The Arkansas Symphony will focus on two things in its 2017-2018 Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks series of classical concerts: musical spectacles and showcasing its musicians.
A case in point: The orchestra's Feb. 24-25, concerts, which will include Richard Strauss' expansive tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra (the beginning minute and a half of which Stanley Kubrick used as the theme for his 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Gustav Holst's world-spanning The Planets. The program will lead off with John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine.
"You'll see numerous performances that use a larger orchestra than we've recently come to expect," says Music Director Philip Mann via Skype from Voronezh, Russia, the first stop on an Eastern European guest-conducting swing that also includes a stop in Bucharest, Romania. "There's an emphasis on the spectacular, certainly an exploration of the spectacle of orchestral sound."
That, Mann says, is due primarily to the orchestra's return this past season to Robinson Center, after a two-year-plus, $70 million rebuilding increased the size of the stage and created all-new, state-of-the-art acoustics.
"We're exploring the possibilities of our new space," he adds. "We're learning its capabilities, learning its challenges but also its opportunities."
As part of putting local players "front and center," Mann says, the season will see fewer guest soloists than usual and no guest conductor. And whereas a single concert would be set aside as an orchestra-only showcase, now there will be two: The Planets concert and the Nov. 4-5 pair, an all-Russian program that includes Dmitri Kabelevsky's Overture to Colas Breugnon, the second suite from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances.
In lieu of a guest conductor, the orchestra's associate conductor, Geoffrey Robson, will be on the podium for the Oct. 21-22 "French Connection" concerts. Ji-Yong, who goes by the single name "Ji" (pronounced "Gee"), will be the soloist in Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major. The program will also include Le Boeuf sur le toit by Darius Milhaud; the Symphony No. 1, "Berliner Sinfonie," by Kurt Weill; and the Petite Suite by Claude Debussy.
Robson, who joined the orchestra as associate conductor in 2008, primarily conducts pops programs, some run-out concerts around of the state, the pit band for Ballet Arkansas' The Nutcracker and some of the orchestra's Intimate Neighborhood Concerts. He's also a member of the orchestra's violin section.
"One of the important missions of a music director and an orchestra is to cultivate and continue to grow all of our artistic talent," Mann says. "To be able to offer Geoff [Robson] a Masterworks program is very productive for the organization and the most important vote of confidence."
Mann will be on the podium for the other five concert pairings. The rest of the lineup:
• Sept. 30-Oct. 1: Jennifer Frautschi, violin. Adam Schoenberg (this season's composer-in-residence): Go; Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1
• Jan. 27-28: Tatiana Roitman Mann, piano. Georges Bizet: Selections from Carmen; Manuel de Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain; Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique"
• April 14-15, 2018: "Beethoven and Blue Jeans." Barry Thomas, painter. Adam Schoenberg: Finding Rothko for Chamber Orchestra (Movements: Orange, Yellow, Red, Wine); Ravel: Mother Goose Suite; Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral."
COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE
Mann says Schoenberg will "fit right in with the composers that we have had come through, with an infectious enthusiasm and a desire to do community outreach and residency work. He just has an ebullient personality and a sense of humor that comes out in his music, that is just unabashedly joyful, just full of elan."
Mann conducted (with another orchestra) the world premiere of Schoenberg's Go on the season-opening program. The Symphony of Northwest Arkansas recently gave the world premiere of the full orchestra version of Slo-Mo in Fayetteville.
RIVER RHAPSODIES
Frautschi, who is making her third appearance with the orchestra (having played Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 in 2003 and Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto in 2013), is also this season's Richard Sheppard Arnold Artist of Distinction and, as such, will join members of the orchestra for the season's first River Rhapsodies Chamber Series concert, Oct. 3 at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock. The program will include Schoenberg's Winter Music and Tchaikovsky's Sextet, "Souvenir de Florence."
The rest of the River Rhapsodies lineup (players to be named later):
• Nov. 7: Pablo de Sarasate: Navarra, "Spanish Dance," for two violins; Camille Saint-Saens: Violin Sonata No. 1, op.75; Jefferson Friedman: String Quartet No. 2
• Jan. 30: Anton Arensky: Quartet for violin, viola and two cellos; Antonin Dvorak: String Quartet No. 13 in G major
• Feb. 27: Sergei Rachmaninoff: String Quartet No. 1; Jean Cras: Quintette for harp, flute, violin, viola and cello; W.A. Mozart: Divertimento No. 11, K.251
• March 27, 2018: Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 3 in D major, op.44 No. 1; Eric Ewazen: Down a River of Time
• April 17, 2018: Schoenberg: Slo-Mo; Kazimierz Serocki: Suite for Four Trombones; Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8 in e minor, op.59 No. 2, "Razumovsky."
POPS LIVE!
Mann says his choice for top highlight for the Acxiom Pops Live! Series at Robinson would be the March 10-11, 2018, "A Tribute to Ella," with singers Capathia Jenkins, Aisha de Haas and Nikki Renee Daniels paying tribute to Ella Fitzgerald in what would have been her 100th year.
He's also looking forward to the pops finale, May 12-13, 2018, a screening of the classic 1981 Stephen Spielberg action-adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark (starring Harrison Ford) with the orchestra playing the John Williams score live.
The other two pops concerts:
• Dec. 15-17: "Home for the Holidays," the orchestra's annual Christmas music-and-song-and-dance extravaganza.
• Feb. 10-11: "Music City Hit-Makers," with Nashville songwriters Rivers Rutherford, Chris DeStefano and Marcus Hummon performing and sharing the stories behind the more than 30 No. 1 hits they've written for Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Lady Antebellum and Kelly Clarkson, among others.
Season ticket information is available online at arkansassymphony.org; call (501) 666-1761.
Style on 03/12/2017