Spectrum: An Eclectic Collaboration at Oz
On May 18 and 19, Nashville’s contemporary music ensemble Intersection collaborated with the choral ensemble Nashville in Harmony to present a concert titled Spectrum at
OZ arts in Nashville. The evening consisted of a rather eclectic collection of pieces culminating with a performance of Those Moments, a special commission from T.J. Cole for a work for choir and mixed chamber ensemble with pre-recorded audio.
The concert began with Nashville in Harmony performing “Until All of Us are Free” and “Why We Sing,” two moving, and culturally conscious selections performed in a dynamically nuanced and expressive manner led with enthusiasm by director Don Schlosser. These are accessible pieces that perfectly fulfill the choir’s mission to “build community and create social change.” In the second number former members were invited to join the choir as they performed a chilling rendition of that anthem.
Next, as the choir exited the stage, the musicians from Intersection entered to perform Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Mania (2000). Mania is a kind of virtuosic vehicle for cello, written for Finnish cello virtuoso Anssi Karttunen, that seems to merge the constant repetition of minimalism with an equally constant and continuous developing variation as the solo
cello fades in and out of a rich and dense accompanying framework. Salonen describes the work as:
I wanted to compose music, which consists of a number of relatively simple gestures or archetypes, which are constantly evolving and changing; not so much through traditional variation techniques, but trough a kind of metamorphosis. A maggot becomes a cocoon, which becomes a butterfly: very different gestalts indeed, but the DNA is the same.
Intersection’s Michael Samis proved himself up to the task with a brisk articulation of Salonen’s rushing gestures, all without losing clarity or feel. Maestra Corcoran admirably maintained a precise balance in the ensemble in a composition that requires sheer virtuosity from nearly every one of its members. At the pause before the applause one could hear the audience join the musicians in catching their breath.
Before intermission Nashville in Harmony returned to the stage to perform three more songs, Christopher Tin’s “Sogno di Volare,” Annie Lennox’s “1000 Beautiful Things,” and Taylor and Dallas’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” Of the three, Tin’s “Sogno di Volare” (The Dream of Flight) was the most interesting. A theme from the video game, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, Tin’s choral anthem is a setting of a modernization of Leonardo da Vinci’s writings on flight in which the composer hoped to “capture the essence of exploration; both the physical exploration of seeking new lands, but also the mental exploration of expanding the frontiers of science and philosophy.” The soloists for Lennox’s “1000 Beautiful Things,” Grace Wegener, Paige Pennigar, and Lia Van de Krol were remarkable in their articulation and timbral color, each adding a subtle interpretation from within the color of their individual voices that, on the one hand, emphasized their separate indentities but on teh other, blended quite well within the broader group–a perfect metaphor for Nashville in Harmony’s aesthetic (and political) goals.
After intermission Intersection returned to the stage to perform Liza Lim’s Voodoo Child (1989). Lim’s work is also a vehicle for virtuosity, but not of the traditional sort of virtuosity heard in Salonen’s piece. Lim’s work features extended techniques such as guttural song from the soprano, bi-phonics (two pitches at once) from the clarinet and other non-traditional sounds to create clouds of sound that tended to clash in their expression of the extreme emotive sentiments as drawn from Sappho’s poem To a Young Girl. The result is a kind of synthesis of the sound palates of Edgard Varese and the intense primal expressions of George Crumb. For me this was the most interesting performance of the night. Each instrument displayed extended techniques that reached beyond its expectations even as other gestures seemed to be remarkably idiomatic to each instrument. Special mention for this goes particularly to Alejandro Acierto (clarinet) and Kristen Holritz (flute). Particularly stunning was Rebekah Alexander’s
(soprano) performance. Alexander, through her performances with Chatterbird and now Intersection, is developing a strong reputation for bringing the highest musicality to the most difficult contemporary repertoire for voice. Here she sang with a bracing charisma and personality that moved the audience to the edge of their seats. One hopes we might someday get the opportunity to hear her interpret Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire or even Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre.
Finally, the evening ended with the commission, Cole’s Those Moments (2019) performed by both ensembles together. As stated in the program, “Cole’s work draws inspiration from personal stories gathered by the local LGBTQ+ community and explores the gender spectrum through visual art and projections integrated with musical creation.” The result is a six-movement choral work which employs the prerecorded and edited voices of various choral members, speaking on the role gender has played in their individual lives, as an introduction to each movement. The chorus’s function is very much akin to that of a Greek chorus, providing a moral, interpretive commentary on what is heard in the recording that introduces the movement. Here Cole showed a real talent for antiphonal and stirring, even Handelian, imitative contrapuntal writing. But the sound was extended by the composer through the addition of the sounds of the choir murmuring and chattering, creating a spectrum of voices. The most moving moment of the work in my opinion was at the great reprise of the opening line “Can you hear my voice? Let me have my harmony,” which is revamped into a refrain of the final movement:
I remember / Hear my voice / Hear my harmony
And at the final cadence the audience rose to its feet. In a remarkably eclectic night filled with fantastic choral singing and the most cutting-edge avant-garde music, perhaps the best measure of success resided in the fact that when the lights came up, we all felt as though we were part of the same community—a tremendous accomplishment in these times.
