Ensemble and Guest Artist Concert:

2010-02-17 -- University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra, Scott Conklin, violin,

and Jim Leach, narrator

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The University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 7:30 pm Iowa Memorial Union

The University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra William LaRue Jones, conductor

West Side Story: Symphonic Dances

In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy

Tzigane, rapsodie de concert, for Violin & Orchestra

Scott Conklin, violin

I N TER M ISS IO N

Lincoln Portrait

Jim Leach , narrator

Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990)

William Grant Still (1895 - 1978)

Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)

Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990)

The University of Iowa prohibits discrimination in employment and its educational programs and activities on the basis of race, national origin, color, creed, religion, sex, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or associational preference. The University also affirms its committment to providing equal opportunities and equal access to University facilities. For additional information contact the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at (319) 335-0705.

Please remember to turn off all cell phones and pagers before entering the concer t hall.

Photographs and recordings may not be taken during a performance.

Division of Performing Arts 2009-201 O Season

As one of the most active and versatile symphonic

conductors in America today, critics praise WILLIAM

LARUE JONES for possessing a unique ability to

work effectively with musicians at all levels. His

engagements for 2009 / 10 season include return

performances in Kuala Lumpur and Penang

(Malaysia), Singapore, Lioning Symphony (China) ,

plus concerts in Wisconsin, Minnesota, lov1a,

Kentucky, Arizona, and Ill inois. He is presently

serving a three term as Honorable Visit ing Professor and guest conductor

at Shenyang Normal University (China). Jones served as conductor of

the International String Orchestra and is the founding artistic director of

the critically acclaimed Conductors Workshop of America . In addition,

Jones serves as a guest clin ician for numerous conducting seminars for

professiona l and educational associations interna tionally. Jones is currently

Director of Orchestral Studies a nd Graduate Conducting at The University

of Iowa and the Artistic Director of the Conductors Workshop of America.

A Texas native, Dr. Jones holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin,

University of Iowa and Kansas State University, wi th additiona l studies at The

Juilliard School of Music and the University of North Texas.

JIM LEACH is the ninth Chairman of the National

Endowment for the Humanities. Nominated by

President Barack Obama on July 9, 2009, and

confirmed by the Senate in early August, Leach

began his four-year term as NEH Chairman on

August 1 2, 2009. Leach previously served 30 years

representing southeastern Iowa in the U.S. House o f

Representatives, where he chaired the Banking and

Financial Services Committee, the Subcommittee on

Asian a nd Pacific Affairs, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China,

and founded and co-chaired the Congressional Humanities Caucus. After

leaving Congress in 2007, Leach joined the faculty at Princeton University's

Woodrow Wilson School, where he was the John L. Weinberg Visi ting Professor

of Public and International Affairs unti l his confirmation as NEH chairman. In

September 2007, Leach took a year's leave of absence from Princeton to

serve as interim d irector of the Institute of Politics and lecturer at the John F.

Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Leach graduated from

Princeton University, received a Master of Arts degree in Soviet politics from the

School of Advanced International Studies at The John Hopkins University, a nd

did additional graduate studies at the London School of Economics.

SCOTT CONKLIN regularly appears as a soloist,

chamber musician, orchestral player, and clinician

throughout the United States and Europe. He is

assistant professor of violin at The University of Iowa

and a violin teacher at the Preucil School of Music.

Conklin has performed as a soloist with numerous

orchestras, including the Louisville, Nashville, and

Berlin Symphony Orchestras. During the academic

year, Conklin teaches at many clinics, conferences,

and workshops throughout the country and serves on the Editorial Board of

the American Music Teacher Magazine. A champion of new music, Conklin

recently recorded works by composers Kevin Beavers, William Bolcom,

Ching-chu Hu, Joel Puckett, Kevin Puts, and Bright Sheng for an album release

with pianist and UI faculty Alan Huckleberry. Conklin is the 2008 Iowa String

Teachers Associa tion Leopold LaFosse Studio Teacher of the Year and was

named a "Rising Star" and featured artist at the 2004 Music Teachers National

Association Conference. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from The

Cleveland Institute of Music and a Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical

Arts degrees from The University of Michigan School of Music.

