14/15 vso allegro issue #4

A Sinatra CentennialCelebrating the 100th birthday of the legendary Frank Sinatra

VSO Kids' Koncerts: Inspector Tovey Meets Mozart

The 2015 Spring FestivalThe music and life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

March 18 to April 27, 2015 Volume 20, Issue 4

Magazine of the Vancouver SymphonyallegroLang LangWednesday, March 18

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First ViolinsDale Barltrop, ConcertmasterJoan Blackman, § Associate ConcertmasterNicholas Wright, Assistant ConcertmasterJennie Press, Second Assistant ConcertmasterMary Sokol BrownMrs. Cheng Koon Lee Chair

Jenny EssersAkira Nagai, Associate Concertmaster EmeritusXue Feng WeiRebecca WhitlingYi Zhou

Second ViolinsJason Ho, PrincipalKaren Gerbrecht, Associate Principal Jim and Edith le Nobel Chair

Jeanette Bernal-Singh, Assistant PrincipalAdrian Shu-On ChuiDaniel NortonAnn OkagaitoAshley Plaut

ViolasNeil Miskey, Principal Andrew Brown, Associate PrincipalStephen Wilkes, Assistant PrincipalLawrence BlackmanEstelle & Michael Jacobson Chair

Matthew DaviesEmilie Grimes Dr. Malcolm Hayes and Lester Soo Chair

Angela SchneiderProfessors Mr. & Mrs. Ngou Kang Chair

Ian Wenham

CellosAriel Barnes, PrincipalNezhat and Hassan Khosrowshahi Chair

Janet Steinberg, Associate PrincipalZoltan Rozsnyai, Assistant PrincipalOlivia Blander Gerhard and Ariane Bruendl Chair

Natasha Boyko Mary & Gordon Christopher Chair

Charles InkmanCristian Markos

BassesDylan Palmer, Principal David BrownJ. Warren LongFrederick Schipizky

FlutesChristie Reside, Principal Ron & Ardelle Cliff Chair

Nadia Kyne, Assistant Principal Rosanne Wieringa Michael & Estelle Jacobson Chair

PiccoloNadia KyneHermann & Erika Stölting Chair

OboesRoger Cole, PrincipalWayne & Leslie Ann Ingram Chair

Beth Orson, Assistant Principal

Karin WalshPaul Moritz Chair

English HornBeth OrsonChair in Memory of John S. Hodge

ClarinetsJeanette Jonquil, Principal Cris Inguanti, § Assistant Principal David Lemelin

E-flat ClarinetDavid Lemelin

Bass ClarinetCris Inguanti §

BassoonsJulia Lockhart, PrincipalSophie Dansereau, Assistant Principal Gwen Seaton

ContrabassoonSophie Dansereau

French HornsOliver de Clercq, PrincipalBenjamin Kinsman Werner & Helga Höing Chair

David Haskins, Associate PrincipalAndrew MeeWinslow & Betsy Bennett Chair

Richard Mingus, Assistant Principal

TrumpetsLarry Knopp, Principal Marcus Goddard, Associate Principal

Vincent Vohradsky W. Neil Harcourt in memory of Frank N. Harcourt Chair

TrombonesMatthew Crozier, Principal Gregory A. Cox

Bass TromboneDouglas Sparkes Arthur H. Willms Family Chair

TubaPeder MacLellan, Principal

TimpaniAaron McDonald, Principal

PercussionVern Griffiths, PrincipalMartha Lou Henley Chair

Tony Phillipps

HarpElizabeth Volpé Bligh, Principal

Piano, CelesteLinda Lee Thomas, PrincipalCarter (Family) Deux Mille Foundation Chair

Orchestra Personnel ManagerDeAnne Eisch

Music LibrarianMinella F. LacsonMaster Carpenter Pierre Boyard

Master ElectricianLeonard Lummis

Piano TechnicianThomas Clarke

*Supported by The Canada Council for the Arts

§ Leave of Absence

Vancouver Symphony OrchestraBRAMWELL TOVEY MUSIC DIRECTORKAZUYOSHI AKIYAMA CONDUCTOR LAUREATEGORDON GERRARD ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR*Marsha & George Taylor Chair

JOCELYN MORLOCK COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE*MARCUS GODDARD COMPOSER-IN-ASSOCIATION

We welcome your comments on this magazine. Please forward them to: Vancouver Symphony, 500 – 833 Seymour Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 0G4 Allegro contact and advertising enquiries: [email protected] / customer service: 604.876.3434 / VSO office: 604.684.9100 / website: vancouversymphony.ca Allegro staff: published by The Vancouver Symphony Society / editor/publisher: Anna Gove / contributors: Cover photo credit: Jonathon Vaughn, Epix Studios / Don Anderson / art direction, design & production: bay6 creative inc. Printed in Canada by Web Impressions. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written consent is prohibited. Contents copyrighted by the Vancouver Symphony, with the exception of material written by contributors.

Allegro Magazine has been endowed by a generous gift from Adera Development Corporation.

In this IssueThe Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Allegro Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Government Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Message from the Chairman . . . . . . . . . . 7Cherniavsky Laureate Pianist . . . . . . . . . 11VSO Mobile Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21VSO Musician Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Vancouver Symphony Foundation . . . . . 51Patrons’ Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52VSO School of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53VSO Group Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54VSO Gift Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56Advertise in Allegro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58VSO Stradivarius Legacy Circle . . . . . . . 60Corporate Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68At the Concert / VSO Staff. . . . . . . . . . . . 70Board of Directors / Volunteer Council . . 71VSO Upcoming Concerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

allegroMarch 18 to April 27, 2015 / Volume 20, Issue 4

Magazine of the Vancouver Symphony

9 Bramwell Tovey

17Yevgeny

Sudbin

9Katherine Chi

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@VSOrchestra

57Jeffrey Kahane

28VSO SpringFest:

Mozart Plus

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23Tony DeSare

26 VSO Musician Profiles: Jason Ho

9Lang Lang

ConcertsMARCH 18 / Specials / Lang Lang with the VSO! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Bramwell Tovey conductor, Lang Lang piano

MARCH 21, 23 / Air Canada Masterworks Diamond / Ryan McAdams conductor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Yevgeny Sudbin piano

MARCH 30 / Specials / The Best is Yet to Come: A Sinatra Centennial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Steven Reineke conductor, Tony DeSare vocalist/piano, Ed Decker guitar, Steve Doyle bass, Michael Klopp drums

APRIL 10 / VSO SpringFest: Mozart Plus / Amadeus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28APRIL 11 / VSO SpringFest: Mozart Plus / Mozart and Salieri / Bramwell Tovey conductor . . . . . . .31 Michael Colvin tenor, James Westman baritone, Dean Paul Gibson stage director

APRIL 13 / VSO SpringFest: Mozart Plus / The Legend of Don Juan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Bramwell Tovey conductor, James Westman baritone

APRIL 16 / VSO SpringFest: Mozart Plus / Jupiter! / Bramwell Tovey conductor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41APRIL 18 / VSO SpringFest: Mozart Plus / The Great Requiem / Bramwell Tovey conductor . . . . . .45 Melanie Krueger soprano, Marion Newman mezzo-soprano, Colin Ainsworth tenor, Stephen Hegedus baritone, UBC Opera Ensemble

APRIL 19 / Kids’ Koncerts / Inspector Tovey Meets Mozart / Bramwell Tovey conductor . . . . . . . . .55 Orpheum Voices

APRIL 24, 25, 27 / Classical Traditions / Surrey Nights / Jeffrey Kahane leader/piano. . . . . . . . . . .57APRIL 26 / Vancouver Sun Symphony at the Annex / Touching a String. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 Gordon Gerrard conductor, Elizabeth Volpe harp

23Steven Reineke

The Vancouver Symphony Society is grateful to the Government of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts,Province of British Columbia and the BC Arts Council,and the City of Vancouver for their ongoing support.

The combined investment in the VSO by the three levels of government annually funds over 28% of the cost of the orchestra’s extensive programs and activities.

This vital investment enables the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra to present over 150 life-enriching concerts in 16 diverse venues throughout the Lower Mainland and Whistler, attract some of the world’s best musicians to live and work in our community, produce Grammy® and Juno® award-winning recordings, tour domestically and internationally, and, through our renowned educational programs, touch the lives of over 50,000 children annually.

Thank you!Christy Clark, Premier of British Columbia

Shelly Glover, Minister of Canadian Heritage and

Official Languages

Gregor Robertson, Mayor of Vancouver

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Dear Friends,

With many more wonderful concerts to come in this our 96th Season, it is also the time of year when Maestro Bramwell Tovey, our Music Director, announces the VSO’s plans for our upcoming 97th Season. Subscribers have received a new Season brochure in the mail, with an invitation to renew their subscription for the 2015/2016 Season, and be the first to purchase tickets to the wide variety of exciting specials, including the highly-anticipated return of legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman.

The 2015/2016 Season contains a treasure trove of classical masterpieces, by composers such as Beethoven, Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, and many more. In addition, we are pleased to be continuing several successful new initiatives, including the annual VSO Spring Festival, featuring an exciting War of the Romantics spotlighting the music of Brahms and Wagner; the New Music Festival; and a concert celebrating the Lunar New Year, with Vancouver-born pianist, Avan Yu.

In the VSO Pops series, we bring back one of the most successful Pops concerts of the last decade, Fifty Years of James Bond; a sensational evening of Tango; a trip to the bright lights of Broadway; and much more.

We are pleased to continue our series of concerts at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at U.B.C., the Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver, the Bell Performing Arts Centre in Surrey, the contemporary music series at the Orpheum Annex, and the VSO Chamber Players Series in Pyatt Hall.

And of course, the season also includes several programs for children and their families in the Elementary School Concerts, Kids' Koncerts and Tiny Tots series as part of our renowned education and community programs, experienced by over 50,000 children each year.

There is something in the VSO’s 97th Season for every musical taste, and many benefits to being a VSO subscriber. If you have not received a brochure for next season, and would like one, simply call us at 604.876.3434, pick up a copy at the box office or in the lobby at today’s concert, or visit our website at vancouversymphony.ca. We look forward to having you with us for another season of great music and inspiration

At the VSO we work every day to fulfill our purpose: to enrich and transform lives through music. We do this by presenting passionate, high-quality performances of classical, popular and culturally diverse music, creating meaningful engagement with audiences of all ages and backgrounds wherever we perform, and developing and delivering inspirational education and community programs. Your ongoing support helps make all this possible.

Please enjoy today’s concert.

Sincerely yours,

Fred G. Withers Chair, Board of Directors

FRED G. WITHERS

Message from the VSO Chairman

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VISIT THE SYMPHONY GIFT SHOP FOR CD SELECTIONS

SPECIALS ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

Wednesday, March 18Bramwell Tovey conductorLang Lang piano(Cherniavsky Laureate pianist)

BEETHOVEN Egmont, Op. 84: Overture

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 I. Allegro con brio II. Andante con moto III. Allegro IV. Allegro

INTERMISSION

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453 I. Allegro II. Andante III. Allegretto

Concert Program

◆◆

PRESENTING SPONSOR

LANG LANG

BRAMWELL TOVEY

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Bramwell Tovey, O.C. conductor

Grammy® and Juno® award-winning conductor/composer Bramwell Tovey was appointed Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 2000. Under his leadership the VSO has toured to China, Korea, and across Canada and the United States. Mr. Tovey is also the Artistic Adviser of the VSO School of Music, a state-of-the-art facility which opened in downtown Vancouver in 2011 next to the Orpheum, the VSO’s historic home. His tenure at the VSO has included complete symphony cycles of Beethoven, Mahler, and Brahms; as well as the establishment of an annual festival dedicated to contemporary music. In 2018,

the VSO’s centenary year, he will become the orchestra’s Music Director Emeritus.In the 14/15 season Mr. Tovey will make guest appearances with leading US orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Kansas City Symphony. In Europe he will perform with the BBC Philharmonic and the Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester, and will travel to Australia for engagements with the symphonies of Melbourne and Sydney.During the 13/14 season Mr. Tovey’s guest appearances included the BBC and Royal Philharmonics; the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics; and the Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Toronto Symphonies.In 2003 Mr. Tovey won the Juno® Award for

MRS. B.T. ROGERS (1869–1965), MR. JAN CHERNIAVSKY (1892–1989)

C H E R N I AV S K Y L A U R E AT E C H A I RCherniavsky

The Vancouver Symphony Society is grateful to the Gudewill family who, in honour of their mother, Mrs. Janey Gudewill, uncle, Mr. Peter Cherniavsky, grandfather, Mr. Jan Cherniavsky and great grandmother, Mrs. B.T. Rogers have established a fund to create the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Cherniavsky Laureate Chair.

Each season, the fund supports the appearance of a distinguished guest pianist with the VSO. Lang Lang joins us as the tenth Cherniavsky Laureate, performing with Maestro Tovey and the VSO at the Orpheum Theatre on March 18 at 8pm.

Mrs. Rogers co-founded the Vancouver Symphony Society in 1919, served as President of the Society from 1931 to 1938, and as Honorary Life President, continuing to sustain it with her financial support and inspirational leadership until her passing in 1965. Jan Cherniavsky, a renowned concert pianist, performed as soloist with the VSO on numerous occasions and in 1967 founded the Cherniavsky Junior Club for the Performing Arts. He was its spiritual leader until his death in 1989. The CJCPA is an endowment to fund costs associated with children’s concerts during class time for schools throughout the province. Last year, nearly 9,000 children attended such concerts, with the hope of reaching even more students in the future.

