THE RITE OF SPRING( EARTH | SONGS)
Kurt Weill’ s Lost in the Stars with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’ s opera, Wake for the Birmingham Opera Company.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Jonathon studied conducting at the Boston Conservatory of Music and London’ s Royal Academy of Music. In 2023, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music; an honour reserved for Academy alumni.
Edouard Beyens
Edouard Beyens
A native of Clermont-Ferrand, France, Edouard Beyens joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as Principal Percussionist in the 2022 – 23 season. Prior to his time with the BSO, Edouard was the acting Associate Principal Timpanist / Section Percussion for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra during the 2021 – 22 season. He has performed with numerous orchestras around the world including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Malaysian Philharmonic, and the Phoenix Symphony.
As an educator, Edouard is currently on faculty at the University of Maryland and has been a featured clinician at Florida State University, Cal State Long Beach, the University of Delaware, and many others.
Mr. Beyens attended Arizona State University for his undergraduate and master’ s degrees under the tutelage of Shaun Tilburg, J. B Smith, Mark Sunkett, and Dom Moio. Following the completion of his master’ s, he moved to
Los Angeles to study with Ted Atkatz at the Colburn School.
Edouard is currently endorsed by Dragonfly Percussion, Sabian Cymbals, and Majestic Percussion.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
By Jacob Jahiel
Lili Boulanger
Born August 21, 1893, in Paris, France Died March 15, 1918, in Mézy-sur-Seine, France
D ' UN MATIN DE PRINTEMPS( OF A SPRING MORNING) [ 1917 – 18 ]
“ What does she seek? What inner world she has built, without doubt to her curious mind? She is already marked with sadness: her father’ s death and her fragile body.” So wrote Nadia Boulanger, perhaps the most important music pedagogue of the 20th century, of her younger sister, Lili, who died of intestinal tuberculosis at only 24. For Nadia, who always felt her sister was the superior composer, the loss was incalculable.
From a young age, Lili demonstrated a staggering musical aptitude. She could read music before she could spell, and by four or five would easily memorize songs by the composer Gabriel Fauré, who would accompany her at the piano while she sang. She often sat in on her elder sister’ s lessons at the Paris Conservatory, herself too sick from pneumonia to enroll until age 16. In 1913, Lili became the first woman to win the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome for her cantata, Faust et Hélène. In 1917, she produced a duet for violin and piano, D’ un Matin de printemps(“ Of a Spring Morning”), which she reworked the following year for full orchestra. This would mark her last orchestral work, completed during her final months.
Despite the circumstances of its creation, D’ un Matin de printemps betrays nothing of grief or melancholy, embracing instead optimism and wide-eyed wonder. Boulanger’ s musical language evokes something of Debussy— with its transparency, liveliness, and vivid colors— but her voice is uniquely her own. Notes contain the sweetness dew drops and the texture of mist, while dynamic swells( many of which seem to have been added by Nadia) evoke the freshness of morning air. Too soon were we deprived of this most luminous musical gift.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, suspended cymbal, small snare drum( or castanets), harp, celesta, and strings.
Tan Dun
Born August 18, 1957, in Changsha, China Resides in New York, New York
PERCUSSION CONCERTO: THE TEARS OF NATURE [ 2012 ]
GRAMMY Award-winning Chinese- American composer and conductor Tan Dun has enjoyed a varied career of international stature. As a composer of music for film, radio, and concert stage, he is widely celebrated for imaginative and evocative works drawing inspiration from both 20 th-century Western classical and Chinese music. As a conductor, he has led many of the world’ s premiere ensembles, among them the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. As a champion of the arts, he was named a UNESCO Global Goodwill Ambassador in 2013. Of his 2012 concerto for percussion, Tears of Nature, Tan Dun writes:
“ Nature is the only suitable illustrator for the richness of percussion sounds and instruments. My Percussion Concerto is divided into three movements, each one representing a different color of nature; the color of nature’ s thunder, the color of nature’ s passion and the color of nature’ s energy— each united with the human spirit.
“ The first movement,‘ Threat of Nature,’ was prompted by the unbearable,
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