NEC Philharmonia + Hugh Wolff: Revueltas, Barber, Montgomery, Ravel

Silvestre Revueltas | Ventanas (1931)

Program note

Mexican musician Silvestre Revueltas was an accomplished violinist and conductor and as well as composer.  While serving as assistant conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico he conducted premieres of several of his works, including his 1931 composition Ventanas.
        Like his North American contemporaries Aaron Copland and George Gershwin, Revueltas was intent on throwing off Eurocentric influences and creating a new kind of music with a strong vernacular flavor.  The folk traditions of Mexico and its pre-Columbian cultures were fertile ground for him.  This music is dark, primitive, and passionate – violent as a ritual sacrifice and intimate as a lullaby.  The gentle central oboe melody is given the unusual instruction “expressive, desolate and absurd.”  The tuba is featured prominently throughout; heavy, pulsating ostinati heighten the orgiastic mood.

Samuel Barber | Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, op. 14

Allegro
Andante
Presto in moto perpetuo
 

Program note

The story of the composition of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto is full of surprises and changes of course.  A wealthy Philadelphia businessman commissioned the 29 year-old Barber to write a violin concerto for his son who, like Barber, was a graduate of the Curtis Institute.  The first movement, lyric and melancholy, was deemed not flashy enough so Barber wrote a virtuoso, perpetual-motion finale.  This in turn was pronounced unplayable.  When at a private concert this was shown to be false, the composer and commissioner agreed to part ways.  Fortunately, Eugene Ormandy heard a student performance of the work (including, of course, the “unplayable” finale) and programmed it with the Philadelphia Orchestra and violinist Albert Spaulding in 1941.  Thankfully, the work has now found its way into the standard repertoire and is among the most performed of 20th century violin concertos.

Geneva Lewis

American/New Zealand violinist Geneva Lewis has forged a reputation as a musician of consummate artistry whose performances speak from and to the heart. Lauded for “remarkable mastery of her instrument” (CVNC) and hailed as “clearly one to watch” (Musical America), Geneva is the recipient of a 2022 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant and Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Additional accolades include Kronberg Academy’s Prince of Hesse Prize, being named a Performance Today Young Artist in Residence, and Musical America’s New Artist of the Month. Most recently, Geneva was named one of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists.
        Since her solo debut at age 11 with the Pasadena POPS, Geneva has gone on to perform with orchestras including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Pensacola Symphony and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and with conductors including Nicholas McGegan, Edwin Outwater, Michael Feinstein, Sameer Patel, Peter Rubardt, and Dirk Meyer. The 2022-23 season includes performances with the Auckland Philharmonia, North Carolina Symphony, Augusta Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Austin Symphony and Arkansas Symphony. In recital, recent and upcoming highlights include performances at Wigmore Hall, Tippet Rise, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Washington Performing Arts, Merkin Hall, and the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts.
        Deeply passionate about collaboration, Geneva has had the pleasure of performing with such prominent musicians as Jonathan Biss, Glenn Dicterow, Miriam Fried, Kim Kashkashian, Gidon Kremer, Marcy Rosen, Sir András Schiff, and Mitsuko Uchida, among others. She is also a founding member of the Callisto Trio, Artist-in-Residence at the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles. Callisto received the Bronze Medal at the Fischoff Competition as the youngest group to ever compete in the senior division finals. They were recently invited on the Masters on Tour series of the International Holland Music Sessions and performed at the celebrated Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam.
        An advocate of community engagement and music education, Geneva was selected for New England Conservatory’s Community Performances and Partnerships Program’s Ensemble Fellowship, through which her string quartet created interactive educational programs for audiences throughout Boston. Her quartet was also chosen for the Virginia Arts Festival Residency, during which they performed and presented masterclasses in elementary, middle, and high schools.
        Geneva received her Artist Diploma and Bachelor of Music degrees as the recipient of the Charlotte F. Rabb Presidential Scholarship at New England Conservatory, studying with Miriam Fried. Prior to that, she studied with Aimée Kreston at the Colburn School of Performing Arts. She is currently studying at Kronberg Academy with Professor Mihaela Martin. Past summers have taken her to the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Perlman Music Program’s Chamber Workshop, International Holland Music Sessions, Taos School of Music, and the Heifetz International Music Institute.
        Geneva is currently performing on a violin by Zosimo Bergonzi of Cremona, c. 1770 courtesy of Guarneri Hall NFP and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins, Chicago. 

INTERMISSION

Jessie Montgomery | Caught by the Wind (2016)

Program note

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st century American sound and experience. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post).
        She writes this about her 2016 orchestral work Caught by the Wind:
Caught by the Wind has two main sources of inspiration: first, my brother’s environmental activist bicycle band tour, The Pleasant Revolution, where he and his disciples traveled thousands of miles promoting awareness of environmental issues, self powering their shows with bicycle generators…The journey of pedaling from country to country by bicycle was a powerful and transcending experience for all band members and crew who dedicated months, even years to the tour.
      Midway through composing the piece, things took a slightly different turn: while on retreat in upstate New York, I was on a much needed head-clearing walk through the woods and found a branch that had been mangled and torn by the wind. I was fascinated by how the intricate system of stems tangled together revealing a full life cycle in its now disfigured form. The piece, in the end, is one about cycles — whether bicycles or life cycles, or wind cycles — it spins, journeys and winds, gets caught and ultimately comes to its end. (The Pleasant Revolution bike tour, incidentally, is still going in 2016.)

