Issuu

BRAVO OCTOBER 16 & 17

SHELÉA SINGS ARETHA FRANKLIN

ANDREAS DELFS, MUSIC DIRECTOR JEFF TYZIK, PRINCIPAL POPS CONDUCTOR CHRISTOPHER SEAMAN, CONDUCTOR LAUREATE

The Christopher Seaman Chair, Supported by Barbara and Patrick Fulford and The Conductor Laureate Society

JAKE TANIGUCHI, ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

The Louise and Henry Epstein Family Education and Community Engagement Chair

IN THIS ISSUE: 4 26/27 Season Orchestra 5 Our Conductors 8 Board of Directors 9 Bravo to Our Season Sponsors 33 Bravo to Our Supporters 39 Volunteers & Staff 40 About Us

RPO @ FRINGE: CONTEMPORARY WORKS WITH THEREMIN September 19

SUNDAY MATINEES AT NAZ: ANDREAS & HAYDN September 20

DVOŘÁK’S NEW WORLD SYMPHONY September 26 & 27

25 PEER GYNT WITH JOHN DE LANCIE October 10 & 11

29 NATURAL WOMAN: SHELÉA SINGS ARETHA FRANKLIN October 16 & 17

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Dear RPO Patrons, Donors, Community Partners, and Sponsors,

Welcome from the President/CEO

Welcome to the RPO’s 2026/27 season. Every new season brings a sense of anticipation — new music to discover, artists to welcome, and familiar traditions to share again. This one opens with Dvořák's “New World” Symphony, Josefowicz’s passionate playing, and the premiere of Michael Torke's optimistic Ascent, with the composer here in Rochester. It is a season with much to look forward to, and it also marks a new chapter of leadership for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. This summer, Katherine Lindahl became Chair of the Board of Directors, and I joined the RPO as President & CEO. Stepping into these roles within weeks of one another has given us the opportunity to build a new partnership while listening closely to the people who know and love this orchestra. What is already clear is something essential: the RPO belongs to this community. It is shaped by the musicians who perform here, the conductors and guest artists who lead us, the staff and volunteers who make each concert possible, and the people of Rochester who believe an orchestra is essential to the life of this city. That belief is also at the heart of our comprehensive capital campaign, RPO & You. The campaign's early years strengthened the endowment that helps sustain this orchestra and supported Voices of Today, our commissioning, storytelling, and recording project. Now, as we turn toward individual donors, subscribers, and patrons, we want to celebrate the personal reasons people make the RPO part of their lives. For some, it is a favorite piece heard live. For others, it is a family tradition, a first concert, a night out with friends, or watching a child discover an orchestra for the first time. It may be a student finding a musical voice, a group of friends enjoying the RPO at a neighborhood park, or the feeling of sitting in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre and sharing the communal power of a live musical performance. Those connections are what make RPO & You meaningful. The future of this orchestra is not only about sustaining an ensemble. It is about sustaining the experiences, relationships, and opportunities that make the RPO matter here. We are deeply grateful to everyone who makes those experiences possible — through a donation, subscription, sponsorship, volunteer commitment, or simply by showing up and being part of the audience. As we begin this new chapter, we look forward to listening, learning, and building on all that has come before. And we look forward to sharing another season with you. Because the RPO is not simply an orchestra in Rochester. It is RPO & You. With gratitude,

TONYA MCBRIDE ROBLES PRESIDENT & CEO 2

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VIOLIN 1

BASS

The Caroline W. Gannett & Clayla Ward Chair, funded in perpetuity

The Anne Hayden McQuay Chair, funded in perpetuity

Juliana Athayde+, Concertmaster Cory Palmer, Principal Angelina Phillips,

Michael Griffin,

The Fred M. And Lurita D. Wechsler Chair, funded in perpetuity

Daniel Morehead Edward Castilano Fred Dole Jeff Campbell+ Eric Polenik

The Orchestra 2026/27 SEASON

Associate Concertmaster

Shannon Nance,

Assistant Concertmaster

Jeongwon An^ Tigran Vardanyan James Zabawa-Martinez Thomas Rodgers Anna Leunis Molly McDonald Kurt Munstedt Perrin Yang Jeremy Hill An-Chi Lin

VIOLIN 2

Jeanelle Thompson, Principal The Dr. Ralph F. Jozefowicz Chair

Daryl Perlo, Assistant Principal The James E. Dumm Chair, funded in perpetuity

Patricia Sunwoo Lara Sipols Sooyeon Kim Petros Karapetyan Liana Koteva Kirvan Margaret Leenhouts Heidi Brodwin Ellen Stokoe

VIOLA

Assistant Principal

FLUTE

Rebecca Gilbert, Principal The Charlotte Whitney Allen Chair, funded in perpetuity

Sean Marron Elise Kim

PICCOLO

Sean Marron Elise Kim

OBOE

Erik Behr, Principal

The Dr. Jacques M. Lipson Chair, funded in perpetuity

Anna Steltenpohl Megan Kyle

ENGLISH HORN Anna Steltenpohl

CLARINET

Anders Peterson, Principal

The Robert J. Strasenburgh Chair, funded in perpetuity

Marc Anderson, Assistant Principal Andrew Brown Rebecca Christainsen James Marshall BASS CLARINET Olita Povero Andrew Brown Neil Miller Melissa Matson BASSOON David Hult Jordan Farber, Principal The Ron and Donna Fielding Chair Grant Rieke Karl Vilcins Martha Sholl CELLO Ahrim Kim, Principal The Clara and Edwin Strasenburgh Chair, funded in perpetuity

Lars Kirvan, Assistant Principal The Nick & Kitty Jospé Chair

JULIANA ATHAYDE,

CONCERTMASTER

Christopher Haritatos Garri Hovsepyan Benjamin Krug Ingrid Bock

PHOTO: SMILLIEPHOTO.COM

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CONTRA-BASSOON Karl Vilcins

HORN

Lily Kern, Principal

The Cricket and Frank Luellen Chair

TRUMPET

Wesley Nance Herbert Smith Paul Shewan

TROMBONE

David Bruestle, Principal

The Austin E. Hildebrandt Chair, funded in perpetuity

Lisa Albrecht Jeffrey Gray

BASS TROMBONE Jeffrey Gray

TUBA

W. Craig Sutherland, Principal The Rob W. Goodling Chair, funded in perpetuity

TIMPANI

Charles Ross, Principal

The Harold and Joan Feinbloom Chair, funded in perpetuity

PERCUSSION

Caleb Breidenbaugh, Principal

The Marie-Merrill and George M. Ewing Chair, funded in perpetuity

Brian Stotz

The Barbara and Patrick Fulford Chair, funded in perpetuity

HARP

Grace Browning, Principal

The Eileen Malone Chair. A Tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt M. Sylvester

