JACKSONVILLE UNIVERSITY CHAMBER STRINGS
Marguerite Richardson, conductor
PROGRAM SELECTIONS
Antonio Vivaldi: L’Estro Armonico, Op. 3: Concerto No. 8 in A minor for two violins and strings, RV 522
Piotr Szewczyk: Summer Music
Edward Lein: Hoodoo
Jacksonville University Chamber Strings
Antonín Dvořák: Quartet in F Major, Op.96, "American" (1st Movement)
Jacksonville University Honors String Quartet (Ronald Lagarde & Mallory Bray, violins; Peter Dutilly, viola; Joseph Engel, violoncello)
Peter Warlock: Capriol Suite
Edvard Grieg: Holberg Suite, Op.40
Jacksonville University Chamber Strings
The JACKSONVILLE UNIVERSITY CHAMBER STRINGS are:
| VIOLIN I Sam Lagarde, concertmaster Mallory Bray, associate concertmaster Stephanie Dierickx Ashley Thorns David Reynolds Breana Mock | VIOLIN II Philip Sanders, principal Sarah Morris Ali Villella Steffani Schmidt VIOLA Peter Dutilly, principal Jake Campbell Erick Crow | CELLO Joe Engel, principal Victor Minke Huls Christopher Davis Philip Holman BASS Max Coley, principal Ray Davis HARP Carolyne Scott |
A member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra since 1990, violinist Marguerite Richardson began her violin studies at the age of four. Ms. Richardson has performed symphonic and chamber music throughout the United States, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and Central America, and performs locally with the Florida Arts Trio. Between 1995 and 2003, Ms. Richardson began and developed the String Program at the University of North Florida, where she maintained a studio of violin and viola students and conducted the UNF Orchestra.
Currently, Ms. Richardson maintains a private teaching studio and serves as Chamber Music Coordinator and Premiere Strings Orchestra conductor for the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra. At Jacksonville University she is an Assistant Professor, teaching violin and viola, directing the Orchestra and coaching string chamber ensembles.
She holds a Bachelor of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music, a Master of Music from the University of South Carolina, and is currently completing her Doctor of Music degree from Florida State University.
Program notes by Ed Lein, Music Librarian
Music historians often refer to the Venetian violin virtuoso Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) as the composer most representative of the mature Italian Baroque style, and in addition to sonatas and sacred choral music he wrote nearly four dozen operas and over 500 concertos. Nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest") owing to his hair color and day job, as the composer of The Four Seasons Vivaldi wrote what have become among the most recognized violin concertos of any era, so it is perhaps surprising that after he died his music remained virtually unknown until the 20th Century. The 12 concerti grossi of Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico ("Harmonic Inspiration"), Op. 3, were published in 1711, and Concerto No. 8, which features 2 solo violins, was later arranged for organ solo by J.S. Bach.
Musical works by Polish composer Piotr Szewczyk (b. 1977) have won a number of international composition contests, and have been featured on NPR and at the American Symphony Orchestra League Conference in Nashville. His music has been performed by numerous orchestral and chamber ensembles, and his recently published string quintet, The Rebel, was performed live on the CBS Early Show by the Sybarite Chamber Players, and also was featured in January 2009 on NPR's Performance Today. To fulfill the commission he earned as winner of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra’s 2008 Fresh Ink composition competition, Mr. Szewczyk has composed First Coast Fanfare which will receive its world premiere by the JSO this coming spring. About his Summer Music (2009) the composer writes:
Summer Music for string orchestra was commissioned by Prelude Chamber Music Camp in Jacksonville. It is inspired by the joy and fun of summer days. While playful and energetic at first the piece transforms in the middle into a slow, meditative section, like the slower summer days we use for self-reflection and relaxation. Right after the slow section dissolves, the piece launches into an energetic ride that doesn’t let go to the very end, speeding up to the fiery finale. This version of the piece includes an optional harp part that adds a distinct color and flavor to the string orchestra ensemble.A virtuoso violinist as well as a member of the Jacksonville Symphony since September 2007, Mr. Szewczyk is the creator and performer of a critically-acclaimed recital of exciting and innovative solo pieces called Violin Futura. Piotr will return to Music@Main on May 18, 2010, to present another installment of Violin Futura featuring all new works written especially for him by composers from around the globe.
More at http://www.verynewmusic.com/
Florida native Edward Lein (b. 1955) is the Music Librarian at Jacksonville Public Library's Main Library, and holds Master's degrees in both Music and Library Science from Florida State University. As a tenor soloist he appeared in recitals, oratorios and dramatic works throughout his home state, and drawing on his performance experience the majority of his early compositions are vocal works. Following peformances of pieces by the Jacksonville Symphony, including Meditation for cello, oboe and orchestra (premiered June 2006) and In the Bleak Midwinter (premiered December 2007), his instrumental catalog has grown largely due to requests from Symphony players for new pieces, and he endeavors to imbue his instrumental works with the same singing lyricism found in his vocal music. Hoodoo, a samba, is the first movement of a four-movement suite called Un Dulcito ("A Little Sweet"), and was first performed in the summer of 2009 by students and faculty from the Prelude Chamber Music Camp. The entire suite, based on Latin American dances, entered the repertoire of the Vero Beach High School Orchestra for the first complete performances of Un Dulcito on November 7-8, 2009, under conductor Matt Stott.
Listen to Hoodoo:
More at http://sites.google.com/site/edwardlein/
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) is an immensely popular Czech composer who fused melodic and rhythmic elements of Bohemian folk music with classical symphonic forms. Fostered by his friend Johannes Brahms, Dvořák gained international acclaim and was invited to New York City to become the director of the National Conservatory of Music from 1892 to 1895, during which time he wrote the famous New World Symphony. It was also during this time that he composed his String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op.96 (1893), nicknamed the "American," and Dvořák said that it most definitely reflects his American sojourn: the second movement was influenced by the melancholy longing of African American Spirituals, the third by American birdsong, and the fourth, perhaps, by American railway travel.
Peter Warlock (1894-1930) was born in London as Philip Arnold Heseltine and had a successful career as a music critic under his real name. But he is better known by the bewitching pseudonym he used for his musical compositions, and it also reflects his interest in the occult. Providing inspiration for a number of British authors including Aldous Huxley and D.H. Lawrence, at age 36 Warlock's colorful personal life ended by gas poisoning, under suspicious circumstances. Although he devoted most of his compositional efforts toward writing songs, Warlock's instrumental Capriol Suite (1926) has become his best-known work. Originally for piano duet and inspired by Orchésographie, a manual of Renaissance dances by Thoinot Arbeau (1519-1595), the composer also prepared a version for full orchestra in addition to this one for strings.
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was a Norwegian composer and virtuoso pianist best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor and the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, and the originality of his Lyriske stykker ("Lyric Pieces") for piano solo lead some to call him "The Chopin of the North." Grieg's Holberg Suite, Op. 40 (1884) , or, Fra Holbergs tid ("From Holberg's Time"), was originally a "Suite in Olden Style" for piano solo, but it has become more popular in the composer's own version for string orchestra. The five movements were composed to commemorate the 200th birth anniversary of Danish-Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754).
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