The Gudewills are the 4th generation in this extraordinary family to support the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Support for which we are most grateful.

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Best Classical Composition for his choral and brass work Requiem for a Charred Skull. Commissions have included works for the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Toronto Symphony, and Calgary Opera who premiered his first full length opera The Inventor in 2011. Earlier in 2014 his trumpet concerto, Songs of the Paradise Saloon, was performed by the LA Philharmonic with Alison Balsom as soloist, who also performed the work with the Philadelphia Orchestra in December 2014.A talented pianist as well as conductor and composer, he has appeared as soloist with many major orchestras including the New York, Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St Louis, Toronto, and Royal Scottish orchestras. In the summer of 2014 he played and conducted Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Phil, and in Saratoga with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has performed his own Pictures in the Smoke with the Melbourne and Helsingborg Symphonies and the Royal Philharmonic.Mr. Tovey is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and holds honorary degrees from the universities of British Columbia and Manitoba. In 2013 he was appointed an honorary Officer of the Order of Canada for services to music.

Lang Lang piano

(Cherniavsky Laureate pianist)

Lang Lang is one of today’s most iconic, transformative, and recognizable figures in classical music. Inspiring millions around the world, he is not only a performer, but a powerful ambassador for classical music. He has been featured on every major concert and recital stage worldwide. He was honoured to perform recently for President Obama and former President Hu Jin-Tao of China at the White House State Dinner, as well as at the Diamond Jubilee celebratory concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.Accolades include Honorary Doctorates from the Royal College of Music and the Manhattan

School of Music, the highest prize awarded by China’s Ministry of Culture, Germany’s Order of Merit, and France’s Medal of the Order of Arts and Letters. Yet, with the numerous honors, he never forgets what first inspired, and continues to inspire him musically: great composers and their music. He still has a childlike excitement at the discovery of music and this is what propels him in what he calls “his second career,” bringing music into the lives of children around the world both through his work for the United Nations as a Messenger of Peace, and through his own Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

Ludwig van Beethoven b. Bonn, Germany / baptized December 17, 1770 d. Vienna, Austria / March 26, 1827

Egmont, Op. 84: Overture Johann Wolfgang von Goethe completed his play Egmont in 1778. In 1809, the directors of Vienna’s City Theatre approached Beethoven to compose a score to accompany a revival of it. He accepted the offer eagerly, Goethe being one of his favourite writers. His score includes an overture and several additional pieces. He and Goethe shared interests in personal independence, integrity, and resistance to tyranny. These are the very issues that Goethe deals with in Egmont. It takes place in Brussels during the sixteenth century, when the Netherlands lay under Spanish occupation. The King of Spain’s representative has the local resistance leader, Count Egmont, imprisoned and condemned to death. His grief-stricken wife takes her own life. The night before Egmont’s execution, she appears to him in a dream, transformed into the goddess of freedom. She foretells that his death will inspire his countrymen first to rebellion, then to the re-establishment of their liberty. Heartened by this vision, Egmont is able to face his execution with dignity.

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 After several years of intermittent work, Beethoven completed the Fifth Symphony early in 1808. It and the Sixth premiered at

the same concert, in Vienna in December 1808 (albeit in reverse order of their numbering).

It has perhaps the most familiar opening of any piece of classical orchestral music. This is also, surely, the most intense, even obsessive first movement anyone had written up to that time. Beethoven’s friend Anton Schindler, whose reminiscences are not always to be trusted, claimed that the composer pointed to the opening notes in the score and stated, “Thus fate knocks at the door!” That opening rhythm appears in almost every bar of the first movement. Whether listeners take the analogy that Schindler mentions literally or metaphorically, it is clear that Beethoven was addressing momentous concepts in this music.

Recognizing the need to follow such a revolutionary tempest with something relaxed and traditional, in the second movement Beethoven offered a Haydn-esque set of variations, cast as a nonchalant stroll punctuated with pompous fanfares. The third movement is a dark, dramatic scherzo. After the whispered opening on the strings, the horns introduce a bold theme, clearly related to the opening movement’s first subject. Later, Beethoven puts the lower strings through some spectacular paces.

The scherzo’s closing measures, veiled in uncertainty, point to a tragic conclusion. In another act of symphonic innovation, Beethoven led us straight on to the finale. The path lies through a tunnel, echoing eerily with the muffled, heart-like beat of the timpani, the rhythm once again recalling the symphony’s opening motive. Then with heart-stirring suddenness, we emerge into the blazing sunlight of a glorious new dawn. Beethoven gave extra colour and solidity to this exhilarating finale (which includes a reprise of the main scherzo theme) by bringing piccolo, trombones and contrabassoon into the symphonic orchestra for the first time.

With this section, Beethoven and his listeners concluded an emotional journey from darkness to light, the first such expedition undertaken in a symphony. This sequence of moods has the power to stir audiences

on a fundamental level, embracing them in a common sense of victory. It also holds out the promise of hope, a tonic whose necessity never fades.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart b. Salzburg, Austria / January 27, 1756 d. Vienna, Austria / December 5, 1791

Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453 In May 1781, Mozart was unceremoniously discharged from the service of Hieronymous Colleredo, Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. Delighted to be free from this unappreciative and demeaning relationship, he relocated from the cultural backwater of Salzburg to the bustling musical metropolis of Vienna. The city was ripe for artists with his talent and drive, and before long he was deep into a busy schedule of teaching, composing and performing.

In a burst of activity characterized by equal parts concentration and innovation, he composed twelve superlative piano concertos between February 1784 and December 1786. They are deeper in feeling, broader in scope and richer in colour than any written before. In years to come, they would serve as models of their kind, ones from which Beethoven, Brahms and other similarly high-minded composers would take inspiration.

The premieres of most of them followed within days of their completion, but this concerto in G Major proved an exception. As he had done with Concerto No. 14, Mozart wrote it for a favourite pupil, eighteen year-old Barbara Ployer. She was the daughter of Prince Archbishop Colleredo’s agent in Vienna. He completed it on April 12, 1784, and Ms. Ployer played the first performance on June 10.

“The Andante ranges especially widely, from tenderness to troubled questioning.”

The concerto’s opening movement carries an undercurrent of the military march, but one overlaid with a sturdy veneer of gentility. Like all three sections, it embraces a wide variety of moods and episodes. The Andante ranges especially widely, from tenderness to troubled questioning. Mozart clears the air in his finale, a set of variations of a slightly naïve theme, one entirely suitable for a comic opera. He managed to teach it to a pet bird, a starling, that he bought soon after composing it! Mozart’s treatment of the theme is anything but naïve. It grows in sophistication and exhilaration to climax in a final, dashing Presto. ■Program Notes © 2015 Don Anderson

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AIR CANADA MASTERWORKS DIAMOND ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

Saturday & Monday, March 21 & 23Ryan McAdams conductorYevgeny Sudbin piano

MUSSORGSKY (ARR. SHOSTAKOVICH) Khovantchina: Introduction (Dawn on the Moskva River)

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor I. Allegro ma non troppo e molto maestoso — Allegro con spirito II. Andantino simplice III. Allegro con fuoco

INTERMISSION

STRAVINSKY Symphony in Three Movements I. Allegro II. Andante — Interlude III. Con moto

RAVEL Rapsodie espagnole I. Prélude à la Nuit II. Malagueña III. Habanera IV. Feria

PRE-CONCERT TALKS with Jocelyn Morlock free to ticketholders at 7:05pm.

Concert Program

◆◆

MASTERWORKS DIAMOND SERIES SPONSOR

YEVGENY SUDBIN

RYAN MCADAMS

MARCH 23 CONCERT SPONSOR

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Ryan McAdams conductor

Ryan McAdams is quickly establishing himself as one of the most exciting and versatile conductors of his generation. A Fulbright scholar, he previously served as Apprentice Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, assisting then-Chief Conductor Alan Gilbert. Mr. McAdams is the first-ever recipient of the Sir Georg Solti Emerging Conductor Award, a $10,000 grant given by the Solti Foundation in Chicago. Mr. McAdams begins his 2014/15 season in France to conduct the Opera National de Lorraine in performances of Britten’s Owen Wingrave, as well as a concert of Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff with the opera orchestra. He is then engaged to conduct concerts with the Vancouver Symphony, followed by performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.A graduate of the Juilliard conducting program, Mr. McAdams was the first Master's degree candidate accepted into Juilliard by James DePreist, and is a recipient of the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship.

Yevgeny Sudbin piano

Yevgeny Sudbin has been hailed by London’s Daily Telegraph as “potentially one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century.”

His world-wide recitals have included appearances in New York City, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Montréal, Seattle, Vancouver, Milan, and many in the U.K. On the concert stage, he has performed with London Philharmonic, Indianapolis, New Jersey, and Taiwan Symphony Orchestras; Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra and Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in Lincoln Center, and has performed and recorded with North Carolina, Saõ Paulo, and Singapore Symphonies.

Highly anticipated 14/15 engagements include North Carolina, Santa Rosa, and Kansas City Symphonies. Sudbin will also give recitals in NYC, Boston, and St. Paul, MN among others. He also continues his

longstanding exclusive recording contract with the Swedish recording company BIS.

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia; Sudbin studied with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music in London, the city where he now lives his wife and two young children.

Modest Mussorgsky b. Karevo, Russia / March 21, 1839 d. St. Petersburg, Russia / March 28, 1881

Khovantchina: Introduction (Dawn on the Moskva River) During the 1870s, Mussorgsky composed numerous sketches for what he called a “music drama of the people,” Khovantchina (The Khovansky Plot). Left incomplete at his death, it was edited, completed and orchestrated by his friend, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto, based on Russian history of the late seventeenth century, tells of the struggle waged by various political and religious factions over the country’s destiny. In the gentle, atmospheric Introduction, the first rays of the winter sun strike the golden domes of the Kremlin in Moscow, at a moment that witnesses not only the break of a new day, but the dawn of the reforms, shortly to be instigated by Tsar Peter the Great, that would change Russia forever. This concert will present an arrangement that Dmitri Shostakovich, a great admirer of Mussorgsky and a composer much influenced by him, prepared in 1959.

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky b. Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia / May 7, 1840 d. St. Petersburg, Russia / November 6, 1893

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 This ever-popular concerto caused a rift between Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rubinstein. After composing it over the year-end holidays of 1874-1875, Tchaikovsky played it through for Rubinstein, an accomplished pianist. To Tchaikovsky’s horror, Rubinstein condemned every aspect of the piece. Tchaikovsky made a few changes in response to Rubinstein’s comments, but he refused to undertake anything like the massive overhaul Rubinstein suggested.

Perhaps fearing that the concerto might meet with a frosty reception in front of his friends and colleagues, he arranged for German pianist Hans von Bülow to give the premiere, in America. The first performance took place in Boston in October 1875. Tchaikovsky needn’t have worried. The concerto scored a sensational triumph, launching it on the path to its indestructible popularity.

The broad canvas of the opening movement begins with a sweeping introductory section. The balance of this movement contrasts a lively first theme with a pair of wistful, haunting counter-subjects. An elaborate development section ushers in a substantial, dramatic solo cadenza. A brief, forceful coda concludes the movement.

The outer panels of the slow movement are all wistfulness and tender romance, framing a bright, tripping middle section that quotes a French popular song entitled Il faut s’amuser et rire (We must enjoy ourselves and laugh). The finale bursts forth with a vigorous Ukrainian folk tune, then melts into one of

those lyrical tunes so typical of Tchaikovsky. A thunderous climax and a scampering conclusion bring the concerto home.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky b. Oranienbaum, Russia / June 17, 1882 d. New York, USA / April 6, 1971

Symphony in Three Movements Sketches for the opening movement of this piece date back at least as far as 1942. The following year, Stravinsky’s friend, author Franz Werfel, encouraged him to compose a score for the Hollywood film based on Werfel’s novel The Song of Bernadette. Stravinsky made sketches for the scene where the young French woman Bernadette sees an apparition of the Virgin Mary, but the project came to nothing.

When the New York Philharmonic Society commissioned a symphony, Stravinsky found that the 1942 sketches were suitable for a first movement, and the unused Bernadette

music, a second. He completed the symphony in 1945, and conducted the first performance himself in January 1946.

“A powerful, furious opening for full orchestra ushers in the driving first movement.”

In its early years, it was referred to as the ‘War Symphony.’ Stravinsky had mixed feelings about outside influences on his music. He admitted that he had found inspiration for the last movement, in particular, in world events of the day, only to continue, “the symphony is not programmatic. Composers combine notes. That is all. How and in what form the things of this world are impressed upon their music is not for them to say.”

A powerful, furious opening for full orchestra ushers in the driving first movement. Lighter episodes crop up, but they never dilute the music’s headlong momentum. The second movement is cool, more lightly scored, almost balletic. It provides the perfect setting for the solo spotlight to shift from the clangorous, earthly tones of the piano to the angelic strains of the harp. Stravinsky refuses to indulge the instrument. He provides music of objective, Neo-Classical clarity instead of cloying Romantic sweetness. A brief, increasingly anxious interlude

provides a bridge to the strident march-rhythms that open the finale. Returning to the more fulsome orchestration of the opening movement, Stravinsky here recalled something of the barbarity of The Rite of Spring. After some moments of uncertainty, he launched the fugue whose increasingly triumphant working-out brings the symphony to a strong, satisfying conclusion.

