CHARLES IVES, PIONEER MODERNIST
January, 2009
MIAMI BEACH – The New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy, will present an intensive four-day In-Context™ Festival focusing on the life and music of American composer Charles Ives, titled “Charles Ives, Pioneer Modernist,” Thursday, February 19 – Sunday, February 22, hosted by Michael Tilson Thomas at the Lincoln Theatre (541 Lincoln Road).
A unique aspect of the festival will involve a weeklong conducting symposium on the music of Ives, under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas and James Sinclair, Executive Editor for the Charles Ives Society. The symposium will focus on the unique challenges of conducting Ives’ music, due to frequent changes in meter and complex layering. Also unique to the festival, Friday’s program will feature a different conductor leading each work, and Saturday’s program will feature a different conductor in each movement of Ives’ Holidays Symphony. Participating in the symposium will be Kazem Abdullah, Assistant and Cover Conductor for the Metropolitan Opera; Steven Jarvi, Assistant Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony and former New World Symphony Conducting Fellow; and Edward Abrams, New World Symphony Conducting Fellow.
The festival will launch Thursday, February 19 with a panel discussion featuring James Sinclair; J. Peter Burkholder, Distinguished Professor of Musicology at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and author of numerous books on Ives; Wayne D. Shirley, former Senior Music Specialist at the Library of Congress; Jan Swafford, composer, author and professor at the Boston Conservatory; and Michael Tilson Thomas. Burkholder and Swafford will serve as panelists from Indiana and Massachusetts via Internet2, a high-speed, high-bandwidth internet reserved for educational research and collaboration, employed by NWS for interactive musical collaborations, coaching and teaching. Following the panel discussion will be a screening of the Ives documentary film “A Good Dissonance Like a Man,” by T.W. Timreck. This event is free and open to the public.
On Friday, February 20, NWS will perform a variety of Ives’ music, putting on display his experiments and masterpieces alike: The Unanswered Question; Central Park in the Dark; Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano; From the Steeples and the Mountains; Scherzo: Over the Pavements; and Three Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1, Version 2). The program will feature Michael Tilson Thomas and James Sinclair as conductors and hosts, pianist Jeremy Denk, and conductors Abdullah, Jarvi and Abrams. James Sinclair will host a pre-concert Curtain Talk at 6:30 P.M.
The first half of the performance on Saturday, February 21 will highlight a number of the more than 100 hymns, popular songs, college songs and war songs quoted in Ives’ Holidays Symphony, featuring the University of Miami Frost Chorale, directed by Joshua Habermann. The second half will feature the performance of Ives’ Holidays Symphony, the first movement led by Michael Tilson Thomas with each of the three consecutive movements to be conducted by Abdullah, Jarvi and Abrams, respectively. The performance will be preceded by a Curtain Talk with Wayne D. Shirley.
The festival finale on Sunday, February 22 will include Sonata No. 2 for Piano, “Concord, Mass., 1840-60;” featuring Jeremy Denk, and Henry Brant’s own transcription, A Concord Symphony, will be performed on the second half. A Curtain Talk by Jan Swafford, via Internet2, will precede the performance.
NWS’ annual In-Context™ Festivals take various musical, historical and social themes as their focus. Designed as multi-disciplinary experiences, these events incorporate art exhibits, films, lectures, commissioned essays, folk music and theatrical elements to explore the broader meaning of the orchestral and chamber repertoire being performed. Past In-Context™ Festivals have been dedicated to subjects as diverse as the Gypsy tradition of Central Europe, composers oppressed by the Third Reich, Viennese and French musical traditions, the history of film music, and the influences of jazz, tango and flamenco on classical music.
Tickets for the Friday performance ($20), Saturday performance ($35 - $59) and Sunday performance ($15) may be obtained by calling the New World Symphony box office at 305-673-3331 or online at www.nws.edu. Additional information about the New World Symphony may be obtained at www.nws.edu.
Festival Schedule:
Thursday, February 19, 7:30 P.M.
Panel Discussion and Film Screening
Michael Tilson Thomas
James Sinclair
Peter Burkholder (via Internet2)
Wayne Shirley
Jan Swafford (via Internet2)
Tickets: Free
Friday, February 20, 7:30 P.M. (Curtain Talk by James Sinclair at 6:30 P.M.)
Michael Tilson Thomas and James Sinclair, conductors and hosts
Jeremy Denk, piano
Kazem Abdullah, Edward Abrams, Steven Jarvi, conductors
The Unanswered Question
Central Park in the Dark
Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano
Moderato
TSIAJ
Moderato con moto
From the Steeples and the Mountains
Scherzo: Over the Pavements
Three Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1, Version 2)
“The ‘St. Gaudens’ in Boston Common”
Putnam’s Comp, Redding, Connecticut
“The Housatonic at Stockbridge”
All Tickets: $20
Saturday, February 21, 7:30 P.M. (Curtain Talk by Wayne D. Shirley via Internet2 at
6:30 P.M.)
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor and host
James Sinclair, co-host
Kazem Abullah, conductor
Steven Jarvi, conductor
Edward Abrams, conductor
University of Miami Frost Chorale
Joshua Habermann, director
Unversity of Miami Collegium Musicum
Hymns, popular songs, college songs and war songs quoted in Ives’ Holidays Symphony
Holidays Symphony
Washington’s Birthday
Decoration Day
The Fourth of July
Thanksgiving and Forefather’s Day
Tickets: $35, $48, $59
Sunday, February 22, 7:30 P.M. (Curtain Talk by Jan Swafford via Internet2 at 6:30)
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor and host
Jeremy Denk, piano
Sonata No. 2 for Piano, “Concord, Mass., 1840-60”
Emerson
Hawthorne
The Alcotts
Thoreau
A Concord Symphony
Emerson
Hawthorne
The Alcotts
Thoreau
All Tickets: $15
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