The Division of Fine and Performing Arts
of
BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN
COLLEGE
presents
In
memory of Paul Antoon,
long-time
RMCO hornist
and
friend
The Auditorium
Homewood Public Library
Sunday afternoon, 3:00 pm
November 24, 2002
The Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra
The
Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra exists to educate and give pleasure to the
public by performing a repertoire of classical music not otherwise heard in
Birmingham, as well as to provide a musical outlet for skilled players,
conductors, and soloists, both professional and amateur, in the community. Because of our chamber orchestra size, we
are able to move about the area, playing in different venues each season,
thereby reaching a more diverse audience and addressing ourselves more clearly
to the needs and interests of the community.
Although completely independent as to policies, the RMCO has for about a
decade rehearsed and performed at Birmingham-Southern College. We are proud to be an adjunct of BSC's
Division of Fine and Performing Arts.
Founded 22 years ago, with the first concert on
November 2, 1980, the orchestra has always been based in Birmingham, although
some of the players come in from outlying communities and we perform at least
once a season outside the city. With
ages ranging from 15 to 80, the most veteran of us played in the Birmingham
Civic Symphony, and the youngest are students.
All of us are bound together by a passion that leads us to work on
concert materials well before rehearsals for the sake of the music. Although we
include many physicians, a dentist, a physics professor, and several band
teachers, most of us studied our instruments seriously in university music
departments and at conservatories before finding other sources of daily income.
We exist as a musical force because of the support of
many who like what we do. We would like
to take this opportunity to thank those who have, over the years, given us the
tools we needed to survive and flourish:
Birmingham-Southern College, Samford University, and the Unitarian
Church, all of whom have given the orchestra a home base across the years for
rehearsals and performances; the
Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Birmingham Regional Arts Commission, and
the private donors who have provided financial support; area churches,
libraries, and schools who have allowed us rehearsal and performance space,
especially the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and the Birmingham Museum of
Art; and all of the conductors, soloists,
and players who have given freely of their time and talents to work with this
orchestra.
THE RED MOUNTAIN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA PLAYERS
First Violin Gwen
Knowlton Concertmaster Leslie
Cheng James
Farley Sean
Farrell Kimberly
Ferguson Dawn
Grant Heidi
Kapanka Willian
Neumeier Godehard Oepen Second Violin Katrina
Choate Principal Ilene
Brill Larry
Kallus Linda
Mahan David
Sherman Susan
Spaulding |
Viola Suzanne
Beaudry Principal Joanna
Bosko Karen
Eastman Cello Carol
Leitner Principal Daniel
Hallmark Jackie
McKinney Dorinda
Smith Diedre
Vaughn Double Bass Kendall
Holman Principal Mike
Mahan Harp Ellen
Stanton Timpani Danielle
Brown |
Flute David
Agresti Don
Gilliland Oboe Lisa
Buck Brian
Van Tine Clarinet Ron
Peters Barry
Jackson Bassoon Jeremy
Arthur Carleen
Stearns Horn Ginny
Carroll Julie
McIntee Trumpet Dennis
Carroll Paul
Morton |
The Red Mountain
Chamber Orchestra Administration & Board
President Suzanne
Beaudry Vice President Barry
Jackson Recording Secretary Ilene
Brill Corresponding Secretary Gwen
Knowlton Treasurer Kendall
Holman Librarian Kimberly
Ferguson Programs David
Agresti Founder Robert
Markush |
Consultants Leslie
Fillmer, Oliver
Roosevelt Stage Managers, Web Masters Charles
Tharp, Daniel
Hallmark Members-at-Large Linda
Mahan, Heidi
Kapanka |
Our Conductor
Howard
Goldstein is an
Associate Professor of Music at Auburn University, where he teaches music
history and violin, and is Music Director of the Auburn University / Community
Orchestra. He is also the Assistant
Conductor of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
A native of Los Angeles, he received his early musical education there,
eventually earning a degree from the University of California, Los Angeles,
where he studied violin with Alexander Treger and conducting with Samuel
Krachmalnick. After studies in
historical musicology at Columbia University, where he served as Assistant
Conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra, he studied conducting with
Frederik Prausnitz at the Peabody Conservatory and served as his assistant, and
received Master's and Doctoral degrees in Orchestral Conducting. Dr. Goldstein also studied with Hans Beer at
the University of Southern California, Milan Horvat at the Salzburg Mozarteum
Sommerakademie, and Harold Farberman at the Conductor's Institute. He has conducted orchestras in New York,
Baltimore, and the Czech Republic, and is a regular guest with the Red Mountain
Chamber Orchestra in Birmingham, Alabama.
His articles on musical theatre appear in the New Grove's Dictionary of
Music, Revised Edition.
Our Soloists
DAWN GRANT, a Registered Nurse and member
of RMCO, holds a degree in violin performance from Huntingdon College in
Montgomery, AL. She has played with
various orchestras in the south, and with many ensembles performing a wide
variety of music, from classical to gospel to folk to contemporary. The music of Mozart has always had a special
appeal for her, and it is her greatest hope that the audience will enjoy
listening to the Concertante as much as she does playing it.
Godehard Oepen works as a psychiatrist and has played the violin since
age nine, having grown up in Germany listening to music of Bach and
Chopin. His playing experience includes
section viola in the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and solo concertos with the
Brookline Symphony and Harvard Summer Orchestra. Music has always been a part Dr. Oepen's life, helping to achieve
balance and serenity in difficult times.
For this concert, he wants to thank Dawn Grant for suggesting to play
Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, the Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra and Howard
Goldstein for their enthusiasm, and Michael Fernandez (ASO) for some excellent
coaching lessons.
Did
you enjoy today's program?
Contributions
are much needed by the Red Mountaineers
for the purchase/rental of music and other expenses. A cash contribution would be appreciated. If you have questions, call Suzanne Beaudry
at 254-3774. We qualify as a non-profit
organization under Chapter 501-C3.
Howard Goldstein, Conductor
Pavanne pour une infante
défunte (1899) Maurice Ravel
Lent 1875-1937
Masques et Bergamasques, Op. 112 (1918) Gabriel Fauré
I. Ouverture: Allegro molto vivo 1845-1924
II. Menuet: Allegretto moderato
III. Gavotte: Allegro vivo
IV. Pastorale: Andantino tranquillo
Sinfonia Concertante in Eb, K. 364 (1779) W. A.
Mozart
Allegro Maestoso 1756-1791
Andante
Presto
Viola Soloist,
Godehard Oepen
The RMCO wishes to thank the Homewood Library and
particularly Dennis Nichols, head of adult services, for their gracious
assistance with publicity, rehearsal and performance space for this concert.
Please sign our registration book in the foyer so that we
may keep you informed of future RMCO concerts.
And check out our web site at http://www.rmco.org/. Thanks.
RAVEL: Pavane
for a Dead Princess
This work was commissioned by
that indefatigable patron of 20th century music, the Princesse de Polignac, in
1899; originally for piano, Ravel orchestrated it in 1910. Ravel was truly dismayed by the work's
success ("I no longer see its virtues . . . only its faults") as well
as the number of bad performances of it he had to endure; after a particularly
effortful and hopelessly slow performance by a child, Ravel is supposed to have
remarked, "Listen, my child, I wrote a Pavane for a Dead Princess, not a
Dead Pavane for a Princess." Ravel
also insisted that there was no extramusical meaning in the title. His interest in the music of the past led
him to write a pavane, a slow dance from the Renaissance, often played on the
lute (suggested in the orchestral version by plucked strings); the label, pour une infante défunte, attracted him
merely because of its interesting alliteration.
FAURÉ: Masques
et Bergamasques
In 1918 Prince Albert I of
Monaco commissioned Fauré to write a short work for the Monte Carlo
theater. Instead of writing an entirely
new work, he decided to rework some early compositions and combine them with
some already finished songs, instrumental and choral pieces, among them the
famous Pavane, Op. 50. The whole
entertainment was linked by René Fauchois's text, written in the style of
Verlaine's homages to the 18th century; the wafer-thin plot brings some stock
commedia dell'arte characters (Harlequin, Gilles, and Colombine) to the island
of Cythera, where, instead of performing for their aristocratic audience, they
decide to let the audience entertain them.
The first performance on April 10, 1919, featured sets inspired by
paintings of Watteau and was an immediate success. The suite contains four orchestral numbers that offer a concise
overview of Fauré's stylistic development.
The Mozartean Overture and the sprightly Gavotte date back to the
composer's twenties and are remarkably forward looking in their
neoclassicism. The Menuet and
Pastorale, on the other hand, are Fauré's last orchestral compositions. The Pastorale especially is vintage Fauré,
with its bittersweet harmonies poised on the verge of tonal breakdown, but
always brought back to earth with logic and restraint.
MOZART:
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola
Despite Mozart's use of the
Italian name, this musical genre, closer to concerto than symphony, was primarily
a Parisian invention. Between 1770 and
1830 about 570 symphonies concertantes were written by composers working in or
writing for Paris, then the center of European musical life and overflowing
with talented instrumentalists. By
definition, these were works for two, three, or four soloists that emphasized
virtuoso display and pleasing melodies over intellectual musical
development. The work for violin and
viola that Mozart composed in 1779 is certainly the finest example of the
genre. The emphasis is on dialogue and
cooperation between the soloists, the orchestra, and even the separate
orchestral sections; Mozart instructs the viola soloist to tune one half step
higher in order to make the darker instrument sound more brilliant, divides the
orchestral violas into two parts paralleling the first and second violins, and
assigns important material to the oboes and horns as almost equal partners with
the string soloists. The slow movement,
in the somber key of C minor, is one of the earliest displays of that dark,
elegiac depth of feeling that is uniquely Mozart's; perhaps it was inspired by
the death of his mother the previous year.
The final rondo is filled with rollicking good humor, however. All movements feature Mozart's own duet
cadenzas, minor masterpieces all by themselves.
Notes by Howard Goldstein
10
/ 1922 – 11 / 2002
~
|
Paul Antoon joined the RMCO around 1983 when the
original RMCO decided to begin playing music that required wind players. Before then, he had played horn with the
Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1950 to 1974, including serving as its
principal horn. He died just a short
time ago at age 80. All of us who were
privileged to have played with him over the years remember his fine playing, of
course, but especially his easy-going nature, his well-developed sense of
humor, and strong concern for others.
Les Filmer,
RMCO's music director during most of the 80's, reminds us that Paul, being an
accomplished wood worker, also made batons.
Many musical groups around town know about Paul's harpsichord, which he
made piece by piece by hand, and how generous he was with it; of course, RMCO
used it many times. But conductors are
interested in batons, and Paul produced quite a collection, some silly, some
very professional. In fact the best
baton Les owns is one that Paul personally crafted for him.
For many
years Paul was RMCO's stage manager.
Every week he would come an hour early to set up, making sure everybody
had a place to sit and a place to put their music, often doing this for string
sectionals when he wasn't even playing.
Then he would stay late afterwards and make sure everything was put
away. Paul carried all the chairs and
stands for many years by hand, which is no easy task, so when RMCO finally
bought a set of dollies for them, he felt very personal and protective about
them, naming them "Hello, Dolly," "Salvadore Dali," and
other funny names. One day he came to
set up for rehearsal and they were gone!
So he went all over BSC looking for them, finally tracking them down in
a theater on campus, carried there by someone who didn't know they were Paul's
best buddies.
By DGA