1. Debbie and I arrived at the Fox Theater this afternoon in plenty of time to hear Conductor James Lowe and guest cello soloist Zuill Bailey give a talk about today's concert.
Today's concert was entitled Americana and, with the exception of Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations, the concert focused on exploring musical identity in the USA.
The cellist, Zuill Bailey, had collaborated recently with former Spokane Symphony Music Director, Eckhart Preu, on a commission to recruit five American composers of different backgrounds to each create a five minute composition inspired, however they wanted, by the Declaration of Independence. Each of the five compositions featured the cello as a solo instrument and Zuill Bailey filled that role.
So, Bailey and Lowe discussed the process of putting these five compositions together into a single suite and previewed the emotional content of each piece. The title of the suite: Visions of Humanity. The composers:
Chanda Dancy-Morizawa, African-American
Avner Dorman: Israeli-American
Zhou Tian: Chinese-American
Enrico Chapela: Mexican-American
Mark O'Connor: Appalachian-American
Bailey and Lowe's discussion of these compositions was fascinating and I appreciated being prepared to experience the variety of ways these composers explore humanity and the musical identity of the USA.
2. Another great pleasure of this concert was that it opened and closed (or so we thought it closed! More later!) with compositions by Aaron Copland.
The orchestra's performance of Variations on a Shaker Melody set a tone of beauty of familiarity of the concert.
The final (or so we thought) piece of the concert was Copland's Suite from Billy the Kid, twenty minutes of selections from Copland's Billy the Kid ballet.
Fitting snugly into the Americana theme was William Grant Still's warm and lyrical Mother and Child, in which Still brought together his classical European influenced training as a composer with the bluesy and jazzy root music of his life as an African-American.
The concert program stepped out of the Americana theme for Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, giving us another opportunity to savor the brilliance of cellist Zuill Bailey.
3. After the orchestra finished Billy the Kid, and the standing ovations and bows by the conductor and the orchestra concluded, suddenly James Lowe reappeared and to the absolute delight of the audience, the orchestra suddenly played Stars and Stripes Forever. The audience clapped rhythmically at the appropriate places, the three piccolo players wowed the audience during their section, and as the lights came back on, the audience left the Fox Theater sporting wide grins and joy.
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