Archive for the 'Columbus Symphony Orchestra' Category
December 6th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
There’s good and bad pops music. Good is well written and arranged, with idiomatic orchestration. Bad is not, especially when individual parts are awkward. Difficult is okay, but poorly written becomes awkward and difficult to pull off.
We have played three out of the four total Columbus Symphony Holiday Pops concerts this weekend. An extra concert was added Saturday afternoon due to popular demand. If you still want to attend, there is one more concert this afternoon (Sunday Dec. 6) at 3PM.
(If you know someone in the CSO, you can get a promo card for free downloads of several tunes from our website, http://columbussymphony.com)
I don’t have very difficult parts, (maybe that’s why I like them!) so I used these performances to practice my Alexander Technique, breathing ideas, voicing, and general relaxed concentration; skills I often forget to monitor during more difficult programs.
Ronald Jenkins has created a dedicated following in Columbus with his careful mix of light classical, traditional and new pops works for the Holiday Season. It’s always a feast of the artistic senses; with singers, dancers, children, stories, sing alongs, humor, and a visit from a “special guest from the North Pole.” Something for everyone. And it works.
This program featured some new and some old music. Ron usually includes a few classical works on the first half. This weekend, he added two movements from Handel’s Judas Maccabeus Oratorio, an inclusion of some music in honor of the Jewish holiday tradition of Hanukkah. He also likes to feature concertmaster Chas Wetherbee whenever he can. This program had two movements from Vivaldi’s Winter concerto from the Four Seasons.
Craig Courtney, who resides in Columbus, wrote what has become our traditional Holiday Pops Overture, a delightful and well arranged selection of several Christmas carols. We’ve done a few other works by Craig, and they are always fun (often really funny, too, especially his 12 Days of Christmas satire) and well written.
This program featured two works from Wonder Tidings by Stephen Main from San Francisco. Evocative instrumentation set the mood for the first piece, In the Bleak of Mid-Winter, oboe solo (Steve Secan), Harp (Jude Mollenhauer) and soprano (one of three wonderful singers from the chorus), with strings and some full chorus. The second featured a strikingly appropriate jubilant orchestration for Alleluja, A New Work is Come on Hand.
The CSO Chorus was radiantly featured in A. Randolf Stroope’s acapella (unaccompanied chorus) All My Heart This Night Rejoices. Two Ballet Met dancers created a lovely, romantic vignette to this sweet music.
The first half ended with an arrangement of Deck the Halls, to hint at the lighter second half.
The second half is always more folksy and traditional in style. This year it’s 3 Christmas carols in a sing along for the audience, followed by two works for the wonderful Children “New World Singers” honed to high quality by Sandra Mathias. One of my beginning clarinet students sings in this choir. I’m very proud of him.
Then a Mel Tormé classic tune, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, followed by Leroy Anderson’s quintessential classic Sleigh Ride (conducted by a child member of the audience).
Then we played Ronald Alan Bass The Night Before Christmas, with the story/poem told by Linda Dorf and acted by several Ballet Met children dancers. I particularly like this piece, which is deliciously composed, and which reminds me of the brilliant music of John Williams.
A few more Christmas tunes and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus and we were done.
Often, during these long hauls of ultra-light saccharine music, musicians will poke fun by adding a word or two to a title. Some previous musician had changed the name of one of the last tunes we played from “We need a Little Christmas” to “We need a Little Less Christmas”. As much as I enjoyed the music, I think I’ve had enough to last me until next year.
But I’m glad the audience enjoys it. A happy audience is our goal.
“
December 3rd, 2009 by David H. Thomas
We had the first rehearsal for this weekend’s Holiday Pops concerts with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Ron Jenkins always puts together a fun and balanced program. Both the Symphony Chorus and the Children’s Choir sound great.
Now for my little pet peev. I hate it when composers write inconsistent versions of the same rhythm. Pick a style and stick with it. Please!
The second bar in this photo has the same rhythm as the first measure of the second line. But sight reading the two inconsistent versions can easily lead to questioning whether it’s a different rhythm. Do composers seek out obscure new ways to mark their territory? It’s memorable, for the wrong reason.
November 28th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
You don’t have to be a Facebook member to vote for the Columbus Symphony.
November 25th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
I supported Columbus Symphony Orchestra… by voting for them to win $25k with Chasegiving. Please fan, vote, and RT! http://bit.ly/45FsA
Columbus Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1951 to develop and maintain a major professional symphony orchestra of the highest artistic standard.
The Columbus Symphony Orchestra provides the highest quality performance and comprehensive symphony education programs to all areas of the community. CSO’s costs include all subscription performances, special performances, summer series, and educational concerts ($6,072,830). The CSO performs 18 sets of subscription concerts, 6 sets of Pops concerts, a six week summer series (Picnic With the Pops and Popcorn Pops), educational, run-out, and community concerts in addition to providing services for Opera/Columbus and Ballet Met. Education programs reach over 60,000 youth annually.
November 22nd, 2009 by David H. Thomas
It’s always a struggle for me to maintain the creative energy which I experience during Spring and Summer, and carry it through the shorter days and colder weather of Fall and Winter. (I dislike labels and “conditions” but here’s the official description of the issue on Wikipedia.) I think many people experience the same symptoms. I manage by taking walks during day time if possible, and by allowing some slack in my productivity during this time of year.
By the middle of January, I invariably begin to feel more optimistic about ideas, plans, projects, etc. As a gardener, I specialize in late winter blooming plants, such as Helleborus, Witch Hazel, Snow Drops and Early Crocus, for they remind me that longer days and warmer weather are imminent.
In late September I announced on this blog that I would learn and perform all from the Paul Jeanjean 18 Etudes Book in a year. I still plan to follow through. But I’ve been stuck for awhile on etude 2. Several reasons exist for the practice block, besides the natural cycling down of energy and mood explained above.
1: Etude 2 has always been a clincher for me. It’s extremely difficult to master. Over the years it’s been the one which laughed at me, until I finally performed it a few years ago. But this time, I insist on perfecting it, mastering it. That is requiring some “living with it”, which I have discussed a bit here, but don’t want to belabor the issue. (unless someone is really interested)
2: Every season, I seem to miscalculate how much energy and practice time my real job takes, as principal clarinetist with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Normally I could manage what we have had to play so far, but reason 3 explains why even the normal symphony practice has been a new challenge this season.
3: In the past six months, during the high point of my creative energy period, I switched ALL my equipment (mouthpieces, reeds, clarinets) to radically different styles, makers, brands. It’s all good. I have enjoyed and benefited from all the changes, because they challenge me to separate what is me and what is the equipment, a great test to help identify tiny weaknesses needing work. But those changes and my playing barely had time to settle before I returned to full time work, where such experiments are unprofessional if they interfere with my performance reliability. My colleagues must be able trust what I will sound like from day to day. That is how we can blend as we do in the orchestra. I must also be able to rely on myself to play delicate solos on radically different equipment. It’s one thing to do it well as home, it’s another world to perform it live under pressure with the group.
So I’ve been scrambling to get the needle pointed North again and get back to my groove. I’m almost there. In the meantime, I’m heading South, to South Carolina. A few days break to visit my aging father in Charleston SC will be a refreshing (and warming) change.
I really look forward to nailing JJ 2 to the wall. It’s coming along, just not quite ready for public airing yet.
November 20th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
Preparing for tonight’s Columbus Symphony performance of the 9th symphony of Gustav Mahler, a magnificent and momentous work, I took a long walk through the park near my house. Nature was Mahler’s spirituality, and so it was helpful to walk through it to gear me up mentally and psychologically for this music.
Gunther Herbig, who is conducting this weekend, seems to have a fond affinity for the symphony. He described the symphony as Mahler’s farewell to the world. The first movement has a memorable and simple two note descending theme, which sounds like “Gooood bye.” The second movement is a raucous scherzo, sarcastic and mocking in parts, tender and sweet in others. The third movement is another less than generous view of mankind, a highly energetic, frenetic at times, fast movement, with a section where four fugal themes combat for attention simultaneously. The last movement is a gorgeous and sensuous slow movement, his spiritual farewell. The tenderness of Mahler’s music never fails to elicit deep emotions for me.
Herbig rehearsed the piece well this week, seeming to know all the (many) trouble spots. He is the opposite of a naive musician. He knows every note, and has thought about it’s meaning and importance of this mountain of a symphony. I commend him on his preparation, both mental and spiritual.
That said, I have to have some dinner and go over some sections before tonight’s concert at 8 PM. Hope to see you there.
October 30th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
For our Columbus Symphony Halloween Pops concert tomorrow night (Saturday Oct 31 in Veterans Memorial Hall, Columbus Oh), we’re playing one piece which has become a standard for Halloween Pops: Mousorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. After all, it features a witch’s dance, more like a rave party, through the night on a scary “bald” mountain top!
But near the end, you hear a church bell ring, and there’s a beautiful coda of peaceful music as day approaches.
It is near the end of this that a lonely but sweet clarinet solo appears, followed by a little more optimistic flute solo in the same vein.
It’s a tricky little solo. To capture the sweet sadness it depicts, the slur up to the high e must be effortless. I also try to diminuendo the e, as if it just floats away, before continuing with the next part of the phrase. The triplets must also float lightly before the high e, and must not bog down in “subdivision” style playing.
I crescendo in the 5th and 6th bars toward the 2nd beat of the 6th bar, where the repeated c triplets should diminuendo, almost as if giving up, tired, before resolving to the b. It’s a very intimate solo, and cannot be played too extrovertedly.
The program sounds like it will be fun and entertaining, with some gorgeous Broadway songs from Phantom of the Opera and others, sung by Lisa Vroman and Doug LaBrecque between a few orchestral numbers. It’s not a typical “scary” Halloween concert, but that’s a refreshing change.
