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Classical Concert No. 2 - Rise of the Firebird
  Saturday,
April 4, 2009, 8:00 PM
First United Methodist Church
Peter Tchaikovsky
Romeo & Juliet Fantasy
Manly Romero Remember, Father
(world premiere)
Jessica Mathaes, violin
B. Allen Schulz Reflections
(world premiere)
Igor Stravinsky Firebird Suite (1919)
Silas Nathaniel
Huff, conductor
Join us
as we present jewels from the past and
present. We offer you Peter Illich Tchaikovsky's
Romeo & Juliet Fantasy, laden with beautiful melodies and lush
orchestral moments, followed by a world premiere
of Manly Romero's Remember, Father,
for violin and orchestra, featuring the gifted violinista extraordinaire Jessica Mathaes,
concertmaster of the Austin Symphony. The world
premiere of Allen Schulz's Reflections, an
exuberant orchestral romp, follows, and the concert
concludes with Igor Stravinsky's triumphant
masterpiece, the Firebird Suite.
"The
excitement surrounding the first performance of a
piece of music is contagious. It makes me imagine
I’m in Vienna in the 1820s and a crowd is coming to
hear Beethoven’s newest composition. The performers
are geared up to play their best, the audience
anticipates something new and fresh, and of course
the composers are thrilled...When the concert ends,
realizing we have heard something wonderful for the
first time ever, we understand that we are a part of
history—it’s electrifying!"
—Maestro Silas Huff
More info:
 JESSICA
MATHAES
is praised by Jaime Laredo as "a superb
violinist" and by Philippe Entremont as "a
born player...a wonderful violinist!" She
enjoys a fast-growing solo reputation for
her beautiful tone and remarkable ability to
communicate with audiences. Her debut solo
CD with pianist Rodney Waters will be
released on the Centaur label in 2009. The
first-ever winner of the Classical Artists
Development Foundation fellowship, Ms.
Mathaes has appeared in concert throughout
the United States and Europe, and has been
featured on numerous radio stations and
ARTE, the French-German cultural television
channel. Ms. Mathaes holds degrees in violin
and viola performance from Rice University,
where she graduated magna cum laud.
She has been on the faculty as soloist and
guest concertmaster of the International
Festival-Institute at Round-Top, and has
given masterclasses at numerous
universities, as well as the American
Festival for the Arts. In 2009, Ms. Mathaes
joins the faculty of the Hot Springs Music
Festival. She currently resides in
Pflugerville, Texas, where she balances her
solo career with being the youngest-ever
concertmaster of the Austin Symphony, a
position she won in 2005.
 PETER
ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY’s
(1840-1893) memorable melodies, unabashed
emotionalism, and consistently brilliant
output make him one of the world’s most
popular composers. These things also make
him an easy target for critics who claim
that he was unoriginal or historically
insignificant, but his music has been cited
repeatedly as a source of inspiration of
great composers like Franz Liszt and Igor
Stravinsky. Born to a middle class family in
Votkinsk, Russia in 1840, Tchaikovsky
dutifully studied law before following his
true calling by entering the St. Petersburg
Conservatory. Upon graduation, he quickly
took a post teaching harmony at the new
conservatory in Moscow, where he wrote his
first symphony and first opera. He visited
New York City in 1891 to take part in the
inaugural concerts at Carnegie Hall, and
upon his return to Russia in 1892,
Tchaikovsky wrote the Nutcracker Suite, and
began pouring his soul into his greatest
masterpiece, the Sixth Symphony. Less
than a week after the first performance of
his Symphony No. 6 (now nicknamed “Pathetique”),
Tchaikovsky was dead. The mysterious
circumstances surrounding his death have
inspired theories that he committed suicide
by purposely drinking cholera-infected
water, or was poisoned.
MANLY ROMERO
(b.1966, San Francisco) composes music
focused on the expression of his personal
history, and shaped with seductive exteriors
to draw listeners into dialogue regarding
spirituality and self-knowledge. His works
sound merely illustrative at first, but
expand to examine the emotional and
spiritual states and transformations
inspired by specific places or relationships
between individuals and society. Reflecting
an interest in his paternal Latino roots,
many of Romero’s works draw idioms from
Latin American popular and folk music.
Among
other honors, Dr. Romero counts awards from
the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
the New York Foundation for the Arts, and
multiple grants from Meet the Composer and
the American Music Center. Romero’s music
has been heard at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln
Center, and major performances include those
by the American Composers Orchestra and the
San Francisco Symphony. Dr. Romero studied
at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
and University of Michigan, where he
completed a doctorate. Romero's major
influences are professors William Bolcom and
Michael Daugherty.
B. ALLEN SCHULZ (b. 1964) is the
great grandson of the famous vaudevillian
and Chicago jazzman, Ollie Powers, and his
compositional activities range from music
theater to experimental computer-generated
music, arrangements of sacred music for use
in worship services to orchestra and chorus
concert works in a contemporary American
vein. Mr. Schulz studied music composition
at Wabash College, Yale University, and The
City University of New York, and his primary
composition instructors have been Eric Lund
and Charles Dodge. His awards include the
Evenbach Prize in Music Composition, The
John Cage Prize in Experimental Music, and
high honors in the University of Oregon
Waging Peace Through Singing choral
competition. Mr. Schulz works as a
consulting editor for the G. Schirmer Music
Publisher new works and premieres
department, and he enjoys traveling as often
as possible–particularly to places that have
ecological or natural treasures.
Additionally, he is an avid scuba diver and
runner.
 IGOR
STRAVINSKY
(1882-1971), the son of a Russian opera
singer, spent the early part of his career
in France. In the first decade of the
twentieth century, Paris was the
international center of art, the perfect
place for a budding composer to make a big
debut. His first pieces, Scherzo
fantastique and Fireworks, made
an impression on many sophisticates,
including the dance impresario Sergei
Diaghilev, who called on Stravinsky in 1909
to compose a score for his newest ballet
production, L’oiseau de feu (The
Firebird). The 1910 performances of this
ballet in Paris rocketed Stravinsky to
stardom and began his lifelong friendship
with famed ballet impresario Diaghilev (they
worked on Petrushka and The Rite
of Spring together, and eventually were
buried near one another in Venice, Italy).
Stravinsky later created several versions of
The Firebird including the most
popular 1919 suite.
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Round Rock Symphony, Inc.
3209 Dawn Mesa Court
Round Rock, TX 78665
(512) 466-6075
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