A definite operatic mood swing at Powell Hall on Tuesday. Last week was Gilbert & Sullivan hijinks from Pirates of Penzance. This week are heard the sounds of opera that sound so utterly operatic: Puccini’s Il tabarro and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.
Percussion for Il tabarro/Pagliacci
Now here is your homework assignment. Fit this battery of percussion into the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis pit. Leave room for two harps and the rest of the orchestra.
The Symphony in Your School program brings St. Louis Symphony musicians into schools throughout the region. It’s always amazing what a little music can do.
Airport Elementary violins
Two years ago Symphony in Your Schools went to Airport Elementary. Amee Freet, the music teacher there, had started a violin program, with 10 students.
She recently told Dacy Gillespie, Symphony Director of Education, that after the SYS residences, the violin program now has 100 students.
Friday morning the Red Orchestra rehearsed the Music of Whitney Houston show, with the woodwinds and brass tucked into an upstage corner.
Woodwinds & brass over in an upstage corner
Woodwinds and brass are more easily tuckable at this stage of the season because the St. Louis Symphony splits for most of its summer gigs. The St. Louis Symphony is the orchestra for Opera Theatre of St. Louis. The OTSL pit is a tight fit, so the orchestra splits into the Red and the Green. The Green has already been rehearsing Pirates of Penzance this week, the OTSL opener, and will take on Terrence Blanchard’s Champion later in the spring and summer. The Red is up for Whitney, and Puccini/Leoncavallo, Il tabarro/Pagliacci, and Smetana, The Kiss, at OTSL. It will be one big symphony again for the Richard Hayman tribute concert on Sunday, as it will be for the League of American Orchestras Conference Concert in June.
Got that? The selection of who is Red and who is Green is determined by Beth Paine of Special Ops Forces (aka Orchestra Management). Many factors are involved: a conductor may want a specific principal to play a certain part; musicians that are partners may want to do shows together, or maybe they don’t so they can trade off parenting on alternate rehearsal/performance dates. The scoring of these operas doesn’t seamlessly divide an orchestra down the middle, either–the Green roster has one oboe; the Red has three.
Go figure. Those words fit just about everyone’s job description in Special Ops Forces.
It’s spring, which means it’s time for the annual Link Up concert. Schoolchildren from around the region have been practicing their recorders, singing, and working out some in-your-seat choreography throughout the school year, getting ready for their big moment.
Link Up is a music education program designed by the Weill Music Institute of Carnegie Hall. In partnership with orchestras and schools across the country, Link Up provides a participatory curriculum for grades 3 through 5, in which students learn musical concepts through doing: singing, clapping, moving, dancing, and recorder playing. The culmination of the year is the Link Up concert. Powell Hall was near capacity for two concerts on Wednesday morning.
Buses on Delmar
It all begins with the arrival of the buses.
Buses parked in the South Lot.
Many buses.
Entering Powell
The schoolchildren file in.
In the house
They take their seats.
Nice seats
They chat and warm up.
Peabody welcome
Sarah Kramer, of Peabody Energy, welcomes everyone to the event. Peabody Energy is a sponsor for Link Up.
What time is it?
It’s time to tune!
Tuning
With recorders in tune, time to begin.
Alastair Willis conducts
Alastair Willis leads the orchestra, the vocalists, and the audience.
Toreador
Guest vocalist Mark Freiman sings the Toreador song, and the schoolchildren sing along.
Name that tune
After a year of studying music, everyone on the house knows this symphony. The Carnegie program includes really cool graphics. The schoolchildren tracked the variations of the famous four-note intro throughout the performance of the first movement.
Hands in the air!
The theme of this Link Up program is the Orchestra Moves. And since even the audience is part of the orchestra for this show–everybody moves!
Kudos to Dacy Gillespie and Laura Reinert of the Symphony External Affairs Department who helped make this show go.
Saturday night, after Margret had spotted the blood on Wozzeck’s hand, Kelley O’Connor exited. Backstage she fist pumped and exclaimed “Yes!” for the music she’d made. Waiting for her was Susanna Phillips (the recently murdered Marie) to give Kelley a high five.
A Symphony fan wrote to tell me that the Friday night performance (Bruckner, Berg, Beethoven) was “a religious experience.” Then she added that she coaxed her mother to go, although her mother had been feeling awful.
Somewhere in the midst of the great Beethoven 9, her mother leaned over to her and whispered a heartfelt “thank you.”
Violinist Dana Edson Myers loves playing Act III from Berg’s Wozzeck this week. She was one of the lucky ones who saw the 2011 Santa Fe Opera production that David Robertson conducted, and from that performance the work has become her favorite opera. She provides insights into Berg, and into the Berg-Beethoven connection, for this week’s video blog.
My day at the office ended in the evening with an interview of soprano Susanna Phillips and mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor for Saturday night’s Symphony broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio. I knew this would be a wonderful time; I didn’t imagine how easy. Basically, my role became insignificant as they asked each other questions. Susanna: “How many times have you sung Beethoven 9?” Kelley: “22.” They were funny, breezy, smart as all get out and obviously having a wonderful time together.
Thursday morning I sneaked into rehearsal, caught an image of the big symphony in the big hall playing Berg’s Wozzeck without the singers.
Rehearsing Berg
David Robertson managed to connect the universal human impulse to shirk responsibility in the face of horror with how and why 16th notes needed to be played a certain way.
My work day started with hearing the “Ode to Joy” theme coming through my office speaker (pre-rehearsal, just warming up) played on the piccolo by Stephanie McNab.
It would have been hard to open a door and not hear good music around the region on Sunday. Christine Brewer, Lucas Meachem, David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony concluded their three-concert sweep of Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony.
YO rehearsal at the Hett
The St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra played the Hett at McKendree University. Maureen Byrne, Symphony Director of Community Programs and mom of two YO musicians reported, “They were awesome!”
In University City, the St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON Chorus performed its annual Community Concert. Susan Patterson, who is the IN UNISON Chorus manager sent in this reflection of the evening:
“It had been a cold and wet weekend and Sunday night promised the same sort of dreary malaise. But when the IN UNISON Chorus started to sing the clouds parted and the large crowd was washed in joy. Under the direction of guest conductor Jeffery Ames, the singers delivered a genuine and heartfelt reading of wonderful arrangements and composed works by Ames and a number of well-known contemporary composers. Mark Sparks, Principal Flute with the St. Louis Symphony, enchanted the crowd with a lovely work by Saint-Saens and joined the ensemble most notably in Ames’ work In Remembrance. It was pitch dark when we left the most gracious environs of the City of Life Christian Church but I’m pretty sure the sun was shining.”
And if that wasn’t enough, Patti Smith performed at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Last time I saw her was at Mississippi Nights. (A communal sigh of loss may be heard.)
St. Louis. Music is made here.