Travel through your imagination from a young child’s moonlit bedside to ancient China, then 19th-century Vienna as you enjoy haunting, evocative and powerful music by Eric Whitacre, He Zhanhao and Anton Bruckner.
Join the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra when it performs Whitacre’s Goodnight Moon, He Zhanhao’s Eternal Regret of Lin’An performed on a traditional Chinese guzheng, and Bruckner’s Te Deum with the SASO Chorus and soloists Christi Amonson, soprano; Kristin Dauphinais, mezzo-soprano; Alejandro Salvia, tenor; and Andrew Stuckey, baritone.
This concert series will be presented three times: April 1 in Green Valley, April 2 in SaddleBrooke and April 3 in Tucson. Music Director Linus Lerner conducts. The program also features violinist Tiffany Chang, winner of the Dorothy Vanek Youth Concerto Competition, playing the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
Written in Vienna, Bruckner’s Te Deum is monumental, described as “the essence of Bruckner distilled into a half-hour work.” The composer himself considered this setting of five psalms to be “the pride of his life.”
Anton Bruckner was born in a village in Austria and studied with his schoolmaster father. He later attended the monastery school of Sankt Florian, where he later taught and served as organist. Bruckner was an odd paradox —a deeply devout man, modest and provincial, yet a bold composer who pushed the boundaries of orchestral music with the adventurous harmonies and the vast scope of his symphonies.
Amonson, long popular with SASO audiences, also is the soloist in Whitacre’s setting for soprano and orchestra of the favorite children’s book Goodnight Moon. Whitacre said he learned to read with this book as a child, and then read it to his own son.
“Over the past six years I must have read Goodnight Moon to my son a thousand times, maybe more. Somewhere around reading number 500, I began hearing little musical fragments as I read, and over time those fragments began to blossom into a simple, sweet lullaby,” he said on his website. “I knew it was a long shot, but I asked my manager, Claire Long, to contact HarperCollins and see if they would allow the text to be set to music. To my surprise and delight they agreed—the first time they had ever allowed Goodnight Moon to be used in such a way. I composed the piece relatively quickly, setting the text for harp, string orchestra, and my wife, soprano Hila Plitmann. It has become one of my son’s favorite songs. He sings it in his bath and Hila sings it to him before bed nearly every night.”
Like Amonson, soloist Larry Leung has soloed with SASO previously and both artists toured China with the orchestra. He will play the Chinese guzheng in the evocative Chinese concerto The Eternal Regret of Lin’An, which won the Prize of Composition in the 14th Shanghai Spring Music Festival in 1991. The work derives from an ancient tune “The River All Red,” expressing grief and indignation about a 12th-century national hero who was imprisoned and murdered for resisting invaders from the north.
Leung learned to play this challenging instrument through sheer determination though he could barely read musical notation. With the guidance of Master Li Ma, he learned how to play the guzheng with weekly lessons for six months. His passion for the instrument led him to rekindle his Chinese roots and to a decade of joyful performances. He first soloed with SASO in 2011.
Philanthropist, artist and musician Dorothy Vanek is season sponsor, for the ninth consecutive year.
The first performance will be Friday evening, April 1 at 7 p.m. at Valley Presbyterian Church at 2800 S. Camino del Sol in Green Valley. Tickets are $23 in advance or at the door. Order online at www.sasomusic.org or call 308-6226.
The second performance will be Saturday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the DesertView Performing Arts Center, 39900 S. Clubhouse Dr. in SaddleBrooke, north of the town of Catalina. Tickets are $24 in advance or $25 at the door. They can be ordered online at http://tickets.saddlebrooketwo.com or by calling 825-2818. This concert is sponsored by Bob & Donna Langwig and Howard Reeve in memory of Dottie Reeve.
The final performance will be Sunday, April 3 at 3 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 7575 N. Paseo del Norte in northwest Tucson. Individual tickets are $23 for adults and complimentary those age 17 and under. Order online at www.sasomusic.org, call 308-6226 or purchase at the door. This concert is sponsored by Mike & Rena Lude.
Maestro Lerner also serves as music director of the Symphony Orchestra of Rio Grande do Norte and the Gramado In Concert International Music Festival in Brazil. SASO musicians performed at the festival in February. SASO previously toured China twice and performed three times at the Oaxaca Opera Festival in Mexico.
This spring, SASO will record concertos by American composers Amanda Harberg and Max Wolpert, performed by viola virtuoso Brett Deubner. He soloed with SASO in September and at the festival in Brazil. Lerner said Deubner chose to work with SASO based on the quality of the orchestra’s first CD—Celebration!—featuring Tucson composers.
The final concerts of the season will be May 7 and 8 with Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, Barber’s Violin Concerto featuring Australian-born soloist Emily Sun and Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique.
Founded in 1979, SASO presents world premieres, seldom-performed treasures and classical favorites. This orchestra is a vital community resource that unites performers and audiences through a passion for music or more information call 308-6226 or visit www.sasomusic.org.