2019-20-Symphony-in-Space-Guide-1

Also Sprach Zarathustra opening Richard Strauss2001 Space Odyssey Theme Mars, the Bringer of War Movement 3: Menuetto Flute Concerto in D Major Carl Reinecke Movement 3: Moderato featur

Grades 1 through 8

Tuesday, March 17, 2020 (Middle School Day)

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 Thursday, March 19, 2020 Friday, March 20, 2020

Presented at the Hemmens Cultural Center in Elgin

Table of Contents

Thank you to our Sponsors:

Ainsworth Family Bear Family (Bear Family McDonalds) Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame

Program 3

Also Sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss 4

The Planets Mars, Bringer of War by Gustav Holst 5

Jupiter Symphony Movement 3, Menuetto by W.A Mozart 6

Celestial Swim by Elizabeth Start 8

Famous Women Composers 9

Flute Concerto in D Major by Carl Reinecke 10

Miguel Rodriguez, flute soloist / interview 10

Mothership by Mason Bates 13

Star Wars by John Williams 15

Etiquette for Concert Goers 16

Stephen Squires, Resident Conductor 17

Special Thanks 17

About the Elgin Symphony Orchestra 18

Worksheet: 5/4 Meter 19

Worksheet: Listening 20

Worksheet: Star Wars Rhythms 21

Also Sprach Zarathustra opening Richard Strauss

(2001 Space Odyssey Theme)

Mars, the Bringer of War

Movement 3: Menuetto

Flute Concerto in D Major Carl Reinecke

Movement 3: Moderato

featuring Miguel Rodriguez, flute

ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA

By Richard Strauss

b June 11, 1864 d September 8, 1949

Fun facts about Strauss:

1 He wrote his first composition at age 6!

2 Strauss wrote the famous theme heard in the 1968 film “2001: A

Space Odyssey.”

3 He was born and raised in Munich, Germany In WWII, Strauss

used his influence to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law and

grandchildren from persecution and being sent to concentration

camps

4 He wrote his oboe concerto upon the request of American soldier

and oboist John de Lancie who was in the unit stationed at and

protecting Strauss’ home after the end of WWII

5 Strauss’ music, so important in the instrumental orchestral literature, is asked to be played on nearly every string audition for professional orchestras

What’s cool about this music:

Also Sprach Zarathustra translated means “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” which is the title of a novel written by existentialist Friedrich Nietzsche What you will hear on the concert is just a very short portion of this piece, which in form is defined as a tone poem A tone poem is a piece of music for symphony orchestra which

illustrates the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape or other subject The piece is divided into nine sections Each section highlights the major life moments of the character Zarathustra We will hear the Introduction, or Sunrise as it is sometimes called It is only about 3 minutes in length

FOLLOW THIS LINK to hear a recording of the Introduction to Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss

Why do you think Stanley Kubrick, director of the film “2001: A Space Odyssey”, chose this piece of music for the theme music for his movie?

What makes it feel like ‘space music’?

THE PLANETS

MARS, THE BRINGER OF WAR

By Gustav Holst

b September 21, 1874 d May 25, 1934

Fun facts about Holst:

1 Holst was interested in astrology It was this, not astronomy that

inspired him to write ‘The Planets’

2 Suffering from neuritis, he was unable to play piano for any duration

He studied trombone as an alternative, also as therapy for his asthma

3 He supplemented his income by playing the trombone, even playing

under the baton of Richard Strauss at one point

4 He was a strict vegetarian

5 A very shy personality, he did not welcome the fame that came after

the success of ‘The Planets’ He preferred to be left alone to teach

and compose

What’s cool about this music:

The Planets is a seven-movement suite The movements are named for the planets of our solar system and their corresponding astrological character The suite begins with Mars and is followed by Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

WATCH THIS PERFORMANCE of Mars, the Bringer of War by Gustav Holst

WORKSHEET: 5/4 Meter

WORKSHEET: Listening

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or form While individual

movements are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work

requires all of the movements to be performed in succession

A suite in Western classical music is an ordered set of pieces The movements are often

thematically or tonally linked

JUPITER SYMPHONY

MOVEMENT 3, MENUETTO

By W A Mozart

b January 27, 1756 d December 5, 1791

Fun facts about Mozart:

1 Just like Richard Strauss, he was composing at age 6!

2 He’s probably the most famous composer from the Classical era of

musical composition

3 Mozart wrote his first great Mass at age 12

4 Beethoven, at age 16, went to study with Mozart for a 2-week period

5 In his summer residence outside Vienna, Mozart hung out with a young Marie Antoinette

6 He was named by TIME magazine as one of the “greatest people of the Millennium”

What’s cool about this music:

The Jupiter Symphony was not named after the planet Jupiter, but after the chief god of the ancient Roman Pantheon The god Jupiter possessed qualities that were present in Mozart’s music which included humor and boundless energy Jupiter, god of the sky, was also the most powerful god Jupiter is the largest planet, and the ancient Romans thought it was a fitting name

FOLLOW THIS LINK to listen to a recording of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony Movement #3, Menuetto

What to listen for:

The portion of the symphony you will hear at the concert is the third movement This movement is a minuet, which was the most popular ballroom dance of Mozart’s era Minuets are written in ¾ time

Conduct while you listen: Follow the arrow on the image to the right

The red arrow is the downbeat, the first beat of the measure, or the strongest beat

Beats 2 (blue) and 3 (green) are lighter, and have an upward movement leading back

to the downbeat

Mozart lived and composed during the Classical Period which took place

approximately from 1730 to 1820 and falls between the Baroque and Romantic

periods

During the Classical period, form and structure were emphasized Notice that the

piece begins with a descending melody in the violins This theme is repeated with

similar melodies There is a contrasting middle section to the dance See if you can

pick out where this section begins You may notice that instruments from another section of the orchestra introduce contrasting material Soon you will recognize the return of the melodies from the beginning This is called ABA form: opening (A), contrasting (B), opening (A)

Wordsearch: Musical words from the Classical era

ALBERTI BASS, ALLEGRO, BEETHOVEN, CONCERTO, DEVELOPMENT, EXPOSITION, EUROPE, FORM, GAVOTTE, HARMONY, HAYDN, MELODY, MENUETTO, MOTIF, MOVEMENT, MOZART, OVERTURE, PIANOFORTE,

RECAPITULATION, SCHUBERT, SYMPHONY, THEME, TRIO

Learn more about the classical era here:

Classical Music Period Facts for Kids

Kids Music Corner: the Classical Period

CELESTIAL SWIM

By Elizabeth (Betsy) Start

This year we are pleased to present a work by an Elgin Symphony

Orchestra musician Elizabeth Start (aka Betsy) holds bachelor’s

degrees in mathematics and cello from Oberlin, master’s degrees in

cello and theory/composition from Northern Illinois University, and

a PhD in composition from the University of Chicago

She spent 15 years living and free-lancing as a cellist, composer

and teacher in the Chicago area, teaching at many institutions,

including DePaul University, Elgin Suzuki, McHenry County Music Center, McHenry County College and

Columbia College

As a performer, she has premiered over 100 works As a composer, she has received numerous grants and commissions and over 500 performances of over 140 works in the U.S and abroad While living in Chicago, in addition to orchestral work, she performed on many concerts with Ralph Shapey’s Contemporary Chamber Players, chamber concerts of new music at Orchestra Hall with members of the CSO, for American Women Composers, CUBE, and New Music Chicago

She returned to her hometown of Kalamazoo, MI in 2001, where she is a cellist with the Kalamazoo Symphony, Executive Director of the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music (a 501(c)(3) arts organization), and Secretary-

Treasurer of the Kalamazoo Federation of Musicians, Local 228, AFM She continues her activities in Illinois with the Elgin Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, and as a member of Musicians Club of Women and the Chicago Composers’ Consortium She recently completed a commission from the Kalamazoo Symphony to create a piece for their 100th anniversary season in 2020-21, which will feature a new commissioned work on every concert, including a concerto for orchestra by Andre Previn www.elizabethstart.com

“Fun facts about me” from Betsy Start:

1 When I was growing up, it was normal for people to have the newspaper delivered to their homes, and I had a paper route where I delivered newspapers to 140 homes every day

2 When I was 8 years old, my father went to Europe on business for 5 months, and the whole family went with him, taking our schoolbooks with us traveling over and back on an ocean liner, and all over the UK in

a camper and Europe on trains I wrote a little piano piece at the time which I called “The Sleek Slim Ocean Liner”

3 I have two cats named Tara and Emma, named after the female characters in the old “Avengers” TV show Those are also names of goddesses

4 Even though I played the cello from about 11 years old and wrote a few little compositions when I was 8, I first went to college on a math and science scholarship and didn’t seriously study music until my second year of college I had totally forgotten I’d written little pieces as a kid and didn’t “really” start writing music until I was about 24 years old

5 I like to go fly-fishing, mainly for trout (catch and release) I consider it educating the fish

What’s cool about this music:

This piece is inspired by the idea of floating in space, slowly encountering and reacting to things we might see nearby or in the distance In general it is calm, but there is an underlying activity and some surprises, as might occur when we turn in space and find an unexpected object near or approaching us We can ‘lose’ ourselves in thought, in space and in music This piece imagines us “lost in space”, and in our imaginations, we are free to explore, experience and react, and to find connections and appreciate differences Or we can just notice things and this often can give us new insights into ourselves and the world around us, as well as the world of music

FAMOUS WOMEN COMPOSERS

Clara Schumann: 1819-1896

Jennifer Higdon: born 1962

Florence Price: 1887-1953

Nadia Boulanger: 1887-1979

Joan Tower: born 1938

Augusta Reed Thomas:

FLUTE CONCERTO IN D MAJOR

MOVEMENT 3: MODERATO

By Carl Reinecke

b June 32, 1824 d March 10, 1910

Fun facts about Carl Reinecke:

1 He composed nearly 300 works!

2 Using a piano roll he recorded all of his compositions himself in 1904 He was

80 years old

3 Reinecke studied composition with Liszt, Mendelssohn and Schumann

4 He was very influential in his time and some of his students include the

legendary Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and the brilliant composer

Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame)

5 He conducted the premier of the famous Requiem of Johannes Brahms

What’s cool about this music:

This piece is called a concerto A concerto is a piece that it was written for a solo instrument, in this case the flute,

accompanied by the orchestra Our soloist, Larkin High School junior Miguel Rodriguez, will be playing the 3rd movement Listen to how a melody starts with the clarinet and is then passed to the flute soloist The flute sails over the orchestra with a virtuosic melody What do you think about when you hear this piece? Do you hear how the main theme returns several times, sandwiched between several contrasting sections?

FOLLOW THIS LINK to listen to the Carl Reinecke Flute Concerto

Miguel Rodriguez, flute soloistMiguel Rodriguez is a junior at Larkin High School right here in Elgin where he

is involved in the Visual Performing Arts Academy (VPAA) — a rigorous program focused around music, dance, acting and various other art forms where he has grown immensely as a musician through performances and seminars Miguel has been playing flute for 5 years and since 2016 has been studying with ESO flutist Scott Metlicka For 2 years he has been a member of the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra Uniquely to this season he is the flute player in the Earl Clemens Wind Quintet — a high-caliber honors chamber ensemble in the EYSO that travels around the Chicagoland area to perform and receive guest coachings from orchestral professionals – and at times featured on 98.7 WFMT Chicago’s Classical Radio! Miguel also plays the saxophone on which he enjoys playing jazz and

is teaching himself to play the piano He has participated in summer festivals including the Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Wisconsin In addition to his passion for music, Miguel loves to run and read nonfiction He hopes to one day reach the dream he has had since he started playing the flute: to play in a professional orchestra and have has own flute teaching studio

An Interview with Miguel Rodriguez

Why did you decide to play the flute? 

Growing up, I was always exposed to the loud and lively sounds of the trumpet and other powerful brass

instruments in the music of my culture: Mariachi Bands, Mexican Bandas, and Tamborazo Zacatecano (a popular type of dancing music featuring powerful hits from drums and typically high-register trumpet) I always found myself singing melodies to these tunes and they never left my memory From then on, I was well aware that I wanted to play an instrument in where it was often featured in the melodic writing of a composer However, though it had the same initial proposal of melodies, I knew that the Trumpet wasn’t the instrument that I

wanted to play I always thought — to which I now know is not the case — that the Trumpet was confined

to one sound profile and I wanted to play an instrument that was able to express one melody in a variety of different shapes and colors When I heard the sound of the flute I was immediately intrigued by the veracity and interchangeability of sound I wanted to hear someone else play the flute to see if the sound profile changed, and if my interpretations were right Surely enough, the color was different It was at that moment that I knew that the flute was for me; it had the exposure to melodic material that I wanted, but I had the ability to express it however I wanted to, and was not confined (Still in respect to the conductor.) 

Who is your favorite flute player/mentor? 

As an aspiring flutist, I have met many players, teachers, and mentors who have influenced my playing

immensely It is a combination of their playing concepts and my careful study that I am the player in which I am today Out of the many that I have met, Scott Metlicka, my private teacher, is most definitely the most influential individual in my playing Besides the core shaping of my musicianship, Scott has taught me what it means to

be a musician and how beautiful the art of music is He has led me to realize that being a musician isn’t only to express what you’re feeling and you’re thinking about, but to also help others understand what you’re trying to encapsulate in a way that words can’t Through these past five years, Scott has helped me realize my love for the power of music in an incredible way. 

What is it about the Reinecke Flute Concerto that you love the most? 

The Reinecke Flute Concerto was a piece of music that I first heard when I was in seventh grade I knew that the piece was at a level of difficulty much too high for my facility of the instrument at the time, but I immediately noticed the power and emotion that was evoked by the lines in which the German Composer Carl Reinecke had written Every time in which I had the privilege to listen to the piece, I was again flattered by how it made me feel When I had finally gotten the chance to learn the piece in all of its remarkability, I knew that I had to attach

a storyline behind it — a technique that I learned from Scott Metlicka, mentioned above The story that I try

to tell with the piece, has to do with the amount of work and perseverance it takes to achieve something; for example, becoming the captain of a sports team or achieving your wildest dreams Every time the main melodic motif comes back, it is stronger and very similar to another attempt at success The technical and flashy parts proceeding the motif reflects the hard work and dedicated time behind the success and the lyrical melodies (not any less intense) reflects the beauty in all of the struggle Finally, the Coda is the moment of truth where we get the opportunity to showcase all of the hard work: a final exam, a tryout, or a graduation Then as the piece comes to an exciting and exuberant close, it is with the last chord that we see the resemblance of success and accomplishment This is why I love the piece so much Because in a sense, it reminds me of why I do what I do and what the future of anyone with a dream can hold.