Maurice Ravel b. Ciboure, Basses Pyrénées, France / March 7, 1875 d. Paris, France / December 28, 1937

Rapsodie espagnoleThe music of Spain echoes through several Ravel compositions. Rapsodie espagnole (Spanish Rhapsody, 1907), his earliest work to show this influence, is in effect a four-movement dance suite. The opening section, Prélude à la Nuit (Prelude to Night) paints a misty, sensuous portrait of a warm, star-filled night. An example of the Malagueña, a flamenco-style Spanish dance, offers contrasting animation in the following brief, scherzo-like segment. Next comes Habanera (an Afro-Cuban dance form), a largely quiet interlude that moves languorously forward on a slow, sinuous dance rhythm. The concluding section, Feria, is riotous portrait of a Spanish folk fair. ■Program Notes © 2015 Don Anderson

THE VSO HAS GONE MOBILE!check out the mobile website at vancouversymphony.ca Concert listings, photos/bios, concert planning, and ticket sales — all at your fingertips!

@VSOrchestra

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SPECIAL ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

Monday, March 30The Best is Yet to Come: A Sinatra CentennialSteven Reineke conductor Tony DeSare vocalist/pianoEd Decker guitarSteve Doyle bassMichael Klopp drums

Selections Include:

KANDER/EBB (ARR. BILL ELLIOTT) New York, New York

COLE PORTER (ARR. RIDDLE/PRICE) I’ve Got You Under My Skin

RODGERS/HART (ARR. RIDDLE/REINEKE) The Lady is a Tramp

COLE PORTER (ARR. RIDDLE/BERENS ) Night and Day

CY COLEMAN/CAROLYN LEIGH (ARR. QUINCY JONES) The Best Is Yet to Come

CLAUDE FRANCOIS/JACQUES REVAUX (ENGLISH LYRICS BY PAUL ANKA ORCH. TEDD FIRTH) My Way

KURT WEILL (ARR. REINEKE) Mack The Knife

FRANK LOESSER (ARR. BILLY MAY) Luck Be a Lady

HAROLD ARLEN/JOHNNY MERCER (ARR. CHRIS BYERS) One for My Baby

Concert Program

CONCERT SPONSOR


TONY DESARE

STEVEN REINEKE

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Steven Reineke conductor

Steven Reineke’s boundless enthusiasm and exceptional artistry have made him one of the nation’s most sought-after pops conductors, composers and arrangers. Mr. Reineke is the Music Director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Principal Pops Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Principal Pops Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He previously held the posts of Principal Pops Conductor of the Long Beach and Modesto Symphony Orchestras and Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.As the creator of more than one hundred orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Mr. Reineke’s work has been performed worldwide, and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. A native of Ohio, Mr. Reineke is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, where he earned bachelor of music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition. He currently resides in New York City with his partner Eric Gabbard.

Tony DeSare vocalist/piano

Named a “Rising Star” Male Vocalist in Downbeat magazine DeSare has lived up to the distinction by winning critical and popular acclaim for his concert performances throughout North America and abroad. From

jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall to Las Vegas headlining with Don Rickles, Tony has brought his fresh take on old school class around the globe. DeSare has three top ten Billboard jazz albums under his belt and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, NPR, the Today Show and his music was even recently posted by social media celebrity juggernaut, George Takei.

Notwithstanding his critically acclaimed turns as a singer/pianist, Tony is also an accomplished award-winning composer. He not only won first place in this year’s USA Songwriting Contest, but Tony has also written the theme song for the motion picture, My Date With Drew, along with several broadcast commercials. His compositions include a wide-range of romantic, funny and soulful tunes that can be found on his top-selling recordings as well as on his YouTube page, and on iTunes.

Some of Tony’s appearances this season include New York’s 54 Below, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, The Philly Pops, National Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Stamford Center for the Arts, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, The New York Pops and Jazz Roots at the Dr. Philips Center for the Arts in Orlando, FL.

“Singer, songwriter and pianist Tony DeSare, who might be described as two parts young Sinatra to one part Billy Joel, meshed seamlessly...” The New York Times

Tony DeSare is a Yamaha Artist. ■

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MUSICIAN PROFILE SERIES: JASON HO PRINCIPAL SECOND VIOLIN

Sometimes you have to walk away and come back to know what music means to you.

“”

THERE AREN’T MANY PROFESSIONS where one gets paid for a skill they started working on as a small child. But for a professional orchestra musician it’s a necessity. When watching professional orchestra musicians play, we, the audience, get to watch their life’s work play out, quite literally, in front of our eyes.

Jason Ho is the VSO’s newly appointed Principal Second Violin, and when you watch him on stage, you’re seeing the result of a lifetime of work and dedication flourish and evolve on the stage at every concert. But Jason’s dedication to music wasn’t always so certain. In fact, at one point he walked away.

The four year-old violinistMy parents aren’t musical in any way; my dad was an engineer at TELUS and my mom worked for Canada Post. According to them I started the violin at four years-old at my own request, and thankfully I had a wonderful teacher named Don Lum who was firm when he needed to be but also very encouraging. My parents have also been very supportive all throughout my career.”

Sometimes, you’ve got to walk away“In my teens I was like most 16 year-olds; all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends. The violin had lost its appeal and I didn’t know what place it had in my life so I stopped playing altogether. I literally didn’t touch my violin for three years. But, sometimes you have to walk away and come back to know what music means to you.

After high school I took a few years off before beginning University, and at 19 years-old I started slowly playing my violin again. I’ll never forget that feeling of picking up my violin again for the first time-it felt so foreign. I had literally forgotten how to play! At 21, I began my degree at the UBC School of Music studying with Andrew Dawes, and joined the UBC Symphony Orchestra. That was a real turning point for me because I had never played in an orchestra before. Most young string players grow up

“

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playing in youth orchestras but I hadn’t. In fact my first live symphonic performance was with the UBC Symphony playing with the VSO at the Orpheum. We played Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5 and it was such an eye-opening experience.”

Battling nerves“In the fourth year of my undergrad studies I decided I wanted to pursue the life of being an orchestra musician but I was really battling with my nerves when I performed. When you’re a kid playing the violin you’re so free; you haven’t learned tension or fear or doubt. I remember my first studio class in university playing for my peers. I was so nervous that my bow just kept bouncing all around because I was shaking so badly! It was a mess.”

Practice, practice, practice“For my M.Mus I went to the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM). The level of playing there was incredibly high so I locked myself in a practice room for a minimum of six hours a day, every day, and practiced. I knew that I had to do it because I’d never have that much time again to practice in my life. Now that I’m a father of two with a full-time orchestral job, a member of the Koerner Quartet, and also a teacher, I find that sometimes the only time I get to practice is after my family’s gone to sleep; and sometimes that means practicing until 2 or 3 in the morning. I take my responsibilities in the orchestra very seriously, and that means being prepared to the best of my ability. People ask me if I still get nervous and yes I do—I think everyone does, to some extent—but it’s more out of excitement now. I’ve learned that preparation is key to calming my nerves.”

Getting here “I auditioned four times to get a full-time job in the first violin section at the VSO, and then another two auditions plus a trial to be awarded the Principal Second Violin position. It’s been a tremendously exciting year for me in my new position, and my colleagues have been incredibly supportive. For me, the most difficult

part of being a Second violinist has been the development of awareness and listening skills. Not only are we in a support role to the First violins, but we often times have material with the Viola and Cello sections. It’s very much like playing chamber music!”

Collaboration “I feel incredibly fortunate to have been afforded this opportunity to lead the Second Violins of the VSO. I really can’t say enough good things about my colleagues, both in my section and around the orchestra. I just love the communication between the sections, and they continue to inspire me.

If I were to sum up my experience of playing in the VSO, I would say that it’s such an incredible feeling to be able to collaborate with a group of people who have dedicated their entire lives to their craft, and to think-this is my job! I love it. ”

MOZARTPLUS!

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The 2015 VSO SPRING FESTIVAL focuses on the music of the greatest composer who ever lived, and one of history’s greatest creative geniuses: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Beginning with the Oscar®-winning film Amadeus, MOZART PLUS explores the music of this extraordinary composer, and the writings of some of the many composers who were influenced by his miraculous music.

Maestro Bramwell Tovey and the VSO lead us through Mozart’s life and career, starting with two very different explorations of the apocryphal legend of Salieri’s poisoning of Mozart; we hear Mozart’s very first symphony, as well as his three last, great symphonies; an aria from Don Giovanni; one of Mozart’s great Serenades; funeral music written for Mozart’s Masonic Lodge; and his last composition, the Requiem — an unfinished work that lay at Mozart’s bedside as he died a tragically- early death at the age of 36.

Along the way, we also explore the results of Richard Strauss’s life-long worship of Mozart as a “god of composition” in his treatment of the story of Don Juan, also the subject of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni; Tchaikovsky’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of that same Mozart opera; the intertwined music and history of Haydn, Brahms and Mozart; and Rimsky-Korsakov’s operatic take on the legend of Mozart and Salieri.

Join Maestro Tovey and the VSO for SPRINGFEST 2015: MOZART PLUS.

The VSO Spring Festival includes Pre-Concert and Post-Concert Receptions each night with Maestro Bramwell Tovey. FREE TO TICKETHOLDERS.

ALL PERFORMANCES AT THE ORPHEUM

Friday, April 10ORPHEUM THEATRE, 7:30PM

AMADEUS

Winner of 8 Academy Awards (including Best Picture), director Miloš Forman's Amadeus chronicles the imagined story of Mozart and Salieri. Relive it in all its cinematic glory on the big screen at the Orpheum!

Please note: Amadeus is shown without orchestral accompaniment.

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VSO SPRINGFEST ADDITIONAL CONCERTSCONCERT 2 . . . . . . . PAGE 31CONCERT 3 . . . . . . . PAGE 37CONCERT 4 . . . . . . . PAGE 41 CONCERT 5 . . . . . . . PAGE 45

Concert 1 Program

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Saturday, April 11ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

MOZART AND SALIERI

Bramwell Tovey conductor Michael Colvin tenor James Westman baritone Dean Paul Gibson stage director

MOZART Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543 I. Adagio – Allegro II. Andante III. Menuetto: Allegretto & Trio IV. Finale: Allegro

INTERMISSION

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Mozart and Salieri, Op. 48

Join us for a Pre-Concert Chat with Maestro Tovey at 7:05pm in the auditorium, and Post-Concert Reception with cash bar, Maestro Tovey and VSO musicians in the Westcoast Energy Hall lobby.

Bramwell Tovey conductor

For a biography of Maestro Tovey please refer to page 11.

BRAMWELL TOVEY

MICHAEL COLVIN

DEAN PAUL GIBSON

JAMES WESTMAN

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Concert 2 Program

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Michael Colvin tenor

Hailed in Opera News as possessing "one of the most beautiful lyric tenor instruments around," Irish-Canadian tenor Michael Colvin has appeared to critical acclaim on opera and concert stages throughout Canada, the USA, UK and Europe. His 2014-2015 season includes Goro in Madama Butterfly and Dr. Caius in Falstaff for the Canadian Opera Company, Jaquino in Manitoba Opera’s Fidelio, Beethoven’s Chorale Symphony for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri for the Vancouver Symphony. Colvin has appeared with Chicago’s Grant Park Festival, the Detroit Symphony, San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque and Minnesota Opera. Born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and raised in Toronto, he studied at St. Michael's Choir School, graduated from the U. of T. Opera Division, and trained with the COC's Ensemble Studio and the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh.

James Westman baritone

Formerly a successful boy treble, Mr. Westman toured with the American Boys Choir, the Paris Boys Choir and the Vienna Boys Choir. Known as Jamie Westman, he was the first boy ever to perform the fourth movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 4, (Childs View of Heaven) and toured this work with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra in Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East and West Germany and Russia, performing in the Musikverein, Roy Thompson Hall and Carnegie Hall at the young age of twelve.

Mr. Westman was Baritone-in-Residence with the prestigious San Francisco Opera Adler Fellowship program until March 2000. His debut with the English National Opera marked his 100th professional performance of his calling card role ‘Germont’ from Verdi’s La Traviata. In 2012, Westman, created the leading role (Sandy Keith) of Bramwell Tovey's new opera, The Inventor, to rave reviews!

Dean Paul Gibson stage director

Dean Paul Gibson’s selected acting credits include: Earl of Warwick in Saint Joan for Arts Club, Andrew Undershaft in Major

Barbara for A.C.T/TC co-production. He also performed the role of the Bartender in Tosca Cafe another A.C.T/ TC co-pro, Patrick Flanagan in Jitters at the Belfry, Falstaff and Cymbeline for Bard on the Beach. Other select acting credits include Vigil and The Drowsy Chaperone for Theatre Calgary, Little Mercy’s First Murder and The Family Way for Touchstone Theatre, the Ruby Slippers Theatre and Pi Theatre coproduction of Shopping and Fucking, originated the role of the Tailor in The Overcoat at Vancouver Playhouse, where he also performed in Romeo and Juliet, The Dead Reckoning, The Music Man, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Stones in His Pockets (remounted at the Belfry Theatre), Humble Boy (also at Tarragon Theatre and the National Arts Centre), and A Christmas Carol. Green Thumb Theatre’s award-winning production of Problem Child.


Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543 The creation of Mozart’s 60 or 70 symphonies spanned nearly his entire career. He composed the first five during his visit to England, age eight, in 1764, and the final three, all of which you will hear during this festival, in the summer of 1788.

Composers such as Joseph Haydn, who became a close friend of his, helped to establish the symphony as an important musical form, and went on to contribute greatly, in terms both of quality and of quantity, to its artistic growth. Mozart added nothing so revolutionary to its history. Still, his symphonies display an unfailing professionalism and contain much that is precious and beautiful. There are few really weak pieces in the canon, and dozens are true gems.

