American Style! April with the PSO!

The 13-14 PSO Season has been a wonderful success so far.

Next week you will get to experience a much anticipated season highlight with an all-American concert featuring 15-time Grammy Award winner Béla Fleck. But first, a quick look back on only a few of the accomplishments this season:

September 28: the season opens with a spectacular concert featuring world-artist pianist Olga Kern and fantastic performances by the PSO of Strauss, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Wagner.

October 19: Rock-Star violinist Charles Yang takes Peoria by storm in a weeklong residency culminating in a fantastic Tchaikovsky concerto and a rockin’ world premiere. Charles appeared everywhere from Quest Academy to Kelleher’s during that week – reaching new audiences and creating new fans for great music. Jerry Slavet, CEO of the nationally broadcast series “From the Top.” Flew to Peoria for the concert and endorsed the PSO’s efforts at the pre-concert lecture. The PSO, Charles, and Tchaikovsky proved a winning combination.

November 9: PSO Principal Viola Kate Lewis appears with the PSO in the American premiere of the Nystroem Viola Concerto as part of a charming “Paris” program which also featured our harpist Nicole Luchs and works by Ravel, Debussy, Mozart, and Faure.

The PSO hosted the Tornado Relief Concert with over two hundred volunteer musicians and singers in Handel’s Messiah – raising recovery funds for Washington, Pekin, and East Peoria.

Matinee at the Movies brought together families, fun, film, and music in January. We are still receiving thanks for this concert from so many parents and children who attended a PSO concert for the first time ever!

Our March 15 “Four Seasons” concert with Paul Kantor brought a record number of audience members to Grace Presbyterian Church. The PSO strings performed luminously. Paul Kantor gave masterclasses for area high school and college students in cooperation with the Central Illinois Youth Symphony.

The PSO’s two new series on WTVP – “Sound/Bites” and “Musical Discoveries” finished production. The first program “Refined Revolutionaries” with guest Charles Yang and PSO Principals Kate Lewis, Adriana LaRosa Ransom, and Jasmine Arakawa aired on March 28 to great acclaim. These two new series represent a quantum leap in our outreach to adults and children throughout the region. In addition to our regular visits to schools, hospitals, and community groups, these broadcasts (along with our broadcasts on WCBU) reach thousands of listeners in their own homes!

It’s hard to pick a favorite memory, right? Well hold on, there’s more to come.

When the PSO takes the stage on Saturday, April 12 at the Civic Center, it could be your new favorite memory. The program features works by Copland, Bernstein, and Béla Fleck and continues one of the themes running through this entire season – the use of popular music idioms by composers.

In Music for Movies, Copland charms us with scenes from three of his successful movie scores – Of Mice and Men, Our Town, and The City. Yes, Aaron Copland was also a film composer! Did you know he won an Academy Award for the score to the film The Heiress (1949)?

Copland was encouraged by his mentor Nadia Boulanger, to “find the music of your culture” – the American culture. He went back to folk tradition and wrote a lovely suite based on popular folksongs called Old American Songs. These five charming songs are both wry and innocent – ranging from “The Dodger” with its political satire to “Simple Gifts” which Copland used in Appalachian Spring. Sung by rising-star baritone Nathaniel Olson, these little musical jewels perfectly reflect the relationship between popular and art culture. Nathaniel will also appear in an upcoming broadcast of the PSO’s “Sound/Bites” program entitled American Songbook.

Moving on from film and folksong, Leonard Bernstein explores another uniquely American popular idiom – the Broadway Musical. In this case, Bernstein borrows from himself in his Three Dance Episodes from On The Town. Taken from his 1944 hit musical, Bernstein presents three dance scenes in a concert setting. Full of Jazz and popular dance rhythms and melodies, these three “episodes” will have you tapping your toes – but artfully so.

And finally – Béla Fleck!

Béla Fleck is one of the most gifted and unique musicians on the planet. Through his chosen instrument, the banjo, he has mesmerized audiences throughout the world and won fifteen Grammy Awards for his recordings – IN MULTIPLE CATEGORIES – including classical! In our time, Béla is the only musician who so easily straddles the popular and classical realms of music with artistic success equivalent to Copland, Bernstein, or Gershwin.

And it seems that his fate was chosen for him from the start. His name Béla Anton Leos Fleck is classically derived. He is named after classical composers Béla Bartok, Leos Janacek, and Anton Webern – all composers known for innovation. Bartok and Janacek both were intensely interested in the folk traditions of their cultures and Webern was part of the revolution that turned classical music on its head. Béla Fleck is no different. In his wonderful Concerto for Banjo and Orchestra we will experience his own inspired treatment of popular culture turned high art through the medium of his virtuoso playing.

So, … a concert you do not want to miss. Between Bernstein, Copland, Fleck, and the PSO – the awards represented by the composers and performers on this concert are as follows: more than 38 Grammy Awards; more than 50 American Government, Foreign Government, and International Awards; more than 37 Pulitzer, Academy, Emmy, Tony, ASCAP, broadcast, and special awards; and more than 40 Honorary Doctorates. All in all, pretty impressive recognition for the value of their work in mixing popular culture and artistic endeavors.

 

I am looking forward to seeing you at the concert. AND, if there ever was a concert to introduce friends to the PSO, this is it.
Warmly,

George Stelluto, Music Director of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra