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  Family Concert tickets are now on sale!
The Carnival of the Animals

Available for online streaming from Friday, March 5th at 7:00 p.m. through Sunday, March 7th until 10 p.m.

Click Here to purchase tickets or call the MSA office: 721-3194!

*This concert will be close captioned.

Symphony at the Ranch, Friday, September 18, 2020 (Streamed)
Our first concert in September, Symphony at the Ranch, is a brand-new concert format featuring smaller ensembles performing beautiful and entertaining chamber repertoire. Our musicians will play in a picturesque, Montana outdoor setting which is certain to delight our audience!

Click for Concert Detail

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Friday, October 16, 2020 (Streamed)
Under the baton of guest conductor, Gordon Johnson, we celebrate the 250th birthday of Beethoven, by performing his Seventh Symphony, which Beethoven himself spoke of fondly as "one of my best works.” Also being performed, is Barber’s Adagio for Strings in B-flat minor, which is widely celebrated for its fragile simplicity and emotion, as well as Sleeper-Four Wonders Overture, a modern work that will be sure to wake its audience up to new discoveries. This is a performance you will not want to miss!.

Click for Concert Detail

Holiday Pops! Friday, December 11 & 13, 2020 (Streamed)
This annual holiday favorite will not disappoint! Seasonal favorites will be performed along with an appearance by the Missoula Symphony Chorale, let by Dean Peterson. Join us from the comfort of your home for this streamed performance!

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Youth/Family Concerts: The Carnival of the Animals, March 5 - 7, 2021 (streamed)
For this year’s concert, the Missoula Symphony Orchestra will be performing Camille Saint-Saëns’, “The Carnival of the Animals,” - with a Montana twist! We are again partnering with the Montana Natural History Center and local theatre professional, Rosie Seitz-Ayers, to provide an engaging and educational concert for both kids and adults. You won’t want to miss this hilarious performance! Tickets: $8 all ages.

CLICK HERE TO STREAM CONCERT

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Masterwork Four (Winter 2021)
Works performed by Strauss, Debussy and Dvorak. Enjoy this streamed performance from the comfort of your home. More details to come!

 

Masterwork Five (Spring 2021)
Works performed by Anna Clyne, Mahler and Joseph Bologne. Enjoy this streamed performance from the comfort of your home. More details to come!

 

  • Concert Detail
  • Bryan Kostors Bio
  • Program Notes

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Bryan Kostors, Guest Conductor
Present

Symphony at the Ranch

Friday, September 18, 2020 7:30 p.m. (streamed)

Our first concert in September, Symphony at the Ranch, is a brand-new concert format featuring smaller ensembles performing beautiful and entertaining chamber repertoire. Our musicians will play in a picturesque, Montana outdoor setting which is certain to delight our audience!

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Bryan Kostors, Guest Conductor
Present

Symphony at the Ranch

Friday, September 18, 2020 7:30 p.m. (streamed)

Our first concert in September, Symphony at the Ranch, is a brand-new concert format featuring smaller ensembles performing beautiful and entertaining chamber repertoire. Our musicians will play in a picturesque, Montana outdoor setting which is certain to delight our audience!


Sponsored By:


Media Partners:


Program:

  • Woodwind Quartet:
    • Bozza - Trois Pieces Pour Une Musique de Nuit
    • Joplin, Arr: Adam Lesnick -The Ragtime Dance
  • Brass Quintet:
    • Pollack, Arr. by Jim Parcell - That's a Plenty
    • Bernstein, Arr. by Jack Gale - Suite from West Side Story
  • Chamber Orchestra:
    • Guest Conductor – Bryan Kostors
    • Coleridge-Taylor – Four Noveletten, Op. 52, No. 1 in A
    • Copland-Appalachian Spring: Suite for Orchestra
  • Symphony at the Ranch Full Concert Program

Streaming Instructions:

  • Click Here for Concert Streaming Instructions

Symphony at the Ranch Recipes:

  • Click Here for Symphony at the Ranch Recipes

Bryan Kostors BRYAN KOSTORS, Guest Conductor

Bryan Curt Kostors is a composer, conductor, educator, and multimedia creator, and is currently the chair of the composition and electronic music department at the University of Montana. He writes diverse and evocative music for orchestra, chamber groups, electronics, multimedia, dance, film, choir, and soloists, with the drastic and contrasting landscapes of the American West – desert, basin and range, high mountain peaks, ocean coast – playing a prominent role. A central element of Bryan’s work is the exploration of how place affects sound, visuals, and emotional interpretation, and how the history, landscape, or social aspects of a given geography can be used to create artwork that speaks to a wide and varied audience.

Bryan’s music has been performed by many ensembles, including NOW Ensemble, The Wuhan Philharmonic, the Lyris Quartet, the Mivos Quartet, Hocket, the USC Thornton Symphony Orchestra, and the Downey Symphony Orchestra. His collaborations with choreographer Laurie Sefton have been recently performed in New York, San Fransisco, and in Los Angeles with premieres at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Nate Holden Theatre. He has written scores for award-winning short films, working collaboratively with filmmaker Danny Corey on numerous projects. Their most recent piece, the documentary Las Vegas Bender, has received awards at film festivals throughout the country.

As a conductor, Bryan specializes in works of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has recently conducted his own works and other new compositions in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Missoula. Along with concert music, Bryan also conducts in the studio for film scoring projects.

Bryan is expanding and developing his work in music for electronics, multimedia and hybrid media. Recent works explore the combination of live visuals and music performance, as well as virtual reality filmmaking and music creation. The string orchestra piece To Dust, which combines live-edited film projections with an orchestral performance, along with online content and tangible artifacts, was created for the Downey Symphony Orchestra and premiered by that group. Bryan is currently creating a new multimedia work entitled Standing Dead, commissioned by the University of Montana Wind Band Association, that addresses climate change and forest fires. Bryan’s work with electronics include developing and scoring music for modular synthesizer, as well as programming electroacoustic music in a variety of formats. Percussionist Brandon Bell recently premiered the piece Flood in Houston, Texas, which uses real-time weather data to dynamically affect the electronics and the score during performance. He is currently developing his work with networking and live-streaming concert and audiovisual content, creating methods of conducting and leading ensembles over the internet and writing music specifically catered to virtual audiences.