Rosanna Moore

KEYBOARD

Chiao-Wen Cheng+, Principal The Lois P. Lines Chair, funded in perpetuity

PERSONNEL MANAGER Fred Dole

PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN

Kimberly Hartquist

STAGE MANAGERS Danielle Suhr Cederick Martinez

Jon Gannon, Associate Principal/ Utility

Maura McCune Corvington Nathan Ukens Stephen Laifer

+ Eastman faculty ^ Year leave of absence

Andreas Delfs has built a reputation over his 35-year career as one of the most dynamic and respected conductors on the international stage. Celebrated for his visionary leadership and deep musical insight, he is equally renowned as a masterful orchestra builder and an inspiring music director. Known for his emotionally charged and dramatically nuanced interpretations—particularly of the late Romantic repertoire—Delfs has earned critical acclaim across North America and Europe. His performances are marked by an ever-deepening artistic maturity, bringing a rare combination of passion, precision, and authenticity to every podium he graces. Educated at leading conservatories on both sides of the Atlantic and shaped by mentorships with legendary conductors, Delfs has cultivated a style forged through decades of experience. At the same time, his unwavering curiosity and enthusiasm for contemporary music have made him a champion of living composers. He has established lasting collaborations with many of today’s most compelling musical voices, conducting numerous world premieres and commissioning new works. Among his many artistic inspirations are Hans Werner Henze, György Ligeti, Philip Glass, and Roberto Sierra—composers whose diverse idioms have helped shape his unique interpretive voice. His artistry has also drawn world-class soloists to the stage, including André Watts, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang, and Renée Fleming. Delfs has held prominent leadership roles with orchestras on both continents. As Music Director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra from 1996 to 2009—and later as its Conductor Laureate—he played a pivotal role in elevating the ensemble to national acclaim. He also led the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra as Music Director (2001–2004) and Artistic Consultant (2004–2006). In Europe, he served as General Music Director of Hanover, Germany (1995–2000), overseeing both the city’s symphonyorchestra and its distinguished opera company. Earlier appointments include Music Director of the Bern Opera, Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony during Lorin Maazel’s tenure, and Music Director—at an impressively young age—of the Orchestre Suisse des Jeunes.

Our Conductors 2026/27 SEASON

ANDREAS DELFS Music Director

Throughout his career, Delfs has conducted many of the world’s premier orchestras. His international credits include the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Danish National Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Beijing Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan. Born in Flensburg, Germany, Delfs began studying piano and music theory at the age of five. He studied under Christoph von Dohnányi and Aldo Ceccato at the Hamburg Conservatory, where, at just 20 years old, he became the youngest Music Director of the Hamburg University Orchestra and served as Musical Assistant at the Hamburg State Opera. He later continued his training at The Juilliard School, studying with Jorge Mester, Sixten Ehrling, and Leonard Bernstein, and was honored with the prestigious Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship. PHOTO: ALEX CASSETTI

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JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor

Our Conductors 2026/27 SEASON

26/27 marks Jeff Tyzik’s 33rd season as RPO Pops Conductor. But his musical journey began long before his permanent residency in Kodak Hall. Born in Hyde Park, New York, he started playing cornet at age nine—inspired by the buglers during an Independence Day parade in nearby Poughkeepsie. He switched to trumpet at age 11, and eventually went on to attend Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, ultimately earning Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. Even before Tyzik’s schooling was completed, his star was on the rise. While at Eastman, Tyzik met Chuck Mangione, with whom he worked between 1973 and 1980 —both as lead trumpeter in Mangione’s band and as co-producer of four albums. During that time, Tyzik befriended Tonight Show band leader Doc Severinsen, who eventually invited Tyzik to London to record two albums. That relationship proved fruitful, with Tyzik producing the Grammy-winning The Tonight Show Band with Doc Severinsen, Vol. 1. Severinsen’s albums with Tyzik would go on to earn three additional Grammy nominations. Tyzik also recorded his own albums as a solo trumpeter between 1981 and 1990, when he and his big band frequently performed in Rochester. In 1993, Tyzik proposed a four-concert series featuring RPO members dubbed “All in the Family.” The first debuted Oct. 22 and highlighted Kenneth Grant (clarinet), Joseph Werner (piano), and percussionists William Cahn and Dave Mancini. Less than a month later, Tyzik was asked to become Principal Pops Conductor. Jeff quickly made his mark on the orchestra, in his second season performing the first in his endearing, enduring Gala Holiday Pops series. He also made RPO history conducting an all-Gershwin album featuring pianist Jon Nakamatsu. The recording topped the Billboard Classical chart and remained in the top 10 for three months. Over five decades, Tyzik has guest-conducted more than 100 orchestras, including the Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, and Milwaukee Symphony. In September 2023, he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic and returned later that season to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2023–24 finale. He’s also shared the stage with a remarkable range of artists across genres—from Tony Bennett and Leslie Odom Jr. to Wynonna Judd, Art Garfunkel, Marilyn Horne, Arturo Sandoval, The Chieftains, Megan Hilty, Dawn Upshaw, and John Pizzarelli. In 2012, Tyzik and his daughter Jami co-founded the management and production company Greenberg Artists. Since 2016, in partnership with Schirmer Theatrical, they’ve developed dozens of orchestral Pops programs now performed by nearly 200 orchestras. In 2023, Tyzik launched TyzikMusic.com, a digital publishing platform featuring more than 150 of his arrangements, orchestrations, and compositions for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, and wind ensemble.

PHOTO: SMILLIEPHOTO.COM

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CHRISTOPHER SEAMAN Conductor Laureate

Christopher Seaman was music director of the RPO from 1998-2011, and was subsequently named conductor laureate. During his 13-year tenure, the longest in RPO history, he raised the Orchestra’s artistic level, broadened its audience base, and created a new concert series. This contribution was recognized with an award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. In May 2009, the University of Rochester made him an honorary doctor of music. Previous positions include music director of the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra (Florida) for 10 years, conductor-in-residence with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and artistic advisor of the San Antonio Symphony. He is recognized for his wealth of repertoire, which ranges from baroque to contemporary, and in particular the works of Bruckner, Brahms, and Sibelius. Seaman also is highly regarded for his work with younger musicians, and he served as course director for the Symphony Services International Conductor Development Program (Australia) for many years. Recent conducting engagements include the Aspen Music Festival, Detroit, Houston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Seattle symphony orchestras; the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Kristians Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North, and Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais in Brazil. He frequently visits Australia and Asia where he has conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Taiwan, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Singapore symphony orchestras, among others.

JAKE TANIGUCHI Assistant Conductor

The Louise and Henry Epstein Family Education and Community Engagement Chair

Jake Taniguchi is the Assistant Conductor of the RPO and Music Director of the RPYO. In the 2026–27 season, he will lead numerous programs with both ensembles, including community, family, and education concerts, and will take the RPYO on an international tour to Vienna, Salzburg, and Prague.