His greatest period of sheer symphonic productivity took place between 1770 and 1773, when he composed no fewer than 28 of them. This staggering output sprang from the practical demands of the time, and from his ever professional responses to them.

After a gap of nearly two years, he returned to composing symphonies during the summer

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of 1788. In the space of three months he created his three final, and greatest works in this form. He completed the first of them, No. 39, on June 26.

Several mysteries surround these works. No commission that would have inspired their creation has come down to us. Yet given Mozart’s supremely practical nature, it’s unlikely that he composed them simply to satisfy himself. Uncertainty also exists regarding their performance during his lifetime, but circumstantial evidence points to one or more of them being played on several occasions.

Each is a masterpiece, and quite different from its comrades. In its drama and pathos, Symphony No. 40 in G minor reflects Mozart’s own downtrodden feelings at the time. No. 41 in C Major is one of his grandest and most confident statements. Its nature is perfectly characterized in its nickname, Jupiter.

Symphony No. 39 is different again: elegant, witty, and superbly entertaining. The orchestration includes clarinets instead of the more usual oboes. This gives the symphony a particularly mellow sound and atmosphere.

It is the only one of the final trilogy to begin with an introduction in slow tempo. Mozart followed this practice only occasionally, in contrast to his friend Haydn, who used it in the majority of his mature symphonies. The preparatory section to Symphony No. 39 is a shade on the pompous side. Perhaps Mozart considered it a humorous contrast to the graceful and carefree Allegro that follows.

The symphony’s playful character continues in the slow second movement, with an overlay of warmth added. Threats presented by the occasional turbulent outbursts prove temporary, evaporating quickly in the general atmosphere of good humour. The outer sections of the third movement, a minuet, are all ballroom stateliness. The central trio belongs squarely to the countryside. Based on a traditional dance tune from Switzerland, its rustic nature is enhanced by the sound of clarinets. The symphony wraps up with a nimble and witty finale, conjuring images of the comic opera world which Mozart understood so fully.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov b. Tikhvin, Russia / March 18, 1844 d. Lyubensk, Russia / June 21, 1908

Mozart and Salieri, Op. 48In 1830 the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote a short play, Mozart and Salieri.

It intensified the falsehood that the jealous, far less talented Italian composer Antonio Salieri (1750–1825) had murdered Mozart, out of jealousy toward his infinitely more gifted fellow composer. In 1897, Rimsky-Korsakov set the play as a one-act, two-character opera. “I felt content: the result was something that was new for me,” he wrote in his autobiography.

As he said, the opera’s musical style was much different from the exotic fairy-tale operas and lavish orchestral showpieces for which he is primarily known. He altered virtually nothing of Pushkin’s text, and the approach he adopted was aptly intimate and dramatic. He connected the score directly to Mozart by quoting themes from Mozart’s operas Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, and the Requiem, and by composing original music in Mozart’s style when the text called for it. Conversely, Mozart sings an authentic snippet from Tarare, one of Salieri’s once-popular operas, in Scene Two. Rimsky’s opera premiered in Moscow in November 1898, with the eminent Russian bass, Feodor Chalipan, performing the role of Salieri. At a private soirée in Rimsky’s home in 1906, he sang both roles!

The opera contains little dramatic action. It is rather an interior psychological drama, and its essence will be found in Salieri’s state of mind as expressed in his monologues. In Scene One, Salieri (bass-baritone) sits in his room, brooding over the fate that has graced Mozart, with whom he enjoys an outwardly friendly relationship, with greater talent than his. Mozart (tenor) enters and plays a wonderful piece he has just composed. Salieri suggests they dine together. After Mozart has left, he vows to kill his rival. Scene Two takes places at an inn. Mozart reveals that he is being haunted by visions of a stranger who commissioned a requiem from him. Salieri poisons Mozart’s wine. Mozart departs, not feeling well, leaving Salieri to ponder his crime. ■Program Notes © 2015 Don Anderson

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Monday, April 13ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

THE LEGEND OF DON JUAN

Bramwell Tovey conductor James Westman baritone

MOZART Serenade No. 6 in D Major, K. 239 Serenata notturna I. Marcia: Maestoso II. Menuetto III. Rondo: Allegretto – Adagio – Allegro

MOZART Don Giovanni, K. 527: Deh vieni alla finestra

STRAUSS Don Juan, Op. 20

INTERMISSION

MOZART Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 I. Molto allegro II. Andante III. Menuetto and Trio IV. Allegro assai



James Westman baritone

For a biography of James Westman please refer to page 33.

BRAMWELL TOVEY

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CONCERT SPONSOR

JAMES WESTMAN

Concert 3 Program

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Serenade No. 6 in D Major, K. 239 Serenata notturna Mozart composed the enchanting Serenata notturna (Evening Serenade) in Salzburg in 1776. The name derives from the type of function for which he wrote it: a night-time party at the home of a wealthy patron. Mozart scored it for two groups of strings: quartet and a larger ensemble, plus a pair of timpani. The first of the three concise movements is a brisk march. In Mozart’s day, the performers would have played it as they arrived to entertain their audience. A minuet follows, its central trio section given to the smaller string body alone. A cheerful rondo wraps things up. Mozart peppered it with joking references to popular and folk melodies of the day, a sly way of amusing the intended audience.

Don Giovanni, K. 527: Deh vieni alla finestra The callous Spanish libertine Don Juan (Don Giovanni in Italian) made the transition from figure out of folklore to crystallized dramatic character in the early seventeenth century. His ribald escapades have been the subject of numerous musical treatments, two of the most successful of which appear on this program. Mozart’s masterful serio-comic opera premiered in Prague in 1787. Don Giovanni stands beneath the window of the noblewoman Donna Elvira, whom he has earlier betrayed. He is intent on offering a moonlit serenade to her maidservant. Accompanying himself on the mandolin, he sings this lilting aria: Oh come to your window, beloved.

Richard Strauss b. Munich, Germany / June 11, 1864 d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany / Sept. 8, 1949

Don Juan, Op. 20 Don Juan is Strauss’s second tone poem, following immediately after the completion

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of Macbeth. By the time he put the finishing touches on it, he had taken up the position of assistant conductor at the opera house in Weimar, Germany. Naturally he planned to perform Don Juan there, but his wish nearly came to grief when the members of the orchestra balked at the high technical demands it placed on them. Strauss remained calm throughout the preparations. At one point he told the musicains, “I would ask those of you who are married, to play as if you were engaged, and all will be well.” Hard work and persuasion steadied their nerves. The sensationally successful premiere on November 11, 1889, and the many other performances that quickly followed, catapulted the 25-year-old genius into the world’s musical spotlight.

Inspiration for it lay in dramatic verses written in 1844 by Austrian author Nicolaus Lenau. Reflecting the growing psychological and moral complexity of the time, Lenau depicted Don Juan as more than simply the heartless, high-born rake of earlier treatments. Lenau made him something of a philosopher, too, seeking through his many amorous conquests the “ideal woman.” Disillusioned and weary of his aimless, unsatisfying life, this Don Juan allowed himself to be killed in a duel. Strauss’s tone poem overflows with energy and ardent emotions, and it demonstrated that his virtuosic command of the orchestra had already reached a masterly level.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 Mozart could not have known that the three symphonies he composed between June 26 and August 10, 1788 would be his last. It is fitting that he should conclude his career as a symphonist with three such masterpieces. They are quite different from each other: Symphony No. 39 is one of his most elegant creations, its successor among his most pathetic. And appropriately, No. 41 is the grandest and most joyous of all his symphonies.

A number of mysteries surround these works. No commission that would have inspired their creation has survived. Some writers speculate that he wrote them strictly for his own pleasure. Others, such as noted scholar Neal Zaslaw, feel differently: “The very idea that Mozart would have written three such symphonies, unprecedented in length, complexity, and seriousness, merely to please himself or because he was ‘inspired,’ flies in the face of his known attitudes to music and life and the financial straits in which he then found himself.”

Uncertainty also surrounds their performance during Mozart’s lifetime. It has long been assumed that none of them were played before his death. Circumstantial evidence points to one or more of them being performed on several occasions.

“...an overriding mood of resignation undercuts the music’s plentiful energy. The second theme resembles nothing so much as a series of sighs.”

In the opening movement of Symphony No. 40, an overriding mood of resignation undercuts the music’s plentiful energy. The second theme resembles nothing so much as a series of sighs. The symphony’s sole oasis of repose arrives in the placid second movement. Even here, passages of troubled feelings crop up from time to time. The ensuing Minuet lies as far from the ballroom as may be imagined. Its almost menacing outer panels make it perhaps the most disturbing example of its kind. The central trio section offers the barest glimpse of happier times. The forward drive of the first movement returns in the finale, with a more insistent edge added. Considerable momentum is generated, but the atmosphere of gloomy defiance persists to the very last bar, without winning through to any kind of emotional victory. ■Program Notes © 2015 Don Anderson

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Thursday, April 16ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

JUPITER!Bramwell Tovey conductor

HAYDN March for the Royal Society of Musicians

MOZART Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major, K.16 I. Molto allegro [restoration by Rodney Sharman (2006)] II. Andante III. Presto

BRAHMS Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, Op. 56a

INTERMISSION

MOZART Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 Jupiter I. Allegro vivace II. Andante cantabile III. Menuetto: Allegretto & Trio IV. Finale: Allegro molto






Concert 4 Program

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BRAMWELL TOVEY WITH THE VSO

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Joseph Haydn b. Rohrau, Lower Austria / March 31, 1732 d. Vienna, Austria / May 31, 1809

March for the Royal Society of Musicians During Haydn’s first trip to London in 1791/92, he composed a cheerful march for military band and dedicated it to the Prince of Wales. When the members of London’s Royal Society of Musicians invited him to attend their annual dinner, he planned to reward their kindness by composing a new march expressly for them. Pressed for time, however he took the march he had written for the Prince, re-scored it for symphony orchestra and presented it to the society.


Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major, K.16 This programme offers you the fascinating opportunity to compare Mozart’s first and last symphonies, and to observe the astonishing creative growth that took place between them. In 1763, Leopold Mozart, his son Wolfgang and his daughter Maria Anna set out from Salzburg on a performing tour. When Leopold fell ill with a cold in August 1764, while they were visiting London , they moved to a suburban town, Chelsea, where it would be easier for him to recover. As Maria Anna recalled in later life, “Our father lay dangerously ill; we were forbidden to touch the keyboard. And so, in order to occupy himself, Mozart composed his first symphony with all the instruments of the orchestra, especially trumpets and kettledrums.” This symphony is one of three that survive from that period. There were probably others. It may not be the first in order of composition, but that is how it was published. It displays considerable charm and even greater promise.Mozart composed quite appealing themes for the opening movement, but he didn’t yet possess the skill to do much more than present them. This performance will present a restoration of this movement that composer Rodney Sharman created in 2006. The slow second movement reaches for pathos, an emotion that he was yet to experience. Surely the most successful section is the shortest, the finale, a dancing, authentically youthful frolic.

Johannes Brahms b. Hamburg, Germany / May 7, 1833 d. Vienna, Austria / April 3, 1897

Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, Op. 56a In 1870, Brahms’ friend, music librarian Karl Ferdinand Pohl, showed him a field-partita (or divertimento) for wind instruments. At the time, it was believed to have been composed by Joseph Haydn. More recently its authenticity has been questioned, Haydn’s pupil Ignaz Pleyel being the likely creator.

The theme of the second movement caught Brahms’ attention, and he copied it out for future use. It is a very old, traditional pilgrims’ hymn entitled Chorale Saint Antoni. Three years later he used it as a point of departure for a set of variations, which he composed in two versions: for two pianos (published as Op. 56b, even though he wrote it first); and for orchestra, Op. 56a. The latter edition appears to be the first-ever set of independent orchestral variations.

It is a joyful, poised work, unpretentious and skillfully wrought, in which the purity and grace of the Classical style blend seamlessly with Romantic warmth, of both feeling and sound. The presentation of the solemn, almost march-like theme retains the field-partita’s wind-based texture, with pizzicato strings added. Eight compact, enjoyably diverse variations follow. The boisterous Variation 6 has the character of a hunt, with horns full-throatedly to the fore. The finale is a stirring passacaglia, a miniature set of variations within the larger variations. The theme returns at the close, in full orchestral dress and triumphant mode.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 JupiterMozart could not have known that the three symphonies he composed in the summer of 1788 would be his last. It is fitting that his career as a symphonist should end with three such masterpieces. They are quite different from each other: No. 39 in E-flat Major is one of his most elegant creations, its successor in G minor perhaps his most pathetic. And

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appropriately, No. 41 is the grandest and most joyous of all his symphonies.

Uncertainty also exists regarding their performance during Mozart’s lifetime. Circumstantial evidence points to one or more of them being played at a series of subscription concerts at the Vienna Casino later in 1788. They may also have been performed during Mozart’s tours of Germany in 1788 and 1789, or in Vienna, conducted by Antonio Salieri, in April 1791. The identity of the person who gave No. 41 the nickname Jupiter has been lost, but this subtitle, linking it with the most powerful of the gods of ancient Rome, seems altogether appropriate.

