Jens Lindemann at the Masters

Saturday, November 12, 2011, 8:00 pm

Enmax Hall, Winspear Centre

Jens Lindemann at the Masters

2011-12 Landmark Classic Masters

  • William Eddins, conductor
    Jens Lindemann, trumpet
    Richard Eaton Singers
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Details

About this Concert
Three Edmonton favourites come together in a rewarding and diverse program. Venerable Edmonton composer Malcolm Forsyth’s choral work A Ballad of Canada will receive its ESO premiere with the renowned voices of Richard Eaton Singers. Edmonton-raised Jens Lindemann returns, presenting a world premiere for trumpet and orchestra written for him by British composer Peter Meechan.

Join us in the Upper Circle lobby at 7:15 pm for Symphony Prelude featuring Jens Lindemann and Peter Meechan, hosted by D.T. Baker.

Featured Repertoire
RACHMANINOFF: Second Symphony
MEECHAN: Apophenia for Trumpet
FORSYTH: A Ballad of Canada		 Additional Performances
Fri, November 11, 2011

Next Landmark Classic Masters
November 26, 2011
Juliette Kang plays Brahms

Thank you to our sponsors!
landmark classic homes
Series Sponsor
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Ticket Information

$75 Dress Circle (A)
$65 Terrace (B)
$52 Orchestra (C)
$38 Upper Circle (D)
$28 Gallery (E)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
Tickets subject to applicable service charges.
This performance is part of the Landmark Classic Masters series.
malcolm forsythPerformance Dedication
This performance is dedicated to the memory of one of Canada's finest composers. Malcolm Forsyth was a member of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and was ever our friend. The ESO was proud to have commissioned several works by Dr. Forsyth, and we honour his passion, dedication, and commitment to both his art, and to those he taught at the University of Alberta.

ESO Resident Composer Robert Rival recently interviewed composers Allan Gordon Bell and Allan Gilliland about Malcolm Forsyth. Listen to Parts 1 & 2 here (part 3 coming soon):

Program Info

Program

FORSYTH
A Ballad of Canada (23’)*
canada council for the artsMalcolm Forsyth's A Ballad of Canada, a work for orchestra and chorus set to texts by five Canadian poets, was co-commissioned by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Ottawa's National Arts Centre Orchestra, with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, in celebration of Mr Forsyth's 75th birthday.
MEECHAN
Apophenia (15’)*
(World premiere of orchestral version)
 
INTERMISSION
 
RACHMANINOFF
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Opus 27 (54’)*

*Indicates approximate performance duration
Program subject to change.

Program Notes

A Ballad of Canada
Malcolm Forsyth (b.Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 1936 / d. Edmonton, 2011)
 
First performance: This work was a co-commission of the Edmonton Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, in celebration of the composer’s 75th birthday, December 11, 2011. The premiere performance took place June 9 & 10, 2011 in Ottawa. This is the work’s second performance.
 
Of his work, the composer wrote:
“The quiet and the vastness of Canada’s far Northwest are celebrated in the opening setting, “In the Yukon.” The Northern Lights arch gloriously over the scene. The last of the five movements, “Newfoundland,” takes us to the eastern end of the country, where the Atlantic meets the lonely and grand shores of that province. Between these two more expansive essays of the Land, we turn to Canada in time of trial. Two wars: World War I (“In Flanders Fields”) and the Afghanistan War of 2002, which continues unabated. The Waverly Road Bridge spans the “Highway of Heroes” in Ontario, where a cortège passes, bearing the coffins of fallen soldiers from that conflict. The centerpiece of this set commemorates a natural disaster all too common off the rocky crags in the frozen Atlantic. In 1898, the SS Greenland brought in the corpses of 25 seamen to St. John’s, frozen on the sea ice. In the finale (“Here the tides flow, and here they ebb …”), the wildness of Canada’s eastern shore is pictured. A final crashing wave, a flickering of the Northern Lights, and the music vanishes.”
 
