University Symphony Orchestra
Robert Gutter, conductor
Richard Earl Cook, guest conductor
featuring
Brooks Whitehouse, violoncello
Monday, December 9, 2002
7:30 pm
Aycock Auditorium
Program
Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 Piotr I. Tchaikovsky
Andante — Allegro con anima (1840-1893)
Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza
Valse: Allegro moderato
Finale: Andante maestoso — Allegro vivace
Richard Earl Cook, guest conductor
intermission
Concerto in A minor for Violoncello and Orchestra, Op. 129 Robert
Schumann
Nicht zu schnell (1810-1856)
Langsam
Lebhaft
(Played without pause)
Brooks Whitehouse, violoncello
Sinfonietta (1926) Leoš Janáček
Allegretto (1854-1928)
Andante
Moderato
Allegretto
Allegro
Mr. Cook’s appearance is in partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the
Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting
___________
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should please see one of the ushers in the lobby.
Patrons are encouraged to take note of the exits located on all levels of
the auditorium. In an emergency, please use the nearest exit, which may
be behind you or different from the one through which you entered.
UNCG Symphony Orchestra
Violin I
Dan Skidmore,
Co-Concertmaster
Fabrice Dharamraj,
Co-Concertmaster
Emily Arnold
Julia Barefoot
C. Christopher
Katie Costello
Kimberly Farlow
Tim Kim
Kwanghee Park
Wayne Reich
Violin II
Colleen Chenail, Principal
Melissa Ellis,
Assistant Principal
Becky Averill
Emily Blacklin
William Caballero
Jason Caldwell
Will Freeman
Rachel Godwin
Holly Sitton
Viola
Alvoy Bryan, Co-Principal
Sally Barton, Co-Principal
Chip Barnes
Sara Bursey
Morgan Caffey
Jamie DeLong
Katie Hayden
Jamaal Jones
Susannah Plaster
Frances Schaeffer
Patrick Scully
Morgan Smith
Violoncello
Meaghan Skogen,
Co-Principal
Gina Pezzoli, Co-Principal
Margie Baker
Liane Choe
Sarah Dorsey
Mike Hickman
Erin Klimstra
Double Bass
Suzanne Luberecki,
Principal
Andy Hawks,
Assistant Principal
Patrick Byrd
Emily Manansala
Brent Rawls
Ben Wolf
Flute & Piccolo
Amy Cerna, Co-Principal
Katie Verinder, Co Principal
Natalie Frith
Oboe & English Horn
Cathy Meyer, Co-Principal
Melanie Hoffner, Co-Principal
Amanda English, Co-Principal
Matt Ward
Clarinet & Bass Clarinet
Luc Jackman, Co-Principal
Leslie Miller, Co-Principal
Lindsey Clark
Erika Lamb
Horn
Michael Hrivnak, Co-Principal
Mary Pritchett, Co-Principal
Tara Cates, Co-Principal
Helen Peastrel
Richard King
Trumpet
Scott Toth, Co-Principal
Mark Hibshman, Co-Principal
Josh Davies
Justin Stamps
Trombone
Micah Everett, Principal
Amanda Peterson
Bass Trombone
Sean Devlin, Principal
Chris Cline
Tuba
Sam Nettleton, Principal
Timpani
A.J. Chenail, Principal
Percussion
Billy Bialecki
Caleb Gaston
Emily Harrison
Julia Thompson
Celesta
Richard Cook
Harp
Bonnie Bach
Extra Brass, Janáček
Trumpet
Wayne Bennett
Luke Boudreault
Mark Hibshman
Steven Peters
B.J. Scofield
Trent Walton
Bass Trumpet
Brian French
Glenn Wilkinson
Tenor Tuba
Ashley Sample
Michael McMillan
Brooks Whitehouse (BA, Harvard College, MMA and DMA, SUNY Stony Brook) is
UNCG’s new Cello Professor. He comes to Greensboro from the University of Florida
where he spent a year as Assistant Professor of Cello and Chamber Music. From
1996-2001 he and his wife, violinist Janet Orenstein, were artists in residence at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville as members of The Guild Trio. In his thirteen
years as cellist of the Guild Trio Mr. Whitehouse has performed and taught chamber
music throughout the US and abroad, holding Artists-in-Residence positions at SUNY
Stony Brook, the Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY, and The Tanglewood Music Center.
This ensemble was a winner of both the "USIA Artistic Ambassador" and "Chamber
Music Yellow Springs" competitions, and with the group Mr. Whitehouse has
performed throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in Norway, Turkey,
the former Yugoslavia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal, France and
Australia.
The UNCG School of Music has been recognized for years as one of the elite music
institutions in the United States. Fully accredited by the National Association of Schools of
Music since 1938, the School offers the only comprehensive music program from
undergraduate through doctoral study in both performance and music education in North
Carolina. From a total population of approximately 12,700 university students, the UNCG
School of Music serves over 575 music majors with a full-time faculty and staff of sixty. As
such, the UNCG School of Music ranks among the largest Schools of Music in the South.
The UNCG School of Music now occupies a new 26 million dollar music building which is
among the finest music facilities in the nation. In fact, the new music building is the largest
academic building on the UNCG Campus. A large music library with state-of-the-art
playback, study and research facilities houses all music reference materials. Greatly
expanded classroom, studio, practice room, and rehearsal hall spaces are key components
of the new structure. Two new recital halls, a large computer lab, a psychoacoustics lab,
electronic music labs, and recording studio space are additional features of the new facility.
In addition, an enclosed multi-level parking deck adjoins the new music building to serve
students, faculty and concert patrons.
Living in the artistically thriving Greensboro—Winston-Salem—High Point “Triad” area,
students enjoy regular opportunities to attend and perform in concerts sponsored by such
organizations as the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, the Greensboro Opera Company,
and the Eastern Music Festival. In addition, UNCG students interact first-hand with some
of the world’s major artists who frequently schedule informal discussions, open rehearsals,
and master classes at UNCG.
Costs of attending public universities in North Carolina, both for in-state and out-of-state
students, represent a truly exceptional value in higher education.
For information regarding music as a major or minor field of study, please write:
Dr. John J. Deal, Dean
UNCG School of Music
P.O. Box 26167
Greensboro, North Carolina 27402-6167
(336) 334-5789
On the Web: www.uncg.edu/mus/
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky:
Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Opus 64
Some listeners may be surprised to learn that nearly eleven years separated
Tchaikovsky’s fourth and fifth symphonies. In the decade between their premieres,
the composer produced many of his greatest works, including Francesca da Rimini,
Eugene Onegin, the violin concerto, the second piano concerto, the serenade for
strings, the 1812 overture, the Manfred Symphony, and The Sleeping Beauty ballet. In
the face of such productivity, it seems strange for Tchaikovsky to view his fifth
symphony as an attempt to prove to the world that he still had something to say. The
sixth (Pathétique) symphony, two more operas, the third piano concerto, and the
Nutcracker ballet were still to come; Tchaikovksy was far from finished as a
composer.
Tchaikovsky’s restless preoccupation with fate, as seen in the fourth symphony,
continued to plague him. His own writing prior to beginning work on the symphony
outlined a program built around a sort of life-and-death struggle against fate. Some
have attempted to connect this idea with writings from Tchaikovsky’s diary, but his use
of cryptic abbreviations in his personal notes makes any direct association impossible.
Whatever the motivation, the fifth was built around a “fate theme”, which served to tie
the work together through its appearance in each of the four movements.
The symphony was completed in August of 1888, and Tchaikovsky conducted its
premiere on November 17th of the same year. After a performance in Hamburg a year
later, Brahms said he did not like the finale. Tchaikovksy himself had a love/hate
relationship with many of his works, and the fifth symphony was no exception. Yet,
because of its intense passion combined with grace, it has remained one of his most
popular works.
Robert Schumann:
Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in A minor, Opus 129
Schumann's last years were a time of increasing concern over his mental health. Even
in his late teens he had endured periods of depression, and these sometimes recurred
for months on end in later years, preventing him from composing with any degree of
fluency. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the depression might vanish and
Schumann would turn out an assortment of masterpieces in an astonishingly short
time. In 1850, after six stultifying years in Dresden, Robert accepted the
conductorship of the Düsseldorf Music Society. No great shakes as a conductor, he
nonetheless badly wanted an orchestra of his own.
The appointment began with a warm welcome offered by the local musicians, but
Schumann's conducting was simply not up to the demands of the position, and his
health suffered. In April 1852, an attack of sleeplessness and depression came on
him and grew worse through the summer. In February 1854, he began to form
fantastic visions and claimed that he heard angelic music in his head, sometimes
replaced by tigers and hyenas threatening him with Hell. On February 26, he asked to
be taken to a lunatic asylum, where he was put to bed. The next morning, slipping out
during a moment when he was unwatched, he ran to the Rhine Bridge and threw
himself into the water in an attempt at suicide. Rescued from the icy stream, he was
committed into a mental hospital at Endenich, where he died two-and-a-half years
later.
Yet this sad ending of the Düsseldorf experience came only after one of those periods
of tremendous creative energy. He composed his Cello Concerto in just two weeks,
completing it on the very day of his first concert with the Düsseldorf orchestra. The
concerto was never performed in Robert's lifetime. Clara played through it at the piano
and wrote, in October 1851, "The romantic quality, the vivacity, the freshness and
humor, also the highly interesting interweaving of violoncello and orchestra are indeed
wholly ravishing, and what euphony and deep feeling one finds in all the melodic
passages!"
For many years the Schumann Cello Concerto was rather neglected, yet it is a unique
masterpiece. Perhaps this neglect can be explained in the first place because its basic
character — internalized expressive moods — is far from the normal vacuous glitter of
a traditional virtuoso concerto. Both technically and emotionally it requires a soloist of
mature musical instincts. Moreover, the Cello Concerto is unusually concentrated; it
needs several hearings for full appreciation of its compact form, its connections
between movements — links of sonority and effect, including the wonderful opening
sound of woodwind chords, pizzicato strings, and a lovely melody in the solo cello.
Schumann disliked having movements of a concerto interrupted by applause (as was
customary in his day), so he made the coda of the first movement into a passage that
slows down, grows less excited, so as to lead naturally to the quiet beginning of the
second movement (rather than designing it to whip the audience into a frenzy of
applause for the soloist).
Leoš Janáček:
Sinfonietta
The Czech composer Janáček was born in Hukvaldy in Moravia on 3rd July 1854.
Hukvaldy now is more like a small town than the tiny village — Pod Hukvaldy — of his
youth, but the school in which he was born and the adjacent church are still used. The
nearby house which he purchased later in life is a museum. He was the ninth of the
village schoolmaster's 14 children. At the age of eleven he was sent to the monastery
school in Brno where he sang in the choir. After graduating he went back to the
monastery as a teacher and deputy choirmaster. In 1879 he attended the Leipzig
Music Conservatoire to study composition. The next Spring he attended the Vienna
Conservatoire but left after three months because of an argument with his music
supervisor.
Janáček married one of his piano students, Zdenka Schulzova on 13th July 1881
about two weeks before her 16th birthday. A son, Vladimir, was born in 1888, but he
died of scarlet fever in November 1890. The death was a tragedy to both parents, as
was their daughter's death in 1903, and did not help their difficult marriage.
In the late 1890's Janáček became interested in the melodies of sounds including
human speech, animals and other sounds of nature. This interested him for the rest of
his life, and he carried a notebook on which to record the music of sounds he heard.