Mozart plunges us immediately into the joyous energy with which the opening

movement abounds. For all its trumpet-and-drums brilliance, it still retains an unforced elegance. He drops the trumpets and drums for the slow movement. His tempo indication, cantabile (“singing”), describes this restful idyll perfectly. The minuet is truly symphonic in scale and bearing, with a quieter trio section at its heart. The finale looks not only to the future – through its increased expressive weight – but also the past, specifically to the Baroque world of Bach and Handel, by incorporating elements of fugal writing. Learnedness and joy here join hands to conclude Mozart’s career as a symphonist in a burst of creative brilliance. ■Program Notes © 2015 Don Anderson

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Saturday, April 18ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

THE GREAT REQUIEMBramwell Tovey conductor Melanie Krueger soprano Marion Newman mezzo-soprano Colin Ainsworth tenor Stephen Hegedus baritone UBC Opera Ensemble

MOZART Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477

TCHAIKOVSKY Suite No. 4, Op. 61 Mozartiana I. Gigue II. Menuet III. Preghiera IV. Theme and Variations

INTERMISSION

MOZART Requiem in D minor, K. 626 I. Introitus: Requiem II. Kyrie III. Sequenz: IV. Dies irae V. Tuba Mirum VI. Rex Tremendae VII. Recordare VIII. Confutatis IX. Lacrimosa X. Offertorium: XI. Domine Jesu XII. Hostias XIII. Quam olim Abrahae XIV. Sanctus XV. Benedictus XVI. Agnus Dei XVII. Communio: Lux aeternam

Concert 5 Program



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BRAMWELL TOVEY WITH THE VSO

UBC OPERA ENSEMBLE

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Melanie Krueger soprano

Melanie maintains a thriving performance schedule, which has taken her from Canada to Europe. Highlights from her career include: Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Lillian in John Estacios’ Lillian Alling at the Banff Centre for the Performing Arts, Abigail Williams in the Czech premier of Ward’s The Crucible, Fortuna in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno D’Ulisse in Patria at Teatro Massimo’s Festival Scarlatti, Sandrina in Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera at the Prague Estate Theatre, Atalanta in Handel’s Xerxes with the Prague Chamber Opera, Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème and The Vixen in Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen with the Usti nad Labem Opera House. Viennese pops concerts have also been a staple of Melanie’s concert career. She has worked with some of Canada’s leading conductors and orchestras including the Victoria Symphony, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and the Newfoundland Symphony. Oratorio engagements include Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bach’s B minor Mass, Mozart’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion.

Marion Newman mezzo-soprano

First Nations mezzo-soprano Marion Newman "has a distinctive, dusky voice that suggests drama with every note" (Toronto Star) and has been designated "a show stealer" by BBC Music Magazine.

Concert highlights for this accomplished artist include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Peterborough Symphony, Messiah with Symphony Nova Scotia and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle with Montréal’s Choeur St-Laurent.Operatic roles include Tisbe in Pacific Opera Victoria's La Cenerentola, Third Lady in Vancouver Opera’s The Magic Flute, as well as Flora in Opera Lyra Ottawa’s La Traviata.Marion Newman is well known for her interpretation of contemporary vocal works, including recent premieres of Anna Höstman's Singing the Earth with Continuum Contemporary Music and the title role in Toronto Masque Theatre’s Dora Award- winning production of The Lesson of Da Ji. Highlights this season include Messiah with both Victoria Symphony and Toronto’s Elmer Iseler Singers, and her debut with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Colin Ainsworth tenor

Canadian tenor Colin Ainsworth has distinguished himself as an up and coming tenor by his exceptional singing and diverse repertoire. Acclaimed for his interpretations of the major Classical and Baroque tenor roles, his many roles have included the title roles in Orphée et Euridice, Pygmalion, Castor et Pollux, Roberto Devereux and Albert Herring; Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Rinnucio in Gianni Schicchi, Fenton in Falstaff, Tonio in La Fille du Régiment, Nadir in Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Pylades in Iphigénie en Tauride, Renaud in Lully’s Armide, Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress, and Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mr. Ainsworth’s growing discography includes Vivaldi’s La Griselda (Naxos), Castor et Pollux (Naxos), Schubert Among Friends (Marquis Classics), Gloria in Excelsis Deo with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (CBC Records), the collected masses of Vanhal, Haydn, and Cherubini with Nicholas McGegan (Naxos), and the premiere recording of Derek Holman’s The Heart Mislaid which was included on the Alderburgh Connection’s Our Songs (Marquis Classics).

MELANIE KRUEGER MARION NEWMAN

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Stephen Hegedus baritone

A prize-winner in the New York Oratorio Society competition, Stephen Hegedus has been featured by important symphonies and opera companies in Canada and the U.S. Recent engagements include Messiah with the Houston, San Antonio and Edmonton symphonies; the title role in Mozart’s Le nozze de Figaro for Teatro Municipal de Santiago; Albert in Werther for Opéra de Montréal, Leporello in Don Giovanni for Vancouver Opera; and Masetto in Don Giovanni with Orchestre Métropolitain du grand Montréal. Current season highlights include Opera Atelier’s Persee at Versailles, Bach’s Magnificat with Orchestra symphonique de Québec, Bernstein’s A Quiet Place with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal with Nagano and Die Schöpfung for the Elora Festival. Future plans include Mozart’s Requiem for the Vancouver Symphony, Messiah with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and the Vancouver Chamber Choir and concerts with Les Violon du Roy. Hegedus holds a Masters of Music degree (University of Toronto) and is a graduate of Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal.

UBC Opera EnsembleThe University of British Columbia Opera Ensemble was founded by Canadian lyric coloratura Nancy Hermiston in 1995. Beginning with a core of seven performers, Miss Hermiston has built the program to a 90-member company, performing three main productions at UBC every season, seven Opera Tea Concerts, and several engagements with local community partners. The Ensemble’s mission is to educate young,

gifted opera singers, preparing them for international careers. Past main stage productions have included Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Suor Angelica, La Bohème, Dido and Aeneas, The Merry Widow, Manon, Eugene Onegin, Falstaff, Don Giovanni, Cendrillon, Albert Herring, the Western Canadian premiere of Harry Somers’ Louis Riel, The Crucible, Rusalka, Così fan tutte, Dialogues des Carmélites, and Carmen. 2014/2015 Season includes The Bartered Bride, Le Nozze di Figaro and La Traviata. They will be travelling to the Czech Republic this summer performing Smetena’s opera The Bartered Bride.


Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477Mozart joined the ancient fraternal order of Freemasons in December 1784. He composed several works to be performed at its ceremonies. This solemn orchestral piece, darkly coloured by low wind instruments, was played twice, in November and December 1785, at memorial services for high-level Masons. In it Mozart made use of ancient plainchant materials associated with Easter.

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky b. Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia / May 7, 1840 d. St. Petersburg, Russia / November 6, 1893

Suite No. 4, Op. 61 MozartianaTchaikovsky paid tribute to his idol, Mozart, through this appealing suite of transcriptions, which he prepared in 1887. “I think there’s a great future, especially abroad, for this suite,” he wrote to his publisher, “thanks to a successful choice of pieces and the novelty of its character (the old given a contemporary treatment)…if the suite is successful, then I shall complete another and even a third.” He conducted the premiere himself, at an all-Tchaikovsky concert in Moscow on November 26, 1887. It won immediate acclaim, but the hinted sequels never materialized. If it displayed his personality more than Mozart’s, it is still a charming, brightly coloured creation.

COLIN AINSWORTH STEPHEN HEGEDUS

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The first movement is a bounding, sprightly Gigue, transcribed from the piano piece in G Major, K. 574. A graceful, slightly melancholy Menuet follows, also from a piano original, in D Major, K. 355. Tchaikovsky based the third movement, which he entitled Prayer, on Franz Liszt’s transcription for piano of Ave verum corpus, K. 618, a beautiful, solemn choral motet. The suite’s finale involved no less than three composers: the theme is Les hommes pieusement, a light-hearted bass aria from Christoph Willibald von Gluck’s 1764 comic opera The Unexpected Meeting. Mozart composed his set of variations on it, K. 455, as a piano solo, and this was what Tchaikovsky orchestrated for Mozartiana.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Completed by Franz XaverSüssmayr (1766-1803) Requiem in D minor, K. 626 A great deal of romantic fiction has grown up regarding the creation of this work, including a dramatically compelling but almost totally fabricated episode in Peter Shaffer’s play and film, Amadeus. In 1964, a first hand account of its creation came to light, after years of suppression. The publication of this document, written in 1839 by Anton Herzog, Director of the Information Centre in

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Neustadt, a town outside Vienna, swept away the speculation and mythology that had surrounded Mozart’s Requiem. Its essentials follow.

In July 1791, a stranger came to Mozart and offered him a commission for a Requiem Mass. He stated that his employer wanted the piece in order to console himself for the death of his wife. Mozart was to have total freedom in writing it, but he was to keep the commission a secret. Mozart agreed to this rather odd request, and set quickly to work.

The patron in question was Count Franz von Walsegg, a wealthy aristocrat with a taste for music. His dealings with Mozart followed a pattern he had previously established with other composers: he gave them commissions for new music, then attached his own name to the results.

Mozart’s work on the Requiem was diverted by other, more pressing requests, however, including the Clarinet Concerto, and the two operas he had agreed to write that year: a comedy, The Magic Flute, and a serious historical drama, La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus).

“...his multiple ailments and the stress of constant work took his life before he was able to finish...”At the end of August, he travelled to Prague to supervise the premiere of Tito. He was able to complete this opera on time only with the help of his friend, pupil, assistant and travelling companion, Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Back in Vienna, Mozart once again took up work on the Requiem. On December 5, his multiple ailments and the stress of constant work took his life before he was able to finish it. The portions of the unfinished requiem, those brought to near completion by Mozart himself, may have been performed at his funeral, as finished by Süssmayr and another of Mozart’s pupils, Franz Jakob Freystädtler.

Mozart’s widow, Constanze, set composer Joseph Eybler to work on completing the Requiem. He inscribed his contributions, which he may have discussed with the composer, directly onto the manuscript score.

Later, Süssmayr edited Eybler’s additions and contributed some of his own, thus completing the composition.

Süssmayr wanted to ensure that what he gave Count Walsegg would appear to be entirely Mozart’s handiwork. He took the autographs of the portions that Mozart had completed, and added to them copies of the remaining sections. He wrote out the latter himself, in a style of handwriting modeled on Mozart’s. He completed the package by adding a forgery of Mozart’s signature. The Requiem was delivered to Count Walsegg by March 1792.

It offers a compelling mixture of beauty, anguish, majesty and drama. The darkness of the orchestral colouring is counterbalanced by the music’s nobility of spirit. It was composed by a man who had probably begun to realize that he would soon be facing his own destiny, and that he was in fact writing his own musical memorial. Yet so great were his courage and his genius, that he was able to counter his awe and dread of death with vast outpourings of faith and love. A more fitting last musical will and testament would be difficult to imagine. ■Program Notes © 2015 Don Anderson

$4,000,000 or moreGovernment of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage Endowment Incentives Program$1,000,000 or moreRon and Ardelle CliffMartha Lou Henley, C.M.Province of BC through the BC Arts Renaissance Fund under the stewardship of the Vancouver FoundationAlan and Gwendoline PyattThe Jim Pattison Foundation$500,000 or moreWerner (Vern) and Helga HöingWayne and Leslie Ann Ingram$250,000 or moreCarter (Family) Deux Mille FoundationMr. Hassan and Mrs. Nezhat KhosrowshahiThe Tong and Geraldine Louie Family FoundationArthur H. Willms Family$100,000 or moreMary and Gordon ChristopherJaney Gudewill and Peter Cherniavsky In memory of their Father Jan Cherniavsky and Grandmother Mrs. B.T. RogersMalcolm Hayes and Lester SooIn Memory of John S. HodgeMichael and Estelle Jacobson

S.K. Lee in memory of Mrs. Cheng Koon LeeKatherine Lu in Memory of Professors Mr. and Mrs. Ngou KangWilliam and Irene McEwen FundSheahan and Gerald McGavin, C.M., O.B.C.McGrane-Pearson Endowment FundNancy and Peter Paul SaundersKen and Patricia ShieldsGeorge and Marsha TaylorWhittall Family Fund$50,000 or moreAdera Development CorporationWinslow and Betsy BennettBrazfin Investments Ltd.Mary Ann ClarkLeon and Joan TueyRosemarie Wertschek, Q.C. $25,000 or moreJeff and Keiko AlexanderKathy and Stephen BellringerRobert G. Brodie and K. Suzanne Brodie Mrs. May Brown, C.M., O.B.C.Mrs. Margaret M. DuncanW. Neil Harcourt in Memory of Frank N. HarcourtDaniella and John IckeMollie Massie and Hein PoulusPaul Moritz Mrs. Gordon T. Southam, C.M.Maestro Bramwell Tovey and Mrs. Lana Penner-ToveyAnonymous (1)

$10,000 or moreMrs. Marti BarregarMrs. Geraldine BielyK. Taryn BrodieDouglas and Marie-Elle CarrothersMr. Justice Edward Chiasson and Mrs. Dorothy ChiassonDr. Marla KiessChantal O’Neil and Colin ErbDan and Trudy PekarskyBob and Paulette ReidNancy and Robert Stewart Beverley and Eric WattAnonymous (2)$5,000 or moreCharles and Barbara FilewychStephen F. Graf Edwina and Paul HellerKaatza FoundationProf. Kin LoRex and Joanne McLennanMarion L. Pearson and James M. OrrMelvyn and June TanemuraBella Tata / Zarine Dastur: In Memory of Shirin (Kermani) and Dali TataNico and Linda VerbeekAnonymous (1)

The Vancouver Symphony gratefully acknowledges the support of those donors who have made a commitment of up to $5,000 to the Vancouver Symphony Foundation. Regretfully, space limitations prevent a complete listing.

Vancouver Symphony Foundation

The Vancouver Symphony family extends its sincere thanks to these donors, whose gifts will ensure that the VSO remains a strong and vital force in our community long into the future.