Our Conductors 2026/27 SEASON

The Christopher Seaman Chair, supported by Barbara and Patrick Fulford and The Conductor Laureate Society

Taniguchi has served on the conducting faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as principal conductor of the Hawai‘i Chamber Music Festival (HCMF), and as assistant and cover conductor for the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra, Omaha Symphony, Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra, and the Indiana University Ballet and Opera Theater. He has collaborated with distinguished conductors including Leonard Slatkin, Dane Lam, Mei-Ann Chen, Jeffery Kahane, and Anthony Parnther, as well as soloists including violinists Jaime Laredo, Jessica Lee, and Stefan Jackiw; pianists Michelle Cann, Joyce Yang, Adam Golka, and David Kaplan; and mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung. A fervent advocate for new music, he has fostered artistic partnerships with composers Marcos Balter, Sebastian Currier, Billy Childs, Keith Fitch, Christopher Cerrone, and Joan Tower, among others. Devoted to nurturing a lifelong enthusiasm for music, Taniguchi has worked with numerous schools, youth organizations, and educational programs, including the Masaki School of Music, Kamehameha Schools, Mid-Pacific Institute School of the Arts, Oshkosh Youth Symphony Orchestra, and HCMF's Young Artist Program. Taniguchi holds degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. His conducting mentors include JoAnn Falletta, Victor Yampolsky, Thomas Wilkins, Jeffery Meyer, and Arthur Fagen.

PHOTO: BRAD GODA

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RPO Board of Directors 2026/27 SEASON

Maintaining and operating the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (Founded in 1923 —Incorporated in 1930)

EX-OFFICIO

OFFICERS

Dean, Eastman School of Music

Katherine Lindahl,

Chair of the Board

Kate Sheeran

Nathan Ukens

Orchestra Representative

Stephen Laifer

Cindy Yancey

James Englert

Karen Kessler,

HONORARY BOARD

Vice Chair of the Board Vice Chair of the Board Secretary

Richard Stein, Treasurer

Diana Clarkson, Esq.,

Immediate Past Chair

TERM EXPIRES JUNE 2027

Brian Bennett Emerson Fullwood Paulette Gissendanner Catherine Gueli Zuzanna Kwon Katherine Lindahl Jack McGowan Richard Stein Sidney Sobel, M.D. Cindy Yancey

TERM EXPIRES JUNE 2028

TERM EXPIRES JUNE 2029

CHAIR OF THE BOARD

Immediate Past Chair

Ron Dougherty

Ron Dougherty Sreeram Dhurjaty James Fulmer Laurie A. Haelen Ralph F. Jozefowicz. M.D. Karen Kessler Deborah Onslow Sara Poe Joseph B. Rizzo, Esq.

KATHERINE LINDAHL

Tonya McBride Robles President & CEO Diana Clarkson, Esq.,

Daisy Algarin Quincy Allen Diana Clarkson, Esq. George Daddis Catherine Frangenberg Diane Lu Sujatha Ramanujan Jason Redman Eva Sauer George Schwartz Timothy Tindall Alan Tirre

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Orchestra Representative Chairperson, Honorary Board

James Englert,

Chairperson, Honorary Board

Stephen B. Ashley* Nancy Beilfuss* James M. Boucher Paul W. Briggs* William L. Cahn Louise Epstein Joan Feinbloom Ilene Flaum Betsy Friedman Patrick Fulford Ronald A. Furman* Mary M. Gooley* Suzanne Gouvernet* David C. Heiligman A. Thomas Hildebrandt Harold A. Kurland, Esq. Dr. Dawn F. Lipson Jacques M. Lipson, MD* Cricket and Frank Luellen* Michael Millard Elizabeth F. Rice Nathan J. Robfogel, Esq. Jon L. Schumacher, Esq. Katherine T. Schumacher Ingrid Stanlis Betty Strasenburgh* Josephine S. Trubek Suzanne D. Welch Patricia Wilder* Deborah Wilson Robert Woodhouse

The RPO expresses its gratitude to all those who have served as Honorary Board members in the past.

PAST RPO CHAIRPERSONS

1930–32: Edward G. Miner* 1932–34: Simon N. Stein* 1934–38: George E. Norton* 1938–41: Leroy E. Snyder* 1941–42: Frank W. Lovejoy* 1942–43: Bernard E. Finucane* 1943–46: L. Dudley Field* 1946–48: Edward S. Farrow, Jr. * 1948–51: Joseph J. Myler* 1951–52: Joseph F. Taylor* 1952–55: Raymond W. Albright* 1955–57: Arthur I. Stern* 1957–59: Thomas H. Hawks* 1959–61: Walter C. Strakosh* 1962–63: Ernest J. Howe* 1963–65: O. Cedric Rowntree* 1965–67: Frank E. Holley * 1967–69: Thomas C. Taylor* 1969–71: Thomas H. Miller* 1971–72: Mrs. Frederick J. Wilkens* 1972–73: Edward C. McIrvine 1973–74: Robert J. Strasenburgh* 1974–75: John A. Santuccio 1975–76: Robert J. Strasenburgh* 1976–78: Dr. Louis Lasagna* 1978–80: Edward C. McIrvine 1980–82: Peter L. Faber 1982–84: Paul F. Pagerey* 1984–85: Peter L. Waasdorp* 1986–89: Robert H. Hurlbut* 1989–91: Paul W. Briggs 1991–93: Karen Noble Hanson* 1993–95: Ronald E. Salluzzo 1995–98: A. Thomas Hildebrandt 1998–00: Harold A. Kurland, Esq. 2000–04: David C. Heiligman 2004–06: Ingrid A. Stanlis 2006–09: James M. Boucher 2009–11: Suzanne D. Welch 2011–13: Elizabeth F. Rice 2013–15: Dr. Dawn F. Lipson 2015-17: Jules L. Smith, Esq. 2017-19: Ingrid A. Stanlis 2019-24: Ross P. Lanzafame, Esq. 2024-26: Diana Clarkson

* Deceased

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Bravo to our Sponsors 2026/27 SEASON

SEASON & SERIES SPONSORS: SEASON SPONSOR POPS SERIES SPONSOR SPECIALS & HOLIDAY SPONSOR ORKIDSTRA SERIES SPONSOR

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

LENORE P. LESSER

RPYO SPONSOR RPO OUTDOORS SERIES SPONSOR RPO FOR ALL SPONSOR SEASON MEDIA SPONSORS

CONCERT SPONSORS: RPO@FRINGE IS SUPPORTED BY:

RON DOUGHERTY

DVOŘÁK’S NEW WORLD SYMPHONY IS SPONSORED BY:

THE FRED M. AND LURITA D. WECHSLER ENDOWMENT FUND

OFFICIAL HOSPITALITY PARTNER

OFFICIAL HOTEL PARTNER

OFFICIAL VENUE PARTNER

OFFICIAL CATERER

ROCHESTER

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATIONS PARTNER

OFFICIAL WINE & SPIRITS PARTNER

EasySBS

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT:

ADAM BELLO COUNTY EXECUTIVE

PHOTO: SMILLIEPHOTO.COM

RPO PERFORMANCES ARE MADE POSSIBLE BY THE NEW YORK STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR AND THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE.

