Kim, Paul S., (Director)

Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra

English

Old Dominion University

 Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra  Paul S. Kim, Music Director  Flute Horn Violin Violoncello Hyeshin Yoon** Jenna Henkel Monifa Williams  Piccolo Jenna Henkel  Oboe Todd Worsham** Katherine Ross Carol Zeisler+  English Horn Katherine Ross  Clarinet  Keyara Fleece** Andre Jefferson, Jr. Robert Rigby  Bass Clarinet Robert Rigby  Bassoon Edward Taylor** Benjamin Deronde  Taylor Royse** James Craddock Morgan Hatfield Lauren White  Trumpet Jimmy Whittemore** Evan Turner Christian Van Deven  Tenor Trombone Jared Raymer** Christopher Miller  Bass Trombone Brian Horlor  Tuba Lance Schade  Timpani Christian Van Hoose  Percussion Anthony Carlton Andrew Smith Jonathan Wudijono  Lee Murdock* Stephanie Marrero** Flordave Abadam Melissa Clouse Lindsey Crook Jesus Encarnación La’Teef Evans  Sarah Graham Ashton Morris-Mann Audriana Najera Jamie Payne Ken Simonson  Viola Madeline Hofelich** Quandra Dennis Montague Gammon Michelle Reiss Danielle Smith  Kevin Fields** Ben Charlem Brian Loper Chandler Nunnally Kelby Schnepel Aleta Tomas  Double Bass Trianne Smith** Jessica Polston  Harp Alexandra Calvert  Piano Beth Anne Jacob   Orchestra Manager Kelby Schnepel  * Concertmaster ** Principal + Guest Musician   Upcoming Events:  Ticket Box Office (757) 683-5305; http://www.oduartstix.com/  2/10 – Student Recital:  Stephanie Burkard, voice – 4:00 PM Diehn Center for the Performing Arts, Chandler Recital Hall   2/10 Guest Artist: Kim Gillman & Friends, horn – 7:30 pm Diehn Center for the Performing Arts, Chandler Recital Hall   3/29 – Russell Stanger String Quartet Competition – 4:00 PM Diehn Center for the Performing Arts, Chandler Recital Hall   3/30 – ODU Symphony Orchestra: String Voyages – 3:00 PM Diehn Center for the Performing Arts, Chandler Recital Hall   4/26 – ODU Symphony Orchestra: Romantic Symphonists – 7:30 PM University Theatre   Old Dominion University   Department of Music  Presents  The American Spirit  Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra Paul S. Kim, Music Director         Diehn Center for the Performing Arts Atrium     February 9, 2014                                      3:00 PM  - Program -   Excelsior Lance Schade  (b. 1990)  Rainbow Body Christopher Theofanidis (b. 1967)  -Intermission-  Symphony No. 2 “Romantic,” op. 30 Howard Hanson  (1896–1981)           I.  Adagio – Allegro moderato       II.  Andante con tenerezza      III.  Allegro con brio   FROM THE MUSIC DIRECTOR               The Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra’s winter program is a presentation of works by 20th- and 21st-century composers native to the United States—including Lance Schade, a recent graduate of Old Dominion University and a winner of its annual Young Artists Competition. A characteristically American spirit of hope and optimism—always looking forward and up—is infused in all of these works: Excelsior, with its youthful vitality and relentless drive; Rainbow Body, with its connection to the divine even beyond death; and Hanson’s Symphony No.2 “Romantic,”  which the composer hoped would serve as a springboard for a new wave of Romanticism within the United States. While their styles differ significantly from each other, all three composers embrace both traditional and nontraditional musical structures, manipulated not simply for the sake of intellectual exercise but as a means of expressing loftier, emotionally driven ideas.    ABOUT THE MUSICIANS  Lance Schade is a music composition graduate of Old Dominion University and was a student of Dr. Adolphus Hailstork. Having arranged pieces for high school marching bands, Lance also has premiered compositions with soprano Emily Laura Ficca, clarinetist Steve Clendenin, the Old Dominion University Brass Choir, and the Russell Stanger String Quartet. Recently, Lance has been accepted into the United States Army Band program.  Paul S. Kim is a conductor, violinist, composer, and educator who works to blend classical artistry with popular accessibility. As assistant professor of music at Old Dominion University, he directs the ODU Symphony Orchestra, teaches applied violin and conducting, and oversees the Department of Music’s string and chamber music programs. He also serves as assistant conductor of the Richmond Philharmonic Orchestra. Previously, he has served as assistant conductor and principal second violinist of the Piedmont Symphony Orchestra, and he has enjoyed guest-conducting performances with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra, and the Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra. On the popular side, Dr. Kim was the conductor for Eurythmics star Dave Stewart and his Rock Fabulous Orchestra, conducting songs Stewart wrote for Eurythmics, Bono, Gwen Stefani, Tom Petty, Mick Jagger, and others. As an educator, Dr. Kim served for three years as director of strings at Woodberry Forest School. He also served as principal conductor of the McLean Youth Orchestra and was the founding director of the Crossroads Youth Orchestra in Culpeper, Virginia. As a violinist, he is a current member of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra as well as a previous member of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra and the McLean Orchestra. Dr. Kim is also the composer of over twenty original works for small and large ensembles.  His arrangements of Radiohead songs for string quintet SYBARITE5 have been performed on NPR’s Performance Today as well as at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Aspen Music Festival; one such cover helped earn SYBARITE5 a top-ten rating in Billboard’s Classical Crossover Albums chart in 2011.  The arrangements have been released on SYBARITE5’s album Everything in Its Right Place. Dr. Kim completed a D.M.A. in conducting performance at Shenandoah Conservatory under the mentorship of Jan Wagner.  Previously, he earned an M.M. in orchestral conducting at the University of Maryland as well as an M.A. in music and a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Virginia.  He also formerly served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.    PROGRAM NOTES   Excelsior, composed by Lance Schade over the course of three years, originally stood as the first movement of a string quintet first performed by the Russell Stanger String Quartet at Old Dominion University. Under the guidance of Dr. Adolphus Hailstork, Schade orchestrated the piece for symphony orchestra for submission to the Old Dominion University Young Artists Competition in 2013. As one of three winners of the competition, Schade is having this newly orchestrated work premiered today with the Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra. Excelsior (defined as “ever higher” or “ever rising”) utilizes rhythmic and melodic repetition alongside a loose version of sonata-allegro form to emulate the spirit of the title. Resolved and unresolved dissonances—as well as the juxtaposition of shorter and longer articulations—give the work its aggressive, dark, and modern flavor.    Christopher Theofanidis composed Rainbow Body in 2000 on commission for the Houston Symphony. The primary melody is based on a chant by medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen called “Ave Maria, o auctrix vite” (Hail Mary, source of life), which praises Mary, mother of Jesus, for bringing an end to suffering from sin through the birth of her son. Theofanidis has long had great respect for the beauty and grace in von Bingen’s music, describing her melodies as a foundation for “intimate communication with the divine.” At key moments throughout the work, Theofanidis uses the chant melody as a “plateau of stability and peace within an otherwise turbulent environment.” The work’s title refers to the second central influence for Theofanidis: the Tibetan Buddhist idea of “Rainbow Body,” in which the body of an enlightened being upon death is absorbed directly into the universe as energy or light. As Theofanidis describes, no energy is lost in this transition; rather, it simply changes state. Theofanidis creates an aural image of this idea through the construction of a “wet acoustic” in his writing: notes within the melody are prolonged by some instruments even as the melody progresses in other instruments, resulting in a written-out “reverb” effect akin to the sound within a stone cathedral. The sound of each note lingers, just as the energy of the soul lingers even after death.     Howard Hanson is an American composer whose work is often sidelined in the annals of western music history. A native of Nebraska who studied at Northwestern University, Hanson was the director of the Eastman School of Music for forty years. Hanson’s early compositional influences included Edvard Grieg, Jean Sibelius, and Ottorino Respighi (with whom he studied during a three-year stay in Italy). Of his seven symphonies, Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 “Romantic” is his best known. He composed it in 1930 on commission by Serge Koussevitsky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 50th anniversary. The following are Hanson’s own description of his intent:  The Symphony for me represents my escape from the rather bitter type of modern musical realism [that] occupies so large a place in contemporary thought. Much contemporary music seems to me to be showing a tendency to become entirely too cerebral. I do not believe that music is primarily a matter of the intellect, but rather a manifestation of the emotions. I have, therefore, aimed in this Symphony to create a work that was young in spirit, lyrical and romantic in temperament, and simple and direct in expression.  This directness of expression is reflected in part by the symphony’s cyclical nature: its primary themes pervade all three movements of the work. However, the work is not as simple as Hanson describes. He remains within a tonal framework yet expands the range of his vocabulary through the inclusion of complex, dissonant harmonies as well as chords built from nontraditional intervals (fourths instead of thirds). That said, the strength of Hanson’s composition derives not from the novelty of his more “modern” constructions but rather from the manner in which he juxtaposes consonance with dissonance (as great composers have been doing for centuries), highlighting both extremes by bringing them in full relief with each other in line with his dramatic narrative. The lyricism of his melodies and the “manifestation of emotion” underlying these melodies help characterize the “Romantic” sensibility that gives the symphony its nickname.                                                            --Notes by Lance Schade and Paul Kim   For more information about the Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra, including future performances, auditions, and scholarships, like us on Facebook, and visit our website at: http://al.odu.edu/odusymphony/     PROGRAM NOTES   Excelsior, composed by Lance Schade over the course of three years, originally stood as the first movement of a string quintet first performed by the Russell Stanger String Quartet at Old Dominion University. Under the guidance of Dr. Adolphus Hailstork, Schade orchestrated the piece for symphony orchestra for submission to the Old Dominion University Young Artists Competition in 2013. As one of three winners of the competition, Schade is having this newly orchestrated work premiered today with the Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra. Excelsior (defined as “ever higher” or “ever rising”) utilizes rhythmic and melodic repetition alongside a loose version of sonata-allegro form to emulate the spirit of the title. Resolved and unresolved dissonances—as well as the juxtaposition of shorter and longer articulations—give the work its aggressive, dark, and modern flavor.    Christopher Theofanidis composed Rainbow Body in 2000 on commission for the Houston Symphony. The primary melody is based on a chant by medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen called “Ave Maria, o auctrix vite” (Hail Mary, source of life), which praises Mary, mother of Jesus, for bringing an end to suffering from sin through the birth of her son. Theofanidis has long had great respect for the beauty and grace in von Bingen’s music, describing her melodies as a foundation for “intimate communication with the divine.” At key moments throughout the work, Theofanidis uses the chant melody as a “plateau of stability and peace within an otherwise turbulent environment.” The work’s title refers to the second central influence for Theofanidis: the Tibetan Buddhist idea of “Rainbow Body,” in which the body of an enlightened being upon death is absorbed directly into the universe as energy or light. As Theofanidis describes, no energy is lost in this transition; rather, it simply changes state. Theofanidis creates an aural image of this idea through the construction of a “wet acoustic” in his writing: notes within the melody are prolonged by some instruments even as the melody progresses in other instruments, resulting in a written-out “reverb” effect akin to the sound within a stone cathedral. The sound of each note lingers, just as the energy of the soul lingers even after death.      Howard Hanson is an American composer whose work is often sidelined in the annals of western music history. A native of Nebraska who studied at Northwestern University, Hanson was the director of the Eastman School of Music for forty years. Hanson’s early compositional influences included Edvard Grieg, Jean Sibelius, and Ottorino Respighi (with whom he studied during a three-year stay in Italy). Of his seven symphonies, Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 “Romantic” is his best known. He composed it in 1930 on commission by Serge Koussevitsky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 50th anniversary. The following are Hanson’s own description of his intent:  The Symphony for me represents my escape from the rather bitter type of modern musical realism [that] occupies so large a place in contemporary thought. Much contemporary music seems to me to be showing a tendency to become entirely too cerebral. I do not believe that music is primarily a matter of the intellect, but rather a manifestation of the emotions. I have, therefore, aimed in this Symphony to create a work that was young in spirit, lyrical and romantic in temperament, and simple and direct in expression.  This directness of expression is reflected in part by the symphony’s cyclical nature: its primary themes pervade all three movements of the work. However, the work is not as simple as Hanson describes. He remains within a tonal framework yet expands the range of his vocabulary through the inclusion of complex, dissonant harmonies as well as chords built from nontraditional intervals (fourths instead of thirds). That said, the strength of Hanson’s composition derives not from the novelty of his more “modern” constructions but rather from the manner in which he juxtaposes consonance with dissonance (as great composers have been doing for centuries), highlighting both extremes by bringing them in full relief with each other in line with his dramatic narrative. The lyricism of his melodies and the “manifestation of emotion” underlying these melodies help characterize the “Romantic” sensibility that gives the symphony its nickname.                                                       --Notes by Lance Schade and Paul Kim   For more information about the Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra, including future performances, auditions, and scholarships, like us on Facebook, and visit our website at: http://al.odu.edu/odusymphony/  

The American Spirit: Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra

https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1086&context=musicperformance_ensembles

The American Spirit: Old Dominion University Symphony Orchestra

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