CD Review
Jonathan Leshnoff: Symphony No. 4 “Heichalos”, Guitar Concerto, and Starburst by The Nashville Symphony Orchestra
This 2019 live recording release from Naxos presents Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 4 commissioned for the Nashville Symphony’s Violins of Hope project. The Violins of Hope are a collection of stringed instruments that were played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust and have been restored and recorded on this album. The 
composer believes his symphony represents a parallel to the Violins of Hope as an embodiment of Jewish survival. While the violins are a physical embodiment, Leshnoff’s music provides a more spiritual one. The subtitle, “Heichalos,” refers to an ancient text describing a way to achieve a divine communion through meditating oneself through “rooms” of deeper consciousness. In just two parts rather than traditional symphonic movements, Leshnoff intends for listeners to experience the musical depiction of each of these rooms. Bold chords set the tone for the beginning of Part I and the brass section is featured in the opening passages of thick orchestration. Although a dark overall mood is achieved, harp and woodwind help provide an ethereal characteristic to the heaviness of Part I shortly before a climactic ending.
The Violins of Hope feature in the contrasting Part II with long, lightly woven lines that Leshnoff gently incorporates with brass foundations and flute contributions. A sense of seriousness pervades the entire symphony and there is no doubt the musicians were committed to performing with sincerity, especially those using instruments from the collection. In the music score, the composer has inserted a question before Part II begins: “Who do you love?” and at the end, “Where are they now?” The reflective interpretation of the Nashville Symphony is made permanent on this recording, one that conductor Giancarlo Guerrero says the musicians are so honored to make.
Also on this album is renowned guitarist Jason Vieaux performing live Jonathan Leshnoff’s Guitar Concerto. The vibrant, three movement work proves no easy task for the
performer but Vieaux’s clarity is exceptional considering Leshnoff has written many bright runs in the upper register and descending arpeggio passages. The first movement is a fine movement to represent a modern guitar concerto while the Adagio and Finale movements implement the tried and true styles of guitar and orchestra writing. The Finale is definitely lively and full of dance-like spirit. Overall the orchestration is well-done and makes the concerto a decent addition to the repertoire.
Starburst is an eight minute, compact orchestral piece as exciting and stunning as its name. The strings race away from the start with rhythmic ferocity, punctuated by the timpani. At a climactic chord in the middle, every instrument falls away except the clarinet. It is left to float a long melody over the space that is suddenly created. Leshnoff says this moment in Starburst is one of his favorite places in his own music. A popular opening piece, the recording of Starburst by Nashville Symphony Orchestra will be the reference for future performances.
This stamp of ownership is something Guerrero is proud of and notes that the live recording of all three pieces benefited from the composer getting to work closely with the orchestra in many stages of rehearsals. The Nashville Symphony has established itself as a reliable group for producing quality classical recordings and that will make a lot of patrons in Music City very happy.
Nashville Opera’s The Cradle Will Rock: an Anthem for All of Us
Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock is an ode to the working class, consisting of bountiful hot-button social commentary and dashes of sly barbs to boot. The work takes place in “Steeltown, USA,” and follows union organizer Larry Foreman’s efforts to unite the workers of the town and to fight back against the all-powerful Mr. Mister, who is in control of every part of town life. No, this isn’t a politically incorrect off-Broadway production that premiered last year, but a 1930’s play in music that was famously shut down before it could even take the stage. And, strikingly, Nashville Opera’s production utilizes a combination of authentic acting, minimalistic set design, and stellar producing in a way that (combined with contemporary events) makes Blitzstein’s work just as relevant now as it was when he wrote it.
Cradle originally came about from the Federal Theater Project under the post-great depression Works Progress Administration – a seemingly forgotten time when the government deemed it important to fund many art programs during an economic downturn. Because of this context, it is important to note the situation in which the work “premiered,” as Nashville’s rendition pays courtesy to this touchy beginning.
The night that Cradle was to be performed, the theater abruptly shut down due to “budget constraints” – or perhaps due to the opera’s pro-union message. Moving to another theater twenty blocks north of downtown Manhattan, the performers had to sing from the audience to obey theater policies and Blitzstein had to scrap his orchestra ensemble and hastily play instead on a dingy upright piano. As such, it is notable that John Hoomes, Nashville Opera’s artistic director, chose to keep this sparse instrumentation and characteristically spare set design. Amy Tate Williams nails it on the jazzy piano accompaniment that blends effortlessly with the performers, and kudos to the surprisingly large, Nashville-based cast for their gripping acting which more-or-less pays homage to the actors and actresses that made the premiere possible.
