NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF CUBA Enrique Pérez Mesa, music director Guido López-Gavilán, guest conductor Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera, piano Wednesday, October 17, 2012, at 7:30pm Foellinger Great Hall | Great Hall Series a message from the director >>> It’s also a remarkably reliable indicator. When you see glow on someone’s face, you know it’s real. You can’t fake glow. It emanates from deep inside and reveals itself in unmistakable ways. A special kind of smile. A gleam in the eye. An extraordinary, at-ease state of pleasure, a joy in mind and body. Glow may be temporary, and it may be ephemeral. But it’s real, and it’s powerful. And whether it’s the collective glow of an audience, the singular glow of a young child jumping across the Lobby, or the united glow from a cast of students giving their all on stage, glow is what Krannert Center has always been about. And always will be. Welcome to Krannert Center. 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Be a donor today. 4 *photo credit: illini studio *sustained core funding from the University supports nearly all of the indirect costs, such as staff and utilities 5 program Enrique Pérez Mesa, music director Guido López-Gavilán, guest conductor Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera, piano National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba Enrique Pérez Mesa, music director Guido López-Gavilán, guest conductor Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera, piano George Gershwin (1898-1937) Cuban Overture Rhapsody in Blue Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera, piano 20-minute intermission Guido López-Gavilán (b. 1944) Guaguancó Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4, “Italian” (1809-1847) Allegro vivace Andante con moto Con moto moderato Saltarello. Presto National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba appears by arrangement with: World Arts Productions LLC 12 Nicola Ln., Nesconset, NY 11767 631-838-5658 info@worldtouring.net Cellos and double basses are made by Krutz Strings. Violin I Ariel Sarduy, concertmaster Augusto Diago, assistant concertmaster Desirée Justo Castilla Leonardo Pérez Báster Julio César García Domínguez Verónica Reyes Toscaeva Silvio Duquesne Cabarroca Alex Bravo Calderín Alexander Machado Crabb Liliam Herrera Valdés Violin II Iresi García Chao, principal Liliana González Serrano, assistant principal Dania Gutiérrez Flores Gretel Garrida Luque Irasema Jiménez Jiménez Jessie De Armas Amador Mayla Carmenate Reyes Rogelio Martínez Muguercia Yanielka Menéndez Luzardo Violas Roberto Herrera Díaz, principal Raiza Valdés Ortega David De La Mora Chavéz Winnie Magaña Soler Yaser Cruzata Revé Idalmis Ulloa Besada Miriam Baró Jiménez Cellos Alejandro Rodríguez Tirado, principal Arelys Zaldivar Copello, assistant principal 6 NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF CUBA María Victoria Boada Cuéllar Gladys Lo Tamayo Lis Elena Lo Tamayo Lester Monier Serrano Suaima Ramos Torres Double Basses Andrés Escalona Graña, principal Francisco Valdés Torres, assistant principal Michel Toll Calviño Raúl Delgado Navarro Alfredo Averhoff Morales Flutes Raúl Valdés Pérez, principal Zorimé Vega García-Caturla Floraimed Fernández Semanat Oboes Johanna Lugo Morejón, principal Frank E. Fernández Neira, assistant principal Marlene Neira García Clarinets Antonio Dorta Lazo (Principal) Alden Ortuño Cabezas (Assistant Principal) Karenia Garrido Carralero Bassoon Francisco Sánchez Mejías, principal Ivón Fernández Ballester, assistant principal Dasni Martínez Marín French Horns Pedro Luís González García, principal Naidet García Rodríguez Moisés Hernández Duménigo Dania Pérez Fonseca Trumpets Jorge Rubio Pérez, principal Fadev Sanjudo Rodríguez, assistant principal Enrique Rodríguez Toledo Trombones Alberto Batista Meneses, principal Ridel Barrios Rodríguez, assistant principal Gustavo García Villafuerte Tuba Remberto Depestre De La Torre Percussion Luis Barrera Perea, principal Abiel Chea Guerra, assistant principal Jesús Chea Gort Alexander Raña Fernández Lianne Lastre Bécquer Harp Mirtha Batista Bringuez Piano Vilma Garriga Comas Orchestra Staff Roberto Chorens, general director Susana Llorente, international coordinator Booking And Production World Arts Productions LLC Aurora Gonzalez, tour coordinator Alex Santos, tour manager 7 PROGRAM NOTES George Gershwin Born September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York Died July 11, 1937, in Los Angeles, California Cuban Overture George Gershwin composed his Cuban Overture in the summer of 1932. The work was performed for the first time at an all-Gershwin concert at Lewisohn Stadium in New York on August 16, 1932. By 1932, Gershwin was at the pinnacle of his popularity. He and his brother Ira were among the most successful composer/lyricist teams on Broadway and his “serious” works had earned respect from classical musicians. During the early summer of 1932, he vacationed in Havana, staying for a few weeks of parties and good times. Gershwin was fascinated by the vivacious dance music of the Cuban capital and came back to New York with a suitcase full of Cuban percussion instruments including maracas, bongos, claves, and guiros. It was perfectly natural that he would absorb this Cuban influence in a concert work. In August, he completed a brief orchestral work titled Rumba, now universally known as the Cuban Overture. The rumba rhythm, or clave, the basis of most Afro-Cuban dance music, appears here in a simplified form, as the musical basis of the composition. Prior to composing the Cuban Overture, Gershwin spent a few months studying composition and musical form with Joseph Schillinger. His studies with Schillinger—a precise, mathematically-minded music theorist—may explain the rather academic tone Gershwin adopts in the program note he wrote for the first performance: The first part (Moderato e Molto Ritornato) is preceded by a (forte) introduction featuring some of the thematic material. Then comes a three-part contrapuntal episode leading to 8 a second theme. The first part finishes with a recurrence of the first theme combined with fragments of the second. A solo clarinet cadenza leads to a middle part, which is in a plaintive mood. It is a gradually developing canon in a polytonal manner. This part concludes with a climax based upon an ostinato of the theme in the canon, after which a sudden change in tempo brings us back to the rumba dance rhythms. The finale is a development of the preceding material in a stretto-like manner. This leads us back again to the main theme. The conclusion of the work is a Coda featuring the Cuban instruments of percussion. Despite the tone of Gershwin’s program note, there is nothing dry or academic about the music. The introduction and first main section are dominated by the trumpets and even more prominently by the percussion. In a note to the score, Gershwin directs that the “Cuban instruments of percussion” are, quite literally, to take center stage—right in front of the conductor. Gershwin’s quieter and “more plaintive” middle section has sensuous woodwind and string lines. At the conclusion, Gershwin turns up the heat and volume a bit further, returning to the opening theme, and bringing the percussion even more to the fore. George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue The premiere of Rhapsody in Blue on February 12, 1924, in New York’s Aeolian Hall was one of the great nights in American music. By 1924, Gershwin was a success on Broadway and well regarded as a pianist. He had a full plate of musical theater commitments for that year, beginning with Sweet Little Devil and the 1924 edition of White’s Scandals. It was at this time that Paul Whiteman, whose band had provided the background to Gershwin’s Blue Monday, conceived one of the most ambitious concerts of the Roaring Twenties. Whiteman, the self-styled “King of Jazz,” led the Palais Royal Orchestra, one of New York’s best big bands known for their sophisticated “society” arrangements of danceable jazz. Gershwin was a veryfast composer, but not quite fast enough. He had the accompaniment finished in time for Whiteman’s staff arranger, Ferde Grofé, to orchestrate it, but left large chunks of the piano part to be improvised or played from memory at the concert. Whiteman’s pretentious “experiment” was a qualified success. All of the most influential New York critics were in attendance, as were many of the most important classical musicians of the day: Fritz Kreisler, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Walter Damrosch, Leopold Stokowski, and many others. The concert was an extremely long affair, and by the third hour, the audience’s attention was beginning to flag. However, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the 24th work on a program of 25 pieces, stole the show. Olin Downes, a reviewer for The New York Times, described the scene: It was late in the evening when the hero of the occasion appeared. Then stepped upon the stage, sheepishly, a lank and dark young man— George Gershwin. He was to play the piano part in the first public performance of his Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra. This composition shows extraordinary talent, just as it also shows a young composer with aims to go far beyond those of his ilk, struggling with a form of which he far from being master. His first theme alone, with its caprice, humor, and exotic outline, would show a talent to be reckoned with. Rhapsody opens with a famous clarinet glissando, the trademark lick of Ross Gorman, Whiteman’s lead clarinetist, which Gershwin adopted as the perfect lead-in to the first theme. The piece develops freely, with one theme flowing naturally into the next, and with increasing intensity, until the piano takes a long solo and slows the tempo. The central section is based upon a Romantic melody that sounds like a nod to Tchaikovsky with a bit of Jazz punctuation. There is a recapitulation, and the piece ends aggressively, with the piano playing its loudest. Pianist Ignacio “Nachito Herrera writes this about the work: George Gershwin undertook classical piano lessons as a youngster and used to play with different bands in jazz clubs (like me!) prior to composing classical pieces. I studied piano at different classical music conservatories in Havana until I received a doctorate degree from the Superior Institute of Music. When I was about 17, however, I started to become more interested in Jazz and started to incorporate rhythms and harmonies using the foundation of the classical piano technique. I especially love to play the Rhapsody in Blue as it particularly speaks to (and for) me as a classically-trained jazz pianist. I think this may be the finest representation of a well-known “classical” work for piano and orchestra that also lends itself to jazz or swing. It is an ideal “concept” piece as it provides an artist with a lot of artistic flexibility as it combines the musical concepts of both classical and jazz. The recognizable melodies and dynamic rhythms make the work very accessible for audiences— and even more so for live performances. The 9 romantic melody on the second movement reminds me of the great melodies of Chopin. The feeling of jazz and swing are present throughout the concerto with many jazz-chords and the addition of a drum kit is not something you hear in many piano