PROGRAM NOTES

Download Large Print Program Notes Here

Symphony at the Ranch
September 18, 2020

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) - Novelletten I

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in England in 1875. He was the son of a white English woman and a black father originally from Sierra Leone, whose family history spanned the Atlantic ocean: his lineage was that of a group of American slaves who remained loyal to the British crown throughout the American revolutionary war, and who were returned to West Africa after the United States gained its independence. When Coleridge-Taylor was young, his father abandoned him and his mother and left for Africa after trying to become a physician and continually being met with imposed professional limitations due to his race. Not long after, the young Samuel began playing violin and started to write and compose music. Coleridge-Taylor would go on to develop a refined, lyrical and engaging style throughout a number of compositions that were very well received in Britain and overseas. His most well known works are a trilogy of pieces: Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, The Death of Mimmehaha, and Hiawatha’s Departure. Written in the last two years of the 19th century, these cantatas were programmatic works based on the epic poem of the same name by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. These works brought the composer international fame, to the extend that the commission for the second work of the trilogy was given before the premiere of the first, solely due to the popularity of the printed score that had been available for sale. Coleridge-Taylor, educated and practiced in England at the Royal College, was also deeply interested in what black musicians in America were playing and composing at the turn of the century. (His interest in American stories and themes, of course, is also present in the Hiawatha trilogy and its Native American story; Coleridge-Taylor would eventually name his own son Hiawatha.) He resonated with the music being written in black communities in America, a radical, political, and experimental component of American artistic culture that would give us such visionaries as Duke Ellington, Scott Joplin, Robert Johnson, and countless others. Coleridge-Taylor’s interest in American music, combined with his own orchestral style, is perhaps one reason he was assigned the racist title of the “black Dvorak”, which fails to assess his musical skill on any terms other than the color of his skin. But as his teachers, peers, and fans were keenly aware, Coleridge-Taylor possessed a unique skill for orchestral writing, harmony, and melody. He toured at least three times in the United States at the beginning of the 20th Century, met with President Teddy Roosevelt due to his active role in politics and social justice issues, and was honored in the states with the formation of the Coleridge-Taylor society, a group of musicians dedicated to performing and promoting his music in America. He would later go on to teach at the Trinity College of Music and conduct leading choirs in England. Coleridge-Taylor’s music, equally inspired by his traditional musical education in England and his love for black spirituals and the music of black American artists, is full of surprising and exciting uses of color, harmony, and melody. He was an extremely talented orchestrator - as can be heard in the Hiawatha trilogy - using all the available sonic possibilities of the symphony and the voice to express his musical ideas. In his smaller scale works, such as the Novelletten, the same skill is evident and clearly heard even in the more homogenous timbral context of only strings. The 4 Novelletten (a term first used my Schumann to describe a collection of small works for the piano), the first of which is played on this program, was written midway through his career in 1902 and is a wonderful example of his skill writing for the traditional group of string instruments in a European style. The music is dance-like, quickly and elegantly moving through a compound 3/8 meter. The opening harmonies are clearly tonal, yet are made measurably more exciting with the addition of chromatic pitches and borrowed chords. The melodic phrases that soon follow are lyrical and singing, but have a slightly disjunct quality in their intervalic content. This combination of effortless tonal music-making combined with surprising and unexpected details permeates Coleridge-Taylor’s work. The first movement continues with impressive orchestration, moving the material throughout the registers of the ensemble in continually captivating ways. Counterpoint and rhythm are used to highlight and direct our focus throughout the straightforward formal structure of the piece, and like all great musical works we find ourselves lost within the sound of his score, outside of time. Tragically, Coleridge-Taylor died at the age of 37 without having seen essentially any of the large sums of money he should have received from the popularity of his printed music. We can only imagine, as is the case with so many great artists that leave us too early, what Coleridge Taylor would continue to create and accomplish had he lived a longer life. This doesn’t, however, diminish the importance of his existing work, and perhaps makes it even more rare and valuable. As a composer who loved and appreciated the music of marginalized people, and who gained notoriety by engaging with that love and social awareness, Coleridge-Taylor’s legacy is a fundamentally important part of our musical history.