While it takes the minimum to get this work right, it can be quite easy to get it wrong. Fortunately, the raw emotion from Nashville’s cast is one that draws the audience in and makes Cradle a success – switching from the court trial in night jail, to each character’s interesting backstory, the over-arching narrative is captivating despite its simplistic nature and less than stellar musical numbers. What makes it bearable, and sometimes beautiful, is the score, where spoof passages that taunt
the bad guys alternate with pointed, yearning arias that distinguish the others. (If it sounds like Leonard Bernstein, that’s because Bernstein was a Blitzstein protégé.) In both modes, the music is more expressive than the lyrics, which seem to have been written for a pamphlet.
Most of the story progresses as a merry-go-round of bribery and corruption. Before the audience can be awed by the riveting soliloquy of the union organizer Larry Foreman (Eric Pasto-Crosby), we have the anti-union Liberty Committee to indulge us. Led by Galen Fott as Mr. Mister, the cronies, all of whom bring a different air to their roles, are presented in vignettes of sorts while being blackmailed into agreement. All the while there is the bona fide Reverend Salvation (Brett Hetherington) who tailors his sermons to match the political imperatives of the time, while Editor Daily (Patrick Thomas), who’s “made to order” news (most of it fake), alters the rest of Steeltown’s thoughts over the course of the work.
There’s also the progression of the lap dog artists, Dauber (Darius Thomas) and Yasha (Scott Rice). Truly one of the most comical scenes, they cozy up to the coy Mrs. Mister (Martha Wilkinson). Through her vivid charm and flirtatious acting, she is able to lure the two once again into this promise of a financial safety net – as long as they join her and her husband in opposing the union. While the scene is innocent from the outset and perfectly executed by the actors, it is unnerving nonetheless as a situation that is still so prevalent in the arts today.
The performance’s best moments, though, is its honesty and moments which contain a hint of a kind of winking, motley spirit, as when Luke Harnish — who’s fun to watch throughout — executes a silly ballet as a macho football coach. Megan Murphy Chambers has a strong voice and a sharp, light appeal as Moll, though she must spend most of the play sitting and listening. Brooke Leigh Davis sounds full and resonant as Ella Hammer, who brings the show to what should be its emotional climax with “Joe Worker,” a memorandum of suffering anger in the face of oppression by the bosses.
While the work is more about meaning than musical richness, the story ends with a finale that brings all that came before it into one big anthem, exclaiming
“there’s a storm that’s going to last until
The final wind blows, and when the wind blows
The cradle” [that would be the cozy, lofty enclave of the one percent] “will rock!”
This is the first time the audience witnesses the full chorus, and the cast appropriately fills the hall of Noah Liff Opera Center with a heartening send-off.
Both an attack on wealth and the corruption it can bring, as well as a paean to labor and poor people struggling to get by, the political message of Cradle is just as relevant now as it was then, and its continued revival speaks to its potential to reflect on contemporary society. Nashville Opera brought all of this into focus by staying true to their motto: “Sing Bravely.” And while the conflicts between freedom and security, corruption and innocence, and power and integrity may have changed their manifestations since the 1930s, they still exist today and the continuing impact of The Cradle Will Rock can be found in its ability to speak plainly to these issues through music.
Spano and Trpčeski with the Nashville Symphony
On the first weekend in May the Nashville Symphony gave a concert featuring Michael Gandolfi’s The Garden of the Senses Suites, Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 82 and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s epic Concerto No. 3 in D Minor for Piano and Orchestra with Simon Trpčeski on piano and Robert Spano at the podium. The evening was mixed, but ended wonderfully.
The concert opened with Gandolfi’s Suite. Written on a commission by guest conductor Robert Spano, the piece is one of a series titled the Garden of Cosmic Speculation and was inspired by Charles Alexander Jencks’s Garden of Cosmic Speculation, and actual garden outside Dumfries, Scotland which, “celebrates nature and his [Jencks’s] own fascination with advances in cosmology, genetics, chaos theory, fractals and other areas of contemporary science.” One of thirteen movements in the composition, the suite is organized along the lines of one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s suites with each movement corresponding to a dance movement. Further, each movement is meant to also correspond in a synesthetic gesture to one of the other senses: Allemande (Audition), Courante (olfaction), Sarabande (gustation), Passepied (palpation), Gigue (vision), and Chorale (the sixth sense: intuition).
