The final live-on-stage events of the Music Academy of the West’s 2021 Summer Festival will be a brace of Community Concerts by the Academy Chamber Orchestra, conducted by the remarkable Marin Alsop, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7, in the Granada Theater.
The program will consist of Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” (1987); Alberto Ginastera’s “Variaciones Concertantes for Chamber Orchestra” (1953); and Ludwig Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7 in A-Major, Opus 92” (1812).
I applied the adjective “remarkable” to Marin Alsop, both in recognition of her brilliant career as a conductor and violinist, and in personal gratitude for her founding, in 1984, “Concordia,” a 50-piece orchestra specializing in 20th-century American music.
As a life-long champion of exactly that music, I can only say “thank you” for giving so many American composers a much-needed venue for their works.
Currently, Maestra Alsop is music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Ravinia Festival, and, in 2020, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Grammy-winning composer Joan Tower (b. 1938) has this to say about Alsop’s “Fanfare:” “’Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, No. 1′ was inspired by Copland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ and employs, in fact, the same instrumentation. In addition, the original theme resembles the first theme in the Copland.
“It is dedicated to women who take risks and who are adventurous. Written under the Fanfare Project and commissioned by the Houston Symphony, the premiere performance was on Jan. 10, 1987, with the Houston Symphony, Hans Vonk, conductor. This work is dedicated to the conductor Marin Alsop.”
Alberto Evaristo Ginastera (1916-83) was an Argentinian composer of huge international reputation. He self-identifies as a nationalist composer, but his nationalism is closer to that of Stravinsky than of Dvořák, or Stravinsky’s mentor, Rimsky-Korsakov.
Ginastera looks over the heads of the folk minstrels to the time before, the time of savage nights by torchlight, communal chanting, blood-sacrifice — in short, the good old days. Yet, he never lets his aggression run away with him. He always knows what he is doing, and is never — unlike so many of his contemporaries in academia — just grinding out the music by the foot.
He has his tender moments, too — quite a few of them, actually. The “Variaciones,” for instance, open with a pensive, haunting duet for cello and harp.
It will be nice to hear the Beethoven played by the approximate musical forces that pertained at its premiere, rather than the overpowering “modern” symphony orchestra.
To call any of Beethoven’s nine symphonies his “greatest” is to make a completely personal and subjective judgment. I would not say his Seventh is “greater” than his Third, or his Sixth, or his Ninth, but I have a tremendous affection for it, nevertheless, and my wife and I had its second movement played at our wedding.
Community Concerts are presented in remembrance of Baroness Léni Fé Bland.
Admission to either of these Community Concerts is $10; tickets can be purchased by calling 805-969-8787, or visiting www.musicacademy.org/whats-on/community-concert/#book.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.