Season Opener with Clyne, Tomasi and Brahms Symphony No.4

Anna Clyne - Rewind

Anna Clyne is a Grammy-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Clyne served as a Mead Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2010-2015, for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra during the 2015-2016 season, and for L’Orchestre national d’Île-de-France from 2014-2016. She was recently selected by the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA to serve as the Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with the Berkeley Symphony through the 2018-2019 season. Clyne’s double violin concerto, Prince of Clouds, was nominated for the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

Rewind is inspired by the image of analog video tape rapidly scrolling backwards with fleeting moments of skipping, freezing and warping. The original version, for orchestra and tape, was composed in 2005 for choreographer and Artistic Director of Hysterica Dance Company, Kitty McNamee. A distinct characteristic of McNamee’s work is its striking and innovative use of physical gestures and movements that recur throughout the course of a piece to build and bind its narrative structure. This use of repetitive gestures is utilized in the musical language and structure of Rewind. (Clyne)

 
Henri Tomasi - Trumpet Concerto

2018 Concerto Competition winner Andrew Heath

Henri Tomasi is a French composer and conductor, and the 1927 winner of the Grand Prix de Rome. The Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra was written in response to an order from the Conservatoire de Paris, and premiered in Paris in 1949. Dedicated to the Trumpeter Ludovic Vaillant, soloist at the National Orchestra, the warm character of this work reflects one of Tomasi’s happiest periods in life post-WWII.  

Andrew Heath, trumpet, enjoys a varied career in the Boston area as an orchestral player, soloist, and educator. Performing frequently with New World Symphony, the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, and Philharmonia Boston, he has spent his summers at the Marrowstone, Chautauqua, and Aspen music festivals, where he was an Aspen Conducting Academy Trumpet Fellow in 2018. In 2013, Andrew spent time at the National Conservatory of Strasbourg, France to focus on French repertoire for solo trumpet, under the tutelage of Vincent Gillig of the Strasbourg Philharmonic, and Yamaha Trumpet Artist Patrick Carceller. These studies extend to his work in all of his solo trumpet repertoire, including the Tomasi concerto, and his greater interpretation of French music. Earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in trumpet performance from Carnegie Mellon University in 2015, Andrew returned to his hometown of Boston to earn a Master of Music degree from New England Conservatory in 2017. His mentors and influences on the trumpet include Tom Siders, George Vosburgh, Raymond Mase, James Pandolfi, and Chuck Berginc. Andrew is on the faculty of the Wakefield Public Schools, Middleton Public Schools, the Dexter Southfield School, and the Dedham School of Music.
 

Johannes Brahms - Symphony No.4

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist of the Romantic period. Brahms is both a traditionalist and an innovator; his music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. His reputation and status as a composer are such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music.

Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 is the last of his symphonies, and represents all of the knowledge Brahms had cultivated throughout his career. Brahms began working on the piece just a year after completing his Third Symphony. Eager to get feedback from friends, Brahms originally arranged and performed the Fourth Symphony in a setting for two pianos. Although the preview was received less than enthusiastically, the work was finally premiered in Meiningen, Germany in 1885 with Brahms himself conducting. It was ultimately well received and has remained popular ever since.

The Fourth Symphony is composed in four movements: Allegro non troppo, Adante moderato, Allegro giocoso, and Allegro energico e passionato. The finale is famous for its Baroque passacaglia, a theme-and-variations adapted from a chaconne theme in Bach’s Cantata 150; Brahms developed a total of 30 variations.