Details

The breadth of Celtic music stretches from simple jigs and reels to the unmistakable sound of the bagpipes to spectacular symphonic showpieces. Bill Eddins leads a concert of Celtic traditions, including classical favourites by John Field and our own Allan Gilliland, arrangements of familiar Irish, Scottish and Welsh folk melodies, and selections from Brigadoon and Lord of the Dance (with the Knock School of Irish Dance).

Program to include:

An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise
Londonderry Air
All through the Night
The Campbells are Coming
Highlights from Brigadoon and Lord of the Dance

$69 Dress Circle (A)
$59 Terrace (B)
$51 Orchestra (C)
$38 Upper Circle (D) & Choir Loft (Behind Stage)
$28 Gallery (E)
$20 Orchestra Front (F)
(click map for interactive version)

Tickets subject to applicable service charges.

Thank you to the generous supporters of this series: Bill & Mary Jo Robbins

Thank you to our media sponsor:

The next Robbins Lighter Classics performance is December 17, 2009.

Program Information

Program

ANDERSON
The Rakes of the Mallow (from The Irish Suite) (3’)*

BOR
McMozart’s Eine Kleine Bricht Moonlicht Nicht Musik (4’)*

HARTY
A John Field Suite: 4th movement – Rondo “Midi” (5’)*

Traditional
Londonderry Air (arr. Harty) (6’)*

GILLILAND
Loch na Beiste (8’)*

ANDERSON
The Campbells are Coming (from The Scottish Suite) (3’)*

DAVIES
An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (13’)*

INTERMISSION

BANTOCK
Celtic Symphony: excerpts (4’)*
IV. Allegro con spirito
V. Largamente maestoso

Traditional
Ar Hyd y Nos (“All Through the Night”) (arr. Dragon) (4’)*

ARNOLD
Cornish Dances, Op.91: excerpts (5’)*
III. Con moto e sempre senza parodia
IV. Allegro ma non troppo

FOULDS
Keltic Lament, Op.29 (5’)*

LOEWE
Brigadoon: selections (arr. Lamont) (9’)*

ANDERSON
The Irish Washerwoman (from The Irish Suite) (4’)*

HARDIMAN
Lord of the Dance: selections (arr. Moore) (6’)*

*indicates approximate performance duration

Program Notes

We are in trouble before we even begin a program that has the audacity to call itself Celtic. When applied to music, the word “Celtic” is subject to great debate and conjecture, though in common usage, it seems most readily to bring to mind the music of Ireland and Scotland. But this is limiting, as many regions of Europe can quite legitimately claim a Celtic connection. So tonight’s concert, while it will not resolve any deeply entrenched debates, will attempt rather to present many examples of music which can, even if only a little bit, claim to have a part of the Celtic heart.

Leroy Anderson (1908-1975) is the American composer most famous for his many infectious, light orchestral works, such as Sleigh Ride, Bugler’s Holiday, and The Syncopated Clock. Yet his skill as an orchestrator is also readily apparent in several works he arranged for orchestra from existing tunes. The six-movement Irish Suite (composed in 1947 and 1949) sets several well-known tunes from the Emerald Isle, while the same is done in his Scottish Suite with four Scottish songs. Tonight’s concert is dotted with several excerpts from the suites. From the Irish Suite, our concert opens with The Rakes of Mallow, but also listen for the famous Irish Washerwoman. Tonight’s version of The Campbells are Coming is from Anderson’s Scottish Suite.

Edward “Teddy” Bor (b. 1921) is an English violinist and composer. Answering the question, “What would the music of Mozart have sounded like if Mozart was Scottish?”, Bor, with tongue firmly in cheek, composed McMozart’s Eine Kleine Bricht Moonlicht Nicht Musik in 1981. Its title is taken from the famous Mozart serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik, along with words from an old Scottish song. The brief, strings-only work combines Eine kleine Nachtmusik with several Scottish tunes in a brisk pastiche.

John Field (1782-1837) was an Irish-born composer who found his greatest success and acceptance in Russia. From several of his compositions, Irish composer/arranger Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) fashioned A John Field Suite in 1939, orchestrating several movements from disparate works by the earlier composer. The final movement of the four-movement suite is a rondo taken from a piano quintet nicknamed “Le midi” which, in Harty’s setting, comes across as a serene and brisk country outing.

Harty also had a go at orchestrating a work that many, many arrangers have set as well. The Londonderry Air’s melody is instantly recognizable and, with words added to it in 1910 by Frederick Weatherly, has become known as Danny Boy.

Allan Gilliland (b. 1965) was the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s Composer in Residence from 1999 to 2004. Born in Darvel, Scotland, Gilliland moved to Edmonton as a young boy, though he has visited his homeland more than once. On one such visit, he was inspired by a children’s book about the Loch Ness Monster to compose Loch na Beiste (“Lake of the Beast”) as an ESO commission in 2001. “The book begins by explaining how, at one time, Scotland had been two land masses and when they came together they formed the Loch Ness, trapping a monster in the lake,” Gilliland writes. “My work has two sections. The first represents the coming together of Scotland and the trapping of the monster. The second section depicts the life of ‘Nessie’ beginning peacefully and then becoming more and more frantic as people try to catch her.”

Peter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934), one of England’s leading composers, took a holiday on Scotland’s Orkney Islands in 1970, enjoying his visit so much that by the next year, he had built himself a cottage there. He wrote An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise in 1985, on a commission from the Boston Pops, and of his work, he wrote: “…we hear the guests arriving, out of extremely bad weather. This is followed by the processional, where the guests are solemnly received by the bride and groom, and presented with their glass of whisky. The band tunes up, and we get on with the dancing proper. This becomes even wilder, as all concerned feel the results of the whisky, until the lead fiddle can hardly hold the band together anymore. We leave the hall into the cold night, with echoes of the processional music in our ears, and as we walk home across the island, the sun rises, over Caithness, to a glorious dawn.”

The unique scoring of the Celtic Symphony, by English composer Granville Bantock (1868-1946) is as visually striking as it is to hear. Bantock was a highly influential man of music as the 19th century gave way to the 20th. As a conductor, he championed composers such as Sibelius, who dedicated a symphony to him. He also helped found the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and was a respected author on musical matters. He wrote his Celtic Symphony for strings and six harps in 1940. ESO Principal Harp Nora Bumanis leads five of her students in the final two movements from the work.

Ar Hyd y Nos (“All Through the Night”) is one of the most famous Welsh traditional songs. It is used to represent Wales in a pageant of nationalistic songs presented on the last Night of the Proms, a famous summer concert series in London. John Gay used the tune in his seminal 1728 The Beggar’s Opera. It is also a favourite of Welsh choirs. Tonight it will be heard in an orchestral version arranged by Carmen Dragon, the former conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Pops Orchestra.

Cornwall is the name of a county in England which forms a peninsula on the very southwestern tip of the country. English composer Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006) lived for a few years in Cornwall, which served as the impetus for his four Cornish Dances. “Many are sea-faring folk,” he wrote of the Cornish people, “it is a land of male voice choirs, brass bands, Methodism, May Days, and Moody and Sankey hymns.” This last reference is to two writers of hymns during the Victorian era, and their particular style is “parodied” (in musical terms, it would mean “imitated,” rather than made fun of) in the third of the four brief dances. The final dance combines two “scenes,” one a marching band, the other a group dancing a jig, brought together in a clanging finale.

John Foulds (1880-1939) was a versatile composer, and had an adventurous spirit. When his musical fortunes faded in his native England, he left for Paris, and eventually India, writing works late in life that fused Indian music with the classical tradition with which he was raised. He wrote symphonies, string quartets, a huge opera based on Dante’s Divine Comedy – and many well-received light works. His ambitious World Requiem was quite popular for a time. He wrote several works with the “Keltic” name to it, including a Keltic Suite. From it comes tonight’s excerpt, the Keltic Lament, which thanks to the advent of radio stations, particularly in England, that present lighter orchestral fare, has become quite popular.

The songwriting team of Lerner and Loewe are best-known for My Fair Lady. But they wrote many other popular musicals, including Brigadoon, which premiered on Broadway in 1947, its original run lasting over 15 months. It tells the story of a magical Scottish town which only appears for one day every one hundred years. It gave music writer Frederick Loewe (1901-1988) the opportunity to infuse his score with Scottish-isms, and tonight, we present a suite of some of the show’s tunes in an arrangement by Victor Lamont.

Say what you will about how authentic the Irish dancing of Michael Flatley’s many blockbuster shows may be, there’s no question the man knows how to please crowds. Lord of the Dance (which premiered in 1996) was his first international phenomenon, a fusion of Celtic tradition and modern theatricality that had Irish line dancing filling arenas and stadiums around the world. Music for the lavish production was written – and also adapted from traditional melodies – by Ronan Hardiman (b. 1961) who, before teaming up with Flatley, worked in a bank while performing in local bands, composing here and there on the side. After the success of Lord of the Dance, he worked on two more Flatley productions, Feet of Flames and Celtic Tiger.

