds
By Peter Alexander April 24 at 12:15 a.m.
NOTE: I usually do not review ensembles that are not fully professional. This performance by the semi-pro Longmont Symphony rates an exception because it includes a world premiere, which always deserve media attention.
Last night (April 23) the Longmont Symphony Orchestra (LSO) gave the first performance of a piece that was inspired by archaeological discoveries in the state of Colorado. Michael Udow’s Ancient Echoes makes use of four stones discovered in Great Sand Dunes National Park and elsewhere in the San Luis Valley that archeologist Marilyn Mortorano discovered to be ancient lithophones, or musical instruments made of stone. (Read the full story here.)
Great Sand Dunes NP and the San Luis Valley. Photo by Peter Alexander
Under conductor Elliot Moore, the LSO gave a careful reading of Udow’s atmospheric score. Soloist Anthony Di Sanza, once Udow’s percussion student at the University of Michigan, was all over the front of the stage, switching among four different percussion setups that included the four ancient stones, a modern mallet instrument with tuned granite bars—Udow’s personal creation for this one piece—a vibraphone, drums from North Africa and Japan, German cowbells and temple gongs, among other instruments.
There can be no doubt that Udow knows the percussion instruments intimately that he writes for. They were all used effectively, and Di Sanza gave a virtuosic performance on all of them. It was clearly as much fun for him running from one setup to another, as it was for the audience watching and listening.
Percussion soloist Anthony Di Sanza
The score opens with a dreamy, evocative passage that made good use of the quiet plinking sounds of the ancient stones. From there the score moves from one set of instruments to another, each representing a different culture or part of the world. The score is highly episodic, as each set of instruments brings forth its own musical style and mood.
Udow used the orchestra well, but did not resist falling into Hollywood-style Orientalist cliches to support some of the instruments, and I am not sure that his series of musical vignettes adds up to more than the sum of its highly individual parts. But the result is certainly a showpiece for the soloist, and one that may prove irresistible to other percussionists in the future.
Michael Udow with his granite lithophone, created for his score Ancient Echoes. Photo by Peter Alexander.
Udow’s modern granite lithophone is bound for a percussion collection in Indianapolis, where it will be available for Di Sanza and other professional percussionists who wish to perform Udow’s score. With it containing so many fun licks, I would not dare to guess where we will hear it next.
Following a standing ovation, Di Sanza and his former teacher Udow gave an energetic handclapping encore that was great fun, if perhaps a minute too long.
For the rest of the concert, Moore led the LSO in first Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, and later to close the program Brahms’s Symphony No. 1. The Firebird performance had a strong expressive profile, capturing well the essence of each scene. There were some especially nice solos in the woodwinds, if a few issues of balance overall.
The Brahms was the least satisfying of the three pieces, needing better balance—again—and more rhythmic precision, especially within the string sections. In a modern concert hall and with modern winds, Brahms really needs a larger string section than most small-budget orchestras can provide, and that was the case here. But it should be noted that the LSO has grown in quality over Moore’e five years in Longmont, and Moore brought the symphony to an energetic conclusion. It was greeted warmly by the audience.
Michael Udow’s Ancient Echoes on Saturday’s program with Stravinsky and Brahms
By Peter Alexander April 21 at 7:10 p.m.
It’s not often that an orchestra premieres a piece with roots that go back 6,000 years.
Saturday (April 23) the Longmont Symphony and conductor Elliot Moore will do just that when they give the first performance of Ancient Echoes, a score by percussionist/composer and Longmont resident Michael Udow (see concert details below; tickets are available here).
Udow’s concerto for multiple percussion instruments will feature soloist Anthony Di Sanza playing instruments including one designed by Udow, based on ancient artifacts from Colorado that date back thousands of years. As part of the same piece, Di Sanza will play a variety of instruments from cultures around the world, including Indonesia, Japan and Korea. The concert program also includes Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and Brahms’s Symphony No. 1.
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where ancient lithophones have been found. Photo by Peter Alexander.
