March 12, 2023

at UW Meany Hall

Additional Notes on the Program

Symphonette
Debut
Junior
Prelude String
Youth

Symphonette Orchestra

Rhosymedre

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was a prominent British composer of operas, ballets, chamber music, vocal works, and nine symphonies. Vaughan Williams’s body of works showcases a massive range of artistic voice: his compositions can be exuberant and excited, or deeply emotional and passionate, depending on the inspiration and source.

Vaughan Williams also composed during a period of time when nationality was expressed in music primarily through the use of folk song; Tudor-era folk song influences much of Vaughan Williams’s catalogue, some works being direct theme and variations on classic English song.

File Rhosymedre—known sometimes as Lovely—among Vaughan Williams’s lyrical, passionate compositions. The hymn Vaughan Williams uses in Rhosymedre was written by a 19th-century Welsh composer, J.D. Edwards. Like many folk songs, it is a very simple, singable melody. Here, Vaughan Williams shows what he does best: by integrating the song with a couple new and different musical techniques, Vaughan Williams sends the hymn to new heights.

By the second iteration of the main theme, the ensemble has split into different directions, performing their own horizontal lines which weave and integrate finely with the rest of the orchestra. The final product is grand sound, painting a rich, stacked texture in the orchestra.

“This piece reminds me of a slow dance or a train going slowly, with a couple lurches on the way.” -Lucie Rutishauser, flute

“The hardest part of this piece was the dynamics and the tempo because we tend to rush at slow tempos and most people play louder than the others.” -Lilian Wu, percussion

“It reminds me of a picture of nature.” -Ethan Li, violin 2

Waltz from Sleeping Beauty

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) is one of the most programmed names in modern symphonic music. Tchaikovsky composed a massive number of works in his lifetime, and is best known for his symphonies, concertos for piano and violin, and ballets. By the late 19th century, Russia, and particularly St. Petersburg, became a world capital for cranking out world-class ballet dancers and the music to underscore the world’s best talent. Tchaikovsky’s music would become as essential as the well-trained dancers in carving out Russian superiority in the genre for years to come.

Today’s Waltz from Sleeping Beauty is perhaps one of Tchaikovsky’s most enduring musical moments. The waltz opens with an iconic build: instruments pulsate and layer their sound until the sound from the orchestra grows and bursts, the iconic main melody of the waltz emerging from the ground like a fresh bud in spring.

The main melody is perhaps the most quintessential Romantic melody: it is long, extended to great lengths on growing just higher with each phrase, leaping into its top notes with great passion and color. The orchestra will pass around this melody playfully, while other sections decorate and punctuate it with steady rhythmic certainty.

“I would describe it as soft and rich, and very playful. I would see it as the Starry Night painting, except if it was day.” -Alyssa Lin, cello

“My overall impression of this piece is that it is, at times, extraordinary and grand, and at other times, gentle and warm, painting a picture of Sleeping Beauty’s celebration being fit for royals (very extravagant), and also very genuine to Sleeping Beauty’s personality in that there are some gentle parts of the piece.” -Hannah Ha, violin 1

“I really like this piece and I this it is really elegant. I would describe this piece and fragile, refreshing, and beautiful.” -Olivia Xue, flute

Frank Halferty is a composer and career music teacher who taught in the Shoreline School District for 39 years. Mr. Halferty taught a range of musicians, from beginning through advanced levels. In addition to his original compositions, Mr. Halferty has arranged classic works into instructional settings. Mr. Halferty has a number of published works designed to give young musicians the skills they need to develop lifelong loves for music.

Today’s Rio de Fuego, (River of Fire) is a Latin-inspired work full of color and textural variety. It opens with the dominant melodic theme, underscored by a steady rhythmic idea. Listen across the work for how Mr. Halferty takes that rhythmic idea and passes it around the orchestra, allowing different sections their opportunity to perform the passionate main melody.

The middle section develops the music with a haunting violin solo. The music grows into a slower, lyrical section. New voices take their space as soloists, and from the ground up the original rhythmic idea from the introduction re-emerges. This idea grows and builds to the work’s exciting finish.

In early February, Mr. Halferty joined Symphonette in rehearsal to talk through his music with the musicians and to offer a little insight into what it’s like to compose music today. Here’s what Symphonette musicians had to say about the experience:

“Before meeting Mr. Halferty, I hadn’t had the honor of meeting a composer, and it was really interesting to get to hear his process of composing. Talking to him helped me feel a little more confident playing the piece.” -Ari Rabut, trumpet

“I have never met a composer before, I think that meeting with him did help with how we play it.” -Grayson Johnston, trombone

“I love this piece, and I picture very bright colors and something like a super powered fight scene that you would see in an action movie.” -Isabelle Weidman, viola

Debut Symphony Orchestra

Bacchanale

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was a French composer, conductor, and pianist of the Romantic era. From an early age, Saint-Saëns was an avid supporter of the music of his contemporaries–early-Romantic composers and the classical forms which preceded their work. By the latter half of Saint-Saëns’s life, this preference came into conflict with the emerging trends of Modernism and Impressionism.

Today’s Bacchanale is pulled from Saint-Saëns’s operatic masterpiece “Samson et Delila.” The work was first staged in 1877, and features the beautiful maiden Delila, scorned by Samson. Delila swears vengeance, and discovers that Samson’s hair is the source of his power (an apt predecessor to a modern-day Fabio). Delila manages to get a hold of Samson, and practices her best haircutting skills on his power-imbued locks.

A crowd gathers to witness Samson’s humiliation, and in this gathering, dances a bacchanale—a dance form taking its name from the Bacchus, the mythological god of wine and fertility, notorious for sending revelers into dangerous ecstasy by means of his magic and penchant for indulgence.

Saint-Saëns’s Bacchanale opens with a winding, twisting melody, which is quickly followed by the buoyant bursts of sound of a Parisian dance hall. The music alternates back and forth until the snake charmer-like melody from the introduction gets the final word.

“The most challenging part of learning this piece for me is playing the fast parts at the beginning and end with proper articulation and notes, while still doing phrasing and good sound. I think that this piece is the most challenging one of the three.” -Sofia Rutishauser, clarinet

Symphony in D minor – I. Lento — Allegro

César Franck (1822-1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium. Franck studied privately in his youth with notable organists and pianists, and in his teens, began studies at the Paris Conservatory while concurrently teaching privately and giving solo concerts at his father’s control.

French compositional greats did not write symphonies. Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier—none of the biggest names in French symphonic music wrote symphonies, per se, instead devoting compositional efforts toward creations focused on color and balance. This more-serious approach a la the German symphonic form, is thus unique to Franck, and is thematically paralleled in Franck’s brilliance as an improviser on organ (Liszt reportedly left a performance by Franck suggesting Franck’s prowess was akin to Bach’s).

Overall, Franck’s compositional output is relatively small compared to his contemporaries. He is most well known for a small number of chamber works, a series of tone poems, an oratorio, and his Symphony in D minor, performed today.

Franck’s Symphony in D minor employs structures of classical design. The first movement opens with a slower-tempo introduction, a dark initial thought with creeping curiosity and affect. This theme bursts into the spirited Allegro, the main structure of the movement. Well into the movement, a syncopated rhythmic motif appears. Franck toys with and develops these ideas throughout, driving toward a bright, sustained chord to finish the movement.

Chan Mambo

Pedro Carlos Herrera is a composer, conductor, and arranger currently working as the Director of the Orquesta Típica de Yucatán. He has written numerous works for orchestra and other ensembles, often specializing in delightful settings of 20th-century Latin-American dance music.

Chan Mambo is a bright work full of flair, color, and dance. It celebrates the dance form the “mambo,” a Latin dance of Cuba which rose in popularity in the mid-20th century. Most mambo music features a syncopated, non-rigid form, entirely upbeat and focused on the dancers’ expression.

Americans have become fascinated with various forms of the mambo over the course of the 20th century, a strong testament to the influence of Latin-American culture on our shared history. Listen for the energy of the orchestra, its movement and world-building captured in the syncopated rhythms across the ensemble. Shouting “Mambo!”, though not required, is of course encouraged.

Junior Symphony Orchestra

Lift-Off

Florida-born composer Dr. Roger Zare began musical studies at age 5. By age 14, Zare had completed his first composition. Today, Dr. Zare is an award-winning composer of works for solo, chamber, choral, wind ensemble, and full-orchestra works. His works are frequently performed by ensembles

Lift-Off is a challenging work which opens with a measured, steady, and frantic warble. Instruments across the orchestra flutter quickly between notes to create a shimmering atmosphere. Voices take their stage above this din, showcasing beautiful melodies and joining each other in rich harmony.

This wobbling motive from the introduction is used as a structural basis throughout the run of the work. Listen to it be re-introduced with different harmonies and affectations, punctuated with sharp, staccato-like declamations from other voices across the orchestra.

