May 5 & 7, 2011
War Memorial Auditorium
Thursday-7:30pm | Saturday-8:00pm
Salzburg's Genius
Choral Society of Greensboro
Carla LeFevre, soprano
Clara O'Brien, mezzo soprano
Robert Bracey, tenor
Donald Hartmann, bass
Dr. Jonathan P. Brotherton, Choral Society conductor
Andre` Lash, guest conductor
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, conductor/violin
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Overture to Marriage of Figaro
Andre` Lash, guest conductor
Winner of the 2011 GSO Keep Kids in Tune Raffle
1st Place Prize - Conduct the GSO!
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Violin Concerto No. 5
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, violin
Intermission
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 626
I.Introitus: Requiem aeternam (choir and soprano solo)
II. Kyrie eleison(choir)
III. Sequentia (text based on sections of the Dies irae): Dies irae (choir)
Tuba mirum (soprano, contralto, tenor and bass solo)
Rex tremendae majestatis (choir)
Recordare, Jesu pie (soprano, contralto, tenor and bass solo)
Confutatis maledictis (choir)
Lacrimosa dies illa (choir)
IV. Offertorium: Domine Jesu Christe (choir with solo quartet)
Versus: Hostias et preces (choir)
V. Sanctus: Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth (choir)
Benedictus (solo quartet, then choir)
VI. Agnus Dei (choir)
VII. Communio: Lux aeterna (soprano solo and choir)
May 5 sponsor May 7 sponsor
About the guest conductor:
With extensive experience both as church musician and as academician, André Lash brings to Greensboro a wealth of musical viewpoints in his capacities both as Organist and Director of Instrumental Activities at Christ United Methodist Church and as Lecturer in Organ at UNC-Greensboro. A finalist in organ competitions in both France and the United States, in addition to standard repertoire of all periods he has extensive experience with rarely performed organ works of the Spanish Baroque, having studied with José-Luis Gonzalez Uriol in Zaragoza, Spain, through a Regional Artists Grant. He holds the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance from the Eastman School of Music, where his teacher was the late Russell Saunders. Additional noted teachers included Arthur Poister.
Before coming to Greensboro in 2005, Lash held positions at the University of Georgia both as teaching faculty in Music Theory and as a staff accompanist. Earlier he taught Music Theory, Organ and Harpsichord at Oklahoma Baptist University. He has also served as a church musician in North Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma. Lash has performed at numerous solo venues in the United States, Russia, and the Republic of Korea, and has performed and presented for regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists and for the Music Teachers National Association. He has contributed articles on Spanish repertoire and interpretation for The Organ and for Early Keyboard Journal, and most recently has contributed a comprehensive list of current editions of Iberian organ music for the American Guild of Organists national website. He also recently served as Dean of the Greater Greensboro chapter of the AGO, which will host the convention of the Southeastern Region of the national organization here in Greensboro June 26-29. And Mr. Lash will conduct a Greensboro Symphony performance in May 2011 as the winner of the GSO 2011 Keep Kids in Tune raffle fundraiser.
About the choral conductor:
Dr. Jonathan P. Brotherton is Chair of the Music Department and Director of Choral Activities at Greensboro College. He is also the Director of Music at Jamestown Presbyterian Church, conductor of the Choral Society of Greensboro and conductor and coordinator of the annual North Carolina United Methodist All-State Youth Choir hosted by Greensboro College. For several years Dr. Brotherton was the Director of Choral Activities and Chorus Master for the renowned Brevard Music Festival in Brevard, North Carolina. He has been the director of choral activities at Iowa Wesleyan College, Whitman College and the University of Alaska, Anchorage. In addition, he has been the conductor of several large community choral organizations including the Anchorage Concert Chorus and the Cincinnati Choral Society. Dr. Brotherton received his MM and DMA degrees in choral conducting from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
About the guest artists:
Carla LeFevre holds the D.M.A. and M.A. degrees in voice performance and pedagogy from the University of Iowa and the B.M.Ed. in voice and horn from Central Missouri State University. Dr. LeFevre began her collegiate teaching career as a member of the voice faculty at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., and is currently serving in her seventeenth year as voice professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Previously, she has taught for the National Opera Company (young artist program) in Raleigh, and she has continued to coach and teach young professionals in addition to her work at the university. Her students have distinguished themselves as winners in state and regional Metropolitan Opera auditions and NATS competitions, and as apprentice artists for over a dozen opera companies throughout the country, including San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Sarasota, Chautauqua, and Des Moines Metro Opera, as well as Opera North, Ohio Light Opera, and Connecticut Opera. Dr. LeFevre has extensive experience as a performer of oratorio, opera, and and art song, and has carved a niche as a performer of contemporary repertoire. A national winner of the Gertrude Fogelson Cultural and Creative Arts Vocal Competition, she also was one of two national finalists for the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Competition and a national finalist in the National Opera Association Competition.
