In the first of two concerts celebrating American composer Joseph Schwantner’s 70th birthday, UMWO performs the composer’s recent work for wind orchestra, Recoil.
The fourth and final work from a series of pieces Schwantner composed over 29 years, Recoil exploits the vast tone colors of an expanded percussion section and amplified piano.
The program is rounded out with bold, contemporary fanfares that borrow elements of Renaissance and Medieval music.
Known for his dramatic and unique style, Joseph Schwantner is one of the most prominent American composers today.
Each movement of his trilogy was conceived as an independent piece through three commissions across 29 years.
Schwantner says, “While each work is self-contained, I always envisioned the possibility that they could be combined to form a larger and more expansive three-movement formal design.”
UMWO fulfills the composer’s vision in honor of his 70th birthday, performing the premiere of all three works together, as part of a whole.
If Bach were alive, what music would he put on his iPod? UMWO suggests works by Pergolesi, Kirchner, Britten and Dahl.
Conductor Michael Votta says, “Much like Bach’s compositions, the music on this program tends to take a simple idea and elaborate it.”
The playful theme of Kirchner’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, Ten Winds and Percussion builds through exchanges between solo violin and cello, transforming across two movements.
UMWO uses unique staging to envelop the listener in the intricate textures of the opening piece, Gabrieli's Canzonas and Sonatas.
With John Adams's cartoon-influenced Chamber Symphony, Strauss's youthful, jaunting Serenade and Rands's ritualistic Ceremonial to follow, this is not your garden-variety wind orchestra concert.
Composer Vincent Persichetti wrote that, outside the pop field, “Band music is virtually the only kind of music in America today... which can be introduced, accepted, put to immediate and wide use, and become a staple of the literature in a short time.”
In this concert, the UMD Wind performs these repertoire essentials.
The UMD Symphony Orchestra opens its season with Nicholas Montopoli, winner of the 2011 UMSO Concerto Competition, performing Ravel’s exotic and colorful violin showpiece Tzigane.
The program also includes Lutoslawski’s Symphonic Variations, Barber’s 1st Essay and Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Symphony.
The program includes Albinoni’s Concerto for 2 Oboes, Op. 9, No. 9, Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel; Moravec’s Brandenburg Gate; and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (Scottish).
These four works — Albinoni’s sprightly Baroque piece, Strauss’s tone poem, Moravec’s contemporary work influenced by Bach and Mendelssohn’s expansive, emotional symphony — offer audiences a rich selection of orchestral styles.
Faculty artist Mayron Tsong plays Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
Also on the program: Debussy’s Nuages and Fêtes from Nocturnes and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1.
UMSO performs Britten’s Les Illuminations, with lighting and stage design by Doug Fitch.
Renowned for his multimedia spectacles in symphonic and opera productions — including work with the New York Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera and Tanglewood — Fitch previously collaborated with UMSO conductor James Ross on UMSO’s 2008 presentation of Petrushka.
The Britten also features new School of Music voice faculty member, tenor Gran Wilson. Mahler’s towering Symphony No. 7 fills the second half.
The UMD Concert Choir and the UMD Symphony Orchestra perform a concert of music anchored by Verdi and Stravinsky, including Te Deum (Verdi) and The Firebird Suite (1945) (Stravinsky).
Also included in the program will be Ives’s Three Places in New England and General Booth Enters Heaven, as well as John Adams’s Son of Chamber Symphony.