Janáček aspired to independence from the influence of the Austro-Hungarian empire,
and this too had a pervasive influence on his oeuvre.In 1917 Janáček was holidaying
in the spa resort of Luhacovice, and there he met Kamila Stosslova (née
Neumannova) who was 25 years old at the time. He became infatuated with her, and
she was the inspiration of his late masterpieces. Over 700 letters record his affection
for Kamila, and his second string quartet called Intimate Letters first performed in
1928, after his death on 12th August, refers to their relationship. Perhaps the opera
most directly inspired by Kamila is Kát’a Kabanová premiered in 1921. The Cunning
Little Vixen (or The Adventures of Sharp-ears), a tale about the endless cycle of
nature, could be thought of as the first opera of a trilogy about life and death. The
other operas of the "trilogy", works of his final years and less approachable than
earlier works, are The Makropulos Case and From the House of the Dead.
The Sinfonietta written at the end of Janáček's life is one of his major tone poems for
orchestra. The orchestration is for large orchestra with the addition of 9 extra
trumpets, and tenor tubas. The work was originally going to be a set of fanfares for a
gymnastic festival in Brno, Janáček's home, but then the Sinfonietta became an
orchestral piece celebrating the new independence of Czechoslovakia (as it was
then). Then it became a salute to Brno — Janáček's abrupt changes of mind are
mirrored in his music, which is full of energy and repeated figures but which also can
dart off in unexpected directions. Janáček gave the five movements titles which don't
appear today: 'Fanfare', 'The Castle', 'The Queen's Monastery', 'The Street' and 'The
Town Hall' — all in Brno of course. They give a clue to the pictures the composer's
careering music portrays, from the melancholy of the 'Queen's Monastery' to the
grand concluding fanfare, where all the extra brass do their part.
Robert Gutter is currently Director of Orchestral Activities at UNCG and also serves
as Music Director of the Philharmonia of Greensboro and the Fayetteville Symphony.
In 1996 he received an appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of the National
Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine in Kiev. He is founder and artistic director for the
International Institute for Conductors in Kiev. In his 30 years as a professional
conductor, he has devoted himself to both professional and non-professional
orchestras in over twenty countries. In addition to his symphonic engagements he has
appeared with opera companies both in the United States and in Europe. Prior to
accepting his orchestral posts in North Carolina in 1988, he served as Music Director
and Conductor of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Symphony for sixteen years. In
1986 he was named "Conductor Emeritus" of that Orchestra. Prior to his professional
conducting, Gutter was principal trombonist with the Washington National Symphony.
He holds the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Yale University.
Richard Earl Cook is among the most active conductors in the area. He has been
the assistant conductor for both Piedmont Opera Theater in Winston-Salem, and the
Greensboro Opera Company. He has conducted the Saint Louis Symphony Chorus,
the Winston-Salem/Piedmont Triad Symphony, the Winston-Salem Youth Symphony,
the Greensboro Youth Symphony, and the Charlotte Youth Symphony. Mr. Cook has
been on the faculty of Elon College and the North Carolina School of the Arts, where
he conducted the NCSA Cantata Singers and worked with the Summer Session. In
addition to directing the North State Chorale, he is Director of Choral Activities at High
Point University, and Director of Church Music at Macedonia Lutheran Church in
Burlington. He is currently enrolled in the DMA program in orchestral conducting at
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he is the assistant to maestro
Robert Gutter.
University Symphony Orchestra
Robert Gutter, conductor
Richard Earl Cook, guest conductor
featuring
Brooks Whitehouse, violoncello
Monday, December 9, 2002
7:30 pm
Aycock Auditorium
Program
Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 Piotr I. Tchaikovsky
Andante — Allegro con anima (1840-1893)
Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza
Valse: Allegro moderato
Finale: Andante maestoso — Allegro vivace
Richard Earl Cook, guest conductor
intermission
Concerto in A minor for Violoncello and Orchestra, Op. 129 Robert
Schumann
Nicht zu schnell (1810-1856)
Langsam
Lebhaft
(Played without pause)
Brooks Whitehouse, violoncello
Sinfonietta (1926) Leoš Janáček
Allegretto (1854-1928)
Andante
Moderato
Allegretto
Allegro
Mr. Cook’s appearance is in partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the
Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting
___________
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should please see one of the ushers in the lobby.
Patrons are encouraged to take note of the exits located on all levels of
the auditorium. In an emergency, please use the nearest exit, which may
be behind you or different from the one through which you entered.