concerti. It is easy to recognize those sections that can definitely work in-between jazz and classical ideas without going to the extreme of playing “real jazz.” We all take musical liberties of course, and in this performance there are even some added surprises that you will not hear or see in other performances. However, we always respect Gershwin’s original composition. Guido López-Gavilán Born January 3, 1944, in Matanzas, Cuba Guaguancó Composer Guido López-Gavilán, who also is guest conductor, has this to say about his composition: The rumba is one of the most distinctive genres of Cuban music and guaguancó is perhaps the most popular variant. Traditionally, it is played only by a singer accompanied by a small group of percussionists, with some added vocalists or chorus. Personally, I have always felt a great attraction to the astonishing richness of rumba-based music. Its particular mix of percussion timber, the melody, inexhaustible rhythmic combinations consisting of fixed patterns with improvisations all lead to musical culminations. It was this admiration that made me take on the challenge of combining the world of symphonic music, choral, and chamber with these rhythms 10 and melodies arising from the collective genius of our people. The first attempt was Camerata in Guaguancó, which premiered with the Camerata Brindis de Salas in 1983. Its success led me to make a symphonic version. Guaguancó premiered in Russia in 1985. In 1998, I also added chorus, to open the possibility to a symphonic-choral version. . . . It premiered at the Teatro Heredia, as Closing Choir Festival in Santiago de Cuba. Felix Mendelssohn Born February 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany Died November 4, 1847, in Leipzig, Germany Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, “Italian Symphony” Felix Mendelssohn was an extraordinary child prodigy, a composer who had his first public concert performance at the age of nine. When the most distinguished musicians of the day assured his father, a wealthy banker, that the boy was an authentic genius, nothing was spared to bring him to artistic maturity. Mendelssohn wrote a great deal of music in his youth, 13 symphonies and several concertos, for example, which he considered juvenilia and never released for publication, but in this privileged workshop he developed skills and polished his craft. At the age of 16, he wrote his nearly perfect String Octet and at 17, the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture. In the spring of 1829, when he was 20, he left home for three years of travel. Mendelssohn did not fail his father. Posterity has his Italian Symphony and his Scotch Symphony as souvenirs of his travel. The impression he made on London was so great that the music of two or three generations of English composers was directly influenced by his example. At the suggestion of the great German poet Goethe, the next leg of Mendelssohn’s travels, begun in May 1830, took him to Italy for about 18 months. There he sketched his sunny First Piano Concerto and began this Italian Symphony, which he could not finish there. After a period spent at home and a winter in Paris, he was still not satisfied with the score, but an invitation to present a new symphony at a concert of the London Philharmonic Society sent him back to work on it. The first performance was on May 13, 1833. There were several later performances in London, too—all of them successful with the knowledgeable musicians and audiences there—but Mendelssohn always felt both the first and last movements needed to be completely rewritten. Almost two years after he died, the symphony was performed in Germany for the first time, apparently lightly edited by his friend Ignaz Moscheles. In the spring of 1851, this best loved of all the Mendelssohn symphonies was published at last. Mendelssohn declared that all of Italy is featured in this work: its people, its landscapes, and its art. The underlying rhythm of the first movement, Allegro vivace, suggests an Italian dance, the tarantella, as the music beams its way brightly through an updated classical first-movement form. The second movement, Andante con moto, a solemn processional may have been a pilgrims’ march; it was probably motivated by Mendelssohn’s experience of a religious procession in the streets of Naples. The third is a smooth-flowing minuet, Con moto moderato, with an ingratiating middle section. The finale, Presto, the most characteristically Italian of the symphony’s four movements takes on the style of a saltarello, a lively Roman or Neapolitan country-dance, dating from the 16th century. It is a leaping dance performed by a man with a woman partner who holds her apron up in the air as she dances, and it is almost always in fast triple meter. 11 PROFILES National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba Founded in 1959, the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba gave its first concert under the direction of Enrique González Mántici in the Teatro Auditorium Amadeo Roldán, which remains the orchestra’s permanent concert hall in Havana’s Vedado district. Enrique Pérez Mesa is the orchestra’s music director. Since its creation, the NSOC has played a very important role in the broadening the awareness of Cuban and Latin American music, in addition to developing a vast symphonic and chamber repertoire that ranges from baroque to contemporary. It has given more than 3,000 concerts nationally and abroad, including Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain, Peru, Argentina, Martinique, and Guadalupe. Among the orchestra’s most recent performances on the international scene include performing at the Seventh Festival of