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SAT

Andreas Delfs, conductor

7:30 PM

Carolina Eyck, theremin Kayleigh Butcher, vocals Sharon Harms, vocals Rachel Hutchins, vocals

KODAK HALL AT EASTMAN THEATRE

For Andreas Delfs’ biography, please see page 5.

MASON BATES

Mothership

9:00

RÉGIS CAMPO

Dancefloor with Pulsing

17:30

Grand Pianola Music

30:00

Carolina Eyck, theremin

INTERMISSION JOHN ADAMS

Kayleigh Butcher, vocals Sharon Harms, vocals Rachel Hutchins, vocals

RPO @ FRINGE: CONTEMPORARY WORKS WITH THEREMIN

SEPT 19

SEASON SPONSOR: CONCERT SPONSOR: RON DOUGHERTY We kindly ask you to please silence all cellphones and electronic devices. Also, please note that photography and video recordings are prohibited during the performance.

CONNECT WITH US:

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ARTISTS CAROLINA EYCK, theremin

Carolina Eyck is one of the world’s leading theremin virtuosi and a pioneer in the technique of playing the instrument. At the age of 16, she developed her own groundbreaking method, the CAROLINA EYCK KAYLEIGH BUTCHER “8-finger position technique”, which revolutionized how theremin is played and is now considered the standard for thereminists around the world. Born near Berlin, Germany, Carolina had a musical family, and was introduced to theremin at the age of 7 by her parents. Her musical career spanning three decades, she has since performed as a soloist with major orchestras around the world, such as the BBC Philharmonic and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, collaborating with renowned composers and premiering numerous theremin concertos written specifically for her. Continuing to expand and explore the possibilities of the instrument, Carolina Eyck has composed an impressive collection of music of her own, spanning from concertos to film score and electronic music. On her recorded albums she integrates the theremin with her voice and electronic sounds with samples and loops. Carolina is also a mentor, passionate about sharing her knowledge with thereminists keen to learn from her. She is dedicated to teaching and has held theremin masterclasses and workshops on almost every continent, working actively to educate and expand the global theremin community.

KAYLEIGH BUTCHER, vocals

Described as a singer with “commanding interpretive depth” (New York Times) as well as having a “pure vocal talent” (Opera Wire Magazine), Kayleigh Butcher (mezzo soprano) has gained critical and audience acclaim as a soloist and contemporary chamber musician. Kayleigh was also a founding member and director of Quince Ensemble, an all-treble, acappella vocal quartet that explores experimental vocal techniques and improvisation. She is also a founding member of Shepherdess with Hajnal Pivnick, an NYC-based violin and voice duo. And lastly, she is a member of LUVLervLUV, a musical performance art trio with fellow Bob Ashley-stans, Paul Pinto and Bonnie Lander. Kayleigh received her Bachelor of Music from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, where she studied with Dr. Anne DeLaunay and Dr. Denise Knowlton. She was a graduate teaching assistant to Dr. Jane Schoonmaker Rodgers at Bowling Green State University, where she earned her Master of Music. She currently resides in Brooklyn with her dog, Simon.

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ARTISTS SHARON HARMS, vocals

Praised by the New York Times as “superb,” “luscious-toned,” “extraordinarily precise and expressive,” and “dramatically committed and not averse to risk,” American soprano Sharon SHARON HARMS Harms is recognized for fearless performances and passionate interpretations spanning recital, concert, and opera.

RACHEL HUTCHINS

A champion of contemporary music, Sharon has premiered works by many of today’s leading composers while maintaining a repertoire that spans a wide range of styles and periods. She has performed internationally with acclaimed ensembles including Argento Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Signal, Talea Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, Da Capo Chamber Players, Ensemble Recherche, Pacifica Quartet, and the MET Opera Chamber Orchestra, among many others. Sharon has appeared as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and as a guest artist at the American Academy in Rome, June in Buffalo, MATA, the Los Angeles International New Music Festival, Resonant Bodies Festival, and numerous universities and festivals throughout the United States. She has also served as a guest instructor at East Carolina University and is on the faculty of the Composers Conference & Chamber Music Workshops at Brandeis University. Her recordings include the Latin GRAMMY–nominated Aroma Foliado by Gabriela Ortiz with Southwest Chamber Ensemble, a Bridge Records release of Louis Karchin’s vocal works with Da Capo Chamber Players, as well as recordings of music by Jesse Jones and Charles Wuorinen.

RACHEL HUTCHINS, vocals

Rachel Hutchins began her career in France. Highlights there include Baroque, classical, and contemporary concerts as the soprano soloist with the Parisian chamber orchestra Anthémis from 2007 to 2017. Since returning to NYC in 2017, she regularly performs with Opera on Tap, where recent highlights include Capacity, or: The Work of Crackling, a multi-disciplinary, outdoor performance piece. She has performed solo recitals with GRAMMY Award-winning pianist Oliver Hagen and performed as a soloist in the 2022 WQXR holiday concert.

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PROGRAM NOTES

MASON BATES

Mothership for Orchestra & Electronica

B. PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA January 23, 1977

What kind of a work might a nightclub DJ and electronica artist write for an orchestra? That question was answered in 2011, when composer Mason Bates, who moonlights as a DJ, was commissioned to write a piece for the second chapter of an experimental project launched by the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The experiment? An orchestra assembled entirely through worldwide open auditions on YouTube. The original 2009 event, streamed on YouTube from Carnegie Hall, verged on spectacle and drew unprecedented viewership, a significant moment for a classical music world seeking a foothold in the emerging era of digital media and on-demand listening. The experiment was repeated in 2011, this time with the ensemble converging on the Sydney Opera House, again with Tilson Thomas at the podium. Tilson Thomas commissioned the then 34-year-old composer Bates to create a piece for the occasion: Mothership. Bates described it in program notes: “This energetic opener imagines the orchestra as a mothership that is ‘docked’ by several visiting soloists, who offer brief but virtuosic riffs on the work’s thematic material over action-packed electro-acoustic orchestral figuration.” Bates calls the piece a scherzo with a double trio. The scherzo is marked by techno beats and cinematic orchestral figurations reminiscent of outer space, a wink towards film composers such as John Williams. The trio sections are as open as interplanetary space, providing room for the ‘docked’ soloists to improvise. The 2011 YouTube Symphony finale concert was, at the time, the largest live stream ever on YouTube, surpassing a live-streamed U2 concert.

RÉGIS CAMPO

Dancefloor with Pulsing for Theremin and Orchestra

B. MARSEILLE, FRANCE June 6, 1968

French composer Régis Campo also took inspiration from space for his 2018 work, Dancefloor with Pulsing. The work adapts the insistent pounding of electronica for an acoustic orchestra and adds what is possibly the coolest electronic sound in history: the theremin. Developed in 1920 by a Russian physicist, the theremin is an early electronic instrument that produces an especially eerie sound, strongly associated with sci-fi films. The body of the theremin, which is contained in a box, houses a set of oscillators that, together with its antennae, create radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. When bodies— or, specifically, hands—enter those fields, the electrical properties of the body alter the instrument’s circuits. The vertical antenna changes pitch, while the horizontal one controls volume. No touch is required. Players of the theremin slide between pitches with their hands, wavering them to produce a supernatural vibrato, and basically look as if they are controlling the instrument through witchcraft. In Dancefloor, Campo instructs the theremin player to enter “very hard and dirty (techno music sound), like a big invader starship,” with the whole piece sounding like a rave on a spaceship. The theremin here is surprisingly percussive but also gets more extraterrestrial moments. And it turns out space dancing isn’t smooth sailing: after the work’s motor gets going, measures are subdivisible by 11, meaning there’s always a little glitch before the downbeat. Why the theremin? Campo says it “corresponds perfectly with my playful and surrealist approach.” The work also has a Rochester connection: Brad Lubman, a professor of conducting at the Eastman School of Music, conducted the 2018 premiere in Brussels, with the same theremin soloist, Carolina Eyck, who is appearing tonight.

RPO.ORG | 454-2100

PROGRAM NOTES

JOHN ADAMS

Grand Pianola Music

B. WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS February 15, 1947

“The piece, as the saying goes, seems to have something to offend everybody,” composer John Adams wrote in a program note for the 1994 published score of Grand Pianola Music, which premiered with the San Francisco Symphony in 1982. What could be more fringe than a work partially conceived on an LSD trip that piled clichés up so high—minimalist pulsation and electronic-inspired delay next to the grandeur of a romantic piano concerto next to easy pop-influenced chords next to a big melody invoking Beethoven and Liszt—that it inspired an audience to boo it? The work came to Adams in a vision and a dream in which he saw two black stretch limousines on an Interstate transform into long Steinway pianos that, at 90 miles per hour, were dueling between B-flat and E-flat major arpeggios. While the first movement starts off delicately, Adams slowly layers sounds: a wordless female vocal trio he calls sirens, an arsenal of brass and extended percussion, and two featured pianos playing gargantuan arpeggios across the keyboard, just offset enough to sound like an electronic delay. The work’s title references the mechanical pianola rolls of early player pianos; although there’s nothing mechanical in the work, it requires machine-like rhythmic precision. Without a break, the work pulls back the momentum for a second movement that Adams described as “a slow serene pasture with a grazing tuba.” It was the last movement, titled “On the Dominant Divide,” that likely prompted the boos. Adams upset the minimalists with an illicit tonic-dominant progression and upset the avant-gardes with a brazen Romantic melody. It turns out that by turning back to Romanticism, he was doing something more modern than he initially got credit for: he used all the excesses and historical reflexivity of postmodernism, but without any of the irony. As for the booing, Ursula Oppens, one of the pianists in the fateful 1983 New York performance, saw it as foretelling. She reportedly grabbed Adams’s arm and said, “Oh my God, they’re actually booing. Don’t you just love it?”

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SUN

2 PM

NAZARETH UNIVERSITY BESTON HALL, GLAZER MUSIC PERFORMANCE CENTER

Andreas Delfs, conductor

For Andreas Delfs’ biography, please see page 5.

Caleb Breidenbaugh, percussion the Marie-Merrill and George M. Ewing Chair

EMIL NIKOLAUS VON REZNICEK

Overture to Donna Diana

4:00

KEVIN PUTS

Marimba Concerto

21:00

Caleb Breidenbaugh, marimba

INTERMISSION FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN Symphony No. 101 in D major, “The Clock” I. Adagio - Presto II. Andante III. Menuet: Allegretto IV. Vivace

27:00

SUNDAY MATINEES AT NAZ: ANDREAS & HAYDN

SEPT 20

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ARTISTS Originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Caleb Breidenbaugh joined the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra as the Principal Percussionist in 2025. He is also a member of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra and is a former fellow of the New World Symphony. Caleb can also be seen performing with CALEB BREIDENBAUGH the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony (D.C.), Atlanta Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), among others. Outside the symphonic circle, Caleb is a member of the outreach-oriented RPO Marimba Band and has appeared playing drums on multiple indie artist records. He received his B.M. and M.M. from Temple University, where he studied with Chris Deviney, Alan Abel, Phil O’Banion, William Wozniak, Angie Nelson, Steve Fidyk, and Tony Miceli. Outside of performing, he enjoys playing disc golf, hiking, and playing tabletop games with friends and family.

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PHOTO CREDIT

CALEB BREIDENBAUGH, Percussion

PROGRAM NOTES

EMIL VON REZNICEK Donna Diana Overture

B. VIENNA, AUSTRIA May 4, 1860

D. BERLIN, GERMANY

How to impress upon a lady who rejects overtures of interest? Don August 2, 1945 Ceasar, the leading prince in Emil von Reznicek’s comic, three-act opera Donna Diana (1894), takes a route that seems plucked out of modern romance: he feigns disinterest. Naturally, this piques the interest of Donna Diana, the princess of Barcelona. As you might guess, the two do eventually unite. The opera is rarely performed today but lives on as an overture, an opening musical introduction to stage production that can be performed as a standalone work, usually as an exciting opening for an orchestral concert. The overture begins with various orchestral factions rushing up a scale before setting off in a jaunty manner, expressing the comedy embedded in the opera’s plot. Mid-overture wind solos advance the plot’s conflicts. Fun Fact: Reznicek’s scores found utility outside the concert hall in radio and television, serving as the theme for the popular mid-century radio program Challenge of the Yukon, which was later adapted for the television series Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. It was also commonly heard across British airwaves in the popular BBC radio broadcast Children’s Hour.

KEVIN PUTS

Marimba Concerto

B. ST. LOUIS, MO January 3, 1972

When Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer Kevin Puts was a graduate student at the Eastman School of Music in the 1990s, he passed by a pianist playing triadic chords over a descending bassline, which he called “poignant in its simplicity.” That seemingly innocuous moment influenced the opening of his Marimba Concerto, which he wrote for Japanese marimba player Makoto Nakura in 1997. Puts explains his work: “The first movement spins forth from this melody as the marimba embellishes it virtuosically. The second movement, cast in more elegiac hues than the first, employs only the string section of the orchestra, which introduces reflective four-voiced textures that are eventually taken up by the solo marimba. The third movement, an athletic moto perpetuo for the marimbist, gradually recalls the elements of the first movement’s melody, culminating in a reprise of this melody within the context of this final movement’s more dance-like nature.” This lush concerto brims with energy, featuring the shimmering glow and colorful shadings of the marimba. Fun Fact: Puts’s first try at penning an operatic work, Silent Night in 2011, won him the Pulitzer Prize for Music, one of the most esteemed prizes in the industry. And his later opera, The Hours, which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 2022—which featured another Eastman alumnus, soprano Renée Fleming—was so well received and in-demand that it earned a repeat scheduled run the very next season, an extremely rare occurrence for a contemporary opera.

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PROGRAM NOTES

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN

Symphony No. 101 in D major, “The Clock”

B. ROHRAU-ON-THE-LEITHA, AUSTRIA March 31, 1732 D. VIENNA, AUSTRIA

Imagine being an international sensation during your lifetime— May 31, 1809 without knowing. That’s what happened to Franz Joseph Haydn. While his music circulated widely across Europe and the United States, he worked a cushy yet isolated job as Kapellmeister (choirmaster) to Prince Nikolaus Esterházy in Austria. He moved between the prince’s Eisenstadt estate and a newer, more remote summer one at Esterháza, a place Haydn referred to as “my desert.” At the Esterházy estate, Haydn enjoyed easy access to orchestras and singers, coupled with Prince Nikolaus’s generous support of musical pursuits. From the 1760s on, Haydn was given considerable artistic freedom, unconstrained by what might have been in vogue in major cities. He wrote of that time, “I was applauded as a leader of an orchestra I could experiment, observe what strengthens and what weakens it, and thus improve, add, eliminate, dare. I was cut off from the world. No one around me could have doubts about me or torment me, and I was forced to become original.” But those creative days were in peril when Prince Nikolaus died in 1790. Little did Haydn realize how his reputation outside of Esterháza had flourished when a promoter of concerts in London knocked on his door, dangling commissions for six symphonies, an opera, and other works for one thousand euros as motivation. The promoter, Johann Peter Salomon, commissioned a few more symphonies for Haydn’s subsequent trip to London, and another promoter commissioned a final three. Altogether, Haydn wrote twelve symphonies for what turned out to be his adoring London audiences. The success of his London concerts also signaled a growing public market for composers outside of the patronage system. Symphony No. 101 was the ninth symphony out of Haydn’s twelve London symphonies, which premiered in 1794. It opens with an expansive, suspenseful minor introduction, before taking a complete U-turn into a joyful, energetic exposition. The development features crafty counterpoint, but it returns to its original theme with a short but conclusive coda. The symphony gets its nickname— The Clock—from the second, Andante movement. A slow, metronomic tick held by the cellos, bass, and bassoons serves as a continuous motor for the movement, supporting the light theme and even lasting through more potent minor sections and variations of the original theme. The third movement is a minuet—a dance-like movement counted in three—and has a spirited spring in its step. Haydn innovated with the rondo form of the final movement. Rondo means “round” or “return,” and in musical form refers to a theme that returns repeatedly. But Haydn changes the characterization of every return of the theme, keeping both the musicians and listeners on their toes. It was just the sort of entertaining choices that made Haydn’s symphonies the most popular orchestral show in London. Fun Fact: At the premiere of Symphony No. 101, the audience response was so great that the orchestra repeated the symphony’s first two movements. A review of the concert perfectly characterized Haydn’s creativity, stating: “Every new symphony he writes, we fear, till it is heard, he can only repeat himself; and we are every time mistaken.”

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SAT

SEPT 26 SUN

SEPT 27 2 PM KODAK HALL AT EASTMAN THEATRE

Andreas Delfs, conductor

For Andreas Delfs’ biography, please see page 5.

Leila Josefowicz, violin

MICHAEL TORKE

Ascent

12:00

KAROL SZYMANOWSKI Concerto No. 2 For Violin

20:00

Leila Josefowicz, violin

INTERMISSION ANTONÍN DVORÁK

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, op. 95, “From the New World”

40:00

Adagio - Allegro molto Largo Scherzo: Molto vivace Allegro con fuoco

9:00 12:00 8:00 11:00

DVOŘÁK’S NEW WORLD SYMPHONY

7:30 PM

SEASON SPONSOR: CONCERT SPONSOR:

THE FRED M. AND LURITA D. WECHSLER ENDOWMENT FUND

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ARTISTS Leila Josefowicz is internationally acclaimed for her passionate advocacy of contemporary violin music, regularly premiering works written especially for her by leading composers including Colin Matthews, Luca Francesconi, John Adams and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

LEILA JOSEFOWICZ

This season, she gives the world premiere of Jüri Reinvere’s Concerto for Violin, Harp, and Orchestra with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst. Other engagements include the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, and Minnesota Orchestra. Highlights include Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic and a reunion with John Adams for Scheherazade.2 with the Hallé, a work she premiered in 2015. Recent seasons have seen appearances with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and many others, collaborating with conductors including Paavo Järvi, Matthias Pintscher, Cristian Măcelaru, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Dalia Stasevska, and Hannu Lintu. A long-time champion of new music, Josefowicz maintained a close artistic partnership with the late Oliver Knussen and has also premiered works by Matthias Pintscher, Luca Francesconi, Steven Mackey, and Helen Grime. She returns this season to perform Knussen’s Violin Concerto with the Münchner Philharmoniker under Brad Lubman. A dedicated recitalist, Josefowicz has collaborated with pianist John Novacek since 1985, performing at major venues including Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress. This season they present the US premiere of Charlotte Bray’s Mriya at Lincoln Center and tour Australia with Musica Viva. Josefowicz has recorded extensively for Deutsche Grammophon, Philips/Universal, and Warner Classics. Her recordings of Scheherazade.2 and Salonen’s Violin Concerto received Grammy nominations, and her 2019 release of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Violin Concerto was widely acclaimed. She is the recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Prize and a 2008 MacArthur Fellowship, honouring her exceptional contributions to contemporary music.

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TOM ZIMBEROFF

LEILA JOSEFOWICZ, violin

PROGRAM NOTES

MICHAEL TORKE

Ascent (A Voices of Today Commission)

B. MILWAUKEE, WI September 22, 1961

ASCENT was commissioned by Andreas Delfs and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra for the opening concert of their 2026–2027 season. Lasting just over 11 minutes, the work is intended to convey an uplifting, luminous spirit: an ascent—a rising, upward movement of sound. Its musical materials create the perception of continuously ascending in pitch, even though the music never actually gets higher. This auditory illusion, known as the Shepard tone, was developed by the American cognitive scientist Roger Newland Shepard. It is the sonic equivalent of a barber pole or an infinite staircase. As an artist grows older, there is often a fear of waning energy and imagination. I have been fortunate to retain vivid memories of the creative energy I felt as a composer in my twenties, and in this work I have sought to combine that youthful vitality with the skills and experience gained over more than 45 years of composing. ASCENT is a piece intended to communicate directly with its audience, offering a soundscape that is as understandable as it is challenging.

KAROL SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concerto No. 2

B. TYMOSZWÓKA, POLAND (NOW UKRAINE) October 6, 1882

Poland’s best-known composer after Chopin, Karol Szymanowski went D. LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND March 29, 1937 from being the child of an aristocratic family, able to pursue music and travel extensively, to a penniless 54-year-old dying of tuberculosis at his life’s end. His family home, under control of the Russian Empire during his childhood, was eventually targeted and destroyed during the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the time Poland achieved independence at the end of World War I, Szymanowski and his family had lost everything. His earlier travels, however, influenced his compositional style, which was originally indebted to Chopin and Strauss and then absorbed French impressionism and African and Middle Eastern exoticisms. Poland’s independence, however, sparked a renewed interest in Poland’s folk music—its melodies, modes, and rhythms. Szymanowski funneled his country’s folk music into a contemporary yet always tonally grounded musical language, not unlike Bartók or Stravinsky. The Second Violin Concerto, written in 1933 for—and with—violinist Paul Kochanski, was Szymanowski’s final large-scale work and exhibits the ways he could abstract Polish folk elements into something surprisingly contemporary. The concerto is one long work, but with four sections arising from its formal outline, each considered a movement without breaks. The violin introduces the main motive, whose opening interval serves as a template for subsequent motivic material. The work heads into tense marches, freely meandering melodic lines, and rollicking folk energetics. Listen for multiple arrivals of the work’s main motive in the horns, and for a second-movement extended cadenza filled with double stops, harmonics, folk-like asymmetries, and modal inflections. The work’s final movement is a slow burn of anxious potential, recalling motives in surprising ways, ending with big brass flourishes.