Eugene Bozza (1905-1991) - Trois pièces pour une musique de nuit

Trois pièces pour une musique de nuit is a prime example of what the composer Eugene Bozza is most well known for: engaging, exciting, and masterfully written chamber music, especially for wind instruments. A French composer who studied both in Paris and for a time in Italy, Bozza was an accomplished conductor and educator as well. Along with hundreds of published scores, he wrote many etudes and books on music. He had a gift for composing idiomatically for each instrument used in any given score, so that the music is not only enjoyable for musicians to perform but also rehearse. His style of melody and harmony is accessible to a wide variety of audiences without being simplistic. All of these qualities make him a mainstay in chamber music performances and on chamber music recordings. Bozza, born in 1905, wrote much of his music in the interwar years in France. The Neoclassical sounds of the day can be heard in his music, both in the pitch and harmonic content as well as the formal structures. While contemporaries such as Milhaud and Stravinsky are more well known for their large symphonic orchestrations in this style, Bozza remains a well known master of its application in chamber music. We can hear the impact of turn-of-the-century French compositional styles as well, with colorful chromaticism and impressionistic chord progressions used in captivating and playful ways. The quartet Trois pièces pour une musique de nuit, a small but demanding trio of movements for flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, gives us a wonderful window into much of what makes Bozza’s chamber music so memorable. The andantino begins with a flute melody that weaves up and down across its register, with surprising chromaticism thrown in to keep us guessing. The other three winds establish a somewhat mysterious harmonic setting that would be at home with Ravel and early Debussy. As the movement progresses, melodic ideas a traded throughout the ensemble until we arrive at a comfortable, unambiguous G-major chord - the parallel major key of the g-minor tonality in which we began. As soon as we arrive at the final cadence of the first movement, we’re quickly off again with the second movement, an allegro vivo in 3/8 time. Staccato repetitions and dancelike phrases, anchored by a well-written bass line in the bassoon, move quickly around the four instruments in a minor mode, with chromatic interjections and unexpected harmonic shifts that keep us guessing as to where this playful and somewhat mischievous music is headed. A major key middle section that introduces us to a new character of the music uses syncopated accents to upend the rhythmic feel of the meter, before returning to the opening motives once again in the final third of the movement. The final movement, a moderato,opens with bassoon and clarinet in octaves playing a solemn modal melody. This is quickly harmonized in minor key music with exquisitely written counterpoint throughout the quartet. This movement is a clear example of the Neoclassical influence of the time on Bozza’s work: familiar harmonic cadences and contrapuntal writing are intertwined with engaging chromatic pitch content and unexpected voice-leading. Soon the modal melodic motives are played in higher registers by the flute and oboe over a drone on the pitch A supplied by clarinet and bassoon, taking us further back before the new classical and into a new renaissance sound. The movement culminates with each instrument arriving at a final a-minor cadence together.

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) - West Side Story, arr. for brass quintet by Jack Gale

West Side Story, and the music written for it, has become one of the most well known pieces to come out of Broadway in the history of American musical theatre. Speaking from a strictly musical standpoint, this is actually quite a remarkable thing, given Bernstein’s compositional approach. The combination of his score, however, with Sondheim’s lyrics, Jerome Robbins’ choreography, and the retelling of Shakespeare make for a wildly engaging work of art that continually speaks to a wide and varied audience. Leonard Bernstein was, and posthumously still is, one of the most famous conductors in America. He was iconoclastic, passionate, intimidating, and artistically adventurous in his work on the podium. His work as a composer has these same characteristics as well. He was a long-time fan of the theatre, and in his earlier days envisioned a kind of artistic synthesis that would include all aspects of American culture expressed in music, dance, and imagery. West Side Story is not only the most popular realization of this idea, but it is also the most musically successful. Throughout the piece, Bernstein makes use of latin rhythms, jazz, popular styles, and classical idioms in continually impressive combinations. The cultural aspects of the stage play are reflected in these musical choices - a score that is emblematic of the diverse and complex society that Bernstein knew in New York. It was important to Bernstein that all of these parts of American music were present in the work, as he considered each to be equally valid. But Bernstein also employs complex harmonic and melodic ideas that would be home in the music of Wagner or Schoenberg. Thorny dissonances and disjunct melodic moves outline tritones and pitch class sets measurably removed from the standard harmonic structures of popular music styles. Melodically, motivic ideas become tied to characters and their motivations, and compositional tricks of restatement and reinterpretation are used to propel the musical content forward through its narrative structure. One of the most memorable melodies of the work, the theme from “Somewhere,” is a reinterpretation itself of the slow movement from Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. This eclectic melting pot of musical ideas became an exciting characteristic of the work as a whole, but also reflects a social and cultural view of America that was important to the composer. West Side Story is a thoroughly modern affair, full of challenging and exciting musical ideas that still sound fresh today. While Bernstein would later direct his professional focus mostly to his conducting work (perhaps leaving an unfulfilled compositional legacy behind), his contribution to American musical theatre is monumental. The arrangement played on this program contains much of the most popular music from the score, which is also present in Bernstein’s suite for orchestra. While most listeners will surely recognize and be familiar with at least some of this music, give yourself the opportunity to listen for the challenging and groundbreaking musical ideas that are woven into this score. While you may know the melodies and the words, here’s a change to revel in the complex harmonies, the risky rhythmic structures, and the musical adventurousness that Bernstein achieved in this important piece of American art.

Scott Joplin (1868-1917) - Ragtime Dance, arr. for wind quartet by Adam Lesnick

There are a handful of musicians that, without question, represent the founding of what would become the eclectic and groundbreaking sound of American music in the 20th century. Scott Joplin is one of those musicians, and in his ragtime music we can find evidence of nearly everything that would later become fundamental characteristics of popular music in the United States. That these musical ideas would go on to help define the artistic soul of a nation while the musicians that created them remained the victims of racism and institutionalized sidelining is a history with which we are still reckoning as a country; we can find some solace and hope in the music itself, as we celebrate innovators like Joplin with continued performances of this vital and important music. Scott Joplin, born in 1868, grew up actively participating in music in the south, learning about much of the folk traditions that were performed where he lived in Arkansas and Texas when he was young. He became an accomplished composer and performer, writing over 100 ragtime works. He also composed operas, although much of that work has unfortunately been lost. His major professional break came with a performance in Chicago that introduced his ragtime music to a larger audience. The ragtime sound of Joplin’s music is so ubiquitous now that even listeners who don’t know it by genre can likely identify it by sound. If listeners of a certain generation don’t know the piece on today’s program by name, they very well may know it from its use in the movie The Sting. The bass line is one main identifying factor of how Joplin’s ragtime music operates, as well as the way syncopated rhythms are used throughout. Specific compositional decisions about chromaticism are used within the voice-leading of the melodic material; these chromatic inflections - the “blue notes” of a blues scale - are still a fundamental aspect of how American popular music uses ambiguous tonal implications to help create a unique and engaging sound. In the second half of the Ragtime Dance, a stop-time feel is added, where specific stomping actions of the piano player are called for in the score. That this music is so inexorably tied to dance is itself an important aspect of its place in the history of American popular music - music for dancing is still one of the most popular ways many listeners experience music in American culture. The arrangement on this program for flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, was written by Adam Lesnick.

Lew Pollack (1895-1946)– That’s a Plenty, arr. For brass quintet by Jim Parcel

Lew Pollack - That’s a Plenty While ragtime music is perhaps most often associated with the composer Scott Joplin, there were many who wrote in this popular style at the beginning of the 20th century. Among them was Lew Pollack. Pollack was born in New York and developed his songwriting skills among the vaudeville scene so prominent in that city. He wrote a number of well known songs for the stage, including At the Codfish Ball, which was used in the Shirley Temple film “Captain January.” That’s a Plenty is a showcase of many of the stylistic characteristics that are used throughout ragtime music. There is, of course, the classic bass line figure of skipping octaves in eighth notes to outline the roots of chords and the accompanying harmony. The counterpoint in the melodic lines is at times highly chromatic, and uses bouncing rhythmic figures to move the musical content along. The piece begins in a minor tonality, and as is often the case in this style, the next section of the form is played in a major tonality to establish contrast. Repetition is used throughout, which gives the listener a clear roadmap as the music progresses, an important component of popular songwriting and dance music styles. The original song was written with lyrics by Ray Gilbert, but the piece has been arranged into many different forms over the years. Early recordings of the work make it into a foxtrot for jazz orchestra, while others present it in the style of Dixieland jazz. This amount of stylistic versatility speaks to the popularity of the song itself. The arrangement on this program was done by Jim Parcel for brass ensemble. Parcel, a trombonist with experience playing Dixieland jazz, uses that style to inform his arrangement, including sections for solos in the middle of the piece. As is common in Dixieland music, the melodic lines being played simultaneously by instruments in the ensemble vie for dominance within the counterpoint, but also, when heard together, create a more robust expression of the harmonic content of the music.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) - Appalachian Spring

The music of Aaron Copland holds a special place in the collective sense memory of the American listening public. Perhaps no other composer of the 20th century is more closely associated with the mythic and romanticized idea of the West, of social and cultural hope, and of an American identity tied to landscape. Copland strived to create a music that expressed a sense of place and belonging - a harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic vocabulary that would bring listeners together. However the path Copland took in arriving at this compositional destination is often minimized in favor of the idealized notions his music evokes. The man himself might have seemed an unlikely candidate for becoming the composer who would create this aural landscape of America. Copland was a New Yorker, through and through, being born and raised in Brooklyn. He was a gay Jewish man, the son of Russian immigrants, and at a relatively young age he also became active in leftist politics, even speaking at a communist rally in Minnesota in 1934. His political and social views were evident in much of his early music: the ballet Hear Ye! Hear Ye! comments on corruption in the courts and legal system. His Fanfare for the Common Man, regularly used in very political and patriotic settings, took its title from a speech by Vice President Henry Wallace in which that politician celebrated the possibility of a people’s revolution in order to carry forward FDR’s New Deal with ideas modeled after the Soviet Union. A Lincoln Portrait used the words of that president in a narrative setting to evoke his contributions to our country’s history. While politics is an important aspect of Copland’s musical output, what most people remember is his approach to harmony and melody. But even this component of his work is sometimes misunderstood. Copland, like so many of the successful composers of the early 20th century, studied in Paris with the composer, theorist, and educator Nadia Boulanger. Her rigorous and detailed instruction informs all of Copland’s music to some extent. But living in Paris in the 1920’s also meant there was no escaping the influence of Igor Stravinsky. Even in parts of Appalachian Spring Stravinsky’s rhythmic and metric ideas can be heard, and certainly in Copland’s early modernist and non-tonal works the mark of both Boulanger and Stravinsky are prominent. It wasn’t until his return to America that Copland truly moved away from the modernist music that so many of his peers were writing. But it wasn’t a trip to Colorado, the Dakotas, or California that sparked the flame of ideas that would eventually become his trademark musical sound. It was, in fact, a visit to Mexico that began this journey. Here, while also meeting with composers Carlos Chavez, Diego Rivera, and Silvestre Revueltas, Copland began sketching ideas for his piece El Sálon México. In this work you can begin to hear many of the musical idioms that would later be crystalized in pieces such as Rodeo and Billy the Kid. Copland most certainly has a roster of “hits” that many American composers might envy, and Appalachian Spring, written in 1943-44, ranks among the most well known. The choreographer Martha Graham - another American artistic treasure herself - came to Copland with the idea. She hoped to evoke a mythic frontier story, and Copland’s established track record by that time made him a natural choice. The score provides some of the clearest examples of how Copland used harmony to establish a sonic landscape related to the idealized, romanticized American West. Quartal and quintal harmonies - those made up of notes that are spaced perfect fourths and fifths apart - have a broad, open sound that simultaneously speaks to stillness and potential energy, as well as the horizon lines of topographies advancing outward beyond our reach as audience members. (These intervals are also the sounds of open strings on violins, violas, cellos, and basses, the sounds of which are often heard in traditional folk music styles of the American west and south.) the entire opening section of the piece focuses on these harmonies, only rarely moving away from the chord of A major. When quicker, more melodically-driven music arrives, open space is still a fundamental characteristic of the score, with instrumental lines jumping in octaves to outline thematic phrases. A turbulent middle section - music that shows its Stravinskian influence - hops and dances across mixed meter and complex rhythmic structures. Later we hear the mid-tempo gait of musical themes so often used in Copland’s music to represent the West, farm life, and romanticized cultural simplicity. Perhaps the most well-known part of the entire work arrives in the last third of the score. Here, a setting of the song Simple Gifts, a Shaker tune from the Pennsylvanian countryside where Graham envisioned her ballet, is the main musical idea that propels the work forward. The melody itself is stated as-is without change or manipulation, and Copland uses masterful compositional technique to harmonize and develop the material over a long period of time. We hear the melody in the form of a canon, with many instruments taking up the tune at a variety of speeds. This music culminates in a slow, grand, and moving statement of the melody harmonized over a descending scale. This combination of simple compositional ideas and nuanced, clear, and masterful technique is a calling card of the composer, and likely may be one reason his music resonates across such a wide variety of audiences. Like the history of our country itself, Copland’s music is often idealized. It is often taken out of context from the actual views and beliefs that helped bring it into existence in the first place. The reality is invariably more complex and nuanced than the myth, and sometimes the idealism we hear in these scores can obscure the difficult truths and histories that are built into the real story of America’s romance with the West. But Copland himself was, in the end, more pragmatic than radical, regardless of the radicalism that is such a core component of much of his work. He envisioned American ideals and placed them into his music, perhaps as way for us to see forward as much as look back. In our current time, while we reckon with so many misunderstood stories and rewritten histories, Copland’s music may offer a way of envisioning that landscape of possibility and community, however mythical and idealistic it may seem.