Marice Ravel | Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2

Lever de jour
Pantomime
Danse générale

Program note

Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloéwas commissioned by Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes and written in 1909 in collaboration with choreographer Michael Fokine.  It was premiered in Paris with conductor Pierre Monteux in June 1912, less than a year before the same company and conductor premiered Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The story is based on the Greek erotic novel of Longus probably written in the second century.  Daphnis and Chloé are foundlings raised by a goatherd and shepherdess respectively.  They grow up together and as young adults, they fall in love.  Their adventures as they recognize, understand, and learn to express their love are the story of the ballet.  The music of the second suite is the final sixteen minutes of the fifty-minute ballet.  Here is the scenario as printed in the score:

No sound but the murmur of rivulets produced by the dew that trickles from the rocks.  Gradually day breaks and the songs of birds are heard (three solo violins, flute and piccolo).  Far off, a shepherd passes by with his flock (piccolo).  Another shepherd crosses in the background (E-flat clarinet).  A group of herdsmen enters looking for Daphnis and Chloé.  They discover Daphnis and wake him.  Anxiously he looks around for Chloé.  She appears at last, surrounded by shepherdesses.  They throw themselves into each other’s arms.  The old shepherd Lammon (oboe) explains that, if Pan has saved Chloé, it is in memory of the nymph Syrinx, whom the god once loved.  Daphnis and Chloé mime the tale of Pan and Syrinx.  Chloé plays the young nymph wandering in the meadow.  Daphnis as Pan appears and declares his love, but the nymph rebuffs him.  The god becomes more insistent.  She disappears into the reeds.  In despair, he picks several stalks of reed to form a flute and plays a melancholy air (central flute solo).  Chloé reappears and dances to the flute.  The dance becomes more and more animated and, in a mad whirl (piccolo, two flutes and alto flute), Chloé falls into Daphnis’ arms.  Before the altar of the nymphs, he pledges his love.  A group of girls enters dressed as bacchantes, shaking tambourines (woodwind and tambourine interruption).  Daphnis and Chloé embrace tenderly.  A group of youths rushes onstage.  Joyful commotion and general dance (fast dance in 5/4 time).

Personnel

First Violin
Rachel Yi
Hyeon Hong
Angela Sin Ying Chan
Clayton Hancock
Thompson Wang
Claire Thaler
Anna Junghyun Lee
Natalie Boberg
Seunghee Lee
Yixiang Wang
Anthony Chan
June Chung
Claire Byeol Kim

Second Violin
Yebin Yoo
Kathryn Amaral
Felicitas Schiffner
Jason Qiu
Justus Ross
Qiyan Xing
Jeffrey Pearson
Anatol Toth
Passacaglia Mason
Tsubasa Muramatsu
Haekyung Ju
Haeun Honney Kim
Wangrui Xu

Viola
Samuel M. Zacharia
Jacqueline Armbruster
Lydia Plaut
Elton Tai
Asher Boorstin
Haoyang Shi
Ruoran Yu
Rituparna Mukherjee
Wonjeong Seol
Anna Mann
Yi Chia Chen
Adam Newman

Cello
Bennet Huang
Ga-Yeon Kim
Isaac Berglind
Jiho Seo
Jonathan Salman
Lexine Feng
Nicholas Tsang
Sarah Tindall
Travis Scharer
Claire Park

Bass
Christopher Laven
Gregory Miguel Padilla
Willie Swett
Yu-Cih Chang
Cailin Singleton
Shion Kim

Flute
Chia-Fen Chang
Jeong Won Choe
Anna Kevelson §
Jay Kim
Elizabeth McCormack *
Erika Rohrberg ‡
Dianne Seo +

Piccolo
Jeong Won Choe §
Anna Kevelson +
Jay Kim *
Amelia Libbey ‡
Dianne Seo

Alto Flute
Elizabeth McCormack

Oboe
Gwen Goble *
Alexander Lenser §
Kelley Osterberg ‡
Nathalie Graciela Vela +

English horn
Gwen Goble ‡
Kelley Osterberg +

Clarinet
Thomas Acey *
Tristen Broadfoot ‡
Hyunwoo Chun §
Aleksis Martin +

E-flat Clarinet
Hyunwoo Chun +
Aleksis Martin ‡

Bass Clarinet
Thomas Acey

Bassoon
Zoe Beck §
Andrew Brooks ‡
Matthew Heldt
Miranda Macias *
Erik Paul
Julien Rollins +

Contrabassoon
Julien Rollins

French horn
Logan Fischer *
Sam Hay ‡
Hannah Messenger +
Tess Reagan
Tasha Schapiro §
Sophie Steger
Jenna Stokes

Trumpet
Daniel Barak §
Sarah Heimberg *
Eddy Lanois ‡
Dimitri Raimonde
Jon-Michael Taylor +

Trombone
Puyuan Chen ‡
Alex Knutrud
Noah Korenfeld +
Quinn McGillis §

Bass Trombone
Roger Dahlin ‡
Chance Gompert +§

Tuba
James Curto §
David Stein +‡

Timpani
Ross Jarrell *‡
Jeff Sagurton +

Percussion
Ross Jarrell
Doyeon Kim
Danial Kukuk §
Stephanie Nozomi Krichena +
Nga ieng Lai
Mark Larrivee
Eli Reisz
Michael Rogers ‡
Jeff Sagurton

Harp
Yoonsu Cha
Morgan Mackenzie Short ‡

Piano, Celeste
Jingsi Lu