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PROGRAM NOTES

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, B. 178, “From the New World”

B. NELAHOZEVES, BOHEMIA, AUSTRIAN EMPIRE September 8, 1841

D. PRAGUE, BOHEMIA, AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE May 1, 1904

That a Czech composer would write one of the most recognizable pieces in the American classical music canon would be surprising if it had been anyone but Antonín Dvořák. When Dvořák was an up-and-coming composer in Prague, he tried to break into the scene by appealing to both of Prague’s factions: the upper-class German population, due to Austrian Habsburg control over the city, and the working and rising middle-class Czech population, hungry to preserve an independent cultural identity. To do so, Dvořák took the lively syncopated dance rhythms and exotic, modal inflections characteristic of Bohemian folk music and synthesized them into European classical forms. So, when Dvořák was tapped in 1892 to lead the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, specifically to help a developing nation find its musical identity, he decided to go hunting for America’s sonic fingerprint using a similar tactic: in its vernacular music. But he did so naively. “Nothing must be too low or too insignificant for the musician,” wrote Dvorak in an essay titled “Music in America. “When he walks, he should listen to every whistling boy, every street singer or blind organ player.” Except, he didn’t just uncover whistling boys and street singers. He also found Black spiritual music and American Indian songs. And, in an interview with the New York Herald in 1893, he was quoted in what became famously controversial words: “I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the negro melodies. . . . These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are American.” To prove his concept, he had begun writing a European symphony, his ninth, using these “native melodies” as thematic inspiration. Contemporary audiences would rightly assume such words were not well received in late-1800s America, where the country’s Black population was still fighting for basic human rights, and Black music was reduced to racist entertainment, as in blackface minstrel shows. Despite the critics of Dvořák’s analysis of American music and the fact that the elements he labeled as inspired by Black or Native American music could have any number of cultural origins, the premiere of his “New World Symphony” in December 1893 with the New York Philharmonic Society under conductor Anton Seidl was a complete success. For all the chatter about Dvořák’s influences and the mining for direct quotes from spirituals, the symphony is a fairly standard European work. In E minor, it follows a typical four-movement scheme. The first movement begins with a short adagio introduction before the allegro primary theme, meant to model the American spirit, is announced in the horn. A secondary melody in the flutes and oboes resembles a sort of sea shanty, even though musicologists believe it was a transformation of a Czech polka. We can thank an African American student at the National Conservatory, who sang spirituals while working a secondary job as a school custodian, for identifying the closing flute melody of the exposition, then taken up in the strings, as a quotation from “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which Dvořák heard him sing. (You won’t unhear that one, once you find it.) The second movement is a largo that features one of the symphony’s most famous melodies, a nostalgic English horn solo, inspired by Longfellow’s epic though essentialist poem, The Song of Hiawatha. The third movement is a minor-key scherzo with a light, major trio that could as easily be Czech as American—or German, as it has similarities with the scherzo from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The same ambiguities are found in the fourth movement’s themes, from the acerbic first theme for the trombones and horns to the lyrical clarinet theme that follows. Themes from the first two movements are dispersed in new shadings, and the work concludes with a unison statement of the first movement’s “American spirit” theme and a coda sounding the dangerous yet glorious potential of a new world.

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SAT

OCT 10 SUN

OCT 11 2 PM KODAK HALL AT EASTMAN THEATRE

Lina González-Granados, conductor For Lina Gonzalez Granados’ biography, please see page 26.

John de Lancie, narrator

EDVARD GRIEG

Peer Gynt

1:30:00

No. 1: Prelude No. 3A: Halling No. 3B: Springdans No. 4: Ingrid’s Lament - Andante Doloroso No. 5: Peer Gynt and the Shepard Girls No. 6: Peer Gynt and the Woman in Green No. 7: In the Hall of the Mountain King No. 8: Dance of the King’s Daughter No. 9A: Peer Gynt chased by the Trolls No. 9B: Peer Gynt and the Great Boyg No. 11: Solveig’s Song (Verse 1) No. 12: Aase’s Death INTERMISSION

PEER GYNT WITH JOHN DE LANCIE

7:30 PM

No. 13: Early Morning No. 15: Arabian Dance No. 16: Anitra’s Dance No. 10: The Onion Speech No. 18: Solveig’s Song (Verse 2) No. 19: The Storm No. 20: Solveig’s Hymn No. 21: Night Scene No. 22: Pentecost Hymn No. 23: Solveig’s Lullaby

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ARTISTS JOHN DE LANCIE, narrator

PHOTO CREDIT

Best known to audiences worldwide as “Q” from Star Trek, John de Lancie’s film and television credits include Breaking Bad, Torchwood, The West Wing, The Fisher King, and The Hand That Rocks JOHN DE LANCIE LINA GONZÁLEZ-GRANADOS the Cradle. On stage he has performed with the American Shakespeare Theater, the Old Globe, the Mark Taper Forum, and many others. In the concert hall de Lancie has appeared with numerous orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and many more. His repertoire ranges from Peer Gynt to Peter and the Wolf. For four years de Lancie hosted the L.A. Philharmonic’s Symphonies for Youth and served as writer and director of its First Nights series. He has also created numerous Symphonic Plays. Fully staged 90-minute productions with orchestra including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (with the Korngold score), The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and Carnival of the Animals – a Vaudeville. De Lancie co-founded Alien Voices with Leonard Nimoy, producing acclaimed audio dramas of classic science fiction. He is currently working with Nick DiBernadino at the Curtis Institute to create Star Trekinspired programming and new compositions. A play he co-wrote about the 2005 Dover Intelligent Design Trial is currently being performed around the country. An avid sailor, de Lancie fulfilled a lifelong dream a few years ago by sailing his own boat to Tahiti and back.