World Symphony Orchestras in Moscow in June 2012 as well as its 17-city tour in the United States in fall 2012. Concert offerings have included the regular season concerts, symphonic choral programs, educational concert series, periodic national tours, as well as concerts with featured vocalists, ballet performances, and special gala concerts. Over the years, the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba has been conducted by more than 100 conductors of national as well as international fame, including Claudio Abbado, Manuel Duchesne Cuzán, Elena Herrera, Guido López-Gavilán, Luis Herrera de la Fuente, Luis de Pablo, Enrique González Mántici, Camargo Guarnieri, Yoshikazu Fukumura, Michel Legrand, Georges Martin, Gonzalo Romeu, Hans Werner Henze, and Carmine Coppola. Among the numerous soloists featured with the NSOC are Frank Fernández, Jorge Luis Prats, José Carreras, Joaquín Clerch, Victoria de los Ángeles, Victor Pellegrini, 12 Iván Petruzziello, Aldo Rodríguez, Victor Rodríguez, Mstislav Rostropovich, Alina Sánchez, Miguel Villafruela, and Roger Woodward. Enrique Pérez Mesa music director/adjunct director In 1993, Enrique Pérez Mesa graduated from Superior Institute of Art in orchestral direction under the guidance of professors Guido López-Gavilán, Tomás Fortín, and Elena Herrera. That year he was in charge of Concerts Band of his natal city, Matanzas, Cuba. He made international tours with Symphonic Orchestra of Matanzas and has been the director of the Symphonic Orchestra of Theater Claudio Santoro in Brasilia, the Symphonic Orchestra of U.F.P in Rio de Janeiro, Camerata Universitary of Zacatecas, the Chamber Orchestra of Morelos, the Symphonic Orchestra of Michoacán, and the Symphonic Orchestra of Palermo Theater. He attended the XVI International Festival of Ballet in Havana (1998) in coproduction with General Society of Authors and Editors in Spain. In the same year, he recorded the oratory Salmo de las Américas by José María Vitier. Enrique was also a delegate of Congress for Music Personalities held in Israel on 1999. Having conducted all Cuban Symphonic Orchestras and the National Opera Orchestra, he is currently general director of Symphonic Orchestra in Matanzas and in November 2001, he was appointed as adjunct director of National Symphonic Orchestra of Cuba. His repertoire is undertaking chamber, symphonic, symphonic-choral, opera, and ballet music, plus the stylist work running from Baroque to contemporary streams. Guido López-Gavilán guest conductor A graduate of Choral Conducting at the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory in Havana in 1966 and having conducted at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow in 1973, Gavilán has achieved significant accomplishments in his career, both nationally and internationally. His works have been honored in the most important essay competitions held in Cuba, such as the National Composition Contest, Contest of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), and the Golden Age and Adolfo Guzman Contest. His work as director symphonic creditor has garnered great success and very complimentary reviews from critics worldwide. Among his most significant work in Europe should be noted those performances in the Warsaw Philharmonic, Poland; in the Great Hall of the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary; and Lisinsky Theatre in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Has also toured in major cities in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany, Spain, and the United States. Recently, he was invited by the Symphony Orchestra of Winterthur, Switzerland, to conduct a concert in his symphonic and choral compositions. In 2005, he was awarded the UNESCO medal in Chile, “Valparaiso, Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” He has conducted symphony orchestras that are all Cuban, highlighting his outstanding interpretations of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and also leading the National Symphony Orchestra in performances of his work, Victoria of Hope for symphony orchestra, chorus, soloists, actors, dance, and film. As a renowned symphonic composer and director, he has become increasingly sought-after. These events include New Music Festival in Winnipeg, Canada 2006, where he won the Audience Award; the InterAmerican Meeting organized by the University of Indiana, which was invited to the highest category given by the event; Sonidos de las Americas Festival organized by the American Composer Orchestra; as well as Carnegie Hall, the Juliard School, and other important institutions. He has been elected a founding member of the Association of American Composers of Art Music. The Caribbean Composers Forum has sponsored, through competition, recording a CD devoted entirely to his music on the double album, Cuba and Puerto Rico, Two Composers: Guido López-Gavilán and Carlos Vázquez. Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera piano Widely recognized as a young genius, Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera stunned Cuban audiences at the age of 12, performing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 with the Havana Symphony Orchestra. His love of classical music quickly combined with traditional Cuban rhythms under the instruction of the Cuban masters Rubén González, Jorge Gomez Labraña, and Frank Fernández. In his 20s, Nachito became the musical director at the famous Tropicana in Cuba where he continued to deepen his repertoire. In the late 1990s, Nachito joined the famed Cubanismo as its lead pianist, arranger, and musical director while cultivating a passion, talent, and reputation in Latin Jazz, a striking influence in his music today. 13