The BSO is doing double duty this week, performing an all Bach program as well as a SuperPops Presentation

All Bach program: January 26 - 28

BSO Concertmaster Jonathan Carney leads an all Bach program, featuring BSO musicians as soloists.

Jonathan Carney, violin Emily Skala, flute Katherine Needleman, oboe Andrew Balio, trumpet Rebecca Nichols, violin Ilya Finkelshteyn, cello Eric Conway, Harpsicord

Bach: Suite No. 2
Bach: Concerto for Violin and Oboe
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5

Ellen Pendleton Troyer writes:
       This week's concerts give our audience a chance to hear some of the BSO's most talented musicians in a more intimate setting. We are offering a rare opportunity to hear a number of Bach's instrumental works all in one evening. All of us (except the cellos) will be standing throughout the concert, and we will play as a true chamber orchestra-without a conductor. As  players, it gives us a chance to connect with each other musically in a different way than with a large orchestra and a conductor. Come let the timeless beauty of Bach's music move you.

Greg Mulligan writes:
      This week's BSO Chamber Orchestra features four classics by Baroque master J.S. Bach and several brilliant soloists from the orchestra. Principal Flutist Emily Skala is featured in the b minor Suite, and Eric Conway displays his keyboard virtuosity in the Fifth Bandenburg Concerto, notable for elevating the keyboardist to a more soloistic role in a large ensemble. The Second Brandenburg Concerto features Prinicipal Trumpeter Andy Balio on piccolo trumpet, violinist Rebecca Nichols, Principal Oboist Katherine Needleman, and Emily Skala. Bach's beautiful Concerto for Oboe and Violin, performed by Katherine Needleman and Concertmaster Jonathan Carney, rounds out the program.
For those of us performing "tutti" roles this week, it is a great pleasure to support our wonderful soloists exploring the great variety of  Bach's genius in our beautiful Meyerhoff Hall.

Return to the Top

Riders in the Sky,

Jack Everly, conductor

Blending well-harmonized western songs with slapstick comedy, Grammy Award-winning Jack Everly and the BSO SuperPops perform music from The Magnificent Seven, How The West Was Won, The Big Country, and The Wild, Wild West, along with Riders in the Sky.

BSO Trumpeter Ed Hoffman spoke with Jack Everly today:

EH: Jack Everly is the Baltimore Symphony's  principal pops conductor.  He is also a man whose many talents include conducting, arranging, playing piano and bass, and perhaps that most unrecognized of talents, public speaking.   Jack is in great demand for his conducting and arranging skills,  and his ability to put together very complex concert programs with a minimum of rehearsals is legendary.  Jack's outgoing personality is evident in his enthusiasm for his work and his interactions with everyone he meets. I was fortunate to spend some time with Jack after a BSO rehearsal….

EH: Jack, you are a person of so many talents and abilities that it begs the question: how did you get started in music?

JE:  You mean way far back?  My mom played piano.  She came from a family of 8 children and their parents said that every child must play a musical instrument and experience the joy and discipline of making music.  So my mom's instrument was the piano.  As a child I would sit next to her on the bench and eventually the piano became my instrument as well.  My dad didn't play an instrument, but he had a very nice phrase he would always utter, which was “I don't know where middle C is, but I sure love a good tune.”  That's indelibly etched in my brain.  He loved music, not knowing how people made music those beautiful sounds on instruments,  but he loved it. The very first orchestra I ever heard was the Indianapolis Symphony, and they were doing a run-out concert to Richmond Indiana and they played the Firebird Suite.  That just blew me away at age 8.  I loved that piece and many years later was able to conduct it many times when I was with the American Ballet Theatre. I wanted so much to be in the high school orchestra….they didn't need a piano player but they did need bass players, so I taught myself the bass and was able to play in the orchestra throughout high school.  Later I went to Indiana University and started studying the bass. And I was in the symphony orchestras there and in the opera orchestra.  I continued with the piano and also studied cello and harp.  I wanted to know about them for arranging purposes.  I had one course in orchestration and the rest is kind of self taught.  So that is that part of my life.

EH: With your busy pops schedule do you have time for the classics anymore?

JE:  Alas I don't.  You know what I miss very much is the repertoire of the ballet theater which was everything from Mozart to Tchaikovsky to the great stage works of Prokofiev and Stravinsky….I really do miss the repertoire.  I don't miss the 15 hour days for 14 years with the ballet company but I do miss the music, and every time I get a chance to program something on a pops concert from the classical repertoire I take it.

EH:  The recent article in our Overture magazine called “Jack's Picks” has been a favorite read for our audience.  Since we know your favorite musical picks, what about your favorite author or book, assuming you have time to read in your busy life.

JE:  I used to have a lot more time than I do now, and I used to read Thomas Hardy of all people.  I enjoyed that because it was a very slow long read.  It just took me away from everything else and it's so different from anything that I found that a wonderful divergence from the musical theater or the ballet.  Most of my reading now is done as research, whether it be about performers, composers or the history of film and stage.  It's historical reading as opposed to great novels.  I don't really have time for that anymore, sadly.  And I love to read and wish I had more time.

EH:  If you had time in your busy schedule to take a vacation, where would you go?

JE:  That's a more difficult question than you might think.  I travel about 5 months out of the year and I like being where I go, but travel is not a pretty thing anymore.  So when I do have time that doesn't require me to be in other places, I so love to stay home.  As far as locales, I love anything tropical.  Hawaii is one of my very favorite places, especially Kawai and Maui…love those, they are so beautiful.  I went to Las Vegas a year and a half ago for the very first time and I had the best time because it's so wonderfully silly and I love the stage shows.  It's fascinating to see what they can do out there with 25 million dollars to throw at a show.  I love the theatrics of all that.  I also love the rhinestones and feathers kind of shows because it kind of represents old fashioned show business.

EH:  I have kind of a non-musical question:  How did you learn to speak so well?  You speak very easily to the audience, and they respond so well to you.

JE:  I am always taken aback when people say that, because I was a very shy kid who didn't like to speak.  I will credit my father: he owned his own shoe store on main street in Richmond, Indiana, and I used to watch my dad interact with people, and more-so than what he said or how he said it I remember the joy of his interactions.  He really loved people, and not just to sell the shoes; he would go out on the street and just chat and I used to watch that and think that it would scare me because I was just a child.  Then in 1991 I was with the San Diego symphony doing an all Wagner program.  They said, OK, fine, we know what your program is;  so when are you speaking and what are you talking about?  And I looked at them and my eyes were on slinkys and said, “Whadaya mean talk?”  So in 24 hours I had to come up with a running commentary on all this Wagner repertoire that I had chosen.  That was the beginning.  It's become a bit of a trivial pursuit of information about the stage, films and composers and I love that.  You have to edit yourself because you could go on and give a lecture and you don't want to do that.  I've been doing it for 15 years now and the refining of all that is where the ease comes from…..and I like people.  Once you get over the fear of speaking to a LOT of people you can remind yourself that we're having a good time, and that helps.

EH: Thank you very much Jack!

JE:  You're welcome.

Return to the Top

January 21-23

"The art of Picasso"

Stefan Sanderling, conductor
Manuel Barrueco, guitar
Mark Mobley, host

Falla: Three-Cornered Hat, Suite No. 1
Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez
Faure: Pavane, Op. 50
Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite

Brian Prechtl had a conversation with Stefan Sanderling:

I understand that you are a Music Director for two orchestras, The Toledo Symphony and the Florida Orchestra in Tampa. Where do you live?
Actually I have a home in Toledo Ohio as well as St. Petersburg, Florida

You are living the life of a jet-set conductor.  What is that like?
Oh yes, I’m so important. [laughs] I’ll have to remember you calling me a jet-set conductor when I get bumped off the next flight because they have overbooked.  But seriously, I am very busy with traveling nearly every week.

You wife must be very understanding. 
Luckily she’s a musician and understands the lifestyle; she’s a cellist with the Florida West Coast Symphony. 

Do you think it helps you to have more than one orchestra? 
It just sort of happened.  I feel as a music director you have to focus on what the orchestra needs so it is challenging to keep track of both groups.  But I work hard at it.  The advantage is that I can prepare pieces and do them with both groups.  I try to keep my repertoire small each year and share programs so that I am fresh for each program. 

Tell us about the program you are doing here this week.
The program is mostly early 20th century.  This is a program that relates to the time of Picasso and we are partnering with the Baltimore Museum of Art in the presentations. In programming Pulcinella we were looking for a small form. The first 25 years of the 20th century was such a time of change.  After the giant ballets, Stravinsky wanted to bring it back to the basics.  This happened in art as well. Cubism for example reduces things to general forms and shapes and Picasso was as masterful at doing this as Stravinsky was in his craft.

What’s coming up for you after this week?
Well of course it is Mozart everywhere this year because of the 250th anniversary, I am doing that in Buffalo and other places.   Also, we are doing a Beethoven cycle this year by the numbers  in Tampa.  “Beethoven 3” is being paired with “Three Places in New England” and “Three Screaming Popes” by Mark Anthony Turnage.  We are doing that kind of programming with all of the Symphonies this season.

That’s a great concept.  Thanks for talking with us today.