Tax creditable gifts of cash, securities and planned gifts are gratefully received and your gift is enhanced with matching funds from the Federal Government.

Please call Mary Butterfield Director of Individual & Legacy Giving at 604.684.9100 ext. 238or email [email protected] to learn more.

Ensure the VSO’s future with a special gift to the Vancouver Symphony Foundation, established to secure the long term success of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

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For more information about the Patrons' Circle and the exclusive benefits associated with this program, please contact Leanne Davis Vice President, Chief Development Officer at

604.684.9100 ext. 236 or email [email protected].

GOLD BATON CLUB Gifts from $50,000 and UpDr. Peter and Mrs. Stephanie ChungMrs. Irene McEwen* Mr. Alan and Mrs. Gwendoline Pyatt*

MAESTRO'S CIRCLE Gifts from $35,000 to $49,999Heathcliff Foundation*The R & J Stern Family Foundation

Gifts from $25,000 to $34,999Mr. Gerald McGavin, C.M., O.B.C. and Mrs. Sheahan McGavin*Michael and Irene Webb

CONCERTMASTER'S CIRCLE Gifts from $15,000 to $24,999The Christopher Foundation (Education Fund)Martha Lou Henley, C.M.*Lagniappe FoundationMichael O’Brian Family FoundationMr. Fred Withers and Dr. Kathy JonesAnonymous*

Gifts from $10,000 to $14,999Larry and Sherrill BergMary and Gordon Christopher Foundation*Mr. and Mrs. G.A. CooperMrs. Margaret M. DuncanThe Gudewill FamilyWerner (Vern) and Helga Höing*Ms. Sumiko HuiYoshiko Karasawa McGrane-Pearson Endowment FundMr. Brian W. and Mrs. Joan MitchellAndrè and Julie MolnarThomas and Lorraine Skidmore

Maestro Bramwell Tovey and Mrs. Lana Penner-Tovey*Arthur H. Willms Family*Gordon YoungAnonymous

PRINCIPAL PLAYERS Gifts from $7,500 to $9,999Mrs. Joyce E. ClarkeDave CunninghamIn Memory of John Hodge*Kenneth W. and Ellen L. Mahon*Mollie Massie and Hein Poulus*Mr. Ken and Mrs. Patricia Shields

Gifts from $5,000 to $7,499Dr. and Mrs. J. AbelJeff and Keiko Alexander*Eric and Alex Bretsen Etienne BrusonDr. Don and Mrs. Susan CameronPhilip and Pauline ChanIan and Frances DowdeswellElisabeth and David Finch Cathy GrantMr. Sam and Mrs. Patti GudewillHillary HagganDiane HodginsDr. Marla Kiess*Judi and David KorbinSam and Anita Lee The Lutsky FamiliesBruce and Margo MacDonaldRoy Millen and Ruth Webber Mirhady Family Fund, held at the Vancouver FoundationJohn Hardie Mitchell Family FoundationJohn Slater and Patrick WangStanis and Joanne Smith

Leon and Joan Tuey*Mrs. Jane Wang Fei WongAnonymous (2)

BENEFACTORS Gifts from $3,500 to $4,999Mr. Hans and Mrs. Nancy AlwartKathy and Stephen Bellringer*Hank and Janice KetchamProf. Kin Lo*Mr. and Mrs. Hebert Menten*Christine NicolasDr. Rosemary WilkinsonDr. and Mrs. Edward Yeung

Gifts from $2,500 to $3,499Anako Foundation Ann Claire Angus FundNicholas AsimakopulosBetsy Bennett*The Ken Birdsall FundGerhard and Ariane Bruendl*Marnie Carter*Janis and Bill ClarkeEdward Colin and Alanna NadeauMs. Judy GarnerHeather HolmesJohn and Daniella Icke* Olga IlichHerbert JenkinGordon and Kelly JohnsonDon and Lou LaishleyM. Lois MilsonIn Honour of Jocelyn Morlock Joan Morris in loving Memory of Dr. Hugh C. MorrisVince and Noella Ready Joan and Michael Riley

The Vancouver Symphony gratefully acknowledges the generosity of these community leaders whose ongoing annual support makes it possible to present 150 passionate performances and inspiring education and community programs every year. Thank you for your loyalty and commitment to the VSO’s ongoing success.

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Mr. and Mrs. Maurice A. RodenBernard Rowe and Annette StarkDr. Earl and Mrs. Anne Shepherd Ms. Dorothy P. ShieldsWallace and Gloria ShoemayMrs. Mary Anne SigalMel and June Tanemura*George and Marsha Taylor*Mr. and Mrs. David H. TrischukMichael R. WilliamsBruce Munro WrightAnonymous*Anonymous

PATRONS Gifts from $2,000 to $2,499Count Enrico and Countess Aline DobrzenskyAnn Ehrcke and Michael LevyIn Memory of Betty HowardMr. Hassan and Mrs. Nezhat Khosrowshahi*Bill and Risa LevineAgnes Loh In Tribute of late Johnny Loh Violet and Bruce MacdonaldNancy and Frank MargitanDr. Robert S. Rothwell*Bella Tata* Mark Tindle and Leslie Cliff

Arthur Toft in Memory of Fred and Minnie ToftAnonymous (2)

Gifts from $1,500 to $1,999Gordon and Minke ArmstrongDerek and Stella AtkinsMr. R. Paul and Mrs. Elizabeth BeckmannRoberta Lando Beiser*Dr. and Mrs. J. Deen BrosnanMrs. May Brown, C.M., O.B.C.*Mr. Justice Edward Chiasson and Mrs. Dorothy Chiasson*Doug and Anne CourtemancheLeanne Davis and Vern GriffithsBarbara J. DempseyJean DonaldsonSharon F. DouglasDarren Downs and Jacqueline HarrisDennis Friesen for GwenMrs. San GivenAnna and Alan GoveMarietta Hurst*Michael and Estelle Jacobson*D.L. Janzen in Memory of Jeannie KuyperSigne Jurcic C.V. KentDrs. Colleen Kirkham and Stephen Kurdyak

Uri and Naomi Kolet in honor of Aviva’s New York OrdinationHugh and Judy LindsayHank and Andrea LuckArt and Angela MonahanNancy MorrisonDal and Muriel RichardsDr. William H. and Ruthie RossMrs. Joan ScobellDavid and Cathy ScottDr. Peter and Mrs. Sandra Stevenson-MooreDr. Ian and Jane StrangL. ThomGarth and Lynette ThurberDr. Johann Van EedenNico and Linda VerbeekBeverley and Eric Watt*Dr. Brian WilloughbyEric and Shirley WilsonDr. I.D. WoodhouseNancy WuAnonymous (3) ■

* Members of the Patrons’ Circle who have further demonstrated their support by making an additional gift to the Vancouver Symphony Foundation’s endowment fund.

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KIDS’ KONCERTS ORPHEUM THEATRE, 2PM

Sunday, April 19

Inspector Tovey Meets Mozart

Bramwell Tovey conductor Orpheum Voices

The intrepid, always-popular Inspector Tovey explores The Mozart Effect through a time-traveling meeting with the greatest composer who ever lived, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!



Orpheum Voices

Kevin Zakresky music director

Orpheum Voices is a new mixed choral ensemble founded in January 2013 by Kevin Zakresky. The choir has appeared with the Vancouver Symphony in Inspector Tovey Investigates Harmony and with the West Coast Symphony in Fauré's Requiem. This spring the choir performed with Pacifica Singers in a concert of the choral works of Brahms. By focusing on context and content, Orpheum Voices has captured the attention of the classical music scene in Vancouver and aims to continue enlightened performances of the choral repertoire. ■

Concert Program

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BRAMWELL TOVEY

Specially selected CDs including classics and current best-sellers. Unique giftware, books and musically themed items.Open 1 hour prior to concert, during intermission and post concert.

YOUR PURCHASES SUPPORT THE VSO. Staffed by VSO Volunteers.

VSO Gift ShopVISIT US IN THE ORPHEUM LOBBY ON THE ORCHESTRA LEVEL

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CLASSICAL TRADITIONS CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, 8PM

Friday & Saturday, April 24 & 25SURREY NIGHTS BELL PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE, SURREY, 8PM

Monday, April 27 Jeffrey Kahane leader/piano

BEETHOVEN The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43: Overture

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15 I. Allegro con brio II. Largo III. Rondo: Allegro scherzando

INTERMISSION

SHOSTAKOVICH (TRANSCRIBED FOR ORCHESTRA BY RUDOLF BARSHAI) Chamber Symphony, Op. 83a I. Allegretto II. Andantino III. Allegretto IV. Allegretto

HAYDN Symphony No. 102 in B-flat Major I. Largo – Vivace II. Adagio III. Menuetto e Trio: Allegro IV. Finale: Presto

Concert Program

JEFFREY KAHANE

THE PRESENTATION OF THE CLASSICAL TRADITIONS SERIES IS MADE POSSIBLE, IN PART, THROUGH THE GENEROUS ASSISTANCE OF THE CHAN FOUNDATION AT UBC, AND THE CHAN CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS.

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allegroMagazine of the Vancouver Symphony

Britten’s War RequiemMaestro Tovey and the VSOcommemorate the 100th Anniversaryof the start of World War I

Cirque Musica!The Best of Cirque on stage with the VSO

Classical Mystery Tour: The Music of The Beatles

September 27 to November 10, 2014 Volume 20, Issue 1

Bramwell Tovey and musicans of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Magazine of the Vancouver Symphonyallegro

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Jeffrey Kahane leader/piano

Equally at home at the keyboard or on the podium, Jeffrey Kahane has established an international reputation as a truly versatile artist.

Since making his Carnegie Hall debut at the piano in 1983, Mr. Kahane has given recitals in many of the USA’s major music centers including New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. He also appears as soloist with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.

Mr. Kahane made his conducting debut at the Oregon Bach Festival in 1988, and since then he has guest conducted many of the major US orchestras such as the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Dallas Symphonies among others. Currently in his 17th season as Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Kahane recently concluded his tenure as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony this past June.

Ludwig van Beethoven b. Bonn, Germany / baptized December 17, 1770 d. Vienna, Austria / March 26, 1827

The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43: Overture Ballet enjoyed tremendous popularity in Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth century. The 30-year-old Beethoven’s receiving a commission to create a ballet for the Imperial Theatre must be considered a high honour. The Creatures of Prometheus, his first theatre score and his only full-length ballet, debuted on March 28, 1801. The scenario showed the mythological god Prometheus assisting human beings toward understanding life and the arts. It contains many pages of well-crafted and attractive writing. The overture is a brief, exhilarating creation with an aptly dance-like drive and energy.

Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15 Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792, intending merely to finish his musical education with Haydn before returning to Bonn. Circumstances led him to change those plans. The Austrian capital was destined to remain his centre of activities for the remainder of his life.

He won his first fame there as a pianist. He also composed solo piano works for his own performance. He revised certain of his existing creations as well, including the Piano Concerto No. 2, his earliest complete work in this form. In order to retain the performing rights, he delayed its publication until 1801. This explains why it is numbered higher than Concerto No. 1, which he composed from 1796 to 1797. Beethoven himself played the solo part at the premiere of the Concerto in C, as he would with the first four of the five piano concertos.

The opening movement unfolds with unhurried grace and charm. The second movement presents a gentle reverie, uninterrupted by darker episodes. Beethoven here excluded flute, oboes, trumpets and timpani from the orchestra, giving this portion a texture that is airier than the flanking movements. He showed more of his mature self in the finale than anywhere else in the concerto. His gruff good humour made itself felt in this expansive, genial rondo.

Dmitri Shostakovich(Transcribed for orchestra by Rudolf Barshai) b. St. Petersburg, Russia / September 25, 1906 d. Moscow, Russia / August 9, 1975

Chamber Symphony, Op. 83a The distinguished Russian conductor Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010, and a former music director of the VSO) enjoyed a close personal relationship with Shostakovich, dating back to Barshai’s studying composition with him. The bond continued as Barshai, first as a violist and subsequently as a conductor, performed his teacher’s music frequently and with compelling insight. In 1969, he conducted the world premiere of Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony.

The Stradivarius Legacy Circle

For further information on leaving a Legacy gift to the VSO please call Mary Butterfield, Director, Individual and Legacy Giving at 604.684.9100 ext. 238 or email [email protected].

The Stradivarius Legacy Circle recognizes and thanks individuals in their lifetime for making arrangements to leave a bequest or planned gift in their will or estate plans to the Vancouver Symphony Foundation—creating a lasting legacy of exceptional symphonic music and music education in our community. We sincerely thank the following members for their foresight, generosity and commitment to the VSO's future.

George AbakhanJanet M. AllanRenate A. AndersonK.-Jane Baker Lorna BarrJanice BrownPeter & Mary BrunholdDr. William. T. BrysonRalph & Gillian CarderJohn & Patricia ChapmanMr. and Mrs. G.A. CooperDavid & Valerie Davies Gloria DaviesSharon Douglas

Jackie FrangiRob & Ann-Shirley GoodellRenate R. HuxtableWayne & Leslie Ann IngramMargaret IrvingEstelle & Michael JacobsonMary JordanDorothy KuvaDorothy MacLeodIrene McEwenPaul Richard Moritz

Barbara MorrisMartin O’ConnorJosephine PeglerEleanor PhillipsMarion PoliakoffDiane RonanLouis RosenBernard Rowe & Annette StarkShirley SawatskyDorothy ShieldsMary Ann SigalDoris Smit

Robert & Darlene SpevakowDr. Barbara StaffordHermann & Erika StöltingElizabeth TaitMelvyn & June TanemuraTuey Family TrustRobert & Carol TulkDavid & Ruth TurnbullTessa WilsonKelley WongAnonymous (3)

*Estate

Bequests The Vancouver Symphony is grateful to have received bequests from the following individuals.