Obviously, there is an awful lot going on here to digest in one hearing, but ignoring all of this and just paying attention to Spano’s realization of Gandoli’s genius for style and instrumentation was quite rewarding. The waves of chromaticism in the dignified first movement, and the sparkling pizzicato strings in the Passepied were remarkable. My favorite was the last movement, a setting of Bach’s chorale “O wie selig seid ihr doch, ihr Frommen” set in a rhythmic and registrational self-reflexive commentary in which, as Gandolfi described it, the “…music anticipates or in
tuits itself.” Spano’s interpretation showed his knowledge of the piece and his talent for interpreting contemporary American music.
Maestro Spano is a world-class conductor and has done amazing things with the Atlanta Symphony in his two-decade tenure there. After winning six Grammys and surviving a dreadful lockout in 2014, he has certainly earned the esteem he
has garnered and when he begins his new position in Fort Worth in 2021 there is a lot of appropriate optimism. However, his approach with the baton is remarkably different from our own Maestro Guerrero, a difference that might be exaggerated in comparing the reserve of Richard Strauss to the vigor of Georg Solti, and this difference came through in the Sibelius.
Jean Sibelius began work on his Fifth Symphony in 1915 and it underwent a number of revisions before achieving its final form in 1919. It features a highly developed organicism that rests on the slow emergence and dénouement of the famous “swan theme” in the primary climax of final movement, presented by the horns. The piece as often been described as “regressive” from a formal and harmonic point of view, but this accessibility can conceal a remarkably intuitive formal organization. On Friday there were marvelous moments, in the Andante in particular where Nashville’s woodwinds deserve special mention, but the grand sweep of Sibelius’s piece felt off balance, the famous final chords more perfunctory than transcendent.
The epic work depicted in the movie Shine, a docudrama of child prodigy David Helfgott’s troubled career, Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto is often described as the most difficult piece in the concert repertoire of the piano. However, after intermission when Simon Trpčeski breezily strolled on stage to present it, his confidence was infectious. Beginning the
famous first theme with a marvelous singing tone and constantly attentive to Spano and the orchestra, by the arrival of the second theme, Trpčeski seemed to bring orchestra, conductor and himself into alignment for an extraordinary and explosive performance.
He took to the powerful cadenza, playing the earlier and longer version, with a certain joy, stretching his legs out beneath the piano as the entire stage seemed to move as one. The intermezzo and final movement were equally great to the first, with the maze of themes in Rachmaninoff’s final movement articulated as though it was a walk through an (astoundingly) beautiful park. At the final cadence the audience leapt to its feet and would not calm until treated to an encore—which Trpčeski obliged. (I hear he did on Saturday too). The Classical Series continues on May 17th with Thibaudet Plays Turangalîla, a rarely heard masterpiece by Olivier Messiaen featuring the otherworldly, electronic ondes-Martenot.
Merging Concert and Choreography: Ben Folds with Nashville Ballet
and vitality that is graceful, visceral, and everything in between.
The flagship piece of the production is The Ben Folds Project: Concerto, a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Folds with choreography by Paul Vasterling, Artistic Director for Nashville Ballet. Folds’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was composed both as a concert piece to be heard in symphony halls and as an intended collaboration with Nashville Ballet. Performed with the piano onstage, it is a treat for any audience member to watch the piece masterfully played by the composer himself. Vasterling’s choreography beautifully highlights all the elements of the work that make its second original intent as a ballet so clear; elements that can be so easily overlooked in a concert setting. The work’s third movement features Nashville Ballet company members Mollie Sansone, Lily Saito, Brett Sjoblom, and Luca Sportelli, who offer a performance that perfectly highlights the rhythmic intensity and drive of Folds’s music. This production is the first time since its premier in 2014 that Folds and Nashville Ballet have performed the Concerto in its intended collaborative setting.
The most intimate moments can be seen in the two middle pieces, Bloom Pas De Deux and Duo Concertant. Bloom Pas De Deux features the music of Philip Glass’s Violin Concert No. 1, played beautifully by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. It is the Belgian-Columbian choreographers reflection on devotion rituals she observed in Bali, Indonesia. The motion that ebbs between delicate and powerful was given brilliant life by Kayla Rowser and Benjamin Wetzel. Duo Concertant features choreography by George Balanchine and music of the same name by Igor Stravinsky; a duet for piano and violin exquisitely played by pianist Alessandra Volpi and violinist Christina McGann. Both musicians were positioned onstage with company members Jamie Kopit and Michael Burfield; whose dancing delivered incredible poise and intensity and perfectly reflected the playing of the musicians on stage with them.
The production rounded off with The Lottery, a narrative work based on the short story of the same name by Shirley Jackson with choreography by Val Caniparoli and music by Robert Moran. Permeated by the unease and violence that motivates Jackson’s short story, Moran’s score is filled with twists and turns that unsettle; often resembling a distinctly American version of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. This unsteady musical environment was, yet again, delivered in full by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Val Caniparoli’s choreographic setting of Jackson’s original story takes the intensity even further. The imagery presented maintains constant mounting tension, which the cast embodies with an observable passion and completeness. The work features a live lottery at the climax of the piece, at which cast members participate in the same style of drawing the characters in Jackson’s story do as part of their annual ritual.The cast member at the center of the finale of the piece is randomly selected; never knowing with certainty who will be the sacrifice in each individual performance. After a full program of verbal silence, a shouted, “It’s not fair!” became particularly arresting, and certainly provided a standout moment in the production.
Above all, Ben Folds with Nashville Ballet created a unique environment that can be quite rare in performance. It created a space of complete harmony between music and dance; where the two elements could be appreciated in full as one entity and neither vied for dominance over the other. Instrumental soloists were just as visible as the dancers for which they played. Music and choreography both seemed to be produced from a place that is as much source as it is response. Three out of the four programmed pieces were composed with the full intention of their performance in a concert hall without any staging at all, but were choreographed and performed with such a high degree of care and finesse that one almost could not imagine them without their choreography. In the same way, the one programmed piece that was composed exclusively with choreography in mind would hold wonderfully in a concert hall, stripped of its visual elements. The effect is one of actual awe where the audience can feel every caress and every impact in full, with absolute clarity.
Ben Folds with Nashville Ballet can still be seen in TPAC’s Jackson Hall on April 27, 2019 at 7:30 PM and April 28, 2019 at 2:00 PM. Tickets are available at www.nashvilleballet.com.
Don Aliquo Presents “Tribute to Stan Getz” at the Frist
A temperate spring day drew Nashville locals and tourists to mill about downtown, filling the streets with party buses, pedal taverns, strolling pedestrians, and others riding motorized scooters. As always, the Frist Art Museum was a popular destination for the public who were entreated to another installment of the Nashville Jazz Workshop’s Jazz on the Move series on April 14.
The presentation, titled “Tribute to Stan Getz” was led by saxophonist Don Aliquo who is Professor of Saxophone and Jazz Studies at Middle Tennessee State
University. This was the final installment of the series for 2019, and it featured pianist Lori Mechem, bassist Roger Spencer, drummer Duffy Jackson, guitarist Mel Deal, and saxophonists Denis Solee, Kyle Etges, and Zach Tyler in the ensemble through various configurations. The group performed selections from tenor saxophonist Stan Getz’ wide and varied repertoire spanning from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. As with other presentations in the Jazz on the Move series, the auditorium at the Frist Art Museum was fully attended with every seat filled.
The presentation opened with welcoming remarks from Ellen Pryor, Director of Communications at the Frist and Eric Dilts, Executive Director of the Nashville Jazz Workshop. After the welcoming remarks were concluded, the group launched into a swinging rendition of “Four Brothers,” a Jimmy Giuffre tune recorded by the second Woody Herman “Herd” big band that first exposed Getz’ playing to a wider audience. Incidentally, the second “Herd” was also known as the “Four Brothers Band” due to the popularity of Giuffre’s composition. This tune featured all four saxophonists playing a harmonized melody, often referred to as a “sax soli” feature. The unique aspect of this piece, which was an essential characteristic of Herman’s “Four Brothers Band” was the instrumentation of the saxophone section: three tenors and one baritone saxophone as opposed to the standard instrumentation of two altos, two tenors, and one baritone. The tenors, comprised of Aliquo, Solee, and Tyler with Etges on baritone played with striking precision on the complex melody of the song characterized by the bebop stylings that had emerged in the 1940s when the song was first recorded.
During the improvisations, each saxophonist played with a style reminiscent of Getz’
sound during this period, which was largely modeled after acclaimed saxophonist Lester Young. The overall sound was characterized by smooth phrasing that remained adherent to the pocket provided by the rhythm section.
Speaking of the rhythm section, Mechem, Deal, Spencer, and Jackson supported the wind players superbly with a finely-tuned balance of musical interjection and accompaniment. This resulted in troves of compelling textures, timbres, and atmosphere when combined with the wind players. Jackson proved to be the fieriest of the group, alternating steady swing and Latin grooves with plenty of comping to spare. Each rhythm section member took thoughtful, tasteful, and compelling solos that showcased their depth of knowledge through years of experience of being in-demand jazz musicians in both Nashville and beyond.
After “Four Brothers,” Etges and Tyler exited the stage and the rest of the group moved through the next selections with Aliquo and Solee taking turns on various melodies of the tunes that followed. These selections included a mixture of ballads like “Early Autumn” and “Moonlight in Vermont” (featuring a chord melody introduction by Deal) with up-tempo bebop tunes like “Motion” (a contrafact of “You Stepped Out of a Dream”) before moving into the Latin staples of Getz’ career. These Latin selections included “Desfinado,” “The Girl from Ipanema,” and the bebop/Latin hybrid “Con Alma.” The final selection performed was “Voyage,” an up-tempo tune written by pianist Kenny Barron that appeared on Getz’ album of the same name in the mid-1980s. Both Aliquo and Solee played stylistically true to Getz’ sound while maintaining their own musical identity throughout their phrases, often carrying musical conversations on both the original melodies and improvised solos.
The presentation given by Aliquo and his supporting group largely featured playing the musical selections interspersed with minimal remarks by the artists on Sunday afternoon. It was an effective approach to let the presentation unfold primarily through the music rather than the use of anecdotes. Aliquo provided concise, meaningful information in the spoken parts, and he kept the audience entertained with humor and interactive questions, asking for the audience to describe aspects of Getz’ trademark sound at one point during the presentation.
Readers are encouraged to check out upcoming events at the Nashville Jazz Workshop at their website www.nashvillejazz.org and Aliquo’s upcoming projects via www.donaliquo.com.
At the Schermerhorn and then Rudy’s: A Saturday Night Out in Music City
On April 13, on a day where the rain just wouldn’t seem to stop, the Nashville Symphony presented a concert which featured Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s epic Fourth Symphony “Fate” Opus 36 as well as two pieces by Maryland-born composer Christopher Rouse-Supplica and his Concerto for Orchestra. The Rouse pieces were recorded for a forthcoming release by the Nashville Symphony.
The evening opened with Rouse’s Supplica. Written in 2013, it is a single movement lyrical work which seeks to convey the “intensity of a prayerful plea.” The work is programmatic (and sounds like it), but conveys a meaning for the composer which he states “must remain personal.” In that way, and in the way that Rouse creates a world within the movement, Supplica is written in a remarkably Mahlerian language. Although the orchestra is pared down to horns, brass, harp and strings (lacking woodwinds in particular) it is remarkably lyric with explosive moments of dissonance. Here Nashville’s string section were brought into the highlight and they didn’t disappoint, expressing Rouse’s visceral longing with an eloquent and sensitive phrasing.
But if Supplica represented a kind of etude on musical virtuosity, Rouse’s Concerto for Orchestra brought the technical virtuosity of the entire band to the forefront. This piece is constructed in two halves, with the first filling a kind of “ababa” form that balances great and explosive rhythmic sections with intimate, emotional interludes. The second half is related, but in two parts leading to what Rouse called a “frenzied, almost hysterical, climax.” Certainly, the piece put the orchestra through their paces and what emerged was a fantastic rendition of an extraordinarily difficult piece. To mention any one section by name would be ludicrous, each instrumental section was tested in its own way. In all I anxiously await the recording, not only to document the performance, but also to demonstrate what a superior band we have here in Music City. It was quite nice to see the composer take to the stage and accept his applause. Rouse offered a remarkable thanks Maestro Guerrero in an interview before the concert (located on youtube) in which he remarked on the role and impact that the Symphony has had in championing living American composers;
Speaking for many composers, we are so grateful to you and this terrific orchestra, for having the commitment, not just to perform the music but to record it as well so that it is disseminated beyond just the live concert hall experience. It’s something that we have enormous gratitude for.
After intermission the orchestra returned to the 19th century with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Written just after his brief and tragic marriage, Tchaikovsky dedicated it to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, who he saw as an artistic inspiration for the work, and to whom he gave an extensive description of its program. The symphony opens with a great fanfare for horns, played with brilliance in Nashville. The fanfare returns as a kind of structural articulation that represents, in the composer’s words, “Fate, the fatal power that hinders one in the pursuit of happiness from gaining the goal, which jealously provides that peace and comfort do not prevail, [….] This might is overpowering and invincible. There is nothing to do but to submit and vainly complain.” Indeed, the entire movement proceeds along these lines with a great contrast between hopeful lyrical moments and this crushing fanfare.
Guerrero brought the contrasts out sharply. Special mention goes to the Principle Oboist Titus Underwood for the melody that marks this dreamlike second movement. The third movement is a Scherzo that seems to pay tribute to Mendelsohn; it is a tour-de-force of light fast moving string pizzicato reminiscent of Mendelssohn’s fairy music, played with remarkable precision by Concertmaster Jun Iwasaki and the rest of the strings. The work then proceeded, despite a return of the “fateful fanfare,” to an exciting conclusion that brought the room to its feet. Overall the concert was a beautiful but heavy, emotional evening, and upon leaving, I decided to stop off at Rudy’s Jazz Room to catch some jazz before heading home.
I arrived at Rudy’s just in time to catch the back end of the Jody Nardone trio’s set. Nardone is a fine pianist and tremendous vocalist. The ensemble covered Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun, with an innovative approach that seemed to replace the grunge rock anthem’s volume and distortion with advanced harmonies and introspection. A fusion that made the song anew even as it carried the same expressive goals with gripping precision. After the set, Nardone gave me a copy of his 2013 release Lights Will Guide You Home whose title he took from the opening ballad “Fix You” by popular rock artist Coldplay. It is littered with these beautiful covers of deep tracks in popular music.
At 11:30 the Geoff Pfeifer Quartet came onstage and performed a harder Jazz, opening with
Wayne Shorter’s “Fee Fi Fo Fum” and then “Stella by Starlight,” with a brisk fluency that was refreshing and quite exciting–a New York, even Bebop-informed, jazz in Music City. In a night of stark contrasts I shouldn’t have expected anything more. Unfortunately, life had plans for me early the next morning so I had to depart ‘round midnight. So much music here in the city, so little time.
Nashville Opera’s Tales of Hoffmann Dazzles and Delights
A group of drunken students, a muse disguised as a man, and a love-torn poet walk into a bar.
Thus begins the Nashville Opera’s company premiere of Tales of Hoffmann, a fantastical story of a slightly inebriated poet named Hoffmann (Noah Stewart) who endures three lost loves before recognizing that his love is, in fact, his art.
The original, nearly four-hour long opera was scaled back to almost three hours in Artistic Director John Hoome’s skillfully crafted production that transforms a light-hearted, opéra comique into a story with depth and impressionable characters. Coupled with some of opera’s finest voices, with only minuscule shortcomings, Tales of Hoffmann delights and transports the audience to a modern-day fairy tale.
The work is separated into three distinct acts, named after Hoffmann’s three past lovers: Olympia, a mechanical doll Hoffmann mistakes for a real person, Antonia, a beautiful young woman suffering from a potentially fatal illness, and Giulietta, a glamorous Venetian courtesan. Nicklausse (Sara Crigger), Hoffmann’s artistic muse disguised as a man, is along for the ride, saving him from all his love-sick antics.
Crigger’s progression as a character and rich mezzo-soprano voice serve as a focal point of the story, all while poking fun of Hoffmann’s grief and taunting him with past songs of his long-lost lovers. Almost as if they are chums in real-life, the chemistry between both characters is notable and an important facet for the over-arching story.
While some opera companies choose to divide all three of Hoffmann’s lovers between one singer or have different singers for all three, Nashville chose another noteworthy route. By casting Antonia and Giulietta (Inna Dukach) as the same singer, this gave Olympia (Chelsea Friedlander) a stand-alone role in which Friedlander truly shines.
Similarly, the four villains named Lindorf, Coppélius, Miracle, and Dapertutto were performed by the same bass-baritone (Zachary James), because they are all manifestations of evil that lurk and seemingly play a hand in failing each of Hoffmann’s love-interests.
While the division at first sounds like it would diminish the role of these lovers in relation to Hoffmann – it does quite the opposite. Olympia’s role calls for a dramatic, coloratura voice that Friedlander so skillfully shows off in one of the opera’s most famous arias “Les oiseaux dans la charmille” (“The birds in the arbor”, nicknamed “The Doll Song”).
Friedlander offered a performance combining extraordinary agility, accurate intonation, and pinpoint staccatos. Despite minor weaknesses with the trills and stratospheric upper register, such shortcomings are overshadowed by her tricky role consisting of jerky automaton-inspired movements contrasting with her sprightly cadenzas. Friedlander chimed through her character’s prominent doll aria, earning well-earned laughter from the audience as she pretended to undergo a mechanical malfunction.
Set against a dreamlike “Alice in Wonderland” like backdrop, featuring mad-scientists and disembodied eyes, the first act was outlandish and an eye-catcher. A feature of Hoome’s version of Hoffmann, however, is that the fairy tale playfulness of the opera doesn’t end with Olympia.
While critics label the second act as being the weaker part of the opera, Nashville’s production seemingly breaks that mold. Dukach as Antonia absolutely dazzles the audience with her nuanced attention to dynamics which kept the drama feeling genuine rather than phony, employing gentle pianissimo high notes to convey Antonia’s mournful yearning for her mother.
Perhaps the most emotionally riveting moments of the production come from this act, where Dukach and Stewart skillfully showcase the chemistry that two well-seasoned performers can bring to the stage. Take for example “C’est une chanson d’amour” (“It’s a love song”), where Dukach twirls through her swirling lyrics and Stewart transcends to a character hopelessly in love with the lady before him.
Paired with a spicy performance by James as Dr. Miracle, the act’s Nemesis, and the lyrical and flexible voice of Rafael Porto as Crespel, Antonia’s father, this act was a stirring and well-produced bridge into the opera’s final scenes.
The drama in the plot only gets stronger in the third act, when Hoffmann falls for the devious Venetian
courtesan Giulietta. Once again, Dukach displays her liveliness as a performer by switching roles to a devious woman that tricks Hoffmann into thinking she loves him.
The act opens with the barcarolle “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour” (“Beautiful night, oh night of love”). A dreamy song that showcases not only one of the most famous barcarolles ever written but also features the production’s heavily marketed gondolas which stroll through the production’s impressive set. Throughout, Dukach didn’t press too hard to overdo her role as a seductress, and her gestures of coyness served her well in firing up the chemistry between her and Stewart.
Zachary James, having one of the strongest voices of the production, also acted with an amazing set of hand gestures balanced by the slightly cringe-worthy bowing of a larger-than-life violin in the second act.
Nevertheless, the audience later shares in Hoffmann’s respite when Crigger’s character finally revealed she was a Muse – a goddess of artistic inspiration – and thus Hoffmann’s unwavering love. The grandiose unveiling felt gratifying and well-earned after following the growing friendship between Nicklausse and Hoffmann.
With the performers’ lively singing and commitment to their characters, Nashville Opera’s Tales of Hoffmann gleams as a prevailing fairy tale and perceptive metaphor of overcoming even the worst of heartbreaks.
The Silkroad Ensemble Makes a Stop in Music City
MCR: It has been over 20 years since Yo-Yo Ma conceived of the Silkroad Ensemble as “…a model for productive cultural collaboration, for the exchange of ideas and tradition alongside commerce and innovation.” How have the goals and approaches changed since Ma’s original vision?
JG: When the group was founded 20 years ago, we pursued the mission by trying to answer one question: what happens when strangers meet? There was a lot of trial and error back then. There was definitely fear of the unknown, of making mistakes, with the occasional impostor syndrome thrown in. But there was also curiosity about each other and the musical traditions that were represented by each member of the Ensemble, as well as deep mutual respect. With each tour, the sense of trust grew within the band, to the point where when engaging in the unfamiliar, we could simply be ourselves, and know that we got each other’s back. The joy of discovery and friendship is palpable, both for us and the audiences. A
Having spent almost 2 decades playing and traveling together, learning about one another and visiting each others homes, we are no longer strangers, we are family. We’ve seen each other grow up, immigrate, start families, have kids. We’ve seen each other’s hair turn grey.
Of course there are still highs and lows, and many more lessons to learn, but we go through them as one. The ensemble has built a shared history, one that every musician in the group has contributed to, and the collective experience and knowledge of the band is our most valuable currency.
MCR: How did Nashville come to have a stop on the Silkroad?
JG: We are currently on tour in the Southeast, having stops in North Carolina and Georgia, before
heading to Nashville. We’ve played at Schermerhorn Center once before – it’s one of the great halls in the country! It’s definitely one of the places we are most excited about playing at during this tour.
MCR: What is the make up of the ensemble that is visiting Nashville?
JG: This is an unusually small group, with only 7 musicians. Shawn Conley (bass), Sandeep Das (tabla), Haruka Fujii (percussion), Joe Gramley (percussion), Cristina Pato (gaita, piano) and myself have been playing with the group for a very long time. We are very excited to have Nora Fischer join us on this tour. Nora is an incredible singer, who combines deep knowledge of the Western Classical tradition, with a beautiful affinity for folk singing traditions from around the world. She is a perfect fit for Silkroad Ensemble – I can’t wait for you to hear her!
MCR: What should audiences look for in your concert?
JG: This particular program features a diverse array of global traditions, with music from Galicia,
Ghana, India, Japan, Lebanon, Moravia, Peru, Spain and Syria. There will also be music by Henry Purcell, Maurice Ravel and John Zorn. It’s a fun musical trip around the world, and you don’t even need to bro g your passport, just your ears and an open mind!
MCR: What impact, ideally, would you have on music city?
JG: I think it’s more likely that Music City will have an impact on us! So many musical heroes and dear friends of ours live in Nashville! Bela Fleck and Abby Washburn, Connie Heard and Edgar Meyer, Wu Fei, Chris Eldridge and Kristen Andreassen, Brittany Haas, Paul Kowert -p the list goes on. I’m hoping to give a concert worthy of a city so many musical giants call their home.
MCR: Do you plan to hear any local music while you are in town?
JG: Absolutely! Our first free night on tour is Sunday – I will be at the Local, can’t wait to hear Chris Scruggs; on Monday night, my plan after our show is to run to the American Legion Hall to catch Billy Contreras’ set. Maybe catch the Time Jumpers if there is time?
