New Century Chamber Orchestra at First Congregational Church, November 22, 2013

New Century Chamber Orchestra: Legacies and Concertos
2013-11-22
First Congregational Church
2345 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA
8:00 PM, Friday, November 22, 2013

[8:05 PM lights down, announcements]

1. [8:06 PM] Samuel Jones (b.1935): Elegy for Strings (1963)
   [work ends 8:12 PM; banter from NSS]

1. [8:15 PM] Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Andante cantabile for string orchestra with solo cello (1871); featuring Susan Babini: cello.
   [work ends 8:22 PM]

Anton Stepanovich Arensky (1861-1906): Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a (1894)

1. [8:23 PM] Theme, Moderato
2. [8:00 PM] Variation I, Un poco più mosso
3. [8:00 PM] Variation II, Allegro non troppo
4. [8:00 PM] Variation III, Andantino tranquillo
5. [8:00 PM] Variation IV, Vivace
6. [8:00 PM] Variation V, Andante
7. [8:00 PM] Variation VI, Allegro con spirito
8. [8:00 PM] Variation VII, Andante con moto
9. [8:00 PM] Coda: Moderato
   [work ends 8:38 PM]

[8:59 PM lights down, announcements]

1. [9:01 PM] Clarice Assad (b. 1978): Dreamscapes (2009), featuring Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg: violin.
   [work ends 9:14 PM; video presentation by MD]

Michael Daugherty (b. 1954): Fallingwater for Solo Violin and Strings (2013) (World Premiere), Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg: violin.

1. [9:18 PM] Night Rain
2. [9:24 PM] On the Level
3. [9:28 PM] Prairie Psalm
4. [9:35 PM] Ahead of the Curve
   [set ends 9:40 PM]

• Hrabba Atladottir: first violin;
• Susan Babini: principal cello;
• Kathleen Balfe: cello;
• Robin Bonnell: cello;
• Jenny Douglass: viola;
• Jory Fankuchen: second violin;
• Candace Guirao: principal second violin;
• Dawn Harms: assistant concertmaster, first violin;
• Anna Kruger: principal viola;
• Anthony Manzo: principal contrabass;
• Robin Mayforth: second violin;
• Isaac Melamed: cello;
• Anna Presler: second violin;
• Jeremy Preston: second violin;
• Cassandra Lynne Richburg: viola;
• Kurt Rohde: viola;
• Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg: concertmaster, music director, first violin;
• Karen Shinozaki Sor: first violin;
• Iris Stone: first violin.

I enjoyed tonight's concert quite a bit. The opening work, Elegy for Strings was appropriately solemn and mournful, and served its function of telling the audience to put away everyday cares and tune in to the quiet and beauty of the moment.

The following work, Tchaikovsky's Andante cantabile, was my favorite for the evening, but then, I'm a sucker for the cello.

I think it was my first tie hearing Arensky's Variations, and while the connection to Tchaikovsky seemed audible to me, it was also pretty clear that Arensky had plenty of frsh ideas himself, cramming an introduction, eight variations and a coda into a scant fifteen minutes. No malingering there!

I was happy to hear Clarice Assad's Dreamscape again – a reprise from ?2009? – and somewhat surprised by how little I recognized it. In tonight's rendition, it seemed to me to evoke a sort of anguished, nervously foreboding nightmare – a dreamscape of sorts, but not the sort that I want to remember!

The finale, tonight's world premiere of Michael Daugherty's Fallingwater, a violin concerto, required an appropriately virtuousic performance from NSS, and she delivered in spades. This being a modern piece, much of that effort was aimed at adding screeches, trills, scrapes and other extended techniques unlikely to be found in much use in the standard repertoire.

Program notes are available online from the NCCO website

Elijah Ho posted an interview with Michael Daughety on the Mercury News website.

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