BSO premieres a reimagined Duke Ellington Nutcracker
by Christianna McCausland
Swingin ’
You know the holiday season has arrived when performances of Tchaikovsky ’ s The Nutcracker fill concert halls with the predictability of death and taxes . But this year , the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will offer a swingin ’ take on this classic when it revisits the original jazz movements written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn and pairs them with the percussive step dancing of Washington , D . C .’ s Step Afrika !.
This fully realized Duke Ellington Nutcracker was commissioned by the BSO for this , its world premiere . The performances December 8 – 11 will be led by Nicholas Hersh , the 28-year-old associate conductor of the BSO . While it will not be his first time conducting The Nutcracker — in fact , he conducted the BSO performance of the classic score in November for both the subscription and Off the Cuff performances — it is the first time he will be at the podium for this multimedia version . He ’ s excited to see it all come together on stage .
“ There will be a lot to see , with the dancers and the orchestra on the stage together and props , costumes and highly innovative production ,” Hersh says of the performance . “ It will be like going to your normal December Nutcracker performance with this whole new element of jazz and step that will add a new and , I think , unexplored dimension to the holiday classic .”
Ellington ’ s version of The Nutcracker was released in 1960 . He focused on the more popular and recognizable songs from Tchaikovsky ’ s Suite , rendering iconic movements like the “ Russian Dance ” and the “ Waltz of the Flowers ” for a swinging jazz ensemble . The BSO performed that music in 2014 , with Step Afrika ! providing dance and narration . The response to the performance was so positive that the symphony hired composer and arranger Paul Murtha to not only rearrange the original Ellington / Strayhorn score for orchestra , but also to rewrite the entire Tchaikovsky score into a full 90-minute , two-act jazzy Nutcracker . The process is a challenge . “ You ’ re culling the melodies out of Tchaikovsky ’ s work , you ’ re putting them rhythmically into a jazz idiom , and then you ’ re looking for harmonic progression in the style of Duke Ellington , and then writing it for orchestra ,” Murtha explains .
To give the orchestra the swing it requires to execute the music , a jazz drummer , pianist , bassist and saxophone player will be added to the instrumentation . However , Murtha says that he has made the orchestra integral to the music , not something that plays in the background with a jazzy overlay .
“ I ’ m trying to give everyone something fun to play ,” he says .
This Ellington Nutcracker is full of exciting challenges for everyone involved ,