May 26-28, 2023

William hill
renaissance

DIVE IN!
Colorado Symphony's very own Principal Timpanist William Hill's "Renaissance for Chorus and Orchestra" is receiving its World Premiere performances this weekend, May 26-28, 2023. Learn more about the piece, and Bill's inspirations, in the interview video below.

RESOURCES:

Catherine interviews Bill about Renaissance

HIGHLIGHTS:
Renaissance was commissioned to celebrate the Colorado Symphony Chorus, and incorporates text from the Requiem Mass, Hildegard von Bingen , Native American Wisdom, Australian First People Proverbs, and William Shakespeare.

Hill began working on the text in late summer of 2022, and completed the work in December of that same year. He worked on the text first before turning to the music - all of it completed in the span of 3 or so months.

Renaissance opens with a quiet orchestral Allelujah before bursting into a dark and powerful Dies Irae with the chorus singing a list of ways "humans have failed to reach our potential as brothers and sisters, and as stewards of our planet." This morphs into the chorus speaking incoherent "gibberish" which reflects Hill's take on environmental activist Greta Thunberg's observation that people in power talk and talk but fail to act.

Renaissance loosely follows the framework of the Requiem Mass, ending with the plea "Dona Nobis Pacem" - Grant Us Peace - sung by the chorus alone.

Renaissance is a moving 12 minute piece of music with a shifting textural palette that draws upon themes of nature and humanity's relationship to it and to each other, using texts that span nearly one thousand years.

Enjoy listening!
Johannes brahms
violin concerto

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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was a German composer and pianist from the middle Romantic era. The Violin Concerto is among his most popular and performed works for large ensemble. Composed in 1878, just after his second symphony, it helped establish him as a success.

RESOURCES:

A live performance of the entire concerto, featuring guest soloist Augustin Hadelich.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Violin Concerto is in three movements; the first is rhapsodic and medium tempo, the second is ruminative and slow tempo, and the third is a quick tempo dance movement.

Enjoy the beautiful extended oboe solo with woodwind accompaniment that opens the slow movement.

Guest soloist Augustin Hadelich composed his own first movement cadenza - a break in the action for the soloist to shine alone - which reflects a common practice of the 1800s.

A typical performance of Violin Concerto lasts about 42 minutes.

EXTRAS:
Enjoy this insanely cool solo version of Augustin's violin duet arrangement of Carlos Gardel's "Por una cabeza" - that's right - he smashes both of the violin parts together and plays them simultaneously. What's next? COWBELL???

NERD ASSIGNMENTS!

Start with a Conversation:
A concerto is a type of musical form that creates dialogue and drama between a single instrument or small group of instruments, and a much larger group of instruments. What exactly is dialogue? How is dialogue made? Think about constructing a brief dialogue between two people. What can you do to alter this dialogue so that one participant becomes a whole group of people? What are some examples of this type of dialogue you can think of in your every day life? [call and response in pep rallies, a religious service, etc.] Now imagine what it might be like if each person in the large group had an individual response in this dialogue. Would we be able to understand all the responses simultaneously? In music, many different sounds (often called ‘voices’) can be processed simultaneously by the human ear. Because of this it’s possible to have a two part musical dialogue with many individual voices!

Try an Activity!
Go ahead and dive down that internet rabbit hole! Listen to at least three different recordings of Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto for comparison and contrast. How do you find the interpretation of different soloists and orchestras affect the overall piece of music? What specific things do you notice? Do you have any favorite interpretations or moments? What draws you toward some and/or turns you away from others?

Listening for dialogue and interpretation
Listen to the performance live and again via recording if possible. Try to listen carefully for musical dialogue and dramatic interpretive elements in this composition. How did the conversation and comparison/contrast activities help you to better engage as a listener?
igor stravinsky
rite of spring

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Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is one of the most highly revered composers of the 1900s. Rite of Spring was the third in a series of ballets composed for Sergei Dhiagalev's Ballet Russes. Composed in 1913, one hundred and ten years ago, it still sounds as raw and powerful and creepy and wild as it did then.

RESOURCES:

A live performance recording of the full symphony.

As heard in Disney's original Fantasia!

EXTRAS:
As is my way, the fun stuff!
First a few photos of Stravinsky being a regular person to show him as... well... a regular person!
Last, I will never not share the lockdown boredom creative brilliance of percussionist Rocco Luigi Bitondo's gnome series. Enjoy the final dance of Rite of Spring as performed by the VERY EXTREMELY IMPORTANT bass drum and timpani. They are the real conductors the orchestra relies upon in case of disaster in this section of the piece!