Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra The New World

April 24, 2010 - 8:00pm
  • Saturday, April 24, 2010
  • Old Cabell Hall
  • 8:00pm
  • $10 - $35/ Students $10.00 /Free for UVA students if reserved in advance
  • Sunday, April 25, 2010
  • Monticello High School
  • 3:30pm
  • $10 - $35/ Students $10.00 /Free for UVA students if reserved in advance

Gerald Baliles

The Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra concludes its 2009-10 Musical Postcards season with a stirring program entitled “The New World,” on Saturday, April 24, 8:00 p.m., at Old Cabell Hall on the UVa Grounds and Sunday, April 25, 3:30 p.m., at Monticello High School in Charlottesville.

The fifth and final Masterworks concert of the season, conducted by Music Director Kate Tamarkin, returns to American shores after previous stops in Italy, France, Central Europe and England.  The program includes Samuel Barber’s “Essay No. 2 for Orchestra,” Antonin Dvorák’s beloved Symphony No. 9 in e minor (“From the New World”) and the East Coast premiere of a newly commissioned work, Judith Shatin’s “Jefferson, In His Own Words.”

Sage Physics & Engineering is the corporate sponsor of both performances.  The Shatin commission was funded with partial support from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Samuel Barber, whose centennial is being observed in 2010, wrote his “Essays for orchestra” in 1937, 1942 and 1978.  No. 2, heard on this program, was composed at the request of Bruno Walter for the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York.  Barber was an avid and intellectual reader; the presence of literature in many of his other compositions is consistent with his adaptation of the essay form for this piece.

Antonin Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony is a perennial favorite in the orchestral literature.  Composed in 1892-93, it remains his most popular work, with strong echoes of such well-known American melodies as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Deep River” and “Going Home.”

“Jefferson, In His Own Words,” for narrator and orchestra, was co-commissioned by the Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the Richmond Symphony and the Illinois Symphony Orchestra.  Based on the writings of Thomas Jefferson, it draws on his vast correspondence and unfolds in a series of flashbacks that range from the humble incidents of daily life to ideas which lie at the bedrock of American democracy.  The work also includes references to some of his favorite music.

Judith Shatin is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Music at the University of Virginia.  She has composed two other Jefferson pieces.  The first, “We Hold These Truths,” scored for chorus, brass quintet and tympani, was commissioned by the University of Virginia on the occasion of Thomas Jefferson’s two-hundred-fiftieth birthday.  The second, “Rotunda,” is a film made in collaboration with Robert Arnold, Director of the School of Film and Photography at Montana State University.  It is based on a year’s collection of fixed point images of the Rotunda and on sounds and interviews collected during the same period.

The Orchestra has performed nearly all of Shatin’s orchestral compositions, including the premieres of “Singing the Blue Ridge” in 1984 and “Aura” in 1990.

Guest narrator Governor Gerald Baliles is Director of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, a leading public policy institution at the University of Virginia.  He previously served as a Virginia legislator and Attorney General, and was Governor from 1986-1990.  During his tenure as Governor, he served as Chairman of the National Governors Association.  Since then, he has continued a career of distinguished public service, including the Chairmanship of PBS and the Boards of Altria, Norfolk Southern, Newport News Shipbuilding, the Nature Conservancy of Virginia and the Virginia Historical Society.  He holds honorary degrees from eleven institutions of higher education.

For those who want to “know the score before they go,” free pre-concert lectures will be held 45 minutes before each concert on both days.  Saturday’s lecture will take place in Minor Hall.

Sunday’s lecture will be held in the Forum at Monticello High School.  Both will be presented by Mcintire Department of Music Associate Professor Richard Will.

“Noon Notes,” a popular free lecture series by Music Director Kate Tamarkin, will be offered on Friday, April 23, at 12:00 p.m. in the Northside Branch of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.  Judith Shatin will join Ms. Tamarkin in a dialogue about the process of composing  “Jefferson, In His Own Words.”

Free parking is available in the UVA Central Grounds Parking Garage, located on Emmet Street, on Saturday night and at the high school on Sunday afternoon.  The Orchestra’s usual shuttle service from the Scott Stadium T-4 Lot will not run on April 24th.

Tickets are priced at $35, $30, $25 and $20 for adults, and $10 for students.  UVa students may request one complimentary ticket in advance.  WHTJ, WVPT and WMRA Public Broadcasting MemberCard holders are entitled to two tickets for the price of one, using Benefit Number 261.

Tickets may be purchased at the University of Virginia Arts Box Office, (434) 924-3376, 12:00-5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, in the lobby of the Drama Building at 109 Culbreth Road, or on-line at www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu.

Arts Box Office: (434) 924-3376

Address

UVA Department of Music
112 Old Cabell Hall
P.O. Box 400176 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4176

Email: music@virginia.edu