By the end of the work, the wobbling motive from the beginning peels away, and grand, rich melodies soar above the orchestra. The lift off has occurred—the orchestra and the audience have achieved flight!

The Space Between Stars

Ella Macens is an Australian composer quickly rising to international fame. Though young, Macens has amassed an impressive list of compositions and collaborations, frequently creating and debuting works on nearly every continent. Macens holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and is currently completing a Master of Music curriculum at the same university.

Though she may be finishing a formal degree program, listening to Macens’s works reveals no indication she is a student. Macens’s style is undeniably choral—she goes to great lengths to stretch and expand an ensemble’s sound, using rich colors and textures to capture an almost cinematic quality in her sound. The Space Between Stars begins with lush, powerful chords in the orchestra. It is a curious and inviting sound space, punctuated with twinkling harp notes over swelling colors in the strings and winds.

Macens shows off her compositional chops in The Space Between Stars by allowing every section its time to express its salient sound. Brass takes the stage with powerful statements, repeating the quirk-like glissandos heard earlier from strings and winds. Countless solos decorate the musical landscape—effectively, every corner of the orchestra occupies the delicate musical space between the stars painted by Macens.

By the latter half of the work, the orchestra has grown into a titanic-sized sound. Powerful and beautiful chords pour out of the orchestra with massive textural coverage—but only for a moment. The orchestra shifts back to a solo voice with light accompaniment in the blink of an eye, leaving an echo of the tsunami-like sound from mere moments before. There is a feeling that individuality is paired against the grandiosity of everything in the world, yet that these two concepts depend and inform each other to create the greater whole of existence.

Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor – III. Tempo primo

It is suggested that Saint-Saëns’s love for the cello emerged with the composition of his first Cello Concerto. It is clear that Saint-Saëns deeply understood the wide range of the cello’s sound—both its dramatic ends and its intimately lyrical qualities.

The third movement of Saint-Saëns’s first concerto for cello is performed today. Listen for how it bursts right out of the gate for every instrument involved—the orchestra opens with a pointed, quick-footed statement, and the cello soloist joins with the same excitement and flare. The soloist later moves toward longer-held, lyrical notes, allowing the cello to sing and wail in powerful, mournful fashion.

The third movement will toss around and play with themes heard in the first two movements of the concerto. Listen to how the proverbial switch is cranked near the end of the third movement, the rhythms and concepts becoming more frantic and energized with every second.

SYSO 2022-23 Concerto Competition Winner Winston Yu, cello, solos today with members of Junior Symphony Orchestra.

Prelude String Orchestra

The Sailor’s Hornpipe

Dr. Sandra Dackow is a composer and educator with a large footprint in American public-school music education. A lifelong educator and musicians, Dr. Dackow’s compositions aim to teach and inspire young musicians. In addition to composing, Dr. Dackow serves as clinician and adjudicator for countless regional compositions annually.

The word “hornpipe” refers to a series of dance forms which originated in Britain and Ireland and are today closely associated with sailors and naval culture. A famous example of a “Hornpipe” in music is in Händel’s famous Water Music. It features quick, scalar runs over strong and quick chords in the lower strings. With its upbeat and driving melodies, it can easily be imagined that listeners might slap their knees and join in on the dancing fun.

Here’s what one Prelude musician thought about the music:

“[The Sailor’s Hornpipe] makes me feel upbeat and energetic. It makes me feel like I want to put down my violin and dance.” -Lucas Reitsma, violin 1

“It makes me feel lively and jumpy when I play it.” – Hugo Anderson, violin 2

Appalachian Sunrise

Doris Gazda is a composer, teacher, and conductor currently based in Tempe, Arizona. For years, Gazda’s method books, ensemble books, compositions, and arrangements have been part of the repertoire for young string musicians across America. In addition to teaching music to youth, Gazda has led and supported efforts to build ensembles for seniors looking to return to music; her New Horizons Orchestra continues to operate in Mesa, Arizona.

Appalachian Sunrise is a depiction of the sun rising in the Appalachian mountains. It uses lush, emotional harmonies to convey the emotion and color of the scene, while the main slowly builds and grows on the top of the orchestra. Listen to the main theme repeating itself until it grows into its proud finale: the top strings sharing their glorious upper register over the grounded, confident low strings.
Here’s what one Prelude musician had to say about the music:

Serenade for Strings, I. Pezzo in forma di Sonatina

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was a Russian composer of symphonies, concertos, operas, ballet, and more. His works are consistently performed today, making him one of the most influential composers in the Western symphonic tradition.

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, in Tchaikovsky’s own words, was a work infused with much love and care. It came during a period of time when Tchaikovsky fulfilled commissions for large, overture-like works which were noisy, bombastic, and political. Serenade for Strings is decidedly not that. Its melodies and swelling textures are infused with the melancholy and immense emotion of Tchaikovsky’s big symphonies, but restrained by the nature of the strings-only instrumentation. The orchestra pushes and pulls against itself, returning to a similar declamatory style heard in the movement’s opening.

Here’s what a Prelude String musician had to say about it:

“To me, the most challenging part is sometimes because of the tempo, but it’s mostly because a lot of times I get lost or confused because of other section’s parts.” -Ethan Hong, violin 2

Youth Symphony Orchestra

Symphony No. 1 in D Major “TITAN”

I. Langsam, schleppend, Immer sehr gemächlich
II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell, Recht gemächlich
III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen, Sehr einfach und schlicht wie eine Volksweise, Wieder etwas bewegter, wie im Anfang
IV. Stürmisch bewegt – Energisch

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was an Austro-Bohemian composer born to a meager Jewish background. The young Mahler showed musical promise early on which led him to studies at the Vienna Conservatory, where he held many conducting posts. Indeed, Mahler was known first as a conductor during his life before a composer, though he longed for a life where he could write music full time. It wasn’t until decades after Mahler’s death, after banishment of his music from concert halls in the Nazi era, that his music reached widespread fame.

The story goes that Mahler’s First Symphony caused Mahler as much as stress any work created in the shadow of Romantic symphonic greats could. This is perhaps most obviously seen in the rocky history of the First Symphony finding its name: it was first called a “Symphonic Poem in Two Parts,” then renamed “TITAN: A Tone Poem in the Form of a Symphony,” then finally given the title of First Symphony with the supertitle “TITAN.” Mahler knew what he wanted to say with the Symphony, but struggled with assumptions the public made about his work because of its thematic title. Mahler wrote that the Symphony narrates “a strong, heroic man, his life and sufferings, his battles and defeat at the hands of fate.”

The first movement opens with a calm, ethereal texture. Lone voices call out from across the orchestra from a misty horizon of droned notes in the strings; ideas and personalities slowly make themselves known with the effect of the world waking up. The movement grows into an innocent, bucolic dance, upbeat and full of joy. This light energy carries the Symphony through the second movement, a peppy Scherzo with lush communication across the orchestra.

The third movement features a creepy re-working of the folk song Frere Jacques, a setting which disturbed early critics of the work. Listen for the smirking, march-like funeral sound with interjections of the exuberant scherzo of the second movement. This dark energy, this peculiar feeling that something is simply off, opens the skies for the finale. With a cymbal crash, the fourth and final movement opens like a crack of lightning in a dark sky, and in Mahler’s narrative, shows the hero exposed to the most fearful sights and trials he could possibly face. It is, like many Romantic symphonies, a battle between a hero and the Fate of the world. The struggle continues until the joyous melodies of the first movement burst through—Mahler instructs his horn players to stand playing with “bells in the air”—and the joy and strength of youth is found once again. The music closes with a triumphant coda.

Here’s what Youth Symphony Orchestra musicians had to say about Mahler’s epic 1st Symphony:

“The first movement makes me feel peaceful. It’s like I am sitting in the woods, I can see the sunlight passing through the tops of the trees, there is a slight breeze yet it is warm. And all around me, nature is waking up, and I am happy and content. I am just sitting in the forest and I see birds that are flying around and living their own life, and I can just be present and in the moment without having to worry about the future.” -Madeline Zhang, bassoon

“My overall impression of Mahler’s first symphony is a good one. I initially preferred other Mahler symphonies to his first, but have come to really appreciate the artistry and color that it brings to life. It reminds me of a movie of his life as the different movements go on. I think of the Alpine forest as the initial cuckoos fill the room, but then I am also taken to a tavern, perhaps in the town where Mahler grew up in a ladder movement.” -Alan Brennick, tuba

“Mahler manages to capture a whole universe’s worth of emotions and feelings that it’s impossibly hard to describe exactly what I feel at any given moment; however, one thing stays true for pretty much the whole piece – goosebumps! When there is sheer emotional power in the music, like [in the] 4th movement for example, the goosebumps start and I can’t stop them!” – Dennis McIntyre, double bass

“This piece reminds me of all aspects of life. I dream of a serene field I the first movement to dance parties in the 2nd movement to a tragic childhood event in the 3rd movement to a tragedy to triumph theme in the 4th movement.” -Arthur Gim, clarinet