  • Concert Detail
  • Gordon Johnson Bio
  • Program Notes

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Gordon Johnson, Guest Conductor
Present

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7

October 16, 2020 7:30 p.m. (streamed)

Under the baton of guest conductor, Gordon Johnson, we celebrate the 250th birthday of Beethoven, by performing his Seventh Symphony, which Beethoven himself spoke of fondly as "one of my best works.” Also being performed, is Barber’s Adagio for Strings in B-flat minor, which is widely celebrated for its fragile simplicity and emotion, as well as Sleeper-Four Wonders Overture, a modern work that will be sure to wake its audience up to new discoveries. This is a performance you will not want to miss!

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Gordon Johnson, Guest Conductor
Present

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7

October 16, 2020 7:30 p.m. (streamed)

Under the baton of guest conductor, Gordon Johnson, we celebrate the 250th birthday of Beethoven, by performing his Seventh Symphony, which Beethoven himself spoke of fondly as "one of my best works.” Also being performed, is Barber’s Adagio for Strings in B-flat minor, which is widely celebrated for its fragile simplicity and emotion, as well as Sleeper-Four Wonders Overture, a modern work that will be sure to wake its audience up to new discoveries. This is a performance you will not want to miss!


Sponsored By:


Media Partners:


Program:

  • Chamber Orchestra:
    • Beethoven – Symphony No. 7
    • Barber – Adagio for Strings in B flat minor
    • Sleeper – Four Wonders Overture
    • Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 Full Concert Program

Streaming Instructions:

  • Click Here for Concert Streaming Instructions

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 Recipes Part 1:

  • Click Here for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 Recipes Part 1

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 Recipes Part 2:

  • Click Here for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 Recipes Part 2

Gordon Johnson GORDON JOHNSON, Guest Conductor

Gordon Johnson served as conductor of the Great Falls Symphony for a thirty-five-year tenure and became known for his energetic performances and dynamic leadership.

Maestro Johnson maintains a busy schedule having guest conducting engagements with orchestras throughout the United States, Canada, England, Japan, Germany and France. In February 2009 Johnson was invited by the United States State Department to conduct an American music program with the National Philharmonic of Moldova. Johnson has served as the music director of the Glacier Symphony (MT) from 1982 to 1997 and later of the Mesa Symphony (AZ) from 1997 to 2005. He served as the director of orchestras at the Red Lodge Music Festival (MT) from 2006 to 2011.

He is conductor emeritus of the Great Falls Youth Orchestra where he was directly involved in the training future generations of orchestral musicians. He is past President of the Military Affairs Committee and continues to serve as a member of the Board of Directors. In 2012 he was awarded the Distinguished Patriot Medal by the Department of Military Affairs Adjutant General of the State of Montana.

During his many years of concertizing, Johnson has served as accompanist to many superb musicians including world renowned artists Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Sir James Galway, Evelyn Glennie and Joshua Bell. He has collaborated in concert with many of America’s most popular artists including Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, Trisha Yearwood, Kansas, America, Lee Ann Rimes and Charlie Daniels.

Maestro Johnson has been invited to serve on adjudication panels at Arizona State University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Montana, University of Oregon, Northwestern University and the Conservatoire Cesar Geoffray, Toulon, France.

Gordon J. Johnson is past president of the Conductors Guild, an organization dedicated exclusively to the advancement of the art of conducting and to the artistic and professional needs of conductors.

PROGRAM NOTES

Download Large Print Program Notes Here

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7
October 16, 2020

Clef Notes

Sleeper — “Four Wonders” Overture

This contemporary yet highly accessible work by Cherokee composer and conductor Thomas Sleeper builds around melodies either written by or for the composer’s four children.

Barber — Adagio for Strings

At once plaintively simple and richly textured, this strings-only work by one of America’s greatest composers plays out in just over ten minutes—yet seems to encapsulate a whole world of emotional nuance as it rises to its climax and then falls away.

Beethoven — Symphony No. 7

Composed during one of the most difficult periods in the seminal German composer’s life, the Seventh Symphony seems to burst with joy for life and the spirit of dance that inspired it—from its portentious first bars to its sprinting finale.

Program Notes

Thomas Sleeper — (1956 - ) - “Four Wonders” Overture

Even in our globally connected world, there are still some wonders that are left to discover. In the 1990s, composer and conductor Thomas Sleeper proved this truism to audiences in China when he conducted the first performances in that country of two works known and loved by audiences the rest of the world over: Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and Johannes Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto.

Sleeper has made a career of waking people up to new discoveries. In addition to composing a range of works that include five symphonies, thirteen operas, fifteen concerti and more, he has helped raise awareness of new compositions by other composers through his involvement in a number of contemporary musical ensembles. Sleeper also composed the soundtrack for “One Water,” an award-winning documentary about potable water issues around the world; and for another documentary, “The Silver Mirror,” which looks at aging in the 21st century.

