Alexander Nevsky: Cantata for choir and orchestra

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014 | 2.30 PM | AVONDALE COLLEGE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCHAVONDALE.EDU.AU/EVENTS

FEATURING: THE UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE WIND ORCHESTRA AND AVONDALE SINGERSCONDUCTOR: DR IAN COOK WITH: GIAN FRANCO RICCI (PIANO) AND LISA BELLE (MEZZO SOPRANO)

master works

C O N C E R T S E R I E S

a v o n d a l e

Australian premiere

for wind

orchestra

Also featuring:

Piano Concerto

No 2 and

Festive Overture

by

Dmitri Shosta- kovich

Biographies

Dr Ian Cook is a senior lecturer in the School of Creative Arts at The Uni-versity of Newcastle. The university recognised his commitment to excellence with a vice chancellor’s award in 1997. The award came for winning with the university’s wind orchestra the Open A Grade Concert Bands at the Australian National Band Championships. Ian’s conducting experience is vast. More recently, it includes a season of Così fan tutte during Newcastle Festival Opera’s inaugural year in 2007. Wonderful Town and The Merry Widow, also for the opera, followed in 2008. Highlights in 2010 include La bohème in the Civic Theatre and the wind orchestra’s performance of Carmina Burana with the Newcastle University Choir. A concert featuring opera star Amelia Farrugia and then Candide, supported by the choir, came in 2011. In 2013, Ian took up a Scholars and Artist in Residence Fellowship at the National Sound and Film Archives where he researched Mozart performances in the 20th century. He took a further fellowship this year researching Hector Crawford’s contribution to Australia’s cultural history.

The University of Newcastle Wind Orchestra began as the City of Newcastle Concert Band in 1979, with Ian Cook becoming its director of music two years later. The band became part of what is now the School of Creative Arts, which incorporates the conservatorium, at the uni-versity in 1994. Three years later, it won the Open A Grade Concert Bands category at the Australian National Band Championships, repeating its success the following year. In 2006, The University of Newcastle visited China on its first international tour, with the wind orchestra performing to capacity audiences in Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai. In 2009, the orchestra celebrated its 30th anniversary with a performance of the Queen Symphony. Also in 2009, the orchestra toured South New Zealand performing in Christchurch and Queenstown.

Avondale Singers began in 1947. With extensive touring and release of records played on radio, it soon gained national recognition for excellence, performing for the first television broadcast of a choral group in Sydney. Its repertoire ranges from four- to eight-part gospel, spiritual and jazz arrangements to classical oratorio with orchestra. The singers performed at United World Concert Tours’ annual Sydney Youth Musicale at Sydney Opera House in 2009 and 2010 and at the Music for Royal Occasions and War and Peace Homecoming concerts in 2012 and 2013. It also released its second DVD, a performance of Handel’s Messiah, in 2013.

Aleta King is director of the Conservatorium of Music at Avondale College of Higher Education. She is also artistic direc-tor of Avondale vocal ensemble The Promise and director of Avondale Singers and Avondale Chamber Orchestra. Aleta lecturers in musicianship and conducting. She is a former lecturer at The University of Queensland and The University of Melbourne and is regularly invited to present for the Australian Society for Music Education, the Kodály Music Education Institute of Australia and the Australian National Choral Association. She has traveled extensively, studying in Hungary at the Liszt Academy’s Kodály Insti-tute where she received the International Kodály Society’s Sarolta Kodály Foundation Scholarship and the Hungarian Government Scholarship. While in Europe, Aleta accepted an invitation to become musical director for the London Adventist Chorale, which gave her the experience of per-forming for the Golden Jubilee celebrations at Bucking-ham Palace and the foundation for forming the Brisbane Adventist Voices upon her return.

Dr Gian-Franco Ricci is a lecturer in the School of Creative Arts at The University of Newcastle. He has 27 years’ experience teaching piano, 23 of which have been in university settings. He has broadcast live for the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States as well as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Gian-Franco has per-formed and recorded with his father, the renowned violinist Ruggiero Ricci. His recordings include the world premiere of Yusef Lateef’s Piano Sonata on Atlantic Records and the complete Schubert Sonatinas with Ruggiero Ricci (violin) on the Ricci Collection label.

