© 2009 Waltham Symphony Orchestra
Saturday September 26, 2009, 8:00 pm
Gestures and Expressions
Join Conductor Patrick Botti and the Waltham Symphony Orchestra in this exciting new season. This first concert presents harp soloist and WSO’s principal harpist, Virginia Crumb in “Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane” (Sacred Dance and Secular Dance) by Claude Debussy.
FALL OPENER -
Virginia Crumb, Harp
Virginia Crumb began harp studies with Lynne Palmer, then went on to study with Alice Chalifoux and Ann Hobson Pilot
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Ms. Crumb holds undergraduate degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Master’s degree in both harp performance and musicology from the New England Conservatory of Music.
She has played principal harp in the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Victoria Symphony (Canada.) In addition to Hong Kong and Canada, she has performed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and toured Europe with several ensembles.
She was a Tanglewood fellowship recipient and has played at the Grand Teton and New Hampshire Music Festivals.
In addition to the WSO, she performs with the New Hampshire Symphony, Springfield Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Alea III. In 1994, she was a featured performer at the American Harp Society’s National Convention. She has made numerous recordings of contemporary music.
Ms. Crumb has been on the music faculties of New England Conservatory, Milton Academy and Emmanuel College. She is the former president of the Boston Chapter of the American Harp Society.
Claude Debussy
Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane
For Harp and Strings
Claude Debussy
Prélude à l’après midi d’un Faune (Afternoon of a Faun)
Patrick Botti is famous for his rendition of French music. Because of his studying with prestigious French masters who themselves studied with Debussy, Fauré and Ravel, performing this music is second nature to him. He has conducted Afternoon of the Faun throughout his career, but it is the first type he is performing the piece with the Waltham Symphony Orchestra. The work will highlight the rich instrumental color patette of the orchestra.
Yehudi Wyner (b. 1929) Epilogue
Patrick Botti leads the WSO in this rendition of Yehudi Winer’s “Epilogue”. highlight the rich instrumental color patette of the orchestra.The piece was written in memory of Wyner;s friend, Jacob Druckman (1996).
Yehudi Wyner is one of the leading American composers of our time. Although born in 1929 in Calgary, Alberta (Canada), he grew up in New York City. He was exposed to music from an early age as his father, Lazar Wyner was a well known composer of Yeddish music art songs. Yehudi Wyner studied at the Juillard School, Yale University and Harvard. He was a Pullitzer Prize winner in 2006 with his piano concerto “Chiavi in Mano”. Included as part of all of his awards, honors and scholarships are: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Fellowship. Mational Endowment for the Arts grant, Rome Prize Fellowship, Hertz Fellowship. And the Naumburg Chair in Composition at Brandeis University from1991. He has also taught at Yale for fourteen years, Harvard, SUNY Purchase and Cornell.
He has written for a varieety of musical genres, symphony and chember orchestras, chamber ensembles, instrumental and vocal soloists and choruses.
He has also composed music for the theatre as well as music for Jewish Liturgy.
Igor Stravinsky
Firebird Suite (1919 version)
Patrick Botti leads the WSO in “Firebird Suite” by Igor Stravinsky.
Originally scheduled to conduct Ravel’s “La Valse”, Maestro Botti decided to instead perform Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite” to better reflect the theme of the Fall Opener, “Gestures and Expressions”. The constant renewal of the Phoenix by Fire and the amazing palette of sounds, timbers and rhythms developed throughout the work make this piece the perfect closing for an evening of perfect music.