West Side Story: Symphonic Dances Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances were assembled in 1961, four years after West Side Storjs initial Broadway run. In the meantime the composer had, in the words of critic Brooks Atkinson, "capitulated to respectability'' and taken the post of music director of the New York Philharmonic. The composer was involved in the movie version of West Side Story only as an advisor, and two of his students did much of the soundtrack's orchestration. One, Sid Ramin, suggested that Bernstein arrange a symphonic work, and so the composer dedicated the score to him.

The form of the Symphonic Dances is based on solely musical devices rather than the original plot, so the themes will seem out of order to those familiar with the musical. The tense and angular Prologue opens the Dances, followed immediately by the haunting song, "Somewhere." While the Scherzo and Mambo seenes resemble their original forms, some of the material, such as the cha-cha treatment of "Maria," dates back to the composer's original sketches from before the show's premiere. If Bernstein does aim for compositional "respectability'' at any point, it is in the double fugue following "Cool," which uses both the creeping bass line and the more syncopated, nervous melody as its subjects. The inevitable tragic climax follows, peaking with the violence of "Rumble" before the "Maria" and "Somewhere" themes return for the transcendent finale.

-notes by Andrew Hanson-Dvoracek

Tzigane, rapsodie de concert, for violin and orchestra Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Maurice Ravel conceived the idea for a

gypsy-inspired rhapsody in 1922 at the

private recital of Hungarian violinist Jelly

d'Arany. The composer was so taken by

d'Arany's acerbic, fiery gypsy melodies

that she continued to play for him until five

o'clock in the morning. Ravel ruminated

over a suitably virtuosic showpiece for the

violinist over the next two years. He wrote

to her, "Certain passages can produce

brilliant effects, provided that it is possible

to perform them-which I'm not always sure of." Ravel's

musical models for Tzigane included Liszt's exotic Hungarian

rhapsodies and Paganini's demanding twenty-four caprices. He

also experimented with the lutheal, a type of prepared piano

with extended timbres. D'Aranyi and pianist Henri Gil-Marchex

premiered the work in 1924; d'Aranyi also premiered the

orchestral version with the Colonne Orchestra in Paris.

Tzigane begins with improvisatory-sounding violin passages

in which alluring Roma-inspired melodic lines indulge in rapid

shifts of tempo and expression. Following the first entrance

of the orchestra, a playful, animated theme is introduced. It

is soon transformed through virtuosic string techniques­

quadruple stops, pizzicati, and rapid rhythmic figurations­

that permeate the work, a testament to Ravel's fascination with

the exotic figure of the gypsy.

-Notes by Michael Accinno

In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy William Grant Still (1895-1978)

In 1941, President Roosevelt signed

the Fair Employment Practice

Committee into law, barring defense

industries from discriminatory hiring

procedures. However, by 1942 the

FEPC had all but disintegrated,

and African Americans struggled

to find employment; several black

organizations prepared to organize

a massive march on Washington

to pressure the president. Although

Roosevelt strengthened the FEPC in May

1943, military units remained segregated until 1948, creating

an uncomfortable paradox for patriotic African Americans.

The struggle for civil rights in the defense industries

occurred just before the League of Composers invited

African-American composer William Grant Still to submit

a work on a patriotic theme to be premiered by the New

York Philharmonic. Still's response was In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy. In his notes for

the 1944 premiere, Still struck a proud note, recollecting

"the press release which announced that the first American

soldier to be killed in World War II was a Negro soldier.

Then my thoughts turned to the colored soldiers all over

the world, fighting under our flag and under the flags of

the countries allied with us." In Memoriam utilizes Still's

trademark blend of sonorous orchestration, blues idioms,

folksong-like melodies, and vernacular tone colors- muted

brass and bright woodwind timbres. After richly harmonized

variations on a few mournful melodies recalling spirituals,

brooding fanfares for full orchestra end the brief work in a

noble, militaristic mood.

-Notes by Peter Gillette

Lincoln Portrait Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl

Harbor, conductor Andre Kostelanetz

commissioned "a

musical portrait

gallery of great

Americans."

Aaron Copland chose

Abraham Lincoln, selecting

quotations from the

Gettysburg address,

Lincoln's final debate

with Stephen Douglas

and his 1862 Congressional

address. Copland wanted texts that seemed "true not only for

his own time, but for ours as well," so the narration speaks

not only to the evils of slavery but also to the need for those in

power to insure social justice and freedom from tyranny.

This evening's distinguished speaker for Lincoln Portrait joins a list of previous narrators that reads like a "who's

who" of American artistic and political life: the actors Henry

Fonda, Gregory Peck, and James Earl Jones; poet Carl

Sandburg and anchorman Walter Cronkite; and political

figures Adlai Stevenson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Coretta

Scott King, and Ted Kennedy. Copland himself narrated

the piece for over twenty thousand people on the Capitol

mall for a 1979 Memorial Day concert.

Lincoln Portrait, based on two traditional melodies,

opens with the wide-spaced textures that have come to

evoke an American landscape. The ballad "Springfield

Mountain" is quoted in strings and winds; in the brass,

the tune's open intervals evoke the military bugle call,

"Taps." Rhythmically sparkling music follows, based on

Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races." The lyrical music

of the folk tune re-emerges as this section climaxes,

before the speaker's dramatic entrance.

In 1953, Lincoln Portrait was removed from a concert

for Eisenhower's inauguration, because an Illinois

Congressman complained about Copland's supposed

Communist political affiliations. Copland responded

that his activities had been "dedicated to the cultural

fulfillment of America," adding, "I cannot for the life of

me see how the cause of the free countries of the world

will be advanced by the banning of my works." Copland

was subsequently subjected to questioning during the

McCarthy hearings. Ironically, the words the composer

had chosen to open Lincoln Portrait were perhaps all

too appropriate: Copland, like Lincoln, could not escape

the darker forces of history.

-Notes by Marian Wilson Kimber

"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history."

THAT IS WHAT HE SAID. THAT IS WHAT ABRAHAM LINCOLN SAID.

"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress

and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No

personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of

us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor

or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the

power and bear the responsibility." [Annual Message to Congress,

December 1, 1862]

HE WAS BORN IN KENTUCKY, RAISED IN INDIANA, AND LIVED IN

ILLINOIS. AND THIS IS WHAT HE SAID. THIS IS WHAT ABE LINCOLN SAID.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy

present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise

with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and

act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we will save our

country." [Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]

WHEN STANDING ERECT HE WAS SIX FEET FOUR INCHES TALL, AND

THIS IS WHAT HE SAID.

He said: "It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right

and wrong, throughout the world . It is the same spirit that says

'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in

what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who

seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the

fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for

enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."

[Lincoln-Douglas debates, 15 October 1858]

LINCOLN WAS A QUIET MAN. ABE LINCOLN WAS A QUIET AND A

MELANCHOLY MAN. BUT WHEN HE SPOKE OF DEMOCRACY, THIS IS

WHAT HE SAID.

He said: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.

This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this,

to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SIXTEENTH PRESrDENT OF THESE UNITED STATES,

IS EVERLASTING IN THE MEMORY OF HIS COUNTRYMEN. FOR ON THE

BATTLEGROUND AT GETTYSBURG, THJS IS WHAT HE SAID:

He said: "That from these honored clead we take increased

devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure

of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall

not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a

new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the

people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra Personnel

VIOLIN 1 Andrew Ube* Bonnie Brown Colleen Ferguson Emily Rolka Preston Krauska Carrie Beisler Katie Klocke Matthew Bryks Lauren Trolley Samantha Hiller Rebecca Neely Joseph Chen Kelsey Reeve Christina Blogg Catie Rinderknecht