The “Four Wonders” Overture was inspired by another part of the composer’s life—his children Morgan, Angela, Hana and Leyla. The composer “borrowed” music from Morgan and Angela as children and music he had written for both Hana and Leyla.

The first section of the overture launches at a rapid, upbeat and playful clip and features the rhythm of Morgan as a child singing “coffee maker, coffee maker!” and the melody of “going to daddy’s offie.” The music builds until it is suddenly interrupted by bamboo chimes.

The second section slowly begins with the melody “go to sleep, go to sleep my Hana.” Then the “Leyla Song” enters in the horns and trumpets and builds to a climax. This leads to the third section, which begins with a variation on the music of the first section. Soon, a tune Angela invented as a child—”cookies, cookies, chocolate chip!” (which the composer also used in his opera, “Small Change”)—enters with the oboe and trumpet, leading to a powerful conclusion.

Samuel Barber — (1910-1981) - Adagio for Strings

In 2004, when listeners of the BBC’s “Today” program were asked to name the saddest piece of music ever written, they chose Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. They were hardly the first to connect the American composer’s plaintive, elegiac music with the dimmest events of the heart. Ever since the Adagio’s premiere in 1938, it has served as the default choice of filmmakers and memorial event organizers the world over, whenever the gravity of loss must be marked.

This saddened Barber himself. In a 1978 radio interview about the Adagio’s popularity, the composer of many symphonies, operas, concertos and shorter works sighed, “they always play that piece. I wish they’d play some of my other pieces.”

Indeed, it was Barber’s frustrating fate that his fame would always be framed by a short piece that he wrote at age 28.

Barber originally wrote the Adagio as the second movement for a three-movement String Quartet. That same year, he transcribed the short piece for string orchestra. He sent a copy to the superstar conductor Arturo Toscanini, who chose to conduct it in a radio concert by the NBC Orchestra that November.

Ever since that first high-profile performance, the Adagio’s reputation has only grown. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945, the Adagio was played on the radio over and over, catapulting it into popular familiarity. It was similarly employed after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, at the funerals of Albert Einstein and Princess Grace of Monaco, and in soundtracks for grim films including Platoon and The Elephant Man.

At least the Adagio’s fame is justified. Employing a mostly stepwise melody over a simple bed of sonorous chords, the music flows and swells with a sense of inevitability that belies its frequent changes in time-signature. It is one of those rare pieces that captures something cosmically profound in the space of just a few minutes.

The saddest music ever? Perhaps. But it is also undeniably some of the most beautiful.

Ludwig Van Beethoven — (1770 – 1827) - Symphony No. 7

“Music,” the composer Ludwig Van Beethoven said in 1810, “is the wine which inspires us to new generative processes, and I am the Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine to make mankind spiritually drunken.”

Bottoms up, everyone: If Beethoven’s words hold a dram of truth—which, as audiences over the past 200 years and more would attest, they do—then his Seventh Symphony is surely his most generous pour, a Bacchanalian delight endowed with all that one expects from the most famous German composer of the classical era.

Don’t look here for the fate-riddled drama of the Fifth Symphony; nor will you find the spiritual epiphany of the Ninth. The Sixth is a better place to look for rustic charms; the Third is simply heroic.

But for the kind of hair-blown-back excitement that one associates with Beethoven’s familiar tussled bust, the Seventh is the goblet to grab.

The Seventh came at a surprisingly troubled period in Beethoven’s life. During the spring of 1811, the composer began to suffer from bad headaches and fever. His doctor suggested that he take time at the Bohemian spa town of Teplitz, where he began work on the new Symphony in the autumn, despite his halting recovery. After stepping away from the music for a period and returning to his home in Vienna, Beethoven resumed composing in earnest in early 1812—during another particularly bad period of illness.

Compounding the composer’s health issues was the fact that his hearing, which had begun to deteriorate more than ten years earlier, was by then nearly completely gone.

All of this makes Beethoven’s achievement in the Seventh all the more remarkable. And for once, the general public finally got it. From the get-go, the Seventh—and particularly its beautifully mysterious Allegretto movement—was an instant hit. Premiered in 1813 at a benefit concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau, the Seventh was immediately embraced by a public that, in the wake of Napoleon’s retreat to France, saw in it a perfect encapsulation of the new optimism of the age. According to Beethoven’s first biographer, Anton Schindler, the premiere of the new symphony was “one of the most important moments in the life of the master, the moment at which all the hitherto divergent voices united in proclaiming him worthy of the laurel.”

The composer Richard Wagner perhaps summed it up most poetically: “this symphony is the apotheosis of the dance itself: it is dance in its highest aspect, the loftiest deed of bodily motion, incorporated into an ideal mold of tone.”

The symphony begins with a long introduction at a measured tempo. The music seems to glisten with pent up energy, here and there bursting out excitedly but always pulling back. Finally, after a pause, the bridle comes loose and the music begins to flow forward at a stuttering gallop. The whole movement is built on remarkably simple melodic and rhythmic material; yet Beethoven’s treatment of that material is remarkable. Contrasts come suddenly and often, lending to an overall mood of exhilarated playfulness.

The famous second movement takes the form of a regal Allegretto — restrained, richly colored, mysterious. Once again, a single rhythmic motive pervades the music, lending an inexorable quality as the music builds to its expansive climaxes. For years after the Seventh Symphony’s premiere, this movement remained Beethoven’s most popular instrumental composition, to the point that it was sometimes even inserted into performances of other symphonies in place of movements deemed inferior.

While a spirit of dance pervades the entire symphony, nowhere is it more central than in the third movement. The music launches at a sprightly sprint, skipping along gaily, only interrupted by two elegant interludes.

