Opening program features music by Bernstein, Shostakovich and Mahler

By Peter Alexander Oct. 1 at 10 p.m.

Elliot Moore is energized and inspired as he starts his second year as music director of the Longmont Symphony.

Elliot Moore with the Longmont Symphony

“I often think about conducting an orchestra as like driving a car,” he says, “and the orchestra is really fun to drive right now. How I’m able to do my job as music director has changed in a very positive way, because the level of musicianship continues to ascend.”

For evidence of the change, one need look no further than the recent auditions for places in the LSO, which kept the auditioning committee busy until 1 a.m. “It’s my understanding that we had about a 400% increase in people applying for the Longmont Symphony,” Moore says.

“I think that means that there is excitement about the Symphony, and that people want to take part in it. And it shows that the future of music in Longmont is very, very bright.”

The first concert of the 2018–19 season, a celebration of this year’s Bernstein Centennial, is Saturday (Oct. 6) in Vance Brand Civic Auditorium. Unlike other Bernstein concerts this year, the LSO is not playing any of the well known, popular works that we have heard recently. Instead, they will present one of the great under-appreciated works that Bernstein wrote, the Chichester Psalms.

Other works on the program are pieces by composers that Bernstein was associated with as conductor: Shostakovich’s aptly named Festive Overture, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.

The Chichester Psalms were composed in 1965 for a choral festival at Chichester Cathedral in England. The Hebrew text comes from several of the Psalms, including Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my Shepherd”). The setting is for a small orchestra of brass, percussion, two harps and strings, with a boy soprano, chorus and soloists.

The boy soprano will be Wade Hartrick of the Boulder Children’s Chorale, Kate Klotz, artistic director. The choral voices will be from the Longmont Chorale, Scott Hamlin, conductor.

The Chichester Psalms were written during the Vietnam War, and their call for unity and peace had both religious and political meanings. “One of the things that I find compelling about (the Chichester Psalms) is the overarching message about unity, and how unity is needed in the world,” Moore says.

“It’s beautiful how Bernstein uses melody and harmony to underscore his message, and the need for peace in the world. I find that to be a compelling message on the one hand, and today in our current political climate.”

King David as a boy, with harp

The second of the three movements distills Bernstein’s message. It opens with a beautiful melody, the boy soprano singing the 23^rd Psalm (“The Lord is my Shepherd”) with harp accompaniment. “The role of the harps is critical because the Psalms were written by King David,” Moore explains. “When David was a boy, he played the harp and sang to King Saul. That’s why there’s a boy soprano accompanied by harps at the beginning of the second movement.”

The melody sung by the boy is taken up by the women of the chorus, who are suddenly interrupted by a violent theme in the men’s voices, singing the 2^nd Psalm (“Why do the nations rage”). In the end, the women return with the opening theme, and the two different musical ideas—representing peace and war—are juxtaposed until the end of the movement.

The third movement ends with a moment of hopefulness, as the full chorus sings the 133^rd Psalm (“Behold how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity”). In a moment of exquisite tone painting, the voices of the choir gently resolve to a single note on the Hebrew word “Yaḥad,” meaning “unity.”

“There’s a lot of tone painting that’s in here,” Moore says. “Its’ a rich, rich score, an absolutely fabulous piece.”

Moore programmed the Shostakovich Festive Overture not only because it is a brilliant concert opener, but because Bernstein programmed and recorded so much of Shostakovich’s music. Shostakovich heard Bernstein performing his Fifth Symphony and other works when the New York Philharmonic toured the Soviet countries in 1959.

Bernstein was known for his flamboyant and exuberant performances, which were not always faithful to the pessimistic side of the Russian composer. “Lenny sometimes did some things in Shostakovich’s music that truly weren’t in the score,” Moore says, “but Shostakovich adored Bernstein.”

Elliot Moore

The programming of the Mahler symphony points to parallels between the two composer/conductors. “My intention was to draw the link between Bernstein and Mahler, both of whom were music directors of the New York Philharmonic,” Moore says. “At the same time I think there’s a subtler message, that conductors have a role in bringing great music to their audiences, and Bernstein did that with Mahler.”

Moore also sees a link to the theme of the entire season of the LSO. which is “Musical Journeys.” “Mahler’s First Symphony is absolutely a musical journey,” he says. Even before the First Symphony, Mahler had written his “Songs of a Wayfarer,” which described the loss of an unrequited love.

“He continues that narrative in the First Symphony, describing how he’s able to overcome (the loss),” Moore says. “He describes a whole journey that is a beautiful one to know about, a beautiful one to learn about, a beautiful one to listen to and experience in the concert hall, with this First Symphony.

