A Musical "Thank You" from Music School's All-Star Orchestra

By Christine Facciolo
Select members of The Music School of Delaware faculty with a little help from Rossini, Bach and Mozart, opened the school’s 2018-19 season on Wednesday, October 3, with a concert thanking donors and fans for their support.

The Music School's string chamber orchestra featured faculty and guest artists.

This short but very sweet program opened with Rossini’s String Sonata No. 3 in C major. Rossini wrote the six string sonatas at the age of 12, in the space of three days in 1804 at the home of a wealthy grain merchant. Years later, the composer confessed he didn’t think they would have amounted to anything but wrapping for salami when in fact they had already proven to be perennially popular.

Granted these sunny compositions are the “light music” of their time, but there’s no mistaking the talent that produced them. Like its siblings, this is a delightful work played here by a group that clearly enjoyed it. Brief solo passages were ably executed by violinists Amos Fayette, Lingchin Liao, cellist Jennifer Stomberg and guest bassist Arthur Marks.

J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor delivered a more serious tone. Though the original manuscript to this concerto was lost, a reconstruction was possible because in 1736 Bach had arranged it as the Concerto for Two Harpsichords and Orchestra (BWV 1060), a work whose score had survived and served as a model for the original.

Soloists Christof Richter (violin) and Meredith Hite Estevez (oboe) captured the rhythmic vibrancy and catchy themes of the first movement and by contrast, the dreamy serenity of the Adagio second movement. The sense of energetic playfulness returned for the finale, as the soloists engage in essential contrapuntal commentary and other colorful writing.

Mozart’s perennially popular Eine Kleine Nachtmusic provided a pleasant post-intermission palette-cleanser to the Bach. The superbly disciplined ensemble served up as fine a performance as one could wish for with a mixture of legato, springing exuberance and elegant phrasing that produced a most delightful result.

The concert ended the way it opened, with a Rossini string sonata — this time, No. 2 in A major. It, too, exhibited the lightness and humor that would be evident in much of the composer’s mature work as well as his distinct gift for melody. There was something a bit more earnest and serious about No. 2 but still eminently enjoyable and beautifully played.

See www.musicschoolofdelaware.org. 

DSO Opens Season with Tribute to Leonard Bernstein

By Christine Facciolo

The Delaware Symphony Orchestra (DSO) wowed a near-capacity audience at The Grand on Friday, September 28 as it opened its 2018-19 season with a quintessential American program.

The concert, titled “The American Dream: A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein,” celebrated the composer’s centenary as it honored contemporary composer Robert Paterson, this year’s recipient of the Alfred I. du Pont Composer’s Award.

The concert opened with Paterson’s Dark Mountains. Prior to the concert, the composer offered some thoughts about his compositional processes and attitudes. He told the audience that he was not a “lab coat” composer who wrote not for his colleagues but for the concert-going public. Moreover, he added that no special knowledge is needed to enjoy classical music and that no one is obligated to like a piece of music because it’s “classical” or otherwise.

Commissioned by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Dark Mountains takes inspiration from the terrain and the shifting atmospheres it creates in the state. The work unfolds in three connected but contrasting sections. The first and third sections depict placid scenes with plenty of lyrical and expansive passages replete with sounds of chirping birds and crickets. The middle section recalls a drive through the twisting roads of the mountains under a darkening sky. Jagged rhythms with shifting meters and slashing dissonances make for a most intriguing and eclectic work.

By contrast, Aaron Copland’s perennially popular Appalachian Spring is characterized by an optimistic sound that evokes a boundless but tempered optimism. Appalachian Spring recounts in musical terms the struggle and joy of those in the American Christian “Shaker” movement of the mid-19th Century who created a new life in the wilderness. In eight short moments, Copland takes us on a challenging musical journey. The tempi alter dramatically, making it challenging not only for the musicians but for the conductor, both of whom poured everything they had into their performance of this complex work.

Like Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance derives from a ballet Samuel Barber wrote for Martha Graham. But whereas the Copland work is placid and idyllic, Barber’s Medea is unsettling and deranged.

The tone poem extracted from the music progresses from a bleak inward concentration to the murderous Medea’s climactic final frenzy. Under Amado’s exacting direction, the orchestra handled the complex cross-rhythms with crackling virtuosity, rising inexorably to the bravura coda depicting Media’s unbridled fury.

The highlight in a program full of highlights was guest violinist Jennifer Koh’s brilliant outing in Bernstein’s Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium). The celebrated Serenade is a work for solo violin and orchestra inspired by Plato’s dialogues about the nature and purpose of love. Each of the work’s five movements features a philosopher’s views on the subject as well as commentary on the others’ views.

Amado and the DSO made much of the work’s contrasting moods, from the lyrical first movement to the chaotic finale with its constantly changing meters. Koh was of a similar mindset, as her brilliant and polished playing alternated from sinewy to serene while always maintaining a beautiful rich tone.

See www.delawaresymphony.org. 

Delaware Ensemble ‘Launches' to Space for Opening Season Performance

This post content comes from a release from Melomanie...

Mélomanie — the Delaware music ensemble known for ‘provocative pairings’ of baroque and contemporary works — celebrates its 26th season with a Launch Party & Concert on Sunday, October 7, at 3:00pm in their new performance home, Old Town Hall of the Delaware Historical Society in downtown Wilmington.

The event, which leads off at 2:00pm with a wine & cheese reception and tours of the Delaware Historical Society, will feature the Delaware Premiere of two pieces — Hubble's Eye by Christopher Cook and Café au Triolet by Cynthia Folio. Hubble’s Eye will be performed with accompanying video projection of photos taken by the Hubble Deep Space Telescope.

Additional music on the program includes baroque works Sonata Sesta in D Major by Jean-Daniel Braun and La Sultane for baroque ensemble by François Couperin.

Tickets for the performance are $25; $15 students age 16 & older; youth through age 15 are admitted free. Tickets can be purchased at melomanie.org or at the door via cash or credit. The Delaware Historical Society is located at 505 N. Market Street in downtown Wilmington.

This season, Mélomanie will present new music by composers Suzanne Sorkin, Richard Belcastro, Roberto Pace, Christopher Cook and Larry Nelson. From the baroque era, they will perform works of Couperin, Telemann, Abel and Rameau throughout the season. Also new this year is a special collaboration with Delaware jazz composer Jonathan Whitney and his quintet

Mélomanie was founded in 1993 by co-artistic directors and ensemble members, Kimberly Reighley and Tracy Richardson. Mélomanie has delighted audiences throughout the East Coast and internationally with their brand of musical 'provocative pairings'. Mélomanie is: Donna Fournier, viola da gamba; Ismar Gomes, cellos; Kimberly Reighley, flutes; Tracy Richardson, harpsichords; and Christof Richter, violins. Mélomanie's artists also appear as soloists and with orchestras and ensembles in the region, including the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Reading Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, OperaDelaware, Tempesta di Mare, La Bernardinia Baroque Ensemble, and Le Triomphe de l’Amour. In 2014, Mélomanie was invited to Rio de Janeiro to perform in Compositores de Hoje (Composers of Today), an international festival of contemporary music. Mélomanie has recorded works of Telemann on Lyrichord Discs and can be heard on Winterthur's benefit CD, Playing in the Garden: Musical Inspirations from the Winterthur Garden (2008). Their contemporary music CDs, Florescence (2011) and Excursions (2014) from Meyer Media, each feature five pieces written for and premiered by Mélomanie. The ensemble is currently recording their next CD project.