BEQUESTS TO THE VANCOUVER SYMPHONY FOUNDATION

$500,000 or moreJim and Edith le NobelKathleen Margaret Mann

$100,000 or moreSteve FlorisJohn Rand

$50,000 or moreWinslow Bennett Margaret Jean PaquinRachel Tancred RoutMary Flavelle Stewart

$25,000 or moreDorothy Freda BaileyPhyllis Celia Fisher

Margot Lynn McKenzie

$10,000 or moreThe Kitty Heller Alter Ego TrustKaye Leaney

$5,000 or moreAnne de Barrett AllworkClarice Marjory BankesLawrence M. CarlsonMuriel F. GilchristJ. Stuart KeateGerald NordheimerAudrey M. PiggotJan Wolf Wynand

$1,000 or moreEleanor Doke Caldwell

BEQUESTS TO THE VANCOUVER SYMPHONY SOCIETY

$250,000 or moreRuth Ellen Baldwin

$100,000 or moreRita AldenDorothy Jane BoyceRoy Joseph FietschHector MacKay

$50,000 or moreFritz Ziegler

$25,000 or moreDorothy M. Grant Lillian Erva Hawkins Florence Elizabeth Kavanagh Mary Fassenden Law

Geraldine OldfieldAlice RumballAnne Ethel Stevens

$10,000 or moreDr. Sherold Fishman John Devereux Fitzgerald Dorothea Leuchters Robert V. OsokinElizabeth Jean Proven Freda Margaret RushDoris Kathleen Skelton

$5,000 or moreRaymond John Casson Alfred KnowlesGordon McConkeyEvelyn Ann van der Veen

Joan Marion WassonDorothy Ethel Williams

$1,000 or morePhyllis Victoria Ethel BaillyJoyce BashamDoris May BondKathleen Grace BoyleKathleen Mary DeClercq Jean HaszardGrace Barbara Isobel HooperLewis Wilkinson HunterAnnie Velma PickellJean SempleWilhelmina Stobie ■

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The Stradivarius Legacy Circle

Robert & Darlene SpevakowDr. Barbara StaffordHermann & Erika StöltingElizabeth TaitMelvyn & June TanemuraTuey Family TrustRobert & Carol TulkDavid & Ruth TurnbullTessa WilsonKelley WongAnonymous (3)

*Estate

Barshai received Shostakovich’s permission to transcribe String Quartets Nos. 8 and 10 for full string orchestra. He continued to produce such arrangements in the years following the composer’s death. In his transcription of Quartet No. 4, the piece you will hear tonight, he expanded the music’s palette of colours by including wind instruments, percussion and celesta.

Shostakovich composed Quartet No. 4 in 1949. This was a particularly dark period for him. The year before, he and other illustrious composers were publicly denounced for writing ‘anti-Soviet’ music, and they lay under a terrifying cloud of suspicion. Shostakovich felt it wise to put away the more ‘advanced’ pieces he had composed recently for fear they might lead to his being murdered by the state. Quartet No. 4 was one such work that he consigned to the drawer with the hope that it might be released when Stalin’s terror subsided. The brutal dictator passed away in 1953. The Beethoven Quartet premiered the work in December of that year.

Like several other Shostakovich compositions, Quartet No. 4 shows the influence of Jewish folk music. Although Shostakovich wasn’t a Jew, he identified strongly with the persecution they have often undergone.

The first movement is light in texture but troubled in tone. The second is predominantly lyrical. Barshai skillfully enhanced the mood by having the solo oboe sing the plaintive opening theme, and by making equally effective use of horn and clarinet as the movement unfolds. A not-quite-scherzo

movement follows, with a raucous march-like episode serving as a contrasting central panel. The finale, the longest movement of the four, follows on without a break. Its half jovial/half melancholy nature, spiced with dance rhythms, displays the strongest influence of traditional Jewish music in the piece.

Joseph Haydn b. Rohrau, Lower Austria / March 31, 1732 d. Vienna, Austria / May 31, 1809

Symphony No. 102 in B-flat Major Haydn made two trips to England, in 1790/2 and 1794/5. For those visits, he composed 12 new symphonies. Numbered 93 through 104, they have been known ever since as his ‘London’ symphonies. They are his final, and finest works in this form. His second visit caused even greater excitement and enthusiasm than the first. As before, a series of weekly concerts was held in the spring of each year, running from February to May.

Haydn composed Symphony No. 102 in London during 1794. The first movement opens with the kind of light, teasing introduction in slow tempo which by that time had become a Haydn trademark. So, too, had the deft blend of superb, ingenious craftsmanship and good humour with which the movement proper abounds. A warmly expressive adagio follows, then one of the most robust of Haydn’s symphonic minuets. A joyous romp of a finale caps the symphony. ■Program Notes © 2015 Don Anderson

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VANCOUVER SUN SYMPHONY AT THE ANNEXORPHEUM ANNEX, 7:30PM

Sunday, April 26

Touching A String

Gordon Gerrard conductor Elizabeth Volpé harp

GIACINTO SCELSI Anagamin

SCOTT GOOD Sonata for Harp and Strings (Canadian Premiere)

EDWARD TOP camera obscura: dark chamber (World Premiere)

INTERMISSION

GEORGE BENJAMIN Olicantus

NICOLAI KORNDORF Let the Earth Bring Forth

Made possible by a grant from the American Harp Society and the West Coast Harp Society

Concert Program

GORDON GERRARD

ELIZABETH VOLPÉ

◆◆

SYMPHONY AT THE ANNEXSERIES SPONSOR

FINANCIAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

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Gordon Gerrard conductor

Gordon Gerrard is a respected figure in the new generation of Canadian musicians. Trained first as a pianist and subsequently as a specialist in operatic repertoire, Gordon brings a fresh perspective to the podium. For four seasons Gordon held the positions of Resident Conductor and Repetiteur for Calgary Opera. He led many productions while in residence in Calgary, and has subsequently been invited back to help launch Calgary Opera’s summer opera festival Opera in the Village with productions of Candide and The Pirates of Penzance. Gordon has also conducted productions for Opera Hamilton to critical acclaim, and was Assistant Conductor for several productions at Opera Lyra Ottawa. Gordon returns to Opera McGill this season to lead a production of Le Nozze di Figaro.After two successful seasons as Assistant Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Gordon has recently been promoted to the newly created post of Associate Conductor.

Elizabeth Volpé harp

Elizabeth Volpé Bligh became the Vancouver Symphony's Principal Harpist in 1982, after 6 years with the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra. Among the concerti she has performed with the VSO is Michael Conway Baker's Harp Concerto, written for her. Elizabeth has taught privately and at UBC, Vancouver Academy of Music, VSO School of Music and PRISMA. In 2012, she taught and performed at the 6th International Harp Workshop in Italy and co-founded Canadian International Summer Harp Institute. Her articles are published in American Harp Society and Harp Column magazines. She has given master classes in China, New Zealand, the USA, Italy and Canada. Her compositions for solo harp, (in RCM Syllabus), are being performed internationally. She is President of BC Chapter, AHS, and was Chair of the 11th World Harp Congress Host Committee. She has performed at harp conferences and festivals and was a judge at the OSM Standard Life Competition in 2010.

Giacinto Scelsi b. La Spezia, Italy / January 8, 1905 d. Rome, Italy / August 9, 1988

Anagamin Scelsi’s compositional voice is among the most distinctive of all twentieth-century composers. Anagamin for eleven strings, is named after the Buddhist concept of one who will be reborn on earth no more, unless he so desires in order to help mankind — the third stage of the fourfold path that leads to nirvana. Anagamin focuses intensely on timbre and tiny, gradual changes of colour, on how miniscule vibrato expands to beating, how microtonal variations expand gradually to quartertones, then semitones…

His method of composition was very unusual. He recorded his improvisations — originally on piano, but later on an electronic instrument invented in 1941 called an Ondioline — and had his recordings transcribed by other musicians. Related to the Ondes Martenot, the Ondioline had a keyboard suspended on springs, which allowed for vibrato/microtonal inflections by rapidly moving the keyboard from side to side while playing. The curious may learn more about the Ondioline at www.ondioline.com/ and about Scelsi at www.ultima.no/en/program-en/11-09-2014/665/scelsi-revisited/

Program Notes © 2015 Jocelyn Morlock

Scott Good b. Toronto, Ontario / April 8, 1972

Sonata for Harp and Strings (Canadian Premiere) Commissioned by and dedicated to Elizabeth Volpé Bligh, with funds provided by the World Harp Congress. Originally scored for string quartet and harp, this performance is the premiere of the new version.

The main theme from West Coasting was inspired many years ago and evokes driving down the coast of California. The title Blue in Violet is a small nod to Miles Davis (Blue in Green), and is influenced by blues and modal jazz.

Dr. Scott Good is a Canadian composer of orchestral, chamber, performance art, and vocal works. Active as a trombonist, conductor, and concert curator, he was composer in residence with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from

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2008 to 2011. Scott has written for Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Vancouver Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Esprit, ECM+, and I Furiosi, Montreal International Violin Competition, Wallace Halladay, Larry Larson, and Alain Trudel, among others. Current projects include music for Gryphon trio with drum set virtuoso Dafnis Preito, and music for the film Hands of Orlac with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra.

Program Notes © 2015 Scott Good

Edward Top b. Ommen, Overijssel, The Netherlands / Jan. 1, 1972

camera obscura: dark chamber (World Premiere) The title is in remembrance of my father Marten Top, an avid photographer. My father found meaning in the exacting nature that photography requires, in contrast to reproducing an unpredictable and capricious real world. The camera obscura can be compared to a place in the mind where images are created through imagination. Its Latin origin of a "dark chamber" harkens memories of

our childhood spent in a dark room, eagerly anticipating the images that would appear on the blank photo-paper soaking in the fixative liquid. It is this process in reverse that I have attempted to approach musically in this work for string ensemble: beginning with tangible motives that soon dissolve.

Dutch Canadian composer Edward Top studied composition and violin at the Rotterdam Conservatoire in The Netherlands. Primarily studying with Peter-Jan Wagemans he’s also worked with Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Peter Eötvös, George Benjamin and Klaas de Vries.

After extensive travels in the Far East he settled in London, England, where he completed a Master’s in musicology at King’s College London. Winner of numerous international prizes, Top lives in Vancouver where he is Head of the Composition Department at the Vancouver Academy of Music and was Composer-in-Residence with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2011-2014.

Program Notes © 2015 Edward Top

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George Benjamin b. London, United Kingdom / January 31, 1960

Olicantus Composer, conductor, and pianist George Benjamin began piano studies at age seven, was composing by age nine, and began studying composition with Olivier Messiaen by age fourteen (!) An entire year of Benjamin’s studies with Messiaen consisted of writing chords upon chords, exploring every harmonic possibility imaginable.

Not surprisingly, Benjamin’s music is notable for its sophisticated use of and focus on orchestral colour, as heard in the shifting timbres and gradually additive sonorities of Olicantus. Written as a 50th-birthday present for Oliver Knussen, Olicantus begins pianissimo with the dark and lugubrious exhalations of bass clarinets, saving the brighter tones of celesta, harp, and bells until the final minute.

Program Notes © 2015 George Benjamin

Nikolai Korndorf b. Moscow, Russia / January 23, 1947 d. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada / May 30, 2001

Let the Earth Bring Forth “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.”

Nikolai Korndorf’s monumental work begins with an extended chant-like section, all instruments in unison, followed by harmonically simple music for harpsichords. Gradual additions of the winds and strings create an inexorable build to a massive, thunderous climax over nearly half an hour. In the transcendent coda, materials from the opening return in a transformed and meditative state.

Of his own music, Korndorf wrote: “I belong to the direction in Russian music which, independent of the composer’s style, typically addresses very serious topics: philosophical, religious, moral, the problems of a person’s spiritual life, his relationship with the surrounding world, the problem of beauty and its relationship with reality, as well as the problem of loftiness and meaning in human beings and in art, relationship of the spiritual and the anti-spiritual…I strive to ensure that every one of my works contains a message

to each listener…I even accept that at time my music arouses negative emotions — as long as it is not indifference.” ■Program Notes © 2015 Nikolai Korndorf

The Vancouver Symphony Society celebrates the life and mourns the loss of one of its family members

JOHN ROBERT ICKEMarch 22, 1956 – December 25, 2014

John passed away suddenly on Christmas Day, 2014. He had served with distinction as a Director of the VSO from 2004 until 2010, and was again elected to the Board in 2011.

From humble beginnings John built a stellar career in business by dint of high intelligence, volcanic energy and ferocious determination. It culminated in his role as founding CEO of Accenture Business Services for Utilities which, under his leadership, grew almost overnight from a start-up to thousands of employees.

He was devoted to his wife Daniella and doted on daughters Sarah and Lauren, of whose accomplishments he was inordinately proud.

Away from the office John was a bon viveur, and a weekend morning might find him shopping for the best ingredients; in the afternoon he would be in his kitchen chopping and mixing; he would reach into the cellar for just the right wine; and that night he would be surrounded by family and friends, serving up a gourmet meal amidst many stories and much laughter.

His time among us was far too short, but he packed his life full of action and accomplishment, and left many friends. We in the VSO family will sorely miss him.