VIOLIN 2 Cameo Jong* Kira Horel Therese Slatter Meghan Lemens Suzanne Wedeking Rachel Stevenson Nicole Gnatek Heidi Klett Haley Leach Renee Bovinette Alyssa Stormes Avery Whitis Erica Silver

VIOIA Jessica Altfillisch * Anton Jakovcic Miranda Blakeslee Diana Mayne Christopher Fashun Sarah Kaufmann Olivia Jones Kristin Rock Jesse Helgerson Max Tsai Chealsea Burnhardt

CELW Yoo-Jung Chang* Christina Craig Parker Stanley Amy Pirtle Jee Hyung Moon Brett Alkire Kyle Tester Matthew Gosse Rebekah Dotzel

Division of Performing Arts 2009-2010 Season

DOUBLE BASS Asli Yetisener* Jared Fowler Christine Gehler Olivia Rose Muzzy Ian Richardson Miles Kean Kamil Anthony Benjamin Walt Jacob Stanbro

FLUTE Jennifer Cunningham3

Rolando Hernandez'·4

Chiun-Hui Lien2

PICCOW Jennifer Cunningham Rolando Hernandez

OBOE Angela Lickiss" 4

Alan Morris1•3

Natalie Ramlow2

ENGLISH HORN Matthew Shipp

CIARINEf Liza Nazario* Aaron Kirschner Brian Walsh

EB CIARINEf Sarah Schwols

BASS CIARINEf Aaron Kirschner

ALTO SAXOPHONE Nathan Bogert

BASSOON Gustavo Koberstein1•2

Rachel Koeth4

Jacqueline Wilson3

CONTRABASSOON Rachel Koeth Jacqueline Wilson

HORN Evan Grulke 1

•2·4

Kelly Heidel Jessica Kizzire Nick Waymire3

TRUMPEf Spencer Dunlap3

Ed Hong4 Katheryn Lawson2

Joshua Thompson1

TROMBONE Jonathan Allen* Alex Krawczyk

BASS TROMBONE Casey Thomas

TUBA Blaine Cunningham

TIMPANI Jonathan Werth

PERCUSSION Meghan Aube Adam Balling Lucas Bernier Scott J ennerjohn David Solomon

HARP Katherine Siochi

PIANO/CELESIE Seong-Sil Kim

* principal player 1 principal, Bernstein 2 principal, Ravel 3 principal, Still 4 principal, Copland

UI ORCHESTRA MANAGER Christopher Fashun

WIND LIBRARIAN Kira Horel

STRING LIBRARIAN Yuichi Ura

CONCERT MANAGER Andrea Molina

YL Male Voice Choir Sunday, February 21, 2 pm West High School Auditorium

"Luminous," says the International Record Review, "is precisely the word to describe the sound" of the YL Male Voice Choir. "Finland's National Treasure" has immeasurably enriched the world of music by commissioning and premiering many of Jean Sibelius' best known works and maintaining a commitment to contemporary choral music-since the 1980s the choir has premiered more than 100 works. But it is the gloriousness of the choir's sound that has enthralled audi­ences from Tokyo to New York. Save yourself a trip to Helsinki and catch this astonishing 65-voice ensemble in Iowa City.

1tg!,~ri~[~!i Venezi an i

St. Mary's Catholic Church

When lnterpreti Veneziani made its U.S. debut at the University of Florida in January 2007, the chamber orchestra was rewarded with a resounding standing ovation-before intermission. Positively bursting with brio, lnterpreti Veneziani specializes in baroque music and performs on period instruments for rapturous audiences at Venice's San Vidal Church and around the world. The ensemble kicks off a new tour of the United States with a perfor­mance in Iowa City that will Feature the exuberant virtuosity for which the group is known. Seating is limited so order your tickets now. At the concert, expect thunderous applause early and often.

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