SYMPHORIA IN CONCERT
Join host Bruce Paulsen for this performance, broadcast on WCNY Classic FM.
Classic FM is available on 91.3 in Syracuse, 89.5 in Utica/Rome and 90.9 in Watertown, the North Country
Performed on May 18, 2019 at Crouse Hinds Concert Theater
Lawrence Loh conductor
Performed Side by Side with the Symphoria Young Artists Orchestra
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Festive Overture, op.96
Performed on November 3, 2018 at Crouse Hinds Theater
Lawrence Loh conductor; William Hagen, violin
SERGE PROKOFIEV
Violin concerto No. 1, op. 19, D major
- Andante
- Scherzo: Vivacissimo
- Moderato
Performed on September 15, 2018 at Crouse Hinds Theater
Lawrence Loh conductor
NICOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Scheherazade, op.35
- The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship
- The Tale of Prince Kalendar
- The Young Prince and The Princess
- The Festival at Bagdad; The Sea; The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock
Thanks so WCNY for supporting these Symphoria concert broadcasts!
PROGRAM NOTES
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH: Festive Overture
We open the concert with the Festive Overture by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). Originally composed in 1947 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, it
wasn’t performed until 1954. Unlike other Shostakovich works that were kept under wraps for their musical or ideological transgressions, however, this piece is musically straight-forward and apparently apolitical. Inspired in part by Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila Overture, it opens with a stately fanfare that seems to announce a work of some gravity. In fact, though, the fanfare is a modified version of the opening of a whimsical ...
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH: Festive Overture
We open the concert with the Festive Overture by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). Originally composed in 1947 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, it
wasn’t performed until 1954. Unlike other Shostakovich works that were kept under wraps for their musical or ideological transgressions, however, this piece is musically straight-forward and apparently apolitical. Inspired in part by Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila Overture, it opens with a stately fanfare that seems to announce a work of some gravity. In fact, though, the fanfare is a modified version of the opening of a whimsical piece from his Children’s Notebook called “Birthday,” and in the Overture, it leads to a jolt of irrepressible forward energy that is more likely to remind you of the Keystone Kops than the Kremlin. The piece has become one of Shostakovich’s most popular, but it’s usually heard without the optional extra brass parts he
throws in. Tonight, with the assistance of the Symphoria Young Artists Orchestra, you’ll have a rarechance to hear it in its full glory.
SERGE PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto No. 1
… Prokofiev is anything but a predictable composer, and in fact, as you’ll realize from the heart-stoppingly gorgeous opening, the First Violin Concerto represents yet a third response to the temper of the times—what our soloist Will Hagen describes as “an escape.” As a youngster, Will wasn’t particularly fond of Prokofiev’s music. It was only after playing Cinderella— “the most gorgeous thing I’d ever heard”—in a student orchestra at Aspen that he came to understand what he calls Prokofiev’s “fairy-tale” aspect. “When I listen to Brahms or Mozart, I hear real life, things that could have happened to you today or yesterday. Prokofiev takes you to a new place, a fairy-tale magical world. I sense that Prokofiev is always ‘escaping.’ I use the word escaping on purpose—he did not live in a good time.”
Will is especially taken with the way this piece ends: “I love the bookends feature of the concerto. How many concertos end like that, such a beautiful ending, coming back to the very opening?” Yet the music is hardly non-stop beauty: In the second movement, there is some “rough stuff sul ponticello, right near the bridge, so if I don’t make some ugly sounds, then I will have let everybody down.” For the violinist, that is technically the most challenging part of the concerto. For the orchestra, the composer himself suggested that major problems are balance and character: he points, for instance, to the last movement where the tuba needs to “emerge…like an endearing bumpkin.” But as a whole—and Will insists that it “feels like a one-movement piece, even more than other pieces”—it’s hard not to agree that the work has the aura of escape. Certainly, it provides a respite between the pieces around it, which are more explicitly attuned to the horrors of the times.
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade
…Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) composed Scheherazade, inspired by 1001 Nights, in 1888. The trombones shout out a theme representing the Sultan Schahriar who, as Rimsky puts it, “convinced of the perfidy and faithlessness of women, vowed to execute each of his wives after the first night.” Within a minute, however, we hear the solo violin representing the voice of Scheherazade, his story-teller last wife whose savvy ability to draft cliff-hangers convinces the Sultan to let her live so she can continue—and eventually wins his love (for what it’s worth). Scheherazade’s mercurial spirit is brilliantly conveyed by the differences in the violin solos throughout the work.
Beyond this general outline, however, the score’s program is vague. Rimsky intended the score less to suggest particular stories than to nourish subjective flights of fancy. Yes, each movement has a programmatic title (although, at times, Rimsky wished to eliminate them), but they refer to general situations, rather than particular events. Thus, while the first movement, “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship,” evokes the sea and its changing colors, it doesn’t call up any particular story. And the love music in the third movement, “The Young Prince and the Princess,” beautiful as it is, isn’t attached to particular individuals the way the love music in Tchaikovsky’s
Romeo and Juliet is. The one exception is the shattering climax of the last movement, when a ship “breaks up against a cliff” (thus bringing the concert full circle to Rachmaninoff’s and Lermontov’s cliff), leading to a peaceful conclusion.
Scheherazade has been an audience favorite in part because of Rimsky’s skill as an orchestrator; in fact, almost nothing composed before that time—other than perhaps Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique—has as much coloristic ingenuity. But the piece is also popular because it allows an orchestra to show off its identity as an ensemble. It does so in a superficially contradictory way. On the one hand, it’s full of solos for first-desk players, and, as conductor Larry Loh puts it, “You want all the soloists to have freedom to do their own interpretation.” At the same time, though, “They have to work together, so that their worlds match.” It’s the ability to navigate this combination of individuality and community that marks the best orchestras, where the players really know and listen to each other—and that ability will be clearly on display tonight.
Peter J. Rabinowitz
Have comments or questions? Contact me at prabinowitz@ExperienceSymphoria.org
FEATURED ARTISTS
The riveting 30-year-old American violinist William Hagen has appeared as a soloist with many of the world’s great orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, San Francisco Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and many more. Already a seasoned international performer who has won friends around the world, ...
The riveting 30-year-old American violinist William Hagen has appeared as a soloist with many of the world’s great orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, San Francisco Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and many more. Already a seasoned international performer who has won friends around the world, William has been hailed as a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” (The Dallas Morning News) whose playing is “… captivating, floating delicately above the orchestra” (Chicago Classical Review). He was the third-prize winner of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition, one of the highest-ranking Americans ever in the prestigious competition. William performs on the 1732 ‘Arkwright Lady Rebecca Sylvan’ Stradivarius, on generous loan from the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation.
Hagen’s recent performances include appearances with the Rochester Philharmonic and Asheville Symphony, and performances at the Ravinia, Grant Park, Sunriver, and Santa Fe Chamber Music festivals and Tippet Rise Art Center. Hagen’s 2023-24 season highlights include performances for the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, Detroit Symphony, a European tour with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and collaborations with cellist Andrei Ioniță and pianists Orion Weiss and Albert CanoSmit. This season William offers a new community engagement initiative that combines conversations with local gardening experts with an interactive performance and explores the ways in which music and nature are connected.
William has performed with conductor Nicolas McGegan both at the Aspen Music Festival and with the Pasadena Symphony, and made his debut with the Oregon Symphony under Carlos Kalmar, performed with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra in Beijing and at the Aspen Music Festival with conductor Ludovic Morlot, and played recitals in Paris, Brussels, and at the Ravinia Festival. Collaborations include those with Steven Isserlis at the Wigmore Hall, with Tabea Zimmermann at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, with Gidon Kremer, Steven Isserlis, and Christian Tetzlaff in Germany, and in New York City with the Jupiter Chamber Players.
Since his debut with the Utah Symphony at age nine, William has performed with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Christian Arming, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michel Tabachnik, and Hugh Wolff. A native of Salt Lake City, William first heard the violin when he was 3 and began taking lessons at age 4 with Natalie Reed, followed by Deborah Moench. At age 10, he began studying with Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, where he studied until the age of 17.
After studying at the Juilliard School for two years with Itzhak Perlman, William returned to Los Angeles to continue studying with Robert Lipsett at the Colburn Conservatory. He then went on to study at the Kronberg Academy in Germany with Christian Tetzlaff. William is an alumnus of the Verbier Academy in Switzerland, the Perlman Music Program, and the Aspen Music Festival.
Described as bringing an “artisan storyteller’s sensitivity… shaping passages with clarity and power via beautifully sculpted dynamics… revealing orchestral character not seen or heard before” (Arts Knoxville) Lawrence Loh enjoys a dynamic career as a conductor of orchestras all over the world.
After an extensive two ...
Described as bringing an “artisan storyteller’s sensitivity… shaping passages with clarity and power via beautifully sculpted dynamics… revealing orchestral character not seen or heard before” (Arts Knoxville) Lawrence Loh enjoys a dynamic career as a conductor of orchestras all over the world.
After an extensive two year search, Lawrence Loh was recently named Music Director of the Waco Symphony Orchestra beginning in the Spring of 2024. Since 2015, he has served as Music Director of The Syracuse Orchestra (formerly called Symphoria), the successor to the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. “The connection between the organization and its audience is one of the qualities that’s come to define Syracuse’s symphony as it wraps up its 10th season, a milestone that might have seemed impossible at the beginning,” (Syracuse.com) The Syracuse Orchestra and Lawrence Loh show that it is possible to create a “new, more sustainable artistic institution from the ground up.”
Appointed Assistant Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony in 2005, Mr Loh was quickly promoted to Associate and Resident Conductor within the first three years of working with the PSO. Always a favorite among Pittsburgh audiences, Loh returns frequently to his adopted city to conduct the PSO in a variety of concerts. Mr. Loh previously served as Music Director of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Syracuse Opera, Music Director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra.
Mr. Loh’s recent guest conducting engagements include the San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, Pensacola Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, National Symphony, Detroit Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony, National Symphony (D.C.), Utah Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Symphony and the Cathedral Choral Society at the Washington National Cathedral. His summer appearances include the festivals of Grant Park, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Tanglewood with the Boston Pops, Chautauqua, Sun Valley, Shippensburg, Bravo Vail Valley, the Kinhaven Music School and the Performing Arts Institute (PA).
As a self-described “Star Wars geek” and film music enthusiast, Loh has conducted numerous sold-out John Williams and film music tribute concerts. Part of his appeal is his ability to serve as both host and conductor. “It is his enthusiasm for Williams’ music and the films for which it was written that is Loh’s great strength in this program. A fan’s enthusiasm drives his performances in broad strokes and details and fills his speaking to the audience with irresistible appeal. He used no cue cards. One felt he could speak at filibuster length on Williams’ music.” (Pittsburgh Tribune)
Mr Loh has assisted John Williams on multiple occasions and has worked with a wide range of pops artists from Chris Botti and Ann Hampton Callaway to Jason Alexander and Idina Menzel. As one of the most requested conductors for conducting Films in Concert, Loh has led Black Panther, Star Wars (Episodes 4-6), Jaws, Nightmare Before Christmas, Jurassic Park, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and Singin’ in the Rain, among other film productions.
Lawrence Loh received his Artist Diploma in Orchestral Conducting from Yale, his Masters in Choral Conducting from Indiana University and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Rochester. Lawrence Loh was born in southern California of Korean parentage and raised in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennifer have a son, Charlie, and a daughter, Hilary. Follow him on instagram @conductorlarryloh or Facebook at @lawrencelohconductor or visit his website, www.lawrenceloh.com