That leads to the finale — an unbridled expression of joie de vivre that is arguably unmatched in Beethoven’s music. Built on a lopsided rhythm, the music surges ever forward, climaxing in a gleeful sprint to the finish.

  • Concert Detail
  • Julia Tai Bio

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra & Chorale
Julia Tai, Music Director
Dean Peterson, Chorale Director
Present

Holiday Pops!

December 11, 2020 7:30 p.m. (streamed)

December 13, 2020 3:00 p.m. (streamed)

This annual holiday favorite will not disappoint! Seasonal favorites will be performed along with an appearance by the Missoula Symphony Chorale, let by Dean Peterson. Join us from the comfort of your home for this streamed performance!

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Presents

Holiday Pops!

December 11, 2020 7:30 p.m. (streamed)

This annual holiday favorite will not disappoint! Seasonal favorites will be performed along with an appearance by the Missoula Symphony Chorale, led by Dean Peterson.


Sponsored By:


Media Partners:


Program (Program order is subject to change):

  • Jingle Bells - James Pierpont, arr. Joanne Martin
    • MizZuki Ensemble
  • O Come, Little Children - Folk Song
    • MizZuki Virtual Ensemble
  • The Twelve Days of Christmas - Traditional, arr. David Bussick
    • Missoula Symphony Woodwind Quartet
  • Concerto grosso, op.6, no.8, G minor - Arcangelo Corelli
    • Allegro
    • Pastorale
      • Margaret Nichols Baldridge, solo violin
      • Loy Koch, solo violin
      • Missoula Symphony Chamber Orchestra
  • O Come, O Come Emmanuel/Greensleeves Medley - William Dix (1865), arr. Robert LedBetter
    • Missoula Symphony Percussion Ensemble
  • Twelve Christmas carols for Brass Quintet - Traditional, arr. Jack Gale
    • We Wish You A Merry Christmas
    • The First Noel
      • Missoula Symphony Brass Quintet
  • Shalom - Dan Forrest
    • Margaret Nichols Baldridge, solo violin
    • Dan Forrest, piano
    • Missoula Symphony Virtual Chorale
  • Noel Nouvelet - 15th century French Carol arr. Peter Martin
    • Missoula Symphony String Orchestra
  • What Child Is This? - Traditional, arr. Peter Martin
    • Missoula Symphony String Orchestra
  • Christmas Carol Suite - arr. Kris Dorsey & Bill Holcomb
    • Angels We Have Heard on High
    • O Holy Night
    • Hark the Herald Angels Sing
      • Missoula Symphony Woodwind Quartet
  • Sing We Noel - Noël Goemanne
    • Missoula Symphony Virtual Chorale
  • Joy to the World! - arr. John Rutter
    • Missoula Symphony Virtual Chorale
  • Sleigh Ride - Leroy Anderson, arr. Kenneth Abeling
    • Missoula Symphony Woodwind Quartet
  • We Three Kings - John H. Hopkins (1857), arr. Robert LedBetter
    • Missoula Symphony Percussion Ensemble
  • Frosty the Snowman - arr. Benedict Kirby
    • Missoula Symphony Brass & Percussion Ensemble
  • Holiday Pops Full Concert Program

Streaming Instructions:

  • Click Here for Concert Streaming Instructions

Julia Tai JULIA TAI, Music Director

Praised by the Seattle Times as “poised yet passionate,” Julia Tai is one of today’s most dynamic young conductors on the international stage. Currently, she is the Music Director of Missoula Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Northwest, and the Co-Artistic Director of the Seattle Modern Orchestra. Her career has led to acclaimed performances and rehearsals with the American Youth Symphony, Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic (Czech Republic), Brandenburger Symphoniker (Germany), Estonian National Youth Symphony (Estonia), New Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria), Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM (Mexico), Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Charlos Chávez (Mexico), and the Seattle Symphony.

Ms Tai has established a reputation for her creative programming and community partnerships. She has increased the esteem of her orchestras by elevating their artistic output, commissioning new works by renowned composers, and serving diverse communities. In 2017, in collaboration with Finlandia Foundation, Philharmonia Northwest celebrated Finland’s centennial by presenting Finland 100 at Seattle's Benaroya Hall, featuring three generations of Finnish composers. The concert was attended by Finland’s ambassador to the U.S. from Washington D.C. PNW has also presented an all-Taiwanese composers’ concert at Benaroya Hall in 2018, featuring musicians from all over the U.S., Canada, and Taiwan. Her orchestras have co-commissioned new works by PDQ Bach (Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra), Mexican composer Osvaldo Mendoza (Three Mexican Portraits), Chinese-American composer Dorothy Chang (Gateways – Concerto for Erhu and Piano), and Sheila Silver (Being in Life – Concerto for French horn and Alpenhorn, 5 Tibetan singing bowls, and string orchestra).

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Ms Tai began her violin studies at age four and piano at eight. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where she was awarded “Outstanding Graduate” in 2004. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Washington.

  • Concert Detail
  • Chee-Yun Kim Bio
  • Interview with Scott Seaton
  • Program Notes

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
and Music Director Finalist, Scott Seaton
Present

Masterworks Series #4

Featuring Chee-Yun Kim, Violinist
February 29 – 7:30 pm & March 1 – 3:00 pm
Dennison Theatre

Our fourth finalist, Scott Seaton, leads the orchestra as they play Javelin – a playful piece commissioned for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, his only concerto, and Dvorak’s joyful Symphony No. 8 close out the concert.

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
and Music Director Finalist, Scott Seaton
Present

Masterworks Series #4

Featuring Chee-Yun Kim, Violinist
February 29 – 7:30 pm & March 1 – 3:00 pm
Dennison Theatre

Our fourth finalist, Scott Seaton, leads the orchestra as they play Javelin – a playful piece commissioned for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, his only concerto, and Dvorak’s joyful Symphony No. 8 close out the concert.