 
Apophenia
Peter Meechan (b. Nuneaton, U.K., 1980)
 
Premiere performance of the band version of the concerto: January 31, 2009 in Manchester, U.K.
This is the world premiere of the full orchestra version
 
Program note by the composer
“Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.”
 
Apophenia is a trumpet concerto in three movements. Each of the movements features a different instrument, and whilst originally scored for B-flat trumpet, flugel and piccolo trumpet, performers have utilised the cornet and soprano cornet in the piece too, reflecting the work's roots, where it was initially accompanied by a brass band.
 
Each of the movements of Apophenia relate to the phenomenon of viewing Dark Side of the Rainbow – a name used to refer to the act of listening to the 1973 Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon whilst watching the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, where moments where the film and the album appear to correspond with each other.
 
The first movement is a fast a furious movement. Solo and ensemble interact at high tempo, swapping and creating new ideas, leading each other in new directions. Aside from the trumpet soloist, the kit player (Brian Thurgood) also acts as a quasi soloist.
 
The second movement takes its musical inspiration from the Pink Floyd song Us and Them. It is during this segment of the film that some of the most amazing moments of connection happen.
 
The final movement is a dance – and a tour de force for the soloist who begins on the B-flat trumpet, before switching to the piccolo trumpet for the fast and furious finale. Many of the coincidences from Dark Side of the Rainbow relate to dancing, however, as long as a piece of music is the same tempo as the original, and the time signature is a regular one, this could be the case across most films. So the composer chose to write a dance that wouldn’t synchronise to too many existing dance scenes!
 
The soloist is free to improvise his or her own cadenza.
 
 
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op.27
Sergei Rachmaninoff (b. Oneg Novgorod, 1873 / d. Beverly Hills, 1943)
 
First performance: February 8, 1908 in St. Petersburg
Last ESO performance: May 2005
 
Rachmaninoff wrote his First Symphony at the age of 22. Its first performance, apathetically conducted by Alexander Glazunov, failed miserably. Combined with a number of other disappointing premieres and performances, that flop sent the emotionally hyper-charged composer into a tailspin. He continued to perform (he was a conductor as well as one of the most sensational pianists who ever lived), but could not bring himself to write a note of music for three years. A noted physician who specialized in a kind of hypnotherapy (Nikolai Dahl) helped Rachmaninoff find his creative confidence again, and the next few works he wrote included some of his finest – including the Second Piano Concerto, and the Second Symphony.
 
After the debacle of his first symphonic foray, Rachmaninoff conducted the Second Symphony’s premiere himself. The work opens with a stately phrase given out by the basses. This melody serves as a structure used in all four movements. After a long, slow opening section, the rest of the movement is an Allegro moderato. In a state of quiet agitation, the first movement picks up, some critics have said, where Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony leaves off. The second movement is the work’s Scherzo. With violins and oboes as accompaniment, the horns play a lively theme. The strings answer, and eventually start their own section with a new theme. The whole movement is one of vivacity, and clever manipulation of orchestral colouring.
 
The beautiful, slow third movement contains trademark Rachmaninoff melody and melancholy. Violins are given a passage answered by the clarinet, a third is then given out by violins and oboe. Listen also for a reference to the first movement, both musically and emotionally. The final movement begins with a forceful and rhythmic theme, followed canonically by a subsidiary theme on all the strings save the basses. There is a quote from the third movement, and in a brilliant coda in which the two main themes of the finale are heard in counterpoint, they symphony ends in high spirits.
 
Program notes on the Forsyth and Meechan works © by their respective composers. Notes on the Rachmaninoff © 2011 by D.T. Baker
 

Artist Info

William Eddins, conductor

william eddins

William Eddins is in his seventh season as Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure, he has made it a priority that he conduct performances in nearly every subscription series the orchestra has presented, as well as a wide variety of special concerts and galas.

Bill Eddins began playing the piano at age five, but was bitten by the conducting bug while in his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music. In 1989, he decided to begin conducting studies with Daniel Lewis at the University of Southern California. Assistant Conductorships with both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony (the latter under the leadership of Daniel Barenboim) honed his skills even further.

Mr. Eddins has many interests outside music. He is fond of biking, tennis, reading, pinball, and cooking. He recently completed building his own recording studio at his home in Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife Jen (a clarinetist), and their sons Raef and Riley. While conducting has been his principal pursuit, he continues to perform on piano in Edmonton and elsewhere. He accepts a limited number of guest appearances each year. In 2008, he conducted a rare full staging of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for Opéra de Lyon, which won him great acclaim, leading to a repeat engagement in Lyon in July and September 2010, as well as Edinburgh in August 2010, and in London in September 2010. During August 2009, Bill toured South Africa, conducting three gala concerts with soprano Renée Fleming and the kwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jens Lindemann, trumpet

jens lindemann trumpetBorn in Germany and raised in Edmonton, Jens Lindemann is hailed as one of the most celebrated soloists in his instrument's history and has played in every major concert venue in the world. His career has ranged from appearing internationally as an orchestral soloist, performing at London's Last Night of the Proms, and recording with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, to playing lead trumpet with the renowned Canadian Brass and a solo Command Performance for the Queen of England. Mr. Lindemann has also won major awards ranging from Grammy and Juno nominations to winning the prestigious Echo Klassik in Germany as well as receiving an honorary doctorate. 
 
A prodigious talent, Jens Lindemann performed as a soloist with orchestras and won accolades at numerous festivals while still in his teens. A prizewinner at numerous competitions including the prestigious ARD in Munich, Mr. Lindemann also placed first, by unanimous juries, at both the Prague and Ellsworth Smith (Florida) International Trumpet Competitions in 1992. Since then, he has performed solos with orchestras including the London Symphony, Philadelphia, Beijing, Bayersicher Rundfunk, Buenos Aires Chamber, Atlanta, Washington, Seattle, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Montreal, Toronto, National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Vancouver, Warsaw, Welsh Chamber, I Musici de Montréal, St. Louis, and Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center. As one of the world's most exciting trumpet soloists, the Los Angele- based artist is internationally endorsed by the Yamaha Corporation and performs exclusively on 24K gold plated trumpets. 
 
Mr. Lindemann last appeared with the ESO in December 2010.

Richard Eaton Singers (Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor)

richard eaton singersFounded in 1951 by the late Richard S. Eaton, Edmonton’s symphonic choir, Richard Eaton Singers (RES), has played a leading role in the cultural community of the city for six decades. RES performances have included many Edmonton and Western Canadian premieres of choral masterpieces such as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, and Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony.
 
RES has also commissioned and produced world premiere performances by Canadian composers, including Mark Sirett’s In Praise of Music, Christos Hatzis’ The Sepulcher of Life and The Houses Stand Not Far Apart by John Estacio. In March 2010 the choir premiered A Song of the Seasons by Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson with text by E. D. Blodgett to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Leonard Ratzlaff’s artistic leadership of RES.
 
The choir has traveled extensively across Canada, to the Netherlands and Britain and has exchanged with other choirs including the Vancouver Bach Choir. A highlight for RES was its participation at Festival 500 in Newfoundland in 2003.
 
RES is honoured to have been associated with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra for 60 years. This partnership has created many memorable choral events in our city, including in September 1997 the performance of Mahler’s 8th Symphony (“Symphony of a Thousand”) with the ESO to commemorate the opening of the Winspear Centre.
 
To celebrate its 60th anniversary, RES and conductor Leonard Ratzlaff performs Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis on November 4, 2011. Other highlights of this special season are the presentation of the renowned Stuttgart Chamber Choir under the direction of their artistic director Frieder Bernius on March 14, 2012 and the performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt in April 2012 with the Alberta Baroque Ensemble and soloists on April 22.

Comments  

 
0 # Fordyce Pier 2011-11-14 09:10 This is a touching and penetrating look at some of Malcolm's many contributions. Also, kudos to Mr Rival and the ESO for this innovative vehicle for connecting with their communities. Reply | Reply with quote | Quote
 

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