Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Westminster United Church
29 November 2005

Alain Trudel, conductor
Yegor Dyachkov, cello

 

Robert TURNER (b. 1920)
Manitoba Memoir (1989)

Michael OESTERLE (b. 1968)
Ironman, for solo cello and chamber orchestra

I. To dream of burning coals
II. Abraham Darby
III. Bloomery Method
IV. Crucible Technique
V. Ned Ludd

CBC Commission
World Premiere Performance

Mr. Dyachkov

Intermission
Refreshments are available upstairs in the concert hall.

Aaron Jay KERNIS (b. 1960)
Musica Celestis

Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)
Appalachian Spring; Ballet suite for chamber orchestra

1. Very slowly
2. Allegro
3. Moderato: The Bride and her Intended
4. Fast: The Revivalist and his Flock
5. Allegro: Solo Dance of the Bride
6. Meno mosso
7. Doppio movimento: Variations on a Shaker Hymn
8. Moderato: Coda

This concert is co-presented by CBC Radio Two and is being recorded
for In Performance, Monday to Friday at 8 pm, Studio Sparks with host Eric Friesen,
Monday to Friday from 12 noon to 3 pm, Symphony Hall with host Katherine Duncan,
Sundays at 10 am, and On Stage with host Shelley Solmes, Sundays at 2 pm
on Radio Two and 8 pm on Radio One.

Concert sponsor / Richardson Foundation
Season sponsor / The Great-West Life Assurance Company
Print media sponsor / Winnipeg Free Press
Radio media sponsors / CBC Radio Two 98.3, CBC Radio One 990 and Golden West Radio
Electronic media sponsor / Shaw Cable

Alain Trudel

Over the last few years Alain Trudel has established himself as one of the most exciting, musical and effective new conductors. Equally at home with top orchestras and student formations, with repertoire ranging from the Baroque to the avant-garde and jazz, he has been invited and, more importantly, re-invited by many orchestras and musical training programs to work with them.

Engagements in 2003/04 included the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, as well as the CBC Vancouver Winds (for a special Mozart and Richard Strauss project). Upcoming engagements include concerts in Guatemala and Salvador. Alain Trudel has also conducted, with return invitations in discussion, the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, the Victoria and Saskatoon symphonies, the Brass Band of Battle Creek (USA), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra.

His recording with the Northern Sinfonia (UK) on Naxos, on which he also performs as trombone soloist, has earned rave reviews worldwide.

Alain Trudel has had an increasing number of requests for his services of late: he has had invitations for the past three years from Orchestra London and in 2004 he conducted three separate programs for this orchestra; Windsor Symphony has invited him to conduct over 30 concerts in the past five years; in 2003 and 2004 the Banff Centre invited him to conduct the orchestra formed by their artists in residence; the Glenn Gould School of Music at the Royal Conservatory of music has made him one of their principal guest conductors; and Scotia Festival has invited him three times in the past four years to be the conductor-in-residence and to give conducting master classes, including a CBC broadcast with Halifax’s Upstream orchestra.

Trudel has a profound understanding of music and orchestras. This leads to engagements to conduct chamber ensembles with members of various important orchestras, e.g., the Bayerische Rundfunk, the Boston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the National Arts Center Orchestra.

Alain Trudel is also artistic director and coordinator of the Summer Serenade Festival and training program in the Laurentian Mountains in Québec. Previously, he was for 13 years coordinator and conductor of the winds, brass and percussion session at the Camp musical des Laurentides, and he has been invited to conduct the orchestra program at the IMC music camp.

For more than a decade Alain Trudel has been the instrumental music director and arranger of the CBC National Radio’s Christmas Sing-In, the annual Christmas concert of the national radio.

Yegor Dyachkov

He was proclaimed ‘Artist of the Year’ by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Toronto Women’s Musical Club, and was winner of the 2000 Young Canadian Musician Award: the year 2000 provided ample confirmation that cellist Yegor Dyachkov, described as “extraordinarily masterful and intense” (François Tousignant, Le Devoir), is destined to have a brilliant career. He has consistently drawn the praise of audiences and critics at home and abroad for the intensity and richness of his playing, his remarkably mature musicianship and the diversity of his repertoire.

An inspired recitalist and chamber musician and respected orchestral soloist, Mr. Dyachkov has performed throughout Europe, Asia, Latin America, Canada and the United States (where he made his New York debut at the Lincoln Center in October 2000). In addition to invitations from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, I Musici de Montreal, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, he has performed at festivals in Évian, Kronberg, Tanglewood, Ottawa, Lanaudière and Vancouver. His performances have been broadcast and televised in Canada and abroad.

