presents

October 28th, 20168 PM

Commonwealth

& Poe

Woe

ProgramKhovantchinaOverture

Danse Macabre

Night on the Bald Mountain

Modest Mussorgsky

Camille Saint-Saens

Modest Mussorgsky

~Intermission~Conte Fantastique(The Mask of the Red Death) Featuring Isabelle Frouvelle, Harp Solo

The Raven

Andre Caplet

Joseph Holbrooke

Conte Fantastique Graphics:Jack Park

The Raven Graphics: Jim Burns

First ViolinMatthew Wang, Concertmaster*Rachael Stambaugh, Concertmas-ter*Kate HansenShouzhuo SunNicole Cook Alexandra CramerEvangeline HsiehJacob AlterBorah KimJerry O’DwyerBrendan Boylan

Second ViolinRyan Harriss*Emma TainterTiara JohnsonAlexis PayneLauren WengrovitzRayna YuFabiana Arrazola Casey CharbonneauMaxwell CloeConor ScanlonMary Haas (C.M.)

ViolaMadeleine Yi*Evan DienstmanRachael GreenmanShelby FerebeeMegan Kitts Hannah Winckler-Olick Noelle VarneyEmily Hinshaw Iria Gomez Garcia Charlie Whittaker (C.M.)

Orchestra LibrarianHannah Stevenson

CelloDarcey Pittman*Sarah LettauLuke SchwenkeAijan McHaleRobert CollieWill Park Jordan Noble Diane Whitaker (C.M.)Carl Andersen (C.M.)

BassHannah Stevenson*James Burns Andrew Torma

FluteAllison Greenday Jill Mao Ruth Ann BeaverYutong Zhan

OboeKarl Spiker (G.S.) Emily ChrismanAbby Jackson

ClarinetArjun Malhotra Rebecca Quinn Ronghong DaiSamantha Kim

BassoonJames BowersJohnny WillingAyush Joshi Katherine Bowles

Stage ManagersAustin Chun

French HornJohn Mitchell Emily Pratt Ailish BovaEllen PolachekShihao DuKathy Urbonya (C.M.)

TrumpetCharles BalaanJoseph Handy Chad Amos

TromboneMike Kikta Sarah Grave FraryMichael Manella

TubaRyan Richardson

TimpaniMadeline Brass

PercussionLydia Brown Max SacherWill HubbertMegan Rouch

HarpHope Wright

* denotes Principal(G.S.) denotes Graduate Student(C.M.) denotes Community Member

Emily Chrisman, ‘17, PresidentEvan Dienstman, ‘17, VP of FundraisingShelby Ferebee, ‘17, TreasurerJames Burns, ‘18, SecretaryHannah Stevenson, ‘18, Publicity Director

William Park, ‘17, VP of DevelopmentFabiana Arrazola, ‘18, HistorianRyan Harriss/Megan Kitts, ‘17, Social ChairsHope Wright, ‘18, Tour DirectorNicole Cook, ‘18, Tour Director

Under the direction of David Grandis

About the SoloistIsabelle Frouvelle

Harpist Isabelle Frouvelle received her Higher Diplo-ma in Concertiste the École Normale from Musique de Paris in 1994.

Since then she has appeared as soloist with the Orches-tre Colonne, Orchestre du Capitole, and the Opéra en Plein Air. She also participates on recordings for audio-vi-sual work including soundtrack, sound illustrations, and advertisements. She has been accompanied by the artists Laurent Voulzy and Johnny Hallyday.

Mrs. Frouvelle has been a part of various chamber music groups, including the interpretation of Debussy Danses, the Introduction and Allegro by Ravel, Hispanic music programs, and more recently with the Trio LIUC, on the Celtic harp. Mrs. Fouvelle has been invited to give master classes in both the United States and Mexico.

Mrs. Frouvelle has presented concerts in Sainte-Cha-pelle, the Basilica of Sacré Coeur, the Louvre Museum, and the Château de Versailles, among many others for leading political and cultural figures the world.

Isabelle Frouvelle currently lives in Washington DC to develop new projects. She shares her time between France and the United States.