Mezzo Soprano Clara O’Brien comes to the University of North Carolina Greensboro after more than twenty years of performing in Europe and the United States. For over seventeen years, Professor O’Brien based her career in Germany and has appeared on the operatic and concert stages of such cities as Berlin, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Dresden, Frankfurt, Chicago, Dallas and many others. Her professional career began when she was awarded the Sonderpreis des Badischen Staatstheater, a prize created specially for her at the 1st International Coloratura Competition, Sylvia Geszty. Her many roles range from Baroque to contemporary and include Octavian, Komponist, Adalgisa, Mignon, Dorabella, Donna Elvira, Elisabetta (Maria Stuarda), Rosina, Angelina (Cenerentola), Musetta, Helene (La Belle Hélène), Fenena (Nabucco) and numerous roles at the International Handel Festpiel. Her performances have been noted in Opernwelt as Best Performances in both the Emerging and Established Artist categories. Other awards include 1st Prize, Erika Koth Meisterkurs and Finalist in the International Belvedere Competition. Clara O'Brien is also a recitalist and won the Grand Prix Paul Derenne, International Concours de chant de Paris for her interpretation of Impressionist and post-Impressionist French mélodies. She is also a noted interpreter of late-Romantic and Modernist German Lieder. For many years, she was vocal soloist for Ensemble Surprise, which presented chamber repertoire from ca. 1300 to the present. Recordings include releases on the Bella Musica and Albany Records labels and she has been recorded and broadcast on Southwest German Radio and Television. Ms. O'Brien studied at the Eastman School of Music (M.M., Performance Certificate), the Curtis Institute of Music ,the Dana School of Music (B.M., Summa cum laude) and the Hochschule fur Musik, Heidelberg/Manneheim. She was an apprentice with the Chicago Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, the Aspen Music Festival and the Boris Goldovski Opera Institute. She received a Fulbright Grant to Germany and was awarded a fellowship to the Münchener Singschul’. Her teachers included Jan DeGaetani, Astrid Varnay, Erika Köth and Daniel Ferro. Before joining the voice faculty at UNCG, Ms. O’Brien was Assistant Professor for Voice at the University of Oklahoma. She has also taught at the American Institute for Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and gives master classes throughout the United States.
Robert Bracey, tenor, Associate Professor, Chair, Department of Vocal Studies holds the BM in Music Education from Michigan State University, the MM and DMA in Voice Performance from the University of Michigan. He previously taught on the faculties at Bowling Green State University and Michigan State University, where he served as the Chair of the Voice Area. He also taught on the voice faculty of the Michigan All-State program at the Interlochen Arts Camp for twelve summers. Dr. Bracey was awarded first place in the 2002 Oratorio Society of New York’s International Solo Competition at Carnegie Hall. He returned to Carnegie Hall for performances of Handel: Messiah later that year. He made his Detroit Symphony debut at Orchestra Hall and his Kennedy Center debut in Washington, DC with the Choral Arts Society of Washington. A Regional Finalist in the New York Metropolitan Opera Auditions, he also won first place in the NATS Regional Competition where he received the Jessye Norman Award for the most outstanding soloist at the competition. Recent engagements include performances with the Symphony Orchestra of India and the Paranjoti Academy Chorus at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, India, the Telemann Chamber Orchestra in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, Oratorio Society of New York, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Orlando Philharmonic, Choral Arts Society of Washington, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic, Syracuse Symphony, Wichita Symphony, Elgin Symphony, Southwest Florida Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Duluth-Superior Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Illinois Symphony, Flint Symphony, Midland Symphony, East Texas Symphony, Duke University Chapel Choir, Boise Philharmonic, Independence Messiah Festival, Choral Arts Society of Greensboro, Ann Arbor Symphony, Greater Lansing Symphony, Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Messiah Choral Society of Orlando, Choral Society of Durham, Kalamazoo Bach Festival, and the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has worked with such well-known conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Simon Preston, Sir Philip Ledger, Norman Scribner, Carl St. Clair, Jos van Veldhoven, David Lockington, Hal France, Lyndon Woodside, Gustav Meier, Grant Llewellyn, Robert Hanson, Enrique Diemecke and Andrew Sewell. Centaur Records released Dr. Bracey’s first solo compact disc in 2006. The recording of English art songs also features UNCG faculty Andrew Harley, piano and Scott Rawls, viola. It is available in markets worldwide.
Donald Hartmann, has been described as possessing a, "big, rich voice with an amazing timbre." Having performed in over 115 operatic productions, in over 50 operas singing over 60 different roles, he is a commanding leading man and has been described as “one of the best character singers on any opera stage anywhere.”(Opera News) Engagements have included Swallow in Peter Grimes with Opéra de Montreal; Madison Opera as, Commendatore in Don Giovanni, and Sacristan in Tosca; Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor with Toledo Opera; Capulet in Romeo et Juliette with Opera Carolina, Frank in Die Fledermaus for Piedmont Opera, and most recently as Dr. Bartolo in both Le Nozze di Figaro and Il Barbiere di Siviglia for Opera Delaware.
A concert recitalist and oratorio soloist, Donald Hartmann has sung Papageno excerpts with the renowned Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Symphony #9 with New Mexico Symphony, the Verdi Requiem with the Eastern Philharmonic, Peabody Symphony, Plymouth Symphony, and a performance conducted by Neeme Järvi. Other engagements include the Mozart Requiem with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra; Brahms’ A German Requiem; Duruflé Requiem; Handel’s Messiah; Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and The Seasons. Donald Hartmann has managed successfully to combine two careers, singing and teaching, for the past 30 years. In April 2009, he created the role of Howard in the world premiere of Libby Larsen’s most recent opera, Picnic.
Donald Hartmann received his BM in Piano Performance, and MM in Vocal Performance from UNCG. He received the DMA from the University of Oklahoma, graduating with Honors. Having taught at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, Bowling Green State University, and Eastern Michigan University, he is currently a Professor of Voice in the Department of Vocal Studies
The Choral Society of Greensboro was formed to provide an opportunity for volunteer
singers to perform masterworks for chorus and orchestra. In recent
years, the Choral Society has included in its repertoire a wide variety
of choral literature ranging from the Requiem settings of Verdi, Mozart
and Berlioz to a Black History Month Concert and an All Gershwin
Evening. Other performances include Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Haydn's Mass in Time of War, Bruckner's Te Deum, Beethoven's Symphony # 9 and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. With more than 140 volunteer singers, the chorus is open, without audition, to anyone in the community. Three
to four Choral Society concerts are scheduled during the regular season
as stand alone concerts and alongside the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra
and other professional organizations. The Choral Society also performs
at various civic gatherings. For more information, please visit the Choral Society of Greensboro's website.
Program Notes:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Overture to 'Marriage of Figaro' Overture K 492
The Marriage of Figaro is a opera buffa, a kind of comic opera, written in 1786 by Mozart. Although the overture was originally written for this opera it is often performed as a concert overture unrelated to the opera.
The work is written in sonata form with a lively running passage as its first theme for all strings, and a elegant melody as its second theme in the wind instruments. This overture is a lively curtain raiser for both operatic venues and concerts because of these two contrasting themes and its brilliant joyful conclusion in full orchestra.
Scored for two of each of the wind instruments, horns, trumpets, strings, and timpani, the overture opens with a part of the first theme and then another part following in the wind instruments with announced fortissimo in full orchestra. The theme is then repeated as a whole. After an episode in full orchestra, the second theme appears in the violins and basses, with a passage for woodwinds followed by another subsidiary for entire orchestra. The final theme is a graceful melody with violins and woodwinds with a closing passage for full orchestra leading into the final part by which the work is concluded.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Violin Concerto No. 5
Mozart's brilliance at the keyboard is as well known as his compositions themselves; he was admired in his own time as an outstanding performer and improviser, and he composed most of his piano concertos for his own use. That he was also an accomplished violinist is less emphasized, but he introduced at least some of his concertos for that instrument as well. He could hardly escape the violin, for his father, Leopold, was a widely respected master violinist whose pedagogical treatise was in use long after both father and son were gone. Not long after Wolfgang reached his teens he was serving as concertmaster in the orchestra maintained by the Archbishop of Salzburg. Naturally, Leopold was pleased to have his son playing his own instrument, and insisted that he might well become "the foremost violinist in Europe" if he would only apply himself; all of Wolfgang's violin concertos were composed in a brief period in those teen years, and he is assumed to have been the soloist in the respective premieres.
As early as 1773 Mozart produced the first of his five authenticated violin concertos and a Concertone ("Big Concerto") for two violins and orchestra; each year from that time through 1776 he inserted a miniature violin concerto in one of his big orchestral serenades. At least eight full-scale violin concertos have been attributed to him at one time or another. One of these, the "Adélaïde" Concerto in D major, was actually fabricated in the last century by Marius Casadesus, who with his brother Henri enriched the repertory with several works they introduced as works of Mozart, Handel and C.P.E. Bach. Two of the others, "No. 6" in E-flat, K. 268, and "No. 7" in D major, K. 271a, are probably spurious as well; the latter appears to be a pastiche using material from genuine Mozart works in other forms. The last and greatest of the five concertos we know without question to be his was completed some five weeks before his twentieth birthday and, like its four predecessors, calls for the modest orchestra of oboes, horns and strings that was more or less the norm in Salzburg.
The horns add warm color to the energetic tutti that opens the first movement (Allegro aperto); for the soloist's entry the tempo drops to Adagio, and the original pace is not resumed until after the violinist's ruminative little preamble, following which he introduces a commanding new theme over the same orchestral chords heard in the opening tutti. The ensuing discourse on these materials and additional new themes is one of the sections Alfred Einstein must have had in mind when he wrote that "this concerto is unsurpassed for brilliance, tenderness and wit."
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 626
If Mozart’s life had problems during the time he composed the 40th Symphony, at least he was in good health. This was not the case when he was working on his Requiem.
Count Franz Walsegg-Stuppach was a music lover and wealthy landowner from Lower Austria, near Vienna. We might describe him today at a “composer wannabe”. When his young wife died on February 14, 1791, he wanted to create an impressive musical memorial to her which would demonstrate his musical prowess. But he knew that he was only a mediocre composer, and came up with the idea to anonymously commission Mozart to write a requiem mass that Walsegg-Stuppach would pass off as his own. It would be performed on the anniversary of his wife’s death.
This was a busy time for the Mozart, and his work on the new piece was interrupted by a trip to Prague for the premiere of his opera “La Clemenza di Tito”, another opera, “The Magic Flute”, and several other compositions. In October, he returned to work on the Requiem, but then his health started to fail. His physical constitution had been weak ever since childhood and he must have realized that he was close to death because he gave instructions to his students Eyber, Freystädter and Süssmayr on how to finish the work. After Mozart’s death on December 5, 1791, the students began their task of completing the piece, and the work was finished in 1792.
Süssmayr wrote most of music in the score because his handwriting was the most similar to Mozart. He even forged the great composer’s signature and accidentally wrote 1792, the wrong year, on one page. The finished work, really a collaborative effort, is what is performed tonight.
Upon completion of the team project, Mozart’s widow, Constanze, presented the work to Count Walsegg-Stuppach and collected the fee owed to her late husband. The Count continued his deception, and copied the score into his own hand. At the performance of it he conducted, it was entitled “Requiem, composto del Conte Walsegg”!
Preludes
The Prelude on Thursday, May 5 begins at 7:15 p.m., and the Prelude on Saturday, May 7 begins at 7:00 p.m. Both Preludes will take place on the Mezzanine level of the War Memorial Auditorium.
Meet the Artists
Join us after the Thursday
evening concert for a brief question and answer
session held at the front of the stage with our
guest artists and Dima.
Radio Broadcast
WFDD will broadcast this
concert in September 2011
“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”
SERGEI RACHMANINOV