Sponsored By:


Media Partners:


Program:

  • Torke - Javelin
  • Sibelius - Violin Concerto
  • Dvorak - Symphony No. 8
  • Scott Seaton Full Concert Program

Pre-Concert Presentation:


  • Concert Detail
  • Julia Tai Bio
  • Art Contest

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Julia Tai, Music Director
Presents

Youth/Family Concerts 2021: The Carnival of the Animals

Available for online streaming from Friday, March 5th at 7:00 p.m. through Sunday, March 7th until 10 p.m.

You will be able to access and stream the Family Concert anytime during the allotted times on this concert weekend. Watch it multiple times if you wish!

** This concert will be close captioned.

Have you ever heard pianos roar like a mountain lion, a cello become a swan or a clarinet sound like a cuckoo bird? Well, if you haven’t, you are in luck!

For this year’s concert, orchestra musicians under the direction of Music Director Julia Tai, will be performing Camille Saint-Saëns’, “The Carnival of the Animals,” - with a Montana twist! We are again partnering with the Montana Natural History Center and local theatre professional, Rosie Seitz-Ayers, to provide an engaging and educational concert for both kids and adults.

Our Youth and Family Concert is our first, full concert under the direction of our new Music Director, Julia Tai and we are excited to have her conduct the Missoula Symphony Orchestra at the Dennison Theatre.

Grab your family and some popcorn and settle in for a fun 45-minute, online streamed performance from the comfort of your home. And as always, our Family Concert tickets are only $8, and this performance will be close-captioned. We hope you will join us for the Carnival of the Animals!

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Julia Tai, Music Director
Presents

Youth/Family Concerts 2021: The Carnival of the Animals

Available for online streaming from Friday, March 5th at 7:00 p.m. through Sunday, March 7th until 10 p.m.

You will be able to access and stream the Family Concert anytime during the allotted times on this concert weekend. Watch it multiple times if you wish!

** This concert will be close captioned.

Have you ever heard pianos roar like a mountain lion, a cello become a swan or a clarinet sound like a cuckoo bird? Well, if you haven’t, you are in luck!

For this year’s concert, orchestra musicians under the direction of Music Director Julia Tai, will be performing Camille Saint-Saëns’, “The Carnival of the Animals,” - with a Montana twist! We are again partnering with the Montana Natural History Center and local theatre professional, Rosie Seitz-Ayers, to provide an engaging and educational concert for both kids and adults.

Our Youth and Family Concert is our first, full concert under the direction of our new Music Director, Julia Tai and we are excited to have her conduct the Missoula Symphony Orchestra at the Dennison Theatre.

Grab your family and some popcorn and settle in for a fun 45-minute, online streamed performance from the comfort of your home. And as always, our Family Concert tickets are only $8, and this performance will be close-captioned. We hope you will join us for the Carnival of the Animals!


Sponsored By:


Media Partners:


Program:

  • The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns

Julia Tai JULIA TAI, Music Director

Praised by the Seattle Times as “poised yet passionate,” Julia Tai is one of today’s most dynamic young conductors on the international stage. Currently, she is the Music Director of Missoula Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Northwest, and the Co-Artistic Director of the Seattle Modern Orchestra. Her career has led to acclaimed performances and rehearsals with the American Youth Symphony, Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic (Czech Republic), Brandenburger Symphoniker (Germany), Estonian National Youth Symphony (Estonia), New Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria), Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM (Mexico), Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Charlos Chávez (Mexico), and the Seattle Symphony.

Ms Tai has established a reputation for her creative programming and community partnerships. She has increased the esteem of her orchestras by elevating their artistic output, commissioning new works by renowned composers, and serving diverse communities. In 2017, in collaboration with Finlandia Foundation, Philharmonia Northwest celebrated Finland’s centennial by presenting Finland 100 at Seattle's Benaroya Hall, featuring three generations of Finnish composers. The concert was attended by Finland’s ambassador to the U.S. from Washington D.C. PNW has also presented an all-Taiwanese composers’ concert at Benaroya Hall in 2018, featuring musicians from all over the U.S., Canada, and Taiwan. Her orchestras have co-commissioned new works by PDQ Bach (Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra), Mexican composer Osvaldo Mendoza (Three Mexican Portraits), Chinese-American composer Dorothy Chang (Gateways – Concerto for Erhu and Piano), and Sheila Silver (Being in Life – Concerto for French horn and Alpenhorn, 5 Tibetan singing bowls, and string orchestra).

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Ms Tai began her violin studies at age four and piano at eight. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where she was awarded “Outstanding Graduate” in 2004. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Washington.

Create your work of art! Draw, paint, construct – have fun & be creative!

Click on the Art Contest rules below to download a PDF copy of the entry form!

  • Concert Detail
  • Gordon Johnson Bio

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Gordon Johnson, Guest Conductor
Present

Symphony in the Park

Our annual FREE summer concert
August 18 - 7:00pm
Caras Park

A summer evening of pops and light classics under Caras Tent with Guest Conductor, Gordon Johnson.

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra
Gordon Johnson, Guest Conductor
Present

Symphony in the Park

Our annual FREE summer concert
August 18 - 7:00pm
Caras Park

A summer evening of pops and light classics under Caras Tent with Guest Conductor, Gordon Johnson.


Sponsored By:


Media Partners:


Program:

  • Star Spangled Banner
  • Fanfare for the Common Man - Copland
  • Celebration Fanfare - Reineke
  • Hooked on Classics – arr. Clark
  • Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra (first movement) - Grondahl
    • Featuring Montana Association of Symphony Orchestras Young Artist Competition prize winner Chase Windmueller, Florence, MT
  • Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Williams
  • INTERMISSION
  • Finlandia - Sibelius
  • Cruzatte’s Fiddle – Bukvich (With members of the Missoula Suzuki Institute)
  • An American in Paris – Gershwin
  • Bohemian Rhapsody – Freddie Mercury