Photo
courtesy of Joe Gilliland
The Division of Fine and Performing Arts
of
BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN COLLEGE
presents
with the
Winners
of the Dorsey
and
Frances Whittington
Competition
Hill
Hall
Birmingham-Southern
College
Sunday
afternoon, 3:00 pm
April
22, 2001
The Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra
The
Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra exists to educate and give pleasure to the
public by performing a repertoire of classical music not otherwise heard in
Birmingham, as well as to provide a musical outlet for skilled players,
conductors, and soloists, both professional and amateur, in the community. Because of our chamber orchestra size, we
are able to move about the area, playing in different venues each season,
thereby reaching a more diverse audience and addressing ourselves more clearly
to the needs and interests of the community.
Although completely independent as to policies, the RMCO has for about a
decade rehearsed and performed at Birmingham-Southern College. We are proud to be an adjunct of BSC's
Division of Fine and Performing Arts.
Founded
20 years ago, with the first concert on November 2, 1980, the orchestra has
always been based in Birmingham, although some of the players come in from outlying
communities and we perform at least once a season outside the city. With ages ranging from 15 to 80, the most
veteran of us played in the Birmingham Civic Symphony, the youngest are
students. All of us are bound together
by a passion that leads us to work on concert materials well before rehearsals
for the sake of the music. Although we include many physicians, a dentist, a
physics professor, and several band teachers, most of us studied our
instruments seriously in university music departments and at conservatories
before finding other sources of daily income.
We
exist as a musical force because of the support of many who like what we
do. We would like to take this
opportunity to thank those who have, over the years, given us the tools we
needed to survive and flourish:
Birmingham-Southern College, Samford University, and the Unitarian
Church, all of whom have given the orchestra a home base across the years for
rehearsals and performances; the
Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Birmingham Regional Arts Council, and
the private donors who have provided financial support; area churches, libraries, and schools who
have allowed us rehearsal and performance space, especially the Birmingham
Botanical Gardens and the Birmingham Museum of Art; and all of the conductors, soloists, and players who have given
freely of their time and talents to work with this orchestra. Birmingham-Southern College is now the
sheltering organization for the RMCO.
RMCO
is honored to participate in this inaugural presentation of the Winners of
Whittington Competition at Birmingham-Southern College, which provides for BSC
undergraduate music majors, chosen in a preliminary competition, the
opportunity to perform concertos and arias with orchestra. The competition is named for Frances and
Dorsey Whittington, whose profound influence as teachers became the musical
foundation for generations of Birmingham musicians. The Birmingham Conservatory of Music – now the Music Department at Birmingham-Southern College – was for
many years under their leadership.
Thanks
to the Fine Arts Council of Birmingham-Southern College for the reception in
the Blue Room following the concert.
THE
RED MOUNTAIN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA PLAYERS
|
First Violin Gwen Knowlton Concertmaster Heidi Kapanka Susan Dean John Maltese Marianne Griffin Second Violin Kimberly Ferguson Principal Marilyn Pipkin David Sherman Charles Tharp Viola Suzanne Beaudry Principal Karen Eastman Melanie Richardson Joanna Bosko |
Cello Jackie McKinney Principal Carol Leitner Dorinda Smith Patti Pilon Double Bass Kendall Holman Principal Marcus Cureton Piano Kevin Grigsby Libby Van Pelt Celeste Libby Van Pelt Harp Ellen Stanton Timpani Robert Stanton |
Flute Don Gilliland David Agresti Oboe Lisa Buck Brian Van Tine Clarinet Ron Peters Bassoon Brenda Akin Jeremy Arthur Horn Ginny Carroll Julie McIntee Trumpet Dennis Carroll Paul Morton Trombone Robert Black |
The Red Mountain
Chamber Orchestra Administration & Board
|
President Suzanne
Beaudry Vice President Barry Jackson Recording Secretary Ilene Brill Corresponding Secretary Gwen Knowlton Treasurer Jackie
McKinney Librarian Kimberly
Ferguson Programs David
Agresti Historian Rita
Salzberg Founder Robert
Markush |
Consultants Leslie Fillmer, Oliver Roosevelt Stage Managers Charles Tharp, Phil Wood Personnel Winds John
Greer Strings Godehard Oeten Members-at-Large Linda Mahan, Heidi Kapanka |
Today's
Conductor
Thomas Gibbs joined the faculty of
music of Birmingham-Southern College in 1970.
He currently teaches courses in music history, music literature,
conducting, and church music. He was
chair of the Division of Fine and Performing Arts from 1980 to 1988. Dr. Gibbs served for ten years as the
conductor of the Birmingham Concert Chorale and choral director for the Alabama
Symphony Orchestra. He was Birmingham
Summerfest's first music director, conducting twenty-five Summerfest musical
productions. He is active as a choral
clinician, adjudicator, and conducting teacher, and he appears regularly as a
conductor of the Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra.
Today's
Soloists
Betsy Jackson is a senior Piano
Performance major from Decatur, Alabama.
She was the winner of the 2000 Alys Robinson Stephens Piano
Competition. She is currently spending
time composing children's piano music.
After graduation she will attend Southern Methodist University on a full
scholarship, where she will pursue a master's degree in piano performance and
piano pedagogy. She is a piano student
of William DeVan.
Daniel Seigel is a junior at
Birmingham-Southern College. A theatre
major, he is currently portraying Sydney Carton in the College Theatre's
adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities. He is also proud to have just finished a
recital with Nat Gunter, another baritone at the college. Mr. Seigel is a voice student of John
Jennings.
Nicole Duncan is a junior at
Birmingham Southern College majoring in Vocal Performance. She has recently played Rosine in BSC's
production of Signor Deluso and is
currently a member of the Concert Choir.
Ms. Duncan is a graduate of Alabama School of Fine Arts. