KSO This Week and Next: Ives, Rachmaninoff Set the Stage for “A Classical Christmas”

 

KSO’s Masterworks Features Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2.

Hands down, there is no American composer so misunderstood and under-appreciated to this day than Charles Ives. Virtually unknown to the public during most of his lifetime, his fame and familiarity had only begun to surface a few years or so before his death in 1954. Even at a time when American music struggled against its European heritage, Ives was something of an outlier. Born in Danbury, Connecticut in 1874, the composer was very much a product of his geography and upbringing, his musical voice saturated with the flavor of New England church hymns and band music, underlined by a dry, satiric wit. Graduating from Yale in 1898, he took a position in the New York insurance business, work that ran parallel to his private career as a composer. Obviously, Ives loved his status as a maverick, yet understood his American and European musical roots.

Seeking to clear up some of the misconceptions about Ives and his music, Maestro Aram Demirjian and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra are including his Symphony No. 2 on this week’s Masterworks concerts. That symphony, reflecting Ives’ outsider status, was created sometime around 1900-1902, but not premiered until a 1951 performance by the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein.

Fittingly, Demirjian will be opening the concert with Bernstein’s Overture to Candide.

In the Symphony No. 2, Ives shows his love for borrowed themes and fragments from popular songs of the day, band marches, and hymns—like “Camptown Races,” “Turkey in the Straw,” and “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean”— that are then twisted and turned by harmony and rhythm into statements that bristle with wit and a thumb to the nose. It is this boisterous and cantankerous point of view that is at the heart of this symphony.

[Want more information on Charles Ives, an American original? Check out Diana Salesky’s essay on the composer here- “Charles Ives: A Brass Band With Wings”]

Knoxvillians have a particular ironic attachment to Sergei Rachmaninoff, unfortunately because he performed his final recital in Knoxville on February 17, 1943. Yet, it was 34 years earlier at the peak of his compositional powers that he penned his Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor—a work he intended for his own performance as pianist. The concerto received its first performance in New York City in 1909 by the New York Symphony Orchestra, one of the precursors to the current-day New York Philharmonic. 

Joining Demirjian and the orchestra will be pianist Alessio Bax. A native of Bari, Italy, Bax studied in Europe before moving to the United States in 1994. Recently, he has joined the piano faculty of Boston’s New England Conservatory. In addition to performances with  notable orchestras, he has recorded extensively as well as offering chamber music performances with his wife, pianist Lucille Chung.

•   •   •   •   •   •   •

 

KSO’s Classical Christmas Returns (And It’s Selling Out Quickly)

The Sunday following Thanksgiving seems to be the perfect time to officially kick off the holiday music season. And what better way to do so than with Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s “Classical Christmas.” This offering has become such a big hit with audiences that it was moved to the Tennessee Theatre last year – and it sold out a week before the performance.

It looks like the magic will happen again this year on Sunday, November 26, with the same program: A Carol Symphony by Victor Hely-Hutchinson and selections from George Friderick Handel’s beloved masterpiece, Messiah.

In addition to hearing some of your favorite carols in a lavish orchestral arrangement, audiences will be treated to famous arias and choruses from Messiah, featuring soprano Abigail Santos Villalobos, alto Diana Salesky, tenor Tim Pope, bass Kevin Burdette, and the Knoxville Choral Society. The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra will be led by Maestro Aram Demirjian.