As a member of the Arthur Leblanc String Quartet (1999-2001) Mr. Dyachkov gave fifty to sixty concerts a year in North America and Japan. He has also performed with the Arditti, Borromeo and St. Lawrence Quartets and with many musicians including Anton Kuerti, Stéphane Lemelin, Scott St. John, Steven Isserlis and Marina Piccinini.

A keen exponent of contemporary music, he was the soloist for the first French performance of Giya Kancheli’s Diplipito, and premiered the Sonata dedicated to him by Jacques Hétu and Menuhin: Présence, written for him by the late André Prévost. He was also invited by Yo-Yo Ma and Sony Music to take part in the Silk Road Project. Chandos invited him to record his debut CD featuring Glazunov’s Concerto Ballata, and he subsequently made critically acclaimed recordings for the Pelléas (Opus Prize 2001) and Brioso labels.

Born in Moscow in 1974, Yegor Dyachkov studied with Aleksandr Fedorchenko at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Yuli Turovsky at the University of Montreal and, from 1995 to 1998, with Boris Pergamenschkov at the Hochschule in Cologne. He himself now teaches master classes in which he inspires young cellists with his articulate vision, technical precision and boundless enthusiasm.

Robert Turner

Robert Turner’s first major work was his String quartet no. 1, written in 1949 and premiered under the aegis of Aaron Copland in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, where Turner was studying composition with Olivier Messiaen. This work was acclaimed by both Copland and Leonard Bernstein. Since then, Robert Turner has written some 70 compositions in all forms, from symphonic and chamber works to operatic, vocal and ensemble pieces. From 1952 to 1968 Dr. Turner was CBC’s Music Producer in Vancouver, responsible for major CBC programs involving the performance of high quality ‘live’ music, both classical and contemporary, introducing audiences to a diverse range of unfamiliar and innovative compositions. As well as producing weekly programs for the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra, Turner supervised recitals, opera and oratorio productions, and symphony broadcasts for the CBC national network.

In 1968 Turner decided to devote more time to composition and accepted a professorship at the University of Manitoba’s School of Music. He is gratified that many of his former students — among them Glenn Buhr, Bruce Carlson, Pat Carrabré, Diana McIntosh, Ron Paley and David Scott — have established reputations as composers.

After his retirement in 1989, Turner composed many of his most significant orchestral works, including tonight’s compositioin, Manitoba Memoir, premiered by the MCO in 1991. During the 1990 season, in celebration of Turner’s 70th birthday, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra performed five of his major orchestral works under the direction of Bramwell Tovey. In recognition of his distinguished. creative and innovative contributions to Canadian music and culture, Robert Turner received the Commemorative Medal for the 125th anniversary of the Confederation of Canada (1993) and the Order of Canada (2003).

He and his wife of 56 years, composer and percussionist Sara Scott Turner, live in Winnipeg.

Michael Oesterle

Michael Oesterle, born in 1968 in Ulm, Germany, immigrated to Canada in 1982, and since 1996 has been living in Montréal. He has received several awards, such as the Gaudeamus Prize, the Grand Prize at the 12th CBC Radio National Competition for Young Composers, and the Canada Council Jules Léger Prize.

Oesterle’s works have been performed by ensembles including the Ives Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini, Ensemble Contemporain du Montréal, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), the Chicago Civic Orchestra, les Percussions de Strasbourg, and the Montréal Symphony Orchestra. He has produced projects in collaboration with composer Gerhard Staebler, violinist Clemens Merkel, painters Christine Unger and video/installation artist Wanda Koop. Currently, he is developing the music for a film by animator Christopher Hinton, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

In 1997 Michael Oesterle founded the Montréal based Ensemble KORE with pianist Marc Couroux and in March 2001 he was appointed composer-in-residence with l’Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montréal.

Manitoba Memoir (1989)
Robert Turner

The composer has provided the following note:

Manitoba Memoir, for string orchestra, was commissioned by the CBC for performance by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra: it is a fifteen-minute work in three connected movements.

The first is a flowing Pastorale (Of Time and the River(s)) which concludes with a kind of chorale-prelude in which a hymn tune (adapted from the 1635 Scottish Psalter) is combined with the theme of the Pastorale. This is followed directly by a robust Folk Dance (Ethnic Celebration) containing a lighter, playful middle section.