“So this symphony goes along with what we are about this season, which is taking people on a journey.”

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“Happy Birthday, Lenny!”
Longmont Symphony, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Wade Hartrick, boy soprano

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6
Vance Brand Auditorium

Shostakovich: Festive Overture
Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
Mahler: Symphony No. 1

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NOTE: Corrected Oct. 8 to state that Wade Hartrick is a member of the Boulder Children’s Chorale, not the Colorado Children’s Chorale as was originally written.

“Tales from the Sea” features pieces by Mendelssohn, Elgar and Rimsky-Korsakov

By Peter Alexander April 3 at 5:10 p.m.

One of the things Elliot Moore has heard most about since becoming conductor of the Longmont Symphony is the 2013 flood.

2013 Flood in Longmont (Matthew Jonas/Times-Call)

Moore was first interviewed for the position with the LSO in November of 2016 and he was hired the following spring. The current 2017–18 season is his first with the orchestra.

“I heard over and over that the flood of 2013 was a pivotal moment for Longmont,” he says. “Hearing so many stories about the flood, and how it’s still affecting life today, was the impetus behind this program. Because everyone had a story about the flood, I thought a program around water stories would speak to a Longmont audience.”

Elliot Moore. Photo by Photography Maestro

The program in question will be performed 7:30 p.m. Saturday (April 7) in Vance Brand Auditorium. There are many pieces of music about water, but Moore decided on two short pieces before intermission, and one longer one after: Mendelssohn’s overture The Hebrides to open the concert; Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar, with mezzo-soprano Sarah Barber; and filling the second half of the program, Rimsky-Korsakov’s popular Arabian-nights tone-poem, Scheherazade.

The Hebrides are a group of rugged island off the west coast of Scotland. Mendelssohn visited the islands, and a particularly picturesque cave carved from hexagonal columns of basalt known as “Fingal’s Cave” (another name for Mendelssohn’s overture).

Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides

“The Hebrides could be described as a postcard that Mendelssohn wrote when he visited the Hebrides,” Moore says. “As an outsider coming into Longmont, all the feelings that people were conveying to me are things that are (in) Mendelssohn’s overture. It’s a nostalgic and lonely piece, but it also includes a communal feeling.”

If Mendelssohn’s overture will be familiar to many in the LSO audience, the same cannot likely be said of Elgar’s Sea Pictures. In fact, it was not well known to Moore before he started preparing for the concert.

“I didn’t know the piece that well when I programmed it,” he admits. “So it’s been a real opportunity for me to get to know the music, and I have fallen in love with this piece. On the program, this is the piece I’m most looking forward to conducting.”

Sir Edward Elgar at the beach

The Sea Pictures are five short movements, settings for mezzo and orchestra of five different poems by five different poets. “The water represents many things in Sea Pictures,” Moore says.

“It can represent the passage of time, and the feelings and the dangers for people when they’re around water. The third song is about a ship, and it’s a metaphor. The ship is essentially a congregation, and how we relate with other people and survive the challenging moments in our lives.

“It is spectacularly beautiful music that is rarely performed. I’m excited we’re bringing it here.”

Mezzo Sarah Barber

Barber is a graduate of CU Boulder who has performed extensively in the front range area. She has sung with the Eklund Opera at CU, at Central City Opera, Opera Ft. Collins, the Colorado Symphony, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and the Black Hills Symphony, among others. Twice a regional finalist of the Metropolitan Opera Guild Competition, she has won other awards in college and professionally.

While the first half of the concert expresses feelings Moore encountered when people talked about the flood—feelings of danger, of uncertainty, of loss—the music of the second half is more exotic and less exclusively about water. Scheherazade is based on the 1001 Nights, in which a young bride keeps herself alive by telling ever more gripping tales to her bloodthirsty husband.

The piece has four scenes that Rimsky describes in brilliant music that conveys a mood without being too literally programmatic. The first and last scenes are related to water and the sea. The movements are: ”The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship”; “The Kalandar Prince”; “The Young Prince and the Young Princess”; and “Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship breaks apart against a Cliff surmounted by a Bronze Horseman.”

There is one aspect of the story behind the music that Moore wants the audience to notice. “Over the course of the symphonic work, in many ways it becomes more critical that she tell a great story,” he says. “She’s coming to the end, and the question is, what will the end be? Will it be death?

“You can hear the voice of Scheherazade, which is the violin playing, as it becomes more and more urgent. And the sultan is so dying to know the end that he’s completely wrapped up in this story. So throughout the course of the work there is an evolution of the characters.”

You should also listen to the soloists within the orchestra, because Scheherazade is one of the great orchestra showpieces of the 19^th century. “There are a lot of solos, and one of the things that I like about it is that it features all the principal winds—it’s very virtuosic for so many players of the orchestra,” Moore says. “And of course, there’s the violin and there’s the harp as well!

“It’s quite a virtuosic piece for the orchestra.”

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“Tales from the Sea”
Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Sarah Barber, mezzo-soprano

Elliot Moore with the Longmont Symphony

Mendelssohn: The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave)
Elgar: Sea Pictures
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 7
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium, Longmont

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Veterans Day concert includes music by John Williams and Dvořák’s “New World”

By Peter Alexander

Conductor Elliot Moore and the Longmont Symphony Orchestra are approaching the 2017–18 season as a series of new frontiers.

Elliot Moore in Colorado. Courtesy of Photography Maestro.

There are new frontiers for the orchestra, which has its first new conductor in more than 30 years. There are new frontiers for Moore, who moved to Colorado from Detroit to lead the LSO. And there are new frontiers for the audience, with new repertoire and new takes on old repertoire all year.

In the next concert—7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, at Vance Brand Auditorium in Longmont—Moore and the LSO are celebrating “The American Frontier.” Because the concert falls on Veterans Day, the concert is presented “In Honor of our Veterans.”

“It occurred to me that with our second program falling on Veterans Day, that would be a wonderful opportunity (for) an American theme,” Moore says. “So I thought it would be good idea to make a statement about America and our music.”

All the pieces on the program are written by Americans or in America, and a couple are specifically patriotic. The concert will open with For the Uncommon Woman, composer Joan Tower’s 1992 response to Aaron Copland’s World War II Fanfare for the Common Man, which will open the second half of the concert.

Also on the program are “Hymn to the Fallen” from the film Saving Private Ryan by John Williams and Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, performed by violinist Andrew Sords. The concert will conclude with Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” written in the U.S. in 1893.

Joan Tower. Photo by Noah Sheldon.

Moore had a message in mind when he chose to open the program with Tower’s music. “It is a narrative in terms of what women can be doing,” he says. “Besides being equal partners to males in the military, women can be composers who have a lot to say, they can lead orchestras and be leaders in all different fields. So it’s a way of showing the possibilities that exist for equality.”

As a soloist and chamber musician, Sords spends a lot of time travelling. It’s not an easy life, but, he says, “Standing in front of an orchestra makes it all worth it, and I think how fortunate that I get to speak in the language of Samuel Barber.”

One of the most popular pieces Barber composed, the Violin Concerto combines soaring, Romantic melodies with jagged rhythms and spiky, contemporary harmonies. It is an unusually constructed work, with two leisurely, lyrical movements followed by a much shorter movement of non-stop virtuosity.

Andrew Sords

Sords admits that he only recently added the concerto too his repertoire, although people had been urging him to learn it for about 15 years. “I was the only 30-year-old violinist on the planet who had never played it,” he says, laughing. But now he loves the piece. “It’s indulgent but not syrupy,” he says. “It’s lush and you get to pull a large sound out of the strings. It’s such a feel-good piece.”

Sords has worked with Moore before and is happy to be a guest with the LSO. “I’m just thrilled to be up there on stage a for the 22 minutes I get to share with the Longmont Symphony and Elliot,” he says. “He is a wonderful, classy, completely prepared conductor. I feel very safe with him on the podium.”

In his preparation to conduct Dvořák’s “New World,” Moore has looked carefully at the composer’s original score as well as the symphony’s history. From the score he las learned that many performance traditions are not based on what Dvořák wrote, and from the history he has learned about some American influences on the work.

“My approach before with this piece was that it was essentially a Czech symphony, written in the United States,” he says. “And now that I’ve been studying more of the history, I think that it is much more of an American symphony, that truly would not have been the same symphony had he not lived in the United States.”

Among other American elements, he learned about an opera Dvořák planned based on Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. Although he never wrote the opera, it is possible that the slow movement and the scherzo of the symphony were based on ideas taken from the Hiawatha story. (Moore will discuss the history of the symphony and the possible connection to Hiawatha in a pre-performance discussion at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.)

Dvořák’s visit to America, Moore says, is only one of the “new American frontiers” represented by the concert. Those frontiers also include Aaron Copland’s creation of a unique American style, Joan Tower’s original and creative response to Copland’s fanfare, Samuel Barber’s composition of what Moore calls “the first great American violin concerto,” and the most American frontier of all, music written for film as represented by John Williams’ “Hymn to the Fallen.”

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The American Frontier—In Honor of our Veterans
Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor
With Andrew Sords, violin

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11
Pre-performance conversation: 6:30 p.m.
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium, Longmont

PROGRAM :

JOAN TOWER: For the Uncommon Woman (for Orchestra)
JOHN WILLIAMS: “Hymn to the Fallen” from Saving Private Ryan
SAMUEL BARBER: Violin Concerto
COPLAND: Fanfare for the Common Man
DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”

Concert Information and tickets
Box office: 303-772-5796

Elliot Moore, new music director, opens the 2017–18 season Oct. 7

By Peter Alexander

The Longmont Symphony Orchestra (LSO) enters a new era Saturday (Oct. 7), playing their first regular-season concert with recently-hired music director Elliot Moore.

New LSO director Elliot Moore loves living in Colorado.

Titled “New Frontiers with Old & New Friends,” it will be the first major concert since the full retirement of Robert Olson, who was music director of the LSO for 34 years. “Having a new music director after 34 years is an entirely new frontier, for the orchestra, and maybe for the community,” Moore says.

The idea of frontiers runs through the entire season, from “New Frontiers and Old Friends” Saturday, to a program titled “The American Frontier” on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, to spring concerts featuring a world premiere, music evocative of the sea, and the LSO’s first-ever chamber orchestra concert in the Longmont Museum’s Stewart Auditorium. (See the full season here.)

The frontier theme also has a personal meaning for Moore. “Moving out here is definitely a new frontier, for both me and my wife,” he says. “I’m very happy to say that we love it here, we’re having a fantastic time living in the community.”

The additional theme of friendships old and new runs through Saturday’s concert. Foremost of course is the fact that Moore is making many new friends as he settles into the Longmont community. But that idea is also reflected in the music Moore selected for the program: Slalom by CU composition professor Carter Pann, Rachmaninoff’s beloved Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with pianist Spencer Meyer, and Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

Pianist Spencer Meyer

The first half of this program is devoted to new friends, including the pianist playing the Rachmaninoff, Spencer Meyer. “He and I share the same artistic manager and we’ve been hearing about each other for a long time,” Moore says. “I’m really excited to be working with him for the first time.”

In a sense the Rachmaninoff might be thought of as an old friend for musicians and audiences alike. With its virtuoso exploration of Paganini’s famous theme—used by numerous composers as a subject for variations—and the beautifully tender 18^th variation, it’s a piece that everyone loves.

“Everybody does love this piece,” Moore says. “It has a lot to do with the great violinist Paganini and the story that Paganini sold his soul to the devil, and it includes the (melody of the) 13^th-century Dies Irae chant throughout the work.

“When you know the meaning (of the chant,) which is the Day of Wrath, I think it gives the music more meaning and enhances everyone’s experience.”

Composer Carter Pann

Pann is another new friend for Moore. “While we have never met, we’ve had wonderful exchanges on e-mail about his music,” he says. “I’m really excited to be working with him. Having such an incredible artist living right here within the community is inspiring.”

 Pann’s piece, describing a fast descent of a ski run, is filled with quotations from popular classical pieces. “In my head, I see Carter putting on his headphones,” Moore says. “He puts on his favorite playlist and starts zooming down the mountain. You’ll hear some works that are familiar to us all in his piece.”

Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the final piece on the program, is all about friendship. Each of the score’s 14 variations is a character sketch of one of Elgar’s friends. Elgar, who enjoyed puzzles, concealed the names of the people represented—some only slightly, by using their initials, others more carefully with puns or more cryptic designations. One titled “Romanza” is represented by a series of asterisks, which may stand for a local musical patron, who was away on a sea voyage, or a lost love of Elgar’s youth who had sailed to New Zealand years before.

Sir Edward Elgar

Perhaps the most famous variation is titled “Nimrod.” In it, Elgar paints a portrait of a close friend and associate, Augustus Jaeger. In German Jaeger means “hunter,” which suggested the Biblical name of Nimrod, “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Others portrayed in the piece include Elgar himself, his wife, and amateur musicians from Elgar’s circle.

Moore likes to note that some of the variations also tell a story that would be known to the subject. “One example is one of his friends, (who) liked to play fetch with his dog,” he explains. “The musical vignette is about playing a game of fetch, and the dog barking. That’s the story that the two of them knew about.”

The Enigma Variations can be enjoyed without knowing any of this, but Moore aims to provide as much information as possible. “I think the more you understand, the more fun you have,” he says. “I intend to give a talk, with some musical examples, to everyone who’s there.”

Enhancing listeners’ understanding and enjoyment of the concerts is one of Moore’s main goals as director of the LSO. Or in the poetic language of concert themes, introducing the audience to both new friends and old.

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Opening Night: New Frontiers with Old & New Friends
Longmont Symphony Orchestra, Elliot Moore, conductor
Spencer Meyer, piano
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6
Vance Brand Civic Auditorium, Longmont

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