In Memoriam

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Vancouver Symphony PartnersThe Vancouver Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the following Government Agencies, Corporations and Foundations that have made a financial contribution through sponsorship or a charitable donation.

SERIES SPONSORS

CONCERT AND SPECIAL EVENT SPONSORS

FRIENDS OF THE

VANCOUVERSYMPHONY

VOLUNTEERS

MCGRANE-PEARSON ENDOWMENT FUND

VANCOUVER SYMPHONY

FOUNDATION

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For more information about the VSO Corporate Partners Programs and the exclusive benefits associated with this program please contact Ryan Butt, Manager, Corporate Programs

604.684.9100 extension 260 or email [email protected]

$400,000+Vancouver Symphony Foundation Endowment Fund

$150,000+TELUS CorporationVancouver Sun

$100,000+Goldcorp Inc.

$70,000+ Mardon Group Insurance

$50,000+ Air Canada City of Burnaby Parks, Recreation and Cultural ServicesCKNWCKWX News 1130Georgia StraightIndustrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc.QM-FMWesbild Holdings Ltd.

$40,000+BMO Financial Group London DrugsRBC Foundation

$30,000+Concord PacificPwCVancouver International Airport

$20,000+Agrium Inc. Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLPBMO Capital MarketsBorden Ladner Gervais LLPThe Chan Endowment Fund of UBCCIBC

Deloitte & Touche LLPErnst & Young LLPRoy G. and Naomi Harmon Johnston Family FoundationMcGrane-Pearson Endowment Fund Mercedes-Benz Vancouver Area Retail GroupOsler, Hoskin + Harcourt LLPPhillips, Hager & North Investment CounselPolygon Homes Ltd.Rogers Group FinancialSpectra EnergyTD Bank GroupUpright Décor Rentals and Events DesignVancouver Symphony VolunteersAnonymous (1)

$10,000+AvigilonCanadian Western BankCraftsman CollisionDeans Knight Capital Management Ltd.EncanaGreat-West Life, London Life and Canada LifeHolland America Line Inc.HSBC Bank CanadaKGHM International Ltd.KPMG LLPMcCarthy Tétrault The McLean GroupMontridge Financial GroupPacific SurgicalPark Royal Shopping CentrePrimaCorp Ventures Inc.ScotiabankSilver WheatonStikeman Elliott LLPSun Life Financial

TeckTime & Gold Tom Lee MusicWall Financial

$5,000+Anthem Properties Group Ltd.BCLCCassels BrockCenterplate at Vancouver Convention CentreFriends of the Jewish Family Service Agency Genus Capital ManagementGreyell Wealth ManagementGrosvenor AmericasHaywood Securities Inc.Highland West Capital Ltd.Image Group Inc.Innovation LightingKingswood Capital CorporationLedcor Properties Inc.Ledingham McAllister Macdonald Development CorporationMarin Investments LimitedMcElhanney Consulting Services Ltd.Dr. Tom Moonen Inc.Michael O’Brian Family FoundationOdlum Brown LimitedPeter and Joanne Brown FoundationPeter Kiewit Infrastructure Co.Parq VancouverRBC Royal BankReliance PropertiesRolls-Royce Motor Cars VancouverScotiaMcLeodStantecTD Wealth

Terus Construction Ltd.UBS Bank (Canada)Wilson M. Beck Insurance Services Inc. XibitaAnonymous (1)

$2,500+British Consulate-General VancouverGeorgian Court HotelHawksworth RestaurantKian Show Services Ltd.McCarthy Tétrault FoundationNesters Market YaletownSOCAN FoundationTala FloristsWalkers Shortbread Windsor Plywood Foundation

$1,000+ABC Recycling Ltd.API Asset Performance Inc.Bing Thom Architects FoundationCibo TrattoriaDomaine ChandonDunbar DentalEthical Bean CoffeeEnotecca Wineries & Resorts Inc.EY-In honour of Fred Withers' retirementFluor CanadaThe Hamber FoundationHealth Arts SocietyHUB InternationalLantic Inc.The Lazy GourmetLong & McQuade MusicNorburn Lighting & Bath CentreThe Simons Foundation

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM SPONSORS AND PARTNERS

PREMIER EDUCATION PARTNER

MEDIA PARTNERS

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CONCERT COURTESIES For your enjoyment, and the enjoyment of others, please remember concert etiquette. Talking, coughing, leaning over the balco-ny railings, unwrapping candies, and the wearing of strong perfume may disturb the performers as well as other audience members.

LATECOMERS Ushers will escort latecomers into the audi-torium at a suitable break in the performance chosen by the conductor. Patrons who leave the auditorium during the performance will not be re-admitted until a suitable break in the performance.

HEARING-ASSIST SYSTEMS Hearing-impaired patrons may borrow compli-mentary Sennheiser Infrared Hearing System headsets, available at the coat-check in the Orpheum Theatre only, after leaving a driver’s licence or credit card.

CELL PHONES, PAGERS, DIGITAL WATCHES Please turn off cell phones and ensure that dig-ital watches do not sound during performances. Doctors and other professionals expecting calls are asked to please leave personal pagers, tele-phones and seat locations at the coat check.

CAMERAS, RECORDING EQUIPMENT Photography and video/audio recording of any kind are prohibited during the per-formance. Pictures taken pre-concert, at intermission, and post-concert are encouraged. Please feel free to tweet and post to Facebook or Instagram pre-concert, during intermission or after the concert using the hashtag posted in the lobby. During the performance, please do not use your mobile device in any way.

SMOKING AND SCENTS All venues are non-smoking and scent-free environments.

PROGRAM, GUEST ARTISTS AND/OR PROGRAM ORDER ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

Finance & Administration: Mary-Ann Moir, Vice-President, Finance & AdministrationAntonio Andreescu, Junior Database & Network Administrator Debra Marcus, Director, Information Technology & Human ResourcesAnn Surachatchaikul, AccountantRay Wang, Payroll Clerk & IT Assistant

Marketing, Sales & Customer Service: Alan Gove, Vice-President, Marketing & Sales; Acting President & CEO Shirley Bidewell, Manager, Gift Shop & Volunteers Estelle and Michael Jacobson Chair Stephanie Fung, Interim Director of MarketingAnna Gove, Editor & Publisher, Allegro MagazineKatherine Houang, Group Sales & Special Ticket ServicesKenneth Livingstone, Database ManagerCaroline Márkos, PR Associate & Assistant to the Music DirectorRobert Rose, Front of House Coordinator Cameron Rowe, Director, Audience & Ticket ServicesLaura-Anne Scherer, Social MediaVictoria Sie, Marketing Assistant & Assistant to the President & CEO

Customer Service Representatives: Jason Ho, Senior Customer Service Representative

Development: Leanne Davis, Vice-President, Chief Development OfficerRyan Butt, Manager, Corporate Programs Mary Butterfield, Director, Individual & Legacy GivingChris Loh, Development CoordinatorKate Lucas, Director, Annual Giving Dawn Nash, Stewardship OfficerAnn True, Development Officer, Direct ResponseLauren Watson, Development Officer, Special ProjectsDeanna Cheng, Special Projects Assistant

Artistic Operations & Education: Joanne Harada, Vice-President, Artistic Operations & EducationMatthew Baird, Artistic Operations AssistantSarah Boonstra, Operations ManagerRheanna Buursma, Assistant Librarian and Artistic Operations AssistantDeAnne Eisch, Orchestra Personnel ManagerRyan Kett, Artistic Operations & Education AssistantMinella F. Lacson, Music LibrarianChristin Reardon MacLellan, Education & Community Programmes Manager Ken & Patricia Shields Chair

The Stage Crew of the Orpheum Theatre are members of Local 118 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is a proud member of

At the Concert

Vancouver Symphony Administration 604.684.9100

Odessa Cadieux-Rey Acacia CresswellPaycia KhamvongsaShawn LauJade McDonald

Jonah McGarvaMichael McNairStacey MenziesXavier de Salaberry Kim Smith

Anthony Soon Kathy SiuJessica Tung Karl Ventura

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Ronald Laird Cliff, C.M., ChairMarnie CarterCharles Filewych

Board of Directors

Gordon R. Johnson, ChairFiona LinHein Poulus, Q.C.

Board Executive Committee

Fred Withers, Chair Chief Development Officer (Ret.) Ernst & Young

Larry Berg, Vice Chair President & CEO (Ret.) Vancouver International Airport Authority

Etienne Bruson, Treasurer Partner, International Tax, Deloitte

Dave Cunningham, Secretary VP Government Relations, TELUS

Dr. Peter Chung, Member-at-Large Executive Chairman, PrimaCorp Ventures Inc.

Alan Pyatt, Member-at-Large Chairman, President and CEO (Ret.) Sandwell International Inc.

Board Members

Eric Bretsen Partner, International Tax Services Ernst & Young LLP

Philip KY Chan General Sales Manager, Mercedes-Benz Canada

Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nancy WuSecretary. . . . . . . . . . . . Marlies Wagner Treasurer . . . . . . . . . . . . Gail FrankoMember. . . . . . . . . . . . . Paddy AikenMember. . . . . . . . . . . . . Azmina ManjiImmediate Past Chair. . . Sheila Foley

Scheduling Concerts (all venues) . . . Shirley BidewellGift Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbara MorrisLotteries in Malls . . . . . . Gloria Davies

Reception Shifts. . . . . . . . .Gloria DaviesTea & Trumpets . . . . . . . . .Shirley Featherstone Marlene StrainSpecial Events Symphony of Style 2014 . .Paddy Aiken Holland America On-Board Luncheon 2014 .Marlies Wagner

Membership Volunteer Hours . . . . . . . .Sheila Foley

Debra Finlay Partner, McCarthy Tetrault LLP

Elisabeth Finch Partner, PwC

Michael L. Fish President, Pacific Surgical

Cathy Grant Senior Vice President, Marketing & Sales and Managing Broker Intracorp Realty LTD.

Lindsay Hall Executive Vice-President and CFO Goldcorp Inc.

Doug Hart Executive Director (Ret.), South Surrey & White Rock Chamber of Commerce

Diane Hodgins Director, Century Group Lands Corporation

Gordon R. Johnson Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais

Judith Korbin Arbitrator

Sam Lee Managing Director, CIBC World Markets Global Mining Group

Roy Millen Partner, Blakes

Julie Molnar Director, The Molnar Group

Fred Pletcher Partner, Chair of the National Mining Group Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Hein Poulus, Q.C. Partner, Stikeman Elliot

Stanis Smith Senior Vice President, Buildings, Stantec

Musician Representatives Ashley Plaut Violin

Elizabeth Volpé Bligh Harp

Honorary Life PresidentRonald Laird Cliff, C.M.

Honorary Life Vice-Presidents Nezhat Khosrowshahi Gerald A.B. McGavin, C.M., O.B.C.Ronald N. Stern Arthur H. Willms

Richard Mew Gerald A.B. McGavin, C.M., O.B.C.Hein Poulus, Q.C.

Alan PyattArthur H. Willms

Manager, Gift Shop and Volunteer Resources Shirley Bidewell Tel 604.684.9100 ext 240 [email protected]

Assistant Gift Shop ManagerRobert Rose

Patricia ShieldsEric WattArthur H. Willms

Administration

Curtis Pendleton Executive Director

Louise Ironside Assistant Director

David Law Operations & Facilities Manager

Vancouver Symphony Society Board of Directors

Vancouver Symphony Foundation Board of Trustees

VSO School of Music Society

Vancouver Symphony Volunteer Council 2014/2015

Fred WithersTim Wyman

FULL CONCERT LISTINGS AND TICKETS AT vancouversymphony.caOR CALL 604.876.3434

BEETHOVEN’S SEVENTH!WITH RAY CHENSAT & MON, MAY 2 & 4, 8PM, ORPHEUM THEATREKazuyoshi Akiyama conductor Ray Chen violin*

MARCUS GODDARD Wheel of the Cosmos SIBELIUS Violin Concerto in D minor*BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7 in A Major

VSO POPS: ELLA AND LOUIS! FRI & SAT, MAY 15 & 16, 8PM, ORPHEUM THEATREJeff Tyzik conductor Byron Stripling vocals/trumpetMarva Hicks vocals Bob Breithaupt drummer

Byron Stripling and Marva Hicks light up the stage as they take you on a journey through the most famous duets and solos recorded by two of the greatest legends of jazz. From Our Love is Here to Stay to I Can’t Give you Anything But Love, highlights from Porgy and Bess and much more, The remarkable artists recreate one of the most memorable collaborations in music history. It’s the music of the great Ella Fitzgerald and Satchmo himself, live on stage with the VSO!

KAREN GOMYO PLAYS MENDELSSOHNFRI & SAT, MAY 29 & 30, 8PM, CHAN CENTRE, UBCJun Märkl conductor Karen Gomyo violion*

PROKOFIEV Classical SymphonyMENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor*STRAUSS Le bourgeois gentilhomme: Suite

BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE!SAT & MON, JUNE 6 & 8, 8PM, ORPHEUM THEATREBramwell Tovey conductor Tracy Dahl soprano Judith Forst mezzo-soprano Alek Shrader tenor Richard Suart baritone UBC Opera Ensemble

BERNSTEIN Candide

KAREN GOMYO

BYRON STRIPLING

UPCOMING CONCERTS Highlights of the next issue of allegro...

RAY CHEN

BRAMWELL TOVEY

14/15 vso allegro issue #4

Documents

associate principal

principal gregory

principal david brownj

principal marcus goddard

principal cris inguanti

principal andrew brown

assistant principaladrian

memory of frank