About the ConductorDavid Grandis

Conductor David Grandis recently obtained a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There, he served as the assistant of Professor James Smith with the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra and Opera. He also recently served as Assistant Conductor of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra and Capital City Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. Previous positions have in-cluded Cover Conductor at the National Philharmonic, Assistant Con-ductor at the Baltimore Opera Company, and at the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Grandis’ guest conducting opportunities have included the Bordeaux National Symphony Orchestra, Nice Philharmon-ic Orchestra, Lyon National Opera, Sofia New Symphony Orchestra and Minsk Philharmonic Orchestra.

Before coming to the United States in 2004 for post-graduate study with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Conservatory, Mr. Grandis held posi-tions in his native France, leading the University Orchestra in Grenoble and his own chamber orchestra in Nice. Further studies were completed in several national conservatories in France. He began his conducting apprenticeship with Klaus Weise and earned a B.M. in Musicology in France.

David Grandis received a graduate performance diploma from Peabody Conservatory and during that time served as Assistant Conduc-tor of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra and the Peabody Opera. He earned a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Illinois under Donald Schleicher.

Among the conductors with whom he has participated in master classes are Marin Alsop, Gustav Meier, Rossen Milanov, Misha Kats, John Farrer, Daniel Lewis and Donald Thulean.

Mr. Grandis has an equal interest in both symphonic and lyric literature. He has studied voice for several years and performed a few roles in productions such as Pagliacci (Silvio), Werther (Albert), Pélléas et Mélisande (Pélléas), Faust (Valentin), and Die Zauberflöte (Papageno). Albert Lance invited him to conduct productions of Gounod’s Faust and Puccini’s Il Tabarro in France. Mr. Grandis was recently Assistant Conductor at the Lyon National Opera in June 2010 for Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and in December 2010 for Massenet’s Werther.

Program The Uncanny

All the pieces we perform tonight incorporate elements of the uncanny. Ernst Jentsch’s 1906 essay “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” defines the uncanny as a state of intel-lectual uncertainty or insecurity. A “lack of orientation” experienced by someone who is “not quite at home or at ease in the situation concerned.” The visual uncanny includes darkness, masks and disguises, noisy environments, and confusion as to whether things are animate or inanimate. Sigmeund Frued added to the list of the Uncanny as involuntary repitition, something familiar that should have remained hidden or that was repressed but has come out into the open, or an effect when the bondary between fantasy and reality become blurred. The uncanny is also applied to sounds. Some of the sounds in the compositions sound like everday noises, but are altered in a strange way. This technique creates an atmosphere of suspense and fear, perfect for Halloween!

Danse Macabre

In Saint-Saëns’ evocative setting, the solo violin represents the devil who is playing his fiddle for the dance. The dance begins at the stroke of midnight (perhaps Halloween) in a graveyard. Listen for the 12 strokes of the distant bell quietly tolling in the harp right at the beginning. The skeletal dancers are represented by the xylophone’s brittle, bony sounds as they mimic back to the violin a response to his theme. Soon the skeletons arise from their graves and begin dancing to the devil’s unearthly tune. The skeletal dancers are represented by the xylophone’s brittle, bony sounds as they mimic back to the violin a re-sponse to his theme. (By the way, this xylophone lick is taken and parodied by Saint-Saëns in his brilliant and musically hilarious “Carnival of the Animals” to represent fossils). The knowledgeable and keen-eared listener may be able to hear the “dies irae” chant (a melody from the traditional requiem about the “Day of Wrath” that has often been used in musical personifications of “Death”) lightheartedly played in the woodwinds and harp about two and a half minutes into the piece in a major key. They are having fun dancing!The devil does his work and the frenetic and frenzied dancing goes faster and faster until it stops abruptly and we hear a rooster crow (listen for the oboe). The night is almost over; dawn is arriving and all scurry back into the depths away from the coming light of the sun while the devil mournfully finishes his tune and slinks away. - David Bowden