LINA GONZÁLEZ-GRANADOS, conductor

Praised for her “rich, heartfelt orchestral sound” (Chicago Sun-Times), “rhythmic vitality” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “raw power” (LA Times), Colombian American conductor Lina González-Granados has distinguished herself nationally and internationally as a singular talent. Her spectacular interpretations of the symphonic and operatic repertoire, as well as her dedication to highlighting new and unknown works by Latin American composers, have earned her international recognition. Most recently, she was named one of Bloomberg Línea’s 100 Influential Latinos of 2022. She is also the recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the Third Prize and ECHO Special Award (European Concert Hall Organization) of La Maestra Competition, and the 2020 and 2021 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award. Lina’s 2026-27 season consists of debuts with the Zürich Philharmonic, Istanbul State Orchestra, Franz Schubert Philharmonia, Orquesta Comunidad de Madrid, Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá and Calgary Philharmonic. She will also make her opera debuts with Indiana University’s production of The Cook Off and Rice University’s production of Eurydice. This season Lina will be returning to the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Los Angeles Opera to lead the productions of Candide and Las tres mujeres de Jerusalén.

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PROGRAM NOTES

EDVARD GRIEG

Peer Gynt, Op. 23: Incidental Music to the Dramatic Poem by Henrik Ibsen

B. BERGEN, NORWAY June 15, 1843

D. BERGEN, NORWAY

A deceptive miscreant is the anti-hero of Norway’s most famous literary work, the September 4, 1907 drama in verse Peer Gynt, written by playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1867. In Peer Gynt, Ibsen twists a Norwegian fairy tale of a brave reindeer hunter into a story of a lazy, deplorable, self-aggrandizing, opportunistic fool. The dramatic outline follows the character Peer Gynt through his whimsical exploits and travels in a proto-surrealist, fantastical story where the line between reality and fiction is hazy. He avoids responsibility and accountability in search of selfhood, which for him is a singular focus on the self. In the end, he is forced to confront his real self and face the consequences. Written in 1867, Ibsen’s blending of reality and fantasy—of trolls and shape-shifting monsters and a person who melts and molds souls into buttons—was ahead of its time. That a literary work about an abhorrent individual, portraying Norwegians in a harsh light, became a national legend and a center of Norway’s cultural identity, celebrated every year with a dedicated Peer Gynt Festival, also says something about how deeply the thick-skinned Norwegian people love their folklore. It also says something about the music written to accompany the staged work in its premiere. The play wasn’t terribly well received in its initial text-only form, as the story isn’t particularly endearing. It wasn’t until Ibsen convinced Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg to write music for the production’s staged premiere a decade later that it captured the Norwegian public’s imagination and approval. Enhancing the mood and setting the scenes, Grieg’s score is called incidental music, which is more peripheral to the theatrical work than it would be in a piece of musical theater. But Grieg’s gorgeous Romantic musical palette and integration of Norwegian folk music helped make the play the cultural phenomenon it is in Norway today. The music was so revered that Grieg took its best melodies and sections—including the famous “Morning Mood,” a rolling, pastoral evocation of a new day breaking— and turned them into two popular orchestral suites, which is how most audiences have encountered the music today. The suites, however, are not in the chronological order of the play, and so the music has become rather divorced from its source. Grieg wasn’t initially excited about the commission and expected it to be a quick job for financial benefit only. But the job ended up stretching into nearly two years and 26 musical numbers (traditionally performed with only 23, the full 26 surfacing only in a more recent scholarly reconstruction). And he might not have been Ibsen’s pick had it not been for a bit of luck and a change of direction. In 1864, Grieg met fellow young composer Rikard Nordraak, an advocate for Norwegian culture and composer of Norway’s national anthem, and the friendship inspired Grieg, who was more steeped in Danish culture than Norwegian due to his upper-class roots, to commit to fusing his romantic writing with Norwegian nationalism. When Nordraak tragically died a couple of years later, Grieg became the heir of Nordraak’s reputation as Norway’s nationalist composer. For this semi-staged performance of Peer Gynt with orchestra, actor John de Lancie adapted the work for a concert production that includes an English-language narration of the Peer Gynt story, using Grieg’s musical numbers as needed to provide the dramatic arc and enhance the narrative. The work is divided into five acts, with an intermission after the third. Act I: Peer Gynt is 20 and living with his widowed mother, Åse. Peer tells outrageous tales of riding reindeer, while Åse admonishes him for lying. When he learns that Ingrid, the girl he had momentarily fancied but discarded over the summer, is getting married, Peer crashes the wedding. There he meets another woman, the pious Solveig, and dances with her as she falls in love with him.

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PROGRAM NOTES

EDVARD GRIEG (CONTINUED)

Peer Gynt, Op. 23: Incidental Music to the Dramatic Poem by Henrik Ibsen He quickly abandons her and, instead, kidnaps the bride, Ingrid, and runs off into the mountains. Act II: Already having discarded Ingrid, Peer meets three shepherd girls, whose partners are away, and engages in a night of debauchery. The next day, he moves on and meets a mysterious woman clad in green and seduces her with empty promises to take her hand. She turns out to be the daughter of the Dovre King, the king of goblins, gnomes, and trolls. Peer follows her to the castle. At the castle, he meets the trolls, who want him to become one of them. He almost considers it but rejects them. They attack, but tolling bells drive them away. Then he encounters the Great Bøyg, a slimy, amorphous creature who won’t let him through, asks existential questions about whether Peer can claim to be “himself,” and forces Peer to go around, an allegory for Peer’s life philosophy of avoiding obstacles. Act III: Now living in a hut in a forest. Solveig, the woman he unceremoniously left at Ingrid’s wedding, shows up, having left her family to find him. But he is having visions of the Woman in Green. Feeling guilty, he leaves Solveig to visit his mother, who is dying. After his mother dies, he heads back to Norway, leaving Solveig behind. Act IV: Peer is now a middle-aged man and on the coast of Morocco, where he went in search of fortune and self. It is now twenty years since he left Solveig, after asking her to wait for him. He reflects on his life, having followed a torrent of desires, wishes, and dreams, and of all his occupations, including as a slave master. On the side of the road, he finds fine clothes, jewels, and a white horse, takes them, and declares himself Sultan Peer Gynt. He then watches a seductive dance by the Sheik’s daughter, but afterward, he is tricked. She steals his riches and disappears. Act V: An old man, Peer journeys home across a tempestuous sea but is shipwrecked. When he reaches land, he finds a hut with reindeer horns above the door and gets a familiar feeling. It is the home he abandoned, a version of life unfulfilled. Peer’s regrets turn into physical manifestations that confront him: balls of yarn for thoughts unthought, withered leaves for words unspoken, a sigh in the air for songs never sung, drops of dew for tears he should have shed, and broken straws for deeds he never performed. A Button Moulder appears to put a final verdict on Peer’s life: Peer never became himself. Peer’s fate is for him to be melted into a button. But Peer first hears a child crying and realizes it is Solveig, who is still waiting for him. He asks her where his true self is, and she replies that it resides in her faith and love, and she takes Peer in her arms.

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FRI

OCT 16 SAT

OCT 17 7:30 PM KODAK HALL AT EASTMAN THEATRE

Jeff Tyzik, conductor

For Jeff Tyzik’s biography, please see page 6.

Sheléa, vocals

NATURAL WOMAN SHELÉA SINGS ARETHA FRANKLIN Set list will include the following selections, order to be determined A Natural Woman (King, Cofflin & Wexler/Arr.Jochen Neuffler)