Lisa Belle graduated with a Bachelor of Music majoring in voice from The University of Newcastle in 2013. Originally from Tamworth, Lisa moved to Newcastle to continue her vocal studies with Dr Christopher Allan. During her studies, she attended the Estill Voice Training workshops and opera workshops and masterclasses run by Ghillian Sullivan. Lisa’s stage experience includes Opera Northwest’s Opera for the People and Newcastle Festival Opera’s production of The Threepenny Opera and La bohème. Lisa moved to Melbourne this year and performed in Opera Victoria’s production of U.S.S. Pinafore.

Introduction Aleta King Director Conservatorium of Music Avondale College of Higher Education

Festive Overture, Dmitri Shostakovich Dr Gian-Franco Ricci (piano) Maurice Abravenal and the Utah Symphony Orchestra premiered the Festive Overture in the United States on November 16, 1955, a year after its composition. A Russian version of the overture, released in 1958, used the standard instrumentation of the Russian military band—a complete orchestral wind, brass and percussion section plus a full family of saxhorns, ranging from Bb soprano through to Bb contrabass. The version performed in this concert is scored for the instrumentation of the American symphonic band. The overture contains one of Shostakovich’s greatest attributes—the ability to write a long sustained melodic line combined with a pulsating rhythmic drive. In addition to the flowing melodic passages, there are examples of staccato rhythmic sections that set off the flowing line and the variant fanfares. It is truly a “festive” overture.—Donald Hunsberger

Piano Concerto No 2, Dmitri Shostakovich Dr Gian-Franco Ricci (piano) 1. “Allegro” 2. “Andante” 3. “Allegro” Shostakovich wrote his second piano concerto in 1957 as a birthday gift for his 19-year-old son, Maxim, who premiered the piece during his graduation from the Moscow Conservatory. The concerto is full of light-hearted energy that may owe as much to the composer’s relief at the demise of Stalin as to his cheerful wishes for his son. The eager, brilliant tone and brisk tempos coupled with repeated notes similar to a bugle’s call in the first and third movements are likely reasons for Walt Disney Feature Animation using excerpts from the concerto in the Steadfast Tin Soldier segment of the film Fantasia 2000. The concerto avoids traditional virtuosity, perhaps to best display Maxim’s particular talents, and downplays the opposition of soloist and orchestra in favour of constantly passing theme and variation between both. The concerto has three movements with the second movement played attacca, thereby moving directly into the third.

Interval

Alexander Nevsky, Sergei Prokofiev Lisa Belle (mezzo soprano) Avondale Singers The University of Newcastle Wind Orchestra 1. “Russia under the Mongolian Yoke” The opening movement begins slowly, and in C minor. It evokes an image of destruction, as brought to Russia by the invading Mongols. 2. “Song about Alexander Nevsky” This movement represents Prince Alexander Yaroslavich’s victory over the Swedish army at the Battle of the Neva in 1240. Alexander received the name “Nevsky” (a form of Neva) in tribute. 3. “The Crusaders in Pskov” For this movement, Prokofiev’s initial intention was to use genuine 13th century church music; however, the examples he found in the Moscow Conservatoire sounded so cold, dull and alien to the 20th century ear he abandoned the idea and instead composed an original theme to evoke the brutality of the Teutonic Knights. 4. “Arise, ye Russia People” This movement represents a call to arms for the people of Russia. It is composed with folk overtones. 5. “The Battle on the Ice” The fifth (and longest) movement is arguably the climax of the cantata. It represents the final clash between Nevsky’s forces and the Teutonic Knights on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus in 1242. The serene beginning (representing dawn on the day of battle) is contrasted by the jarring middle section, which is cacophonous in style. 6. “The Field of the Dead” Composed in C minor, the sixth movement is the lament of a girl seeking her lost lover, as well as kissing the eyelids of all the dead. 7. “Alexander’s Entry in Pskov” The seventh and final movement echoes the second movement in parts, and recalls Alexander’s triumphant return to Pskov.

Program

Evensong: Claire Howard Race

evensong

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2014 | 7 PM | WAHROONGA SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH | AVONDALE.EDU.AU/EVENTS

FEATURING: A PERFORMANCE OF BEETHOVEN’S CHORAL FANTASIA WITH AVONDALE SINGERS AND AVONDALE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA.