BEACH CITIES SYMPHONY NEWSLETTER
AND CONCERT INFORMATION
VOLUME XI, NO. 2
January 2004
THE
BEACH CITIES SYMPHONY
BARRY BRISK, music director
PRESENTS
ANLI LIN TONG, piano soloist
REBECCA RUTKOWSKI, violin soloist
Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College
Crenshaw Blvd. at Redondo Beach Blvd.
FREE ADMISSION and FREE PARKING
Concert time: 8:15 p.m., pre-concert lecture: 7:30
p.m.
Information: (310) 379-9725 or (310) 539-4649
Elegia for Violin and Orchestra: Grigore Nica
Rebecca Rutkowski, violin soloist
Concerto No. 2 in F Minor for Piano and
Orchestra: Frédéric Chopin
Anli Lin Tong, piano soloist
Ring of the Nibelungen (excerpts): Richard Wagner
Entry of the Gods into Valhalla: Rhinegold
Wotan’s Farewell and Magic Fire Music: Valkyrie
Forest Murmurs: Siegfried
Siegfried’s Rhine Journey: Twilight of the Gods
PROGRAM BIOGRAPHIES: JANUARY 23, 2004
BARRY BRISK, MUSIC DIRECTOR
AND CONDUCTOR
Maestro
Brisk, who is in his tenth season with the Beach Cities Symphony, is enjoying
the second longest tenure as Music Director in the 54-year history of the
orchestra. A frequent guest conductor
for other Southern California orchestras, Brisk also plays viola in several
symphonies and teaches violin, viola, piano, and conducting. He has a diploma
in conducting from the Vienna University (formerly Academy) of Music, where he
studied with Hans Swarowsky, teacher of Zubin Mehta and Claudio Abbado among
others. Brisk has conducted the Vienna Symphony, Vienna Academy Ballet
Orchestra, Tonkunstler Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Burbank Chamber Orchestra,
West Los Angeles Symphony, Westside Symphony, Topanga Symphony, American Youth
Symphony, and at the Ojai Music Festival.
He has conducted opera and ballet and is listed in the International
Who’s Who in Music. He has published opera and book reviews and gives our
pre-concert lectures each concert evening.
Brisk
is particularly proud of three of his former conducting students. David
Robertson is now Music Director of the Orchestre de Lyon, France. He has
conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and appeared as guest conductor
of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Steven Kerstein is Music Director of the
Burbank Philharmonic. Arlette Cardenes is conductor of the Culver City Chamber
Orchestra, and plays cello with the Beach Cities Symphony. Maestro Brisk's
family consists of his wife, Cathy, an expert on ancient Greek and Roman coins;
their son, Philip, who is working on a Ph.D. in computer science at UCLA;
Philip’s wife, Marilyn (they were married on June 29th in the Virgin Islands);
Homer, a Siamese fighting fish named after Homer Simpson; and two goldfish in
separate tanks.
GRIGORE NICA, COMPOSER
Mr. Nica, who plays violin in the Beach Cities Symphony, was born in Ploiesti, Romania, in 1936. He received his Master’s Degree in Composition, Conducting, and Teaching from the Conservatory in Bucharest and taught at the Music High School, at the Conservatory, and at his private studio. He also worked as a music editor for Romanian radio. In 1990 Mr. Nica came to the United States as a political refugee and became a U.S. citizen in 1996. He lives in Torrance and teaches violin, viola, piano, and composition.
A
prolific composer, Mr. Nica has written concertos, concertinos, cantatas,
symphonic poems, chamber music, songs, choir music, and one symphony. His
award-winning compositions have been performed in Romania, Germany, France,
Holland, and the United States. In some of his works he uses simple music
techniques and languages, weaving Romanian folk melodies with his own original
themes and using modal elements of Byzantine origin. In other works, he creates
interesting serial-modal syntheses, combining languages and contemporary sound
structures in a variety of orchestral dresses in which colored timbre
combinations play an important role.
The Beach Cities Symphony has performed several of Mr. Nica’s compositions, including Five Movements for Symphonic Orchestra, Celebration for Choir and Orchestra, and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 72. Tonight’s performance will mark the première of the orchestral version of his Elegia for Violin and Orchestra, which was originally written as a duet for violin and piano.
REBECCA RUTKOWSKI,
VIOLIN SOLOIST
Rebecca
Rutkowski, concertmaster of the Beach Cities Symphony since 1987, began her
music studies with her father, a violinist for the Chicago Symphony, before
moving to Southern California. She is a graduate of UCLA, where she studied
with Mehli Mehta and acted as both the Assistant Concertmaster and Executive
Manager of his American Youth Symphony. As recipient of the George Szell
Memorial Scholarship, she also studied with Daniel Majeske, concertmaster of
the Cleveland Orchestra. An active freelance musician in Southern California,
Ms. Rutkowski serves as concertmaster of the Peninsula Symphony and the Topanga
Symphony. In addition, she plays regularly with the Pasadena and Glendale
Symphony Orchestras. Summers find her performing at the Mozart Festival in San
Luis Obispo and at the Ojai Music Festival. Chamber music is one of her
favorite pursuits, and she is a member of the Long Beach-based Concert a Tré
with cellist Gilbert Reese and pianist Ralph Alberstrom. She teaches violin and
is a frequent judge at Southern California competitions.
In
January 2002, Ms. Rutkowski performed as soloist with the Beach Cities Symphony
In Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for Violin and Orchestra, BWV 1052.
ANLI LIN TONG, PIANO
SOLOIST
Born
in Taiwan, Anli Lin became the youngest pupil of the late pianist and pedagogue
Mieczyslaw Munz when he offered her a scholarship and a place in his class at
the Juilliard School in New York. She received both Bachelor and Master of
Music degrees in Piano Performance from Juilliard and is currently engaged in
doctoral studies under Vitaly Margulis at UCLA.
Ms.
Tong has performed internationally in France, Austria, Italy, Taiwan, and the
United States, including concert appearances at Avery Fisher Hall in New York’s
Lincoln Center, the Opera House of Bordeaux, France, the Orchestra Hall in
Detroit, Taipei Symphony Hall in Taiwan, and at the Getty Center in Los
Angeles. As a concerto soloist, she has performed with the Taiwan Symphony
Orchestra, the Chinese Fine Arts Orchestra, the Bratislava Chamber Orchestra,
the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Symphonic Camerata, and the
Livic Chamber Orchestra in Torrance. She has been featured on WBEZ, Chicago’s
Public Radio, and on Radio Philharmonic, Taipei. In January of 2001 she
appeared as soloist with the Beach Cities Symphony in Mozart’s Piano Concerto
in G, K. 453.
A
naturalized American citizen, Ms. Tong makes her home here in the South Bay
where she devotes her time to teaching, performing, and her family. Her
students have won numerous top prizes in competitions throughout the Los
Angeles area, including the prestigious Los Angeles Philharmonic Kaper Award.
Several of her students have also appeared with the Beach Cities Symphony as winners
of the annual Artists of the Future competition. She serves as a member of the
Board of Directors of the Music Teachers Association of California, South Bay
Branch.
Anli
Lin Tong chose Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto as her solo vehicle for this
concert. “The music is poetry from beginning to end,” she says. “There is so
much beauty on every page.” She learned this concerto as a high school student,
first performing it with the Taiwan Symphony. “Chopin was 18 or 19 years old
when he wrote this concerto, and in love with a singer named Constanza. I
identified with his youth and was drawn to the romantic elements in the music.”
She concludes, “A piece has to speak to me personally. [This concerto] did when
I was a teenager and still does.”
ELAINE HUNTER (1916-2003) by Bob Peterson, President, Beach Cities
Symphony Association
On
October 28, 2003, Elaine Hunter, co-founder of the Beach Cities Symphony,
passed away in Vacaville, California, near the home of her son Ken and his wife,
Jill. She is also survived by her husband, Kenneth A. Hunter, to whom she was
married 63 years, daughter DeEtte Johnston (Mike) of Bishop, and daughter
Barbara Lukehart (Frank) of San Diego. Our concert on January 23 will be
dedicated to her memory.
As
residents of Manhattan Beach, Elaine Hunter and Marie Swearingen co-founded the
Beach Cities Symphony in 1949. Elaine played first violin in the orchestra,
served on the Board, provided hospitality service for concert receptions, and
helped with advertising and promotion of the orchestra for many years.
During
the years I was Chairman of the Board, she always insisted that all advertising
of symphony concerts include a line about the Symphony’s longevity (currently
our 54th season). Her love of the endurance of the orchestra was only surpassed
by her assurance of its continuance. Her family, business associates, and
fellow parishioners at Manhattan Beach Community Church all knew of the
orchestra and were urged by Elaine to support it by attendance and
memberships.
Elaine Hunter was not just a member of the orchestra. It was her orchestra and she supported and promoted it her entire life. Every musician who has played in it and every Board member who has worked for it owes her a debt of gratitude for her years of hard work and for her family’s support and their work as well. The orchestra and others have contributed to a memorial in her name for the scholarship fund at Manhattan Beach Community Church to carry on her interests in the community.
WHAT MAKES A CONCERT
SEASON EFFECTIVE?
Music
Director BARRY BRISK Answers the Question
How does a Music Director create musically viable concerts within a
balanced season? It is necessary to juggle many practical variables and
coordinate them with artistic considerations.
One
consideration is that soloists who desire to play with the orchestra have
repertoire requests and favorite concertos. For instance, Anli Lin Tong
requested the Chopin Second Piano Concerto for our January 23 program. Also we
need to present a variety of performers: piano, violin, cello, winds,
percussion, vocalists, and chorus. I avoid certain pieces, such as the violin
concertos by Mendelssohn and Mozart, because they appear frequently with
student soloists on our annual Artists of the Future concerts in May. Further,
I have made it a policy to present a soloist from within the orchestra each
season. Among these have been Concertmaster Rebecca Rutkowski in the Bach D
Minor Violin Concerto, violist Sara Behar in Berlioz’ Harold in Italy, Bradley
Cohen in the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto, John Cather in the Hummel Trumpet
Concerto, Rhondda Dayton and Larry Tunick in Salieri’s Concerto for Flute and
Oboe, percussionist Kenneth Park in Musser’s Scherzo Caprice for marimba and
orchestra, and Caswell Neal in Richard Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 1. In March
of 1997, Gerald Fried, who was then our principal oboist, played the world
première of his own Time Travels for Oboe and Orchestra.
In
addition, there are budgetary constraints. Some compositions are more expensive
than others because they require more players. Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe Suite
No. 2, which we performed in November 2001, required additional piccolo, alto
flute, English horn, E flat clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, tuba, 5
percussionists, 2 harps, and celesta. These extra players are frequently
professionals who must be paid. Once I've decided to do an expensive piece, I
may do another expensive piece on the same program because the extra player
costs have already been allocated. After the choirs had been engaged for
Brahms' Song of Destiny last season, I also used them for Verdi's Va, pensiero
and the third of Debussy’s Nocturnes. Another budget item is rental fees for
the music. Much of the music we play comes from the Los Angeles Public Library
for a nominal fee. Playing copyrighted music, such as Aaron Copland's
Appalachian Spring, would cost between $300 and $500. For us, that is
expensive. Tweaking my programs to match the orchestra's budget is an essential
part of my job. Then there is the
matter of small versus large orchestra. Ninety percent of Beach Cities Symphony
musicians are community volunteers, who come to the rehearsals because they
enjoy playing their instruments. It is my responsibility to insure that all the
musicians have the opportunity to participate in a meaningful way. However,
works by Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, early Beethoven, and Mendelssohn seldom
require three trombones, third and fourth horns, timpani, second flute, or two
clarinets. Therefore we have played the three Beethoven symphonies that use
trombones--Numbers 5, 6, and 9--and the two large Schubert symphonies: the
Unfinished and the Great C Major, No. 7.
The
most vital artistic aspect of programming is selecting compositions that go
well together musically. Personal judgment and experience are the key elements.
Sometimes similarities are interesting, and sometimes contrasts build worthy
concerts. To achieve this, national styles--American, German, French, Russian,
Finnish, Spanish, Italian, Chinese--need to be coordinated with historical
eras: baroque, classical, romantic, late romantic, impressionistic, 20th
Century, living composers. These values are then meshed with the desires of
potential soloists. The results are concerts of artistic merit that are
designed to be effective for the musicians and the audience.
Finally,
there exists a vast repertoire of wonderful orchestral music that stretches
from the baroque to the present. I consider it an imperative to expose the musicians
and the audience to as much of this treasure as possible, including music by
living composers. Many talented musicians in this area build careers composing
music for TV and films. Gerald Fried, Charles Fernandez, and Thomas Pasatieri
are three such composers whose music we have performed. This plethora of great
orchestral music allows me to develop seasons without repeating repertoire. In
my ten years as Music Director, only one piece, the Chinese concerto Butterfly
Lovers, was done twice, in 1997 with Yao-Hua Gao playing the gaohu, and in 2003
with Elmer Su as violin soloist.
The
artistic and practical sides of programming must be handled in a conscientious
and fiscally responsible manner. Shaping a concert, formulating a season,
requires time, knowledge, diligence, patience, sensitivity, subtlety, and
musical cunning. It is not as easy as it looks. Barry Brisk is celebrating his
tenth anniversary as Music Director for the Beach Cities Symphony.
WELCOME TO OUR NEW
MEMBERS:
Mary
& Warren Atkins, John & Faraday Bartos, Eleanor Calisher, Bea & Bud
Cohen, Richard & Eileen Connett, Laurel Gutierrez, Sylvia Lee, Marilyn
& Charles Machilicky, Michael S. Okamoto, Nola Pinter, Marion & Cynthia
Todd, Rita & Kineon Walker, Elaine Trotter & John Williams, Shirley
Wireman
MATCHING FUNDS
CORPORATIONS:
Boeing,
Cadence Design Systems.
Thank you for supporting
our organization! Check your label
to make sure your membership is current for the 2OO3-O4 season. Benefits
include this newsletter, eligibility for door prizes and the reception
following every concert.
March 12, 2004 (Note the change in date)
George
Gershwin, Cuban Overture
Edward
MacDowell, Piano Concerto No. 2, Akiko Dohi, soloist
William
Grant Still, Afro-American Symphony
May 28, 2004
Leroy
Southers, Serenade (world première)
Artists
of the Future soloists: to be announced
Beethoven,
Consecration of the House Overture
Beach Cities Symphony
Association
Post
Office Box 248
Redondo
Beach, CA 90277-0248
Information
telephone line: 310-379-9725 or 310-539-4649
E-mail
communications: peter@beachcitiessymphony.org
Visit
our web page: http://BeachCitiesSymphony.org
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Text:
Toni Empringham
Graphics:
Ralph Dame
Editor/Advisor:
Margaret McWilliams
The
Elegia for Violin and Orchestra was created as a dramatic and romantic piece
and is meant to express my feelings at the disappearance of a great American
artistic personality, Edith Knox [1904-1993]. This piece is my homage in her
memory; I composed it over the course of one day soon after I found out she had
passed away. Eunee Yee and I performed the violin and piano version many times
with great success.
Four
sounds--G, F Sharp, G, and E--generate and dominate this work, reminiscent of
the medieval motif from Dies Irae. Between 1993 and 2003 I added to, modified,
and orchestrated the original and created a new version of the Elegia.
Tonight’s world première performance is dedicated to violinist and
concertmaster Rebecca Rutkowski, who will also be the soloist for this piece.
(Grigore Nica)
Mr.
Nica plays violin in the Beach Cities Symphony. January 23 will mark its
première in the orchestral version, with Ms. Rutkowski as soloist.
Concerto
No. 2 in F Minor for Piano and Orchestra by Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Chopin
was only nineteen when he wrote this F Minor Concerto. It was actually the
first of his two piano concertos, but was the second to be published. Chopin
was still living in his native Poland and had not yet ventured far afield to
conquer the sophisticated salons of music and fashion in Paris. He was
nineteen, delicate, a poet in mind as well as in appearance, and for the first
time deeply in love. Like a true Romantic, he poured his amorous dreams into
his art, specifically, as he explained to his close friend Titus Woydechowski,
into the songful second movement:
I
have--perhaps to my own misfortune--already found my ideal, whom I worship
faithfully and sincerely. Six months have elapsed and I haven’t yet exchanged a
syllable with her of whom I dream every night--she who was in my mind when I
composed the Adagio of my Concerto.
Almost
as soon as he had finished the Concerto, Chopin announced it for a public
concert, his Warsaw debut in fact, on March 17, 1830. In those days a concerto
played straight through was considered rather too serious a strain for most
audiences, so an operatic air or a lighter piece was frequently interpolated
between the movements. In this concert the first movement was followed by a
divertissement for French horn. Even so, the audience apparently had its
difficulties in relating to the Concerto. (Dr. Robert Haag)
Four
Excerpts from The Ring of the Nibelungen by Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Richard Wagner’s masterpiece, The Ring of the Nibelungen, is a tetralogy of operas that can be performed separately but ideally should be performed on four consecutive nights. The Ring occupied Wagner for nearly twenty years and culminated with the building of the opera house at Bayreuth that, at that time, was the only one in the world capable of meeting the technical demands of its performance. The first presentation of the cycle was in 1876. Out of this grew the Bayreuth Festival, the first of its kind and the progenitor of the dozens of music festivals that are presented annually on both sides of the Atlantic. The Ring cycle, once regarded as the exclusive province of Bayreuth, is presented in opera houses throughout the world, from Seattle to San Francisco to New York, among others.
Wagner’s complicated story of greed and hate, of love and redemption, of gods and mortals, defies any reasonable telling in this short space. Maestro Brisk has creatively combined orchestral highlights from each of the four operas for the enjoyment of our audience tonight. For patrons who may be challenged to dig deeper into the Ring saga, reference materials and recordings abound. (R.H.)
The Ring Cycle: Background Reading
An excellent general introduction to Wagner’s music and to the sources that inspired the Ring cycle is provided by The Oxford Companion to Music (2002 ed.). The multi-volume New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, available in a number of local libraries in its first (1980) if not second (2001) edition, provides a more extensive description and analysis of the composer’s musical epics. The Wagner Compendium and The Wagner Handbook (both 1992) offer other recent introductions to the Cycle. Two extremely readable older books still available are The Wagner Operas by Ernest Newman (1949) and The Perfect Wagnerite by George Bernard Shaw (4th ed. 1923, reissued in 1967). Shaw’s witty, conversational approach to the operas is especially entertaining, and his descriptions of early Bayreuth performances, Wagnerian singers (“Abominably as the Germans sang in Wagner’s day, it was astonishing how they throve physically on his leading parts”), and the late 19th century political implications of the Ring’s subject matter are often controversial but never boring. (Toni Empringham)
Robert
L. Peterson, President
Major
General David D. Bradburn, Ret., President
Emeritus
Genevieve
Kiser, Secretary
Yong
Reuter, Treasurer
James
Lee, Membership
Board of Directors
Leslie
Back, Stephen Bayliss, Major General David G. Bradburn, Ret., Donna Clarke, Dr.
Robert Haag, Jo Ann Kamada, Mary Ann Keating, Genevieve Kiser, James Lee, Ruth
MacFarlane (1st Vice Chair), Bill Malcolm, Dr. Margaret
McWilliams, Grace Obray, George Pelzman, Jeanie Pelzman (2nd Vice
Chair), Robert L. Peterson, Erin Prouty, Yong Reuter, Tom Scanlon, Anna
Watson, Martin Wood (Chairman of the Board)
James
Lee – Membership
Dr.
Robert Haag – Program Notes
Donna
Clarke – M.T.A.C. Liaison
Dr.
Toni Empringham – Newsletter
Tom
Scanlon – Orchestra Liaison
Mary
Ann Keating – Press Liaison
Mary
Ann Keating – Lobby Coordinator
Jo
Ann Kamada – Radio/Television Publicity
Jeanie
& George Pelzman,
Robert
L. Peterson,
Dr.
Toni Empringham,
Leslie
Back –Lobby
Jeanie
Pelzman,
Grace
Obray,
Anna
Watson – Post-Concert Reception
Dr.
Margaret McWilliams – Program Book
Dr.
Peter Landecker – Web Master
THE BEACH CITIES SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
1949-2004
BARRY BRISK
Music Director and Conductor
SECOND
CONCERT - 54th SEASON
Friday January 23, 2004 - 8:15 p.m.
El Camino College - Marsee Auditorium – Torrance, California
Violin Soloist Piano Soloist
MARTIN WOOD – Chairman of the Board
Elegia for Violin and Orchestra, op. 61B…………………………………Grigore Nica
Maestoso
Larghetto
Allegro Vivace
Anli Lin Tong, Piano Soloist
DRAWING FOR DOOR PRIZES
Entry of the Gods into
Valhalla, from Rhinegold
Wotan’s Farewell and Magic
Fire Music, from Valkyrie
Forest Murmers, from
Siegfried
Seigfried’s Rhine Journey, from
Twilight of the Gods
This concert is dedicated to the memory of Elaine Hunter, Symphony Co-Founder
· Please – No flash photos during performance ·
Following
tonight’s concert, there will be a reception for solo artists and guests,
program sponsors, orchestra members and guests, and all members and guests of
the Beach Cities Symphony Association. It will be held in the upstairs lobby.