Program Notes © 2009 D.T. Baker

Program notes © 2009 by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and its respective annotators. All Rights Reserved. Program notes may not be printed in their entirety without the written consent of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra; excerpts may be quoted if due acknowledgment is given to the author and to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. For reprint permission, contact D.T. Baker, Music Resource, by email, dave.baker@winspearcentre.com.

These notes appear in galley files prepared for Signature magazine, official publication of the ESO, and may contain typographical or other errors, or may differ from the final print version. Programs and artists subject to change without notice.

Artist Information

 

William Eddins, conductor

 

William Eddins is in his fifth season as Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. A native of Buffalo, New York, he currently resides in Minneapolis with his lovely wife Jen, a clarinetist, and their two boys Raef (AKA Raefster; Munchers) and Riley (AKA Squeaky; The Imp; Dr. No).

Bill has been playing piano since he was five when his parents bought a Wurlitzer Grand piano at a garage sale. He started conducting during his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music, and most of the '80s were spent trying to decide whether to pursue a career in conducting or piano. The quandary was answered for him when he realized that the life of a poor, starving pianist was for the birds. In 1989 Bill decided to study conducting with Dan Lewis at the University of Southern California, from whence he managed to land assistant conductor posts with the Chicago Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra in 1992.

Bill has many non-musical hobbies including: cooking, eating, discussing food, and planning dinner parties. He is also quite fond of biking, tennis, reading, and pinball. Unfortunately, due to pianistic paranoia his days in the martial arts are long over.

Bill is committed to bringing classical music to the greater public. He has started a podcast – Classical Connections – which is dedicated to exploring the history of classical music and highlights live chamber music performances in which Bill has taken part (check it out for yourself at Bill Eddins' website). He has also produced a solo piano CD – Bad Boys, Volume I – which features Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata and Albright's Nightmare Fantasy Rag. His latest recording, on the Naxos label, features American music for cello and orchestra.

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Lucas Waldin, conductor

 

The 2009/10 season marks the first for Lucas Waldin as Resident Conductor for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. This mentorship position is made possible through the Canada Council for the Arts. Mr. Waldin graduated in 2006 from the Cleveland Institute of Music with a Masters in Conducting. He has performed with L'Orchestre du Festival Beaulieu-Sur-Mer (Monaco), Staatstheater Cottbus (Brandenburg), and Bachakademie Stuttgart. Lucas was assistant conductor of the contemporary orchestra RED (Cleveland), director of the Cleveland Bach Consort, and a Discovery Series Conductor at the Oregon Bach Festival. In 2007, he was invited to conduct the Miami-based New World Symphony Orchestra in masterclasses given by Michael Tilson Thomas. In Lucerne in 2009, he also participated in a masterclass led by Bernard Haitink, with the Lucerne Festival Strings.

A native of Toronto, Lucas Waldin has spent summers studying in Europe, including studies at the International Music Academy in Leipzig, the Bayreuth Youth Orchestra, and the Acanthes New Music Festival in France. On this continent, he has studied under the renowned Bach conductor Helmut Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival, and has attended conducting masterclasses with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in Toronto. Mr. Waldin received a Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance from the Cleveland Institute, studying with Joshua Smith.

 

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Knock School of Irish Dance

 

The Knock School of Irish Dance was established in 1996 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, by Angela Hogan, T.C.R.G. From those early days with 13 dancers until today with more than 120 dancers of all ages and levels, the school strives for excellence and joy in the dance. Busy in the community, the Knock School dancers are extremely well received and frequently requested for performances of all kinds. They have performed at Heritage Days; Klondike Days Military Tattoo; Edmonton Symphony Orchestra Education, POPS, and Symphony for Kids Concerts; the Emerald Ball; Big Breakfast Television; and absolutely everywhere during the week of St. Patrick’s Day!

Each June brings with it the excitement of Knock School’s annual Dance Drama. The magnificent Winspear Centre is the venue for this presentation featuring every dancer at the school. Dancers from Knock School have competed at the World Championships in Ireland and Scotland since 1997 and at the North American Championships in Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, Nashville, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Ottawa. The school's advanced dancers have ranked as high as 3th at the North American Championships. Knock has had two 1st place dancers in the Western Canadian Regional Championships , and their Ceili Teams have placed 1st, 2nd & 4th in Western Canada,winning a combined total of six Western Canadian Regional Championships.

The Knock School last appeared with the ESO in May 2005.

 

Media

Lord of the Dance: