Boston Symphony Orchestra Presents World Premiere of Ulysses Kay's Sonatine for Viola and Piano & More This Week
Encore BSO Recitals will be available to stream beginning Thursday, September 24 at noon through October 24.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Sep. 23, 2020
Three Boston Symphony Orchestra violists-Mary Ferrillo, Daniel Getz, and Steven Laraia-along with BSO percussionist Kyle Brightwell and guest pianist Brett Hodgdon perform 20th-century masterworks for this week's Encore BSO Recitals program available starting starting at noon on Thursday, September 24, through October 24, at www.bso.org. The program will feature the world premiere performance of eminent American composer-conductor Ulysses Kay's Sonatine for Viola and Piano, 81 years after the work was composed in 1939. The great Italian composer Luciano Berio's Naturale creates a remarkable landscape for viola and percussion evoking Italian folk song and incorporating pre-recorded Sicilian street cries. Both the English composer Rebecca Clarke's and the German Paul Hindemith's sonatas date from 1919, and both are staples of the viola-piano repertoire.
Program Listing: Encore BSO Recitals
Thursday, September 24-releases at noon and is available through Saturday, October 24
CLARKE Sonata for Viola and Piano
KAY Sonatine for Viola and Piano (world premiere recording)
Mary Ferrillo, viola; Brett Hodgdon, piano
BERIO Naturale, for viola, percussion, and recorded voice
Steven Laraia, viola; Kyle Brightwell, percussion
HINDEMITH Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 11, No. 4
Daniel Getz, viola; Brett Hodgdon, piano
Some Background on the Encore BSO Recitals Series
The Boston Symphony Orchestra's Encore BSO Recitals is an eclectic nine-week online concert series spotlighting 50 musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in small ensembles and giving viewers a rare opportunity to experience the individual artistry of many of the musicians who make up the world-renowned ensemble. With newly recorded musician intros and special live Q&As accompanying select programs, the Encore BSO Recitals series reprises programming initially recorded and aired this past summer for the Tanglewood 2020 Online Festival.
BSO HOMESCHOOL, AVAILABLE NOW
AT WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/BOSTONSYMPHONY
For this week, BSO Youth and Family Concerts Conductor Thomas Wilkins continues his series of BSO HomeSchool online conducting tutorials with the subject of the gesture and how precision and efficiency are essential in communicating a musical score. The video is currently available here. BSO HomeSchool-an educational resource for anyone who wants to learn more about music-includes an archive of Youth & Family Concerts lesson plans created by the BSO Educators Advisory Council, as well as videos created by BSO musicians that cover a wide variety of topics from demonstrations, excerpt tutorials, and more. Further details are available at www.bso.org/bsohomeschool. Mr. Wilkins' complete title is BSO Artistic Advisor for Education and Community Engagement and Germeshausen Youth and Family Concerts Conductor.
ENCORE BSO RADIO BROADCAST
ON WCRB 99.5 FM AND CLASSICALWCRB.ORG ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, AT 8 P.M., HOSTED BY RON DELLA CHIESA
For this week's BSO encore concert broadcast and stream on WCRB 99.5 and classicalwcrb.org, BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the orchestra in music of Dmitri Shostakovich-the Rudolf Barshai string-orchestra arrangement of the composer's Eighth String Quartet, Op. 110 (1960), which the composer suggested was his most autobiographical work. (Barshai was an important conductor and champion of Shostakovich's music; Op. 110a was the first and most important of several arrangements of Shostakovich's string quartets.) Completing the program are Samuel Barber's Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, a 15-minute concert work excerpted from a 1946 ballet score for the choreographer Martha Graham, and Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony, the most significant piece he composed during his years in the U.S., when he was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. The beloved four-movement symphony uses musical elements shared by both North American and Czech folk music. For more information about future encore broadcasts, please go to classicalwcrb.org.
BSO INTRODUCES COLLEGE CARD ONLINE IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19-RELATED PERFORMANCE HIATUS
The BSO College Card is designed to encourage students and aspiring young musicians to experience the BSO on a regular basis, with over 145,000 College Cards distributed since the program's inception. In response to the live performance hiatus surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is introducing new College Card offerings. For a one-time fee of $20 (instead of the $30 charged during recent seasons) students will be able to access all paid online content at www.bso.org, including Encore BSO Recitals and BSO HomeSchool content. In addition, cardholders are eligible to participate in biweekly Zoom webinars demonstrating career pathways to the BSO and the arts in general, starting on Wednesday, October 7. Other benefits include access to exclusive archival content and other special presentations. For more information, visit www.bso.org/collegecard.
DETAILS ON BSO'S CONTINUING ONLINE OFFERINGS DURING LIVE PERFORMANCE HIATUS DUE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The Encore BSO Recital series and BSO HomeSchool are part of the BSO's continuing series of online offerings created in response to the live performance hiatus imposed by regulations around the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing health crisis. The series of announcements detailing the full slate of cancellations by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, beginning on March 13, can be found here. The BSO will continue to monitor recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as confer with its own team of medical experts on matters related to an eventual reopening. All updates on this subject will be announced through press releases and postings on www.bso.org. Please note: In October, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will announce details of its new digital content series to be recorded at Symphony Hall and made available through www.bso.org in November and December.
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