Udow’s piece has a long backstory—although not quite 6,000 years. In fact it started around 2000, when archaeologist Marilyn Mortorano was doing consulting work at Great Sand Dunes National Park. The museum at the park has a number of ground stone artifacts, shaped roughly like baguettes, up to a two feet long, in their collection.
They had been found at archaeological sites throughout the park, including one that was standing up in the sand, and other sites in the San Luis Valley. In fact, Mortorano says, “Almost all the collectors (in the area) had them and they didn’t know what they were, and we didn’t either.”
Archaeologist Marilyn Mortorano with ancient lithophones found in Colorado. Photo by Peter Alexander.
They were carefully worked, but way too heavy to be used as grinding tools like the mano and metate sets found throughout the Southwest. But “somebody spent a lot of time making them,” Mortorano says. “It bothered me because I thought, why do we not know what these are?”
Then in 2013 she ran across a YouTube video from the Musée de l’Homme (Museum of man) in Paris, which had similar artifacts that French soldiers had brought back from Africa. At the time she had several of the Colorado stones for research purposes, so she was surprised when she learned that the stones in Paris produced a musical sound when tapped. (You can see and hear them here; narration in French.)
In fact a set of them was used for Paleomusique, written by French composer Philippe Fenelon. Those stones were used for a single series of performances in 2014, and then packed away for storage, never to be played again.
“I thought this is crazy,” Mortorano says, “but I’ll see if (the stones from Colorado) could be musical. My younger daughter is a percussionist, so she had a basket of mallets. I couldn’t believe it—they rang like bells!”
When Mortorano returned the stones to the museum at Great Sand Dunes the next day, she showed her discovery to Fred Bunch, the chief of resources. He was startled, and promised to support any further research that Mortorano could pursue with the stones.
“We don’t know how these were used, because we don’t know the whole context,” Mortorano says. “But we know now from studying lithophones (musical instruments made of rocks), they’re all over the world. They’re in Africa, they’re in Asia, they’re in South America, they’re even in Hawaii.”
In the meantime, Mortorano had talked to Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner several years earlier, before she realized that the stones could be lithophones, who told her to let him know if she figured out what they were used for. She contacted him again after discovering their musical qualities and he did a new interview that was picked up by National Public Radio and noted on other national media.
Percussionist/composer Michael Udow
And this is where Udow enters the story. When he heard about Mortorano’s research and the Colorado stones, he wanted to see and hear them. When he contacted Mortorano, he discovered that she only lived about two blocks from his home in Longmont. He went over for a visit.
“Marilyn and (her husband) Sal had them set up beautifully on a long table with a hemp chord set at the nodes so they get maximum vibration,” Udow says. “I played them and I went home and thought, this is really important. It shows the musical side of the creative human spirit from 6,000 years ago, and wouldn’t it be interesting to compose a work!”
The Longmont Symphony had previously played two pieces by Udow, so his next step was to contact LSO director Elliot Moore and propose a new piece for orchestra using the stones. When he met Mortorano and heard the stones, Moore became interested in the project, and eventually got a commitment from the LSO board to support a new piece from Udow.
“What I really have the privilege of getting to do is putting this all together,” Moore says. “You can have the idea to write a piece of music and you can find these ancient stones, but until there’s an orchestra willing to premiere this, it’s theoretical. I feel lucky that when I presented it to the Longmont Symphony, everybody said, ‘Let’s do it!’”
Udow realized that the more or less random collection of stones that had been found was not really suitable for a piece all by themselves. He decided he needed to create a new instrument that as well as possible duplicated the nature and sound of the ancient ground stones: a modern lithophone that was tuned to play with a modern orchestra.
Michael Udow’s absolute black granite lithophone
This turned out to be a lengthy process, but one that paid off in the end. He visited granite quarries in Colorado, but none of them had stone that resonated well enough to be used in a musical instrument. He discovered that the best stone was absolute black granite from India, which fortunately he could get from Colorado manufacturers of granite countertops.
He ended up purchasing two slabs of black granite, only one of which had good acoustical qualities. He was able to have that one cut into bars of varying length, which could be tuned by delicately cutting and grinding the stone, using a circular saw with a diamond blade.
In the end Udow estimates he spent about $5000 of his own money for the granite, the shop time to produce the bars, the frame that holds them and special cases to protect the bars. But he ended up with a playable instrtrument.
The completed score is virtually a concerto for multi percussion with orchestra. Udow’s lithophone will be featured, along with a number of other instruments: a marimba, a vibraphone, gongs from Korea, drums from Japan, a bamboo rattle from Java and German cowbells. For the one performance Saturday, the soloist will also briefly play four of the original ancient stones before they are returned to their museum collection.
Udow decided to use instruments from other cultures because in his travels as a percussionist, he had played instruments all over the world and he wanted to capture not only the timelessness of the original stones, but the universal quality of music.
Percussion soloist Anthony Di Sanza
That also inspired Moore. “One of the main things that have kept me going is remembering that we’re bringing these things to life,” he says. “A fundamental human characteristic that we all share is, we love music. That’s been one of the great things about this whole process.”
The soloist for the performance, Anthony Di Sanza, is a former student of Udow who currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In fact, he will bring instruments that used to be Udow’s with him to fill out the solo percussion array.
One issue that Di Sanza will have to deal with is the width of the bars on Udow’s new lithophone. It turns out that the bars have never been standardized by percussion makers. “Michael sent me all of the dimensions of the instrument, including the overall length and height, and also the bar width,” Di Sanza says. “The bar width (of other instruments) can vary to small increments or great increments, so we get used to making that adjustment.”
Di Sanza has had at least some of the music since last summer. Talking by phone from his home last week, he reported “I am at the stage now where I’m playing through the piece, listening to the midi (digital recording). That’s really fun because there are three-and-a half different physical setups on the stage. I start at one place, move to a different place for another part, come back for a different part, move to a third setup.
“A particularly challenging thing is as you move from one place to the next, knowing here’s where I’m going next! So that’s really fun, and fairly common with multiple percussion in the western classical tradition. And we thought a lot about how the instruments are grouped, to make sure the audience could see into the setups, and see what’s happening.”
LSO conductor Elliot Moore
Moore selected the rest of the program to go with Udow’s piece, with some very specific reasons for both the Stravinsky and the Brahms. “I thought that Stravinsky’s Firebird, with the idea of the rising phoenix, was something that could work well with this concerto,” he says. “It was the idea of matching Michael’s piece with the Stravinsky where I thought we had a winning program.
“And the other thing (is), I haven’t done a Brahms symphony (in Longmont). We have a wonderful cellist that retired pre-pandemic, Carmen Olguin, and as she was walking offstage with me for the retirement, she said, ‘Elliot, if you ever program a Brahms symphony, would you let me come back and play it?’ And I said ‘Sure.’
“I’ve always had in my mind this woman who wanted to play a Brahms symphony so bad, and I never programmed one, and I thought this was a good time to do it. So she joined us again, for her first rehearsal in probably three years.”
Brahms’s First Symphony is very standard orchestral repertoire, but Moore says the audience will hear some new things Saturday. “We are looking at this with fresh eyes and fresh ears, and I think it’s going to feel fresh. We’re taking a direction that is little bit leaner and a little bit closer to what the score indicates, not über Romantic.”
“People are going to be interested to hear it if for no other reason, that reason.”
In case you wonder about the new instrument, Di Sanza will take it back to Wisconsin, and eventually take it to a percussion museum in Indianapolis where he and others can use it for performances. Udow also hopes that some day, someone else might want to write music for it.
“That would be a hope of mine, to share it,” he says.
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“Soundings: Past and Present” Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor With Anthony Di Sanza, percussion
Michael Udow: Ancient Echoes (World Premiere)
Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (1919 version)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C major
7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 23 Vance Brand Civic Auditorium, Longmont
NOTE: Effective immediately and until further notice, the Longmont Symphony no longer requires patrons to show proof of COVID vaccination, and masks will remain optional. This decision has been made with guidance from local, state, and federal officials.
Sharps & Flatirons 