Four of the five composers represented on today’s program are living. These are their notes on their pieces. Maestro Warren Cohen provides the notes for Sibelius’ Sixth Symphony.

 

Cheng Jin Koh: Water Moon for String Orchestra (premiere)

Rooted in Buddhist ideas of enlightenment, the ancient Chinese proverb “flower in the mirror,, moon on the water” (Jìng hua shui yuè,) evokes illusions that are visible yet forever out of reach. Water Moon reflects a longing for the unattainable—an evanescent beauty that can be perceived, but never possessed, existing only in thought and imagination.

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Carter Pann: My Cross for Soprano Saxophone and Orchestra (premiere)

My Cross (2021) was commissioned as a gift to Boulder resident Laurie Hathorn by her husband, for flutist Christina Jennings. The piece is an exploration in bel canto writing for an instrument I have been in love with since my first forays as a composer. The technical challenges for the soloist lie primarily in breath control and in maintaining a sustained, beautiful tone throughout. Any meaning behind this music will remain a private, long-suffered trial for the composer to overcome.

 

(Carter Pann revised the solo flute part for soprano saxophone and sent it to Christopher Creviston, who he is premiering it with us today. The work suits the instrument beautifully, and we are honored to have the opportunity to present it in this version.)

 

Gabriela Lena Frank: Concertino Cusqueño

Concertino Cusqueño (2012), written in celebration of the fine players of the Philadelphia Orchestra on the eve of Yannick Nézet-Ségun's inaugural season as music director, finds inspiration in two unlikely bedfellows: Peruvian culture and British composer Benjamin Britten. As a daughter of a Peruvian immigrant, I've long been fascinated by my multicultural heritage and have been blessed to find Western classical music to be a hospitable playpen for my wayward explorations. In doing so, I've looked to composers such as Alberto Ginastera from Argentina, Béla Bartók from Hungary, Chou Wen-Chung from China, and my own teacher William Bolcom from the United States as heroes: To me, these gentlemen are the very definition of "cultural witnesses," as they illuminate new connections between seemingly disparate idioms of every hue imaginable.

 

To this list, I add Britten, whom I admire inordinately., I wish I could have met him, worked up the nerve to show him my own music, invited him to travel to beautiful Perú with me... I would have shared chicha morada (purple corn drink) with him, taken him to a zampoña panpipe instrument-making shop, set him loose in a mercado (market) streaming with immigrant chinos and the native indio descendants of the Incas. I would have loved showing him the port towns exporting anchoveta (anchovies), the serranos (highlands) exporting potatoes, and the selvas (jungles) exporting sugar. And I know Britten would have been fascinated by the rich mythology enervating the literature and music of this small Andean nation, so deeply similar to the plots of his many operas, among other works.

 

Concertino Cusqueño welds together two brief musical ideas::The first few notes of a religious tune, Ccollanan María, from Cusco (the original capital of the Inca empire Tawantinsuyu, and a major tourist draw today) with the simple timpani motif from the opening bars of the first movement of Britten's elegant Violin Concerto. I am able to spin an entire one-movement work from these two ideas, designating a prominent role to the four string principle players (with a healthy nod to the piccolo/bass clarinet duo and, yes, the timpanist). In this way, while imagining Britten in Cusco, I can also indulge my own enjoyment of personalizing the symphonic sound by allowing individuals from the ensemble to shine..

 

Victoria Vita Poleva: Turn the River (Western US premiere)

"Turn the River" (2024) is based on the Ukrainian folk song Plive Kacha, which became famous after  the Maidan Uprising in Kyiv. The meaning of this song is very deep: It tells about the grief of a mother who lost her son, about the grief of a son who lost his native land, about the flow of the river of life that carries us all. I would like to change the course of this river and direct it back, from sadness to joy. This is possible in music, in the world of living musical ideas. I hope this happens.

 

Jean Sibelius: Symphony no. 6

The Sixth Symphony (1923) is sometimes called the “Cinderella” of Sibelius' symphonies because it is performed less frequently than the Fifth or Second. The reason is easy to see.  It does not have a triumphant ending, and much of the music, inspired as it is by Renaissance counterpoint, has a sort of inward cast. Despite this, the work has an almost mythical status among devotees of Sibelius' music. It is, by any standard, among the most remarkable compositions by a major composer. Although written in the early 1920s, there is nothing that hints at the era. Indeed, despite its influences, the music itself  sounds is unlike anything written before. It is sui generis, a work that seems to exist in a timeless world of its own creation, a unique perspective on the ways to organize sound.

 

Sibelius himself said that the music “The sixth symphony always makes me remember the scent of the first snow. ” He also that the music needs to have passion and even anger, but he was aware that these qualities might not be apparent at first glance. The opening, clearly inspired by Renaissance choral music, is remarkable for the way the lines of the various string parts interact. The effect is peaceful, but haunting. When the main theme of the movement emerges, it is at the same tempo as the “slow” introduction but seems faster. Sibelius creates the feeling of a new tempo simply by using shorter note values. A remarkable feature of this work is that despite its predominately lyrical quality, there is no slow movement. This is a feature of a number of Haydn and at least two Beethoven Symphonies, but it was unheard of in symphonies of the post-classical era.

 

The second and third movements are shorter and seem to present two contrasting pictures of a Scherzo-like approach, while the last movement seems to recall the first movement, especially at the end. But in fact all four movements are based, in some way or another, on the same descending three note pattern. In this way we see what Sibelius meant when he said that a “Symphony must be internally compelling and inevitable.” The unity of its thought must be there, but he never engaged in the type of overt thematic unity that has one return to a theme in a later movement that had been featured in an earlier one.

 

The way in which the beautiful music at the end of this symphony reflects on the opening measures without quoting them is echt-Sibelius, and, as he would wish, makes the quiet ending both inevitable and profound. 

 

 

About the soloist

Arizona State University professor Christopher Creviston is hailed as "one of the world's top saxophone artists" (Audiophile Audition) with "the personality and fingers of a first rate soloist" (American Record Guide), "subtle, perceptive phrasing, and flawless control of vibrato" (Fanfare Magazine). He has played venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to Paisley Park and the Apollo Theater.  As soloist and with the Capitol Quartet, Creviston has been featured with bands and orchestras across the U.S. 

 

As a recitalist and clinician, he performs regularly with the Capitol Quartet, and in duos with pianist Hannah Gruber Creviston and guitarist Oren Fader. In addition to several established recordings with these ensembles, Creviston’s most recent releases are the premiere recording of the Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Band by William Bolcom with conductor Gary Hill and the Arizona State University Wind Orchestra, and a Creviston Duo CD called Breaking, presenting works commissioned (or co-commissioned) by the duo from composers Stacy Garrop, Mark Lanz Weiser, Katherine Hoover and John Fitz Rogers. 

 

He is president of the North American Saxophone Alliance. 

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MusicaNova Orchestra

Violin I

Julian Nguyen, concertmaster

   John and Elizabeth McKinnon chair

Bridget Mitchell

Linda Quintero

Heidi Riggs

Patricia Synder

Emilio Vasquez

Danny Yang

 

Violin II

Dasom Jeon, principal

   Robert Dixon chair

Katrina Becker

Jhen Chen

Lisa Eisenberg

Joshua Lynch

Morganne McIntyre

Esme Peters

Patty Waxman

 

Viola

Allyson Wuenschel, principal

   Dominque Van Stadt & Octavio Pajaro chair

Vanessa Bisaha

Cynthia DuBrow

Elizabeth Hanson

Jill Osborne

 

Cello

   Ed & Cynthia DuBrow section

Jennifer Cox, principal

Billy Glazer

Cindy Leger

Maria Savarese

Maria Simiz

 

Bass

Sila Kuvanci, principal

Siqing Zhang

 

Flute

Michelle Stolper, principal

Alan Tomasetti

 

Oboe

Curtis Sellers, principal

   Nina Gurin memorial chair

Hannah Selznick

   Marjorie Sherman chair

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Clarinet

Kristin Garnaat, principal

   Robert & Cynthia Leger chair

Anthony Maseillo

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Bass clarinet

Timothy Haas

 

Bassoon

Ben Paley, principal

John Friedeman

 

French horn

Martha Edwards, principal

Gail Rittenhouse

   Donna Reiner chair

Samanda Engels

Patrick Joyce

 

Trumpet

Stephen Martin, principal

Greg Lloyd

Davey Aguilera

 

Trombone

Vincent Quintana, principal

Bob Wittkamp

Sean Holly

 

Percussion

Sonja Branch, principal

   David and Dory Mawyer chair

Caleb Hupp

Claudio Castellanos

 

Keyboard

Chris Granger

   Mark Scarp chair

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Harp

Emma Quinn

 

Personnel manager: Jamilyn Richardson

Librarian: Lisa Tharp Friedeman

Audio recording: Nathan James, Vault Classical

Video recording: David Ice