Khovantchina Overture In June 1872 St. Petersburg was celebrating the bicentennial of its founder’s birth that month with speeches, pageants, and processions. In the midst of the festivities, Mus-sorgsky wrote to his friend, the critic Vladimir Stasov, on June 28: “I am pregnant with something and I am giving birth.” The something was the composer’s vast historical op-era Khovanshchina, whose title translates roughly as “The Khovansky Plot” oand whose inspiration places it squarely among a group of musical works to emerge during this period exemplifying the importance of the past in nationalist music. The drama hinges on the tension between Peter the Great and three entrenched groups who stood between him and absolute power. Peter ultimately crushes them all. Mussorgsky thought the subject ideal for depicting the tension between progress and inertia in Russian history and for looking at the cost of such progress. - John Mangum

NotesNight on Bald Mountain

Modest Mussorgsky tried many times to write the music that we know today as Night on Bald Mountain, and he never got it into satisfactory form. He first had the idea for this music in 1860 at age 21. In 1867 Mussorgsky told Rimsky-Korsakov that he had com-pleted what he called a “tone-picture” for orchestra, now titled St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain. In the years after his death, the composer’s friends tried to get his chaotic manuscripts into performing order, and in 1886 Rimsky-Korsakov turned to the St. John’s Eve music, which now existed in a number of versions. Instead of simply going back to Mussorgsky’s purely orchestral version of 1867, Rimsky felt free to draw upon the music in all of its subsequent incarnations. Mussorgsky took as his starting point the old Russian legend of a witches’ sabbath on St. John’s Night (June 23-24) on Mount Triglav near Kiev. That legend tells of midnight revels led by the god Chernobog (sometimes depicted as a black goat), festivities that come to an end with the break of day. Mussorgsky himself left a summary of the events depicted in his music: “Subterranean din of supernatural voices. Appearance of Spirits of Darkness, followed by that of the god Chernobog. Glorification of the Black God, The Black Mass. Witches’ Sabbath, interrupted at its height by the sounds of the far-off bell of the little church in a village. It disperses the Spirits of Darkness. Daybreak.” - Eric Bromberger

Conte Fantastique Conte Fantastique, composed in 1908, is inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s tale, “The Mask of the Red Death.” Caplet includes the following preface in the score: Loitering around the prey she covets, Death, horrible and fatal specter, haunts the land…In an atmosphere heavy with anguish and terror, it is the brusque and hideous apparition of the Mask of the Red Death, whose diabolical grin signals the raging, merciless joy of bringing everything to annihilation. To defy the plague, a young Prince and his friends joyously feast in a fortified abbey, its entrances and exits carefully shut up. There, the Prince treats his guests to a masked ball of the strangest magnificence, and his fantastic taste provides for the entertainment: what a voluptuous scene, this masquerade! Meanwhile, each time the strange, deep voice of a very old clock sounds the hours, the momentum of the dancers seems paralyzed. Its ringing echo having barely dissipated, a light, uneasy hilarity continues to circulate among the guests. The party resumes, but with less spirit, as though perturbed by the memory of those calls of time; nevertheless, little by little, the music reanimates. Couples twirl about feverishly, when, upon a harsh gesture from the Prince, the music stops. In the shadow of the clock, where midnight resonates weightily, stands, immobile, a figure enveloped in a shroud. A mortal terror seizes the guests. It is the Red Death, come like a thief in the night! And all the guests fall, convuls-ing, one after the other, in the rooms of the debauchery, flooded with a bloody dew. Caplet uses the harp to provide the tolls of the eerie clock toward the end of the com-position, ringing eleven o’clock, and then midnight, announcing the arrival of the Red Death. -Peter Asimov

The RavenJoseph Holbrooke’s composition inspired by the Edgar Allen Poe Poem, “The Raven.” Holbrooke cites lines in the poem that correspond to the score. Holbrooke utilizes the musical uncanny in bringing Poes words into a concert hall. Holbrooke uses the muted double bass solo at the opening, the staccato divisi violas and celli representtive of tap-ping, and the brass chorale repetitions, all accompanied by eerie trills and tremelos in the upper strings, to create a feeling of the uncanny. - Michael Allis

Kae Brown Memorial Symphony Orchestra

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