Return to the Top

January 17th

Darren Atwater, conducts Soulful Symphony and the BSO
in the 20th annual State of Maryland Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Featuring the work of image curator Ellis Marsalis III

Darren Atwater and Ellis Marsalis

Ellis Marsalis III
Age: 41
Lives in East Baltimore

Brian Prechtl talked with Ellis this afternoon at rehearsal:

Do you consider yourself primarily a poet or a photographer?
I look at myself as kind of both.  I became more serious with photography before poetry
My first book, “thaBloc”, is a narrative book of poetry and pictures.

How did this project come about?
My method of expression is to tell a story through photos and poetry.  So I have looked at how two different mediums can relate to each other.  Darrin saw a copy of my first book and heard me talk about the photo narrative concept and felt that this was what he had been looking for as a vehicle for this piece.  There is a symbiotic relationship with the music.  The pictures themselves tell one story as does the music, but when they come together you get a completely different story. They evolve together.

Do you feel like the music changes the character of your photos?
Music can’t obscure images, they just color them.  They are two different things.  It can confuse the viewer if they don’t match.  It’s like a form of improvisation.  It’s not scripted and can be subtly different every time.

Tell us about the flavor of the pictures
These are pictures that I have culled from the 1600’s all the way through the present time.  Each stays with the themes of the various movements.  There are depictions of slaves, civil rights and sports figures among others. . The entire piece depicts an evolution.

Has being from such a famous family helped or hindered your career?
It has neither been a hindrance or a help to my craft.  It has helped me with promotion because there is an automatic interest on people’s parts to hear what I’ve got to say when they hear the name.  That part is fortunate.

What other projects are on the horizon?
Right now I’m at work on a war book. This is a pictorial narrative including drawings, pictures and poetry.  Many of the drawings are historical images. 

When will that be completed?
God-willing, it’s will be out in the spring.

January 12-14th:

Marin Alsop, Conductor

Leon Fleisher, Piano

Rouse: Symphony No. 1

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414

Dvorak: Symphony, No. 7 in D minor

Chris Rouse with BSO Principal Tuba David Fedderly

Percussionist Brian Prechtl spoke with Composer Christopher Rouse today during BSO's rehearsals at the Meyerhoff:

My music has a date of 1/88 for the last performance of this work here in Baltimore. Was that the last time it was played here and was it premiered here?

Yes to both questions. That was the premiere. It has had a happy performance history in that most American orchestras as well as many overseas have played it.

What are your impressions on hearing the BSO play the same piece 16 years later?

It is interesting that many of the same people are still here. The orchestra has a whole different quality than it had in 1988. Back when the BSO played a great deal of contemporary repertoire the orchestra had a leaner and brighter sound more reminiscent of Cleveland. Now the orchestra has deeper quality. It resembles the darkness of Philadelphia.

How would you broadly characterize your compositional style now as opposed to then?

What hasn’t changed is the need that I have to express something. When you’ve got something to say which is still a primal need for me, music satisfies that. The language is less important than the message. Some pieces are very dissonant and some tonal.

I don’t see myself in strict stages but every 5 years or so I take stock of where I’ve been. In the early 80’s I wrote a lot of very violent and loud music like the “Infernal Machine” and “Bump”. In 86 I wanted to write music that was more inward and broader in it’s expressive scope such as “Concerto Per Corde” and “Iscariot.” In 1990 people started dying in my life. Everything I wrote until 1995 was a response to people that had died. The trombone concerto was the first of the death pieces following this were the concertos for cello and flute and the “2nd symphony”. “Envoi” – a response to the death of my mother was the last of these “death pieces” Between 1995 and 2000 I made a conscious attempt to look toward the light. “Compline” and “Rapture” are pieces from this time that are more positive. Since 2000 I have been jumping around stylistically. You will hear a style that includes some very dissonant and some tonal music. The clarinet concerto and a 90 min requiem are included in these.

I remember when I knew you at the University of Michigan in the 80’s you had a strong interest in rock and roll and taught courses that included popular rock bands like Led Zeppelin or Jefferson Starship.

Rock and roll has taught me a lot. Zeppelin has taught me a lot about silence. As the popular music that I grew up with it, seemed normal for me to integrate this into my own creative process. However I got in a lot of trouble from using this music. In 1992 when we did Bonham at the Tanglewood Festival there was a huge ruckus. A critic wrote that “I had fired a broadside shot across the bow of contemporary music.” Brahms uses gypsy music and Beethoven uses Scottish folk music. Back in the Renaissance, popular tunes were used as the basis for Masses. I don’t understand what the problem is.

What else exciting is going on for you right now?

I have a ballet premiering next month. This work is a joint commission between Juilliard and City Ballet of New York. This is the first piece that I have ever written to be danced and it is called “Friandises” which means “bits” in French. It’s a French dance suite form and the piece is lean - almost neoclassic in style. The other exciting aspect is that it will be presented in two totally different styles. It will be classically choreographed and danced at City Ballet and presented as modern dance at Juilliard. I am also working on a wind ensemble piece for the University of Miami called “Wolf Rounds”, My publisher urged me to do it. A successful wind ensemble piece will get a great deal of performance around the country. It is basically a minimalist piece but with a subtle nature. It is difficult to write for wind ensemble – I miss the strings!

Click here to visit Chris' website

Click here to purchase the Baltimore Symphony's recording of the Christopher Rouse Symphony No. 1

Bassist David Sheets on the Rouse: "This week has been very exciting for me so far. The first time I heard Christopher Rouse's first symphony, I was sitting in a dorm room with a friend at the Eastman School of Music in 1990 listening to the Baltimore Symphony's 1989 Recording with David Zinman. I had never heard the orchestra or any of Rouse's music before but agreed when my friend assured me that they could really play and that the symphony was like a long, fufilling journey. Here I am almost 16 years later, playing the piece with the BSO and enjoying it immensely!"

Leon Fleisher

After rehearsal on Tuesday, percussionist Brian Prechtl had a chance to have chat with Leon Fleisher – a giant of the piano world.  Mr Fleisher saved the day by substituting as piano soloist at the last minute!

It’s an incredible treat to have you back with the BSO. You’ve had a long history with this orchestra.  Do you have any reflections on that history that you could share with us?

It’s encompassed an enormous amount of time.  The first time I was here was in the mid 40’s  - 60 years ago, with Massimo Freshcia.  I’ve played with every music director of the BSO with the exception of Reginald Stewart.  For a while I was even associate conductor during the Commissiona years. It has been an extraordinary learning experience in terms of music and personality.  It truly bonded me to this orchestra.

When there was lock-out of the Baltimore Symphony players back in the late seventies, I was involved with Ron Shapiro and Gordie Becker in organizing the Friends of the BSO . We mobilized an effort to raise the difference between what the musicians said they needed and what the management felt that they could offer.

You experienced a loss of function in your right hand due to focal distonia back in the mid sixties. This must have been a defining event in your career.  You are quoted as saying "Suddenly I realized that the most important thing in my life wasn't playing with my two hands: it was music…In order to be able to make it across these last thirty or forty years, I've had to go back to the concept of music as music. The instrumentation becomes unimportant and it's the substance and the content that takes over" Would you say that this captures your perspective?

Pretty much, however, the instrumentation is vital in music.  My ideal as a pianist is to sound like an orchestra and to imitate the instruments.  That quote was written when there was a lot of hullabaloo about my returning to concertising as a two handed pianist again and I was trying to downplay that a bit.

It must have been exciting for you.

After thirty or forty years absence, to finally be able to play with two hands is incredibly exciting.  I can’t do everything, yet.  I am slowly adding to my repertoire.  I just finished a disc with the Emerson Quartet.  On that recording I return to the Brahms piano quintet, piece I first recorded many years ago.  Botox has helped alleviate some the symptoms but it is certainly not a cure-all. I have the smoothest right arm around.

You must be the envy of all the hand models!

(laughter)

I understand that you were an avid ping-pong player and that you donated a ping pong table to the orchestra back when we were at the Lyric. Do you play any more?

I’m afraid not, but my son was senior national doubles champ a year or two back.  He got that way by me never letting him win a single game against me!

What else is happening these days with you?

I just finished my first half season of playing a lost concerto by Hindemith for the left hand.  Paul Witkenstein had lost his hand in WWI and commissioned many of the left hand concertos.

Have people written left hand concertos for you? 

Yes, both Lukas Foss and Gunther Schuller have written left hand concertos for me.  I still play these left hand concertos but these days I am playing mostly two hand concertos.

What are you doing following your gracious fill-in here?

My wife who is also a concert pianist and I are playing for “classical action” an Aids benefit concert being held in NYC.  Then I go to Europe to play in Prague and Milan.  I am also still teaching at Peabody and Curtis.

That’s quite a schedule!

Yes. This was supposed to be my free week, but here I am.

Click here to view a selection from Leon's vast collection of recordings available for purchase

Violinist Greg Mulligan on this week's concert:

"Dvorak's Symphony #7 has always been a personal favorite of mine. I love Dvorak anyway, and I think that this piece has a bit of Beethoven's spirit, too. The first and last movements are full of rhythmic complexity, and there is a darkness, a foreboding quality, to the symphony's mood.

I'm loving listening to my colleagues in the woodwind and horn sections play their incredible melodies in the second movement, and I'm glad that Maestra Alsop stretches the climactic passage near the movement's end. For me, that passage is spine-tingling!"

Return to the top

Get the Latest Previews

Go to the Sneak Preview Archives: