Postclassical Ensemble and Georgetown University Present “Schubert Uncorked,” Including World Premiere of ‘Arpeggione’ Concerto
Washington, DC — A “new” Franz Schubert trombone concerto will be premiered by PostClassical Ensemble as part of “Schubert Uncorked” at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall on Saturday, March 31 at 8 p.m.
The concerto, featuring the acclaimed bass trombonist David Taylor, is a version of Schubert’s Sonata in A minor for arpeggione (a type of cello) and piano, reimagined for bass trombone and string orchestra. The program also includes another world premiere: “Three Late Songs” by Schubert as rescored by Taylor for bass trombone and strings. The Ensemble will also perform a set of Schubert dances, and (in a string orchestra arrangement) the sublime slow movement of Anton Bruckner’s String Quintet in F major.
In a program note, Joseph Horowitz, the Ensemble’s Artistic Director, writes:
“I can take some credit for introducing David Taylor to Schubert. The idea came to me because Schubert is himself uncategorizable. He falls in between ‘Classical’ and ‘Romantic.’ And the nineteenth-century stereotype of Schubert as a sweet singer was long ago canceled by acquaintance with his late piano sonatas and songs, some of which skirt atonality and the anomie of Dostoyevsky or Kafka. Reading through ‘Der Doppelgänger’ and other late Schubert songs with David in my living room years ago, it was quickly obvious to both of us that Taylor and Schubert had a mutual future.
‘Der Doppelganger’ has since become a Taylor signature – he has played it innumerable times, beginning with a performance in Vienna’s Musikverein with the Tonkünstler Orchestra. The arrangement on that occasion, by Taylor, was for bass trombone and low strings.
Taylor comments: “When I handed out the parts for that song I was feeling insecure about it, never having performed it before, and doing it in Vienna. The players looked at all the low chords and they just didn’t get it. But when I began to play I saw smiles on their faces. I had scheduled it as an optional encore, but after they heard it the orchestra insisted that we do it. That gave me a lot of confidence.”
Saturday, March 31, 2012, at 8 p.m.
Gaston Hall (Third Floor, Healy Building)
Georgetown University
TICKETS ARE $25 GENERAL / $5 STUDENT
PostClassical Ensemble and Georgetown University present
SCHUBERT UNCORKED
David Taylor, bass trombone
PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordóñez
Franz Schubert: Five German Dances with Seven Trios and a Coda, D.90
Franz Schubert/David Taylor: Arpeggione Concerto for bass trombone and strings
Allegro moderato
Adagio
Allegretto
PostClassical Ensemble commission/World Premiere
Intermission
Anton Bruckner: Adagio from String Quintet in F major
Franz Schubert/David Taylor: Three Late Songs for bass trombone and strings
Der Doppelgänger
Die Stadt
Der Leiermann
PostClassical Ensemble commission/World Premiere
Post-concert discussion with the artists
For tickets, visit performingarts.georgetown.edu or postclassical.com, or call 202-687-ARTS (2787) Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Georgetown University’s main campus is located at 3700 O St. NW, in Washington, D.C.
Complementing the PostClassical Ensemble performance with Taylor, Georgetown University’s Friday Music Series will also include a free concert on March 30 at 1:15 p.m. in McNeir Hall, featuring Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata performed by cellist Vasily Popov and pianist Ralitza Patcheva.
ABOUT THE SCHUBERT UNCORKED PARTICIPANTS
“Taylor left every brass player in the packed house shaking his head in disbelief”– Chicago Tribune
One of the world’s great brass instrumentalists, David Taylor began his professional career as a member of Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra and appeared with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez. Almost simultaneously, he was a member of the Thad Jones Mel Lewis jazz band and recorded with Duke Ellington, the Rolling Stones, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Throughout his career, David Taylor has appeared and recorded with such jazz and popular artists as Wynton Marsalis, Barbara Streisand, Miles Davis, Quincey Jones, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin. He won the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Most Valuable Player Award for five consecutive years, and has been awarded the NARAS Most Valuable Player Virtuoso Award, an honor accorded no other bass trombonist. Taylor has been a member of the bands of Gil Evans, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, George Russell, and Charles Mingus. As a “classical” artist, he has worked with such artists as Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. He has premiered works by such composers as Alan Hovhaness, Charles Wuorinen, and Frederic Rzewski.
PostClassical Ensemble was founded in 2003 as an experimental orchestral laboratory by Angel Gil-Ordóñez (Music Director) and Joseph Horowitz (Artistic Director). Its tagline “More than an Orchestra” suggests its unique mission. PCE programming is thematic and cross-disciplinary. All PCE programming links to educational institutions, most regularly to its Educational Partner — Georgetown University. Most PCE programming links to film programs at the National Gallery of Art. Many PCE programs incorporate dance or theater. The Ensemble has presented more than six dozen events in the DC area and also toured festival programs to New York City (e.g., “Falla and Flamenco” at BAM, and the sold-out American stage premiere of Falla’s El Corregidor y la Molinera) and Chicago. It has generated national radio specials via NPR, WFMT/Chicago, and Sirius XM Satellite Radio. The Ensemble made its sold-out Kennedy Center debut in Fall of 2005 with “Celebrating Don Quixote,” featuring a commissioned production of Manuel de Falla’s sublime puppet opera Master Peter’s Puppet Show. In June 2005, in association with the American Film Institute and Naxos Records, PostClassical Ensemble presented two classic American documentaries “The Plow that Broke the Plains and The City” whose scores, by Virgil Thomson, were performed live. These presentations generated two best-selling Naxos DVDs (“revelatory”, Philip Kennicott in the Washington Post). A three-year $200,000 Mellon Foundation grant supports the Ensemble’s ongoing partnerships with Strathmore, Georgetown University, and the National Gallery of Art, and furnishes a valued imprimatur. As PostClassical Productions, PCE has long exported programming to New York City and Chicago. PCE programming makes an uncompromising missionary statement. Little standard repertoire is included. Though no conscious repertoire philosophy was ever promulgated, the Ensemble rarely plays music composed before 1900. Next season’s major festivals are “Interpreting Shostakovich” in the fall, and “Dvorak and America” in the spring.
Angel Gil-Ordóñez, the former associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Spain, has conducted symphonic music, opera and ballet throughout Europe, the United States and Latin America. In the United States, he has appeared with the American Composers Orchestra, Opera Colorado, the Pacific Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the National Gallery Orchestra in Washington. Abroad, he has been heard with the Munich Philharmonic, the Solistes de Berne, at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and at the Bellas Artes National Theatre in Mexico City. In the summer of 2000, he toured the major music festivals of Spain with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra in the Spanish premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. Born in Madrid and an American citizen since 2009, Gil-Ordóñez has recorded four CDs devoted to Spanish composers, in addition to Post-Classical Ensemble’s Virgil Thomson and Copland CD/DVDs on Naxos (Artist of the Week for both releases). In 2006, the king of Spain awarded Gil-Ordóñez the country’s highest civilian decoration, the Royal Order of Queen Isabella. Mr. Gil-Ordóñez received a WAMMIE award in 2011 from the Washington DC Association of Professional Musicians in the category of the best conductor.
Joseph Horowitz, PostClassical Ensemble Artistic Director, has long been a pioneer in classical music programming. As Executive Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1990s, he received national attention for “The Russian Stravinsky,” “American Transcendentalists,” “Flamenco,” and other festivals exploring the folk roots of concert works. Now an artistic advisor to various American orchestras, he has created more than three dozen interdisciplinary music festivals. In Fall of 2008, he inaugurated the New York Philharmonic’s “Inside the Music” series, writing, hosting and producing programs on Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, and Brahms. He is currently curating thematic festival projects for the Florida Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Called “our nation’s leading scholar of the symphony orchestra” by Charles Olton, former President of the League of American Orchestras, Mr. Horowitz is also the award-winning author of eight books mainly dealing with the institutional history of classical music in the United States. Both his Classical Music in America: A History (2005) and Artists in Exile: How Refugees from the 20th Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts (2008) were named the best books of the year by The Economist. As Project Director of an NEH National Education Project, as well as an NEH Teacher Training Institute, he is the author of a book for young readers entitled Dvorák in America, linked to a state-of-the-art DVD. His website is www.josephhorowitz.com; his blog is www.artsjournal.com/uq.
PRESS INQUIRIES AND MATERIALS:
JAMIE BROUMAS
240-988-1237
jamie@postclassical.com
LAURA MERTENS
202-687-6933
lmm236@georgetown.edu