The main dance theme is broken into by the concluding movement, an Epilogue subtitled ‘Prairie Sunset.’ Here the music alternates quiet cluster harmonies for the full strings (21 separate parts) with ruminative interjections by a solo viola. Rising to an incandescent outburst, the music fades out on high harmonies and low plucked chords. Besides the solo viola in this section, the first and second movements feature solo passages for cello and for violin, respectively.

Ironman, for cello solo and chamber orchestra (2005)
Michael Oesterle

The composer has provided the following note:

At the last stage of the archaeological sequence known as the three-age system, iron took the place of bronze and determined man’s development as a ‘technological society.’ The ability to work iron was considered among the greatest triumphs on the timeline of human evolution. It has shaped our values: courage, strength, honour, endurance, but chiefly the arrogant defiance of the limitations of the natural world. Man became the Ironman, resistant to the vagaries of nature, resistant to change, defiant of history. Our race to control nature has become a self-destructive metaphor as dated and inadequate to our current social and environmental needs as the period of time that it references.

The titles of the five movements reflect the progression of industrialism. To dream of burning coals mimics an early optimism, fast and melodic with appropriately British overtones. Methodical, determined, and contemplative, Abraham Darby refers to three men — grandfather, father, and son — who were all pivotal in the development of ironworking processes that made our modern infrastructure possible. The Bloomery Method refers to a pre-industrial ironworking technique replaced by the Darbys. Its smug and capricious overtones suggest that the technique may have been replaced but the nature of man remains the same. The Crucible Technique (that replaced the Bloomery Method) is a more mature and fatalistic musette, a working man’s music with overtones of a medieval organ grinder. Ned Ludd, the name of the mythical leader of the anti-industrial Luddite movement, marks a new awareness of the true meaning of ‘progress’ with a melancholy song in 13/8 time. It reflects on our inability to shrug off the values of the Iron Age, values that have become as instinctual, as ritualistic, and as hard to disregard as the impulses of our reptilian brain.

Ironman was commissioned by the CBC for cellist Yegor Dyachkov and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.

Musica Celestis
Aaron Jay Kernis

Aaron Jay Kernis has been described as a composer of “fastidious technique” and wide-ranging imagination who responds especially to words or visual images. His musical range is extremely broad, from the lively and vigorous to the sustained and thoughtful. Musica Celestis was inspired, according to the composer, by the medieval conception of that phrase which refers to the singing of the angels in heaven in the praise of God in perpetuity. Kernis admits that he doesn’t believe in angels as such, but found it to be a ‘potent image’ that has been reinforced by listening to a good deal of medieval music, especially the soaring work of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). The movement, taken from Kernis’s String quartet, follows a simple, spacious melody and harmonic pattern through a number of variations and modulations, and is framed by an introduction and coda.

Rapturous slow sections, with high strings predominating, encompass a more turbulent central section. In this work, is both the inner calm and the ecstasy of Hildegard’s visions.

Appalachian Spring
Ballet suite for chamber orchestra
Aaron Copland

With the completion of the ballet score Appalachian Spring composed for Martha Graham (1943-44), Copland transferred his ‘outdoor’ American style to the new medium of a 13-part chamber orchestra. After 1930 Copland’s music alternated between what has been called his austere style, e.g., his Piano Variations, and a style based on folk music elements — designed to appeal more immediately to a large public through making a conscious effort toward achieving what he termed ‘an imposed simplicity.’ Copland set out to please a wide audience without losing the elements of a personal style.

The use of folk tunes, or of material related to folk music, was carried a step further in scores composed for the dance productions Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and especially Appalachian Spring — which remains the work by which Copland is probably best known to the general public, and through which he most effectively realized his hope of communicating with a large audience.

The score, diatonic and folk-like, evokes the pastoral, pioneer mood of early Americana, with its scenes of tenderness between the Bride and her Intended, the folk hymn atmosphere of the Revivalist and his Flock, and suggestions of country dances and fiddle tunes. The sentiments of rural piety are reflected in the Shaker song Simple Gifts.

The five variations on this Shaker tune are among the most effective pages of Appalachian Spring.

 

 

Anne Manson / Music Director and Conductor

MCO's 2010/11 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio 2 98.3, Espace musique 89,9 and Golden West Radio. Heartstrings gala sponsor:
Mann Financial Assurance Limited. Sponsor of open dress rehearsals: Canadian Bridge Federation.
Arts Accessibility Program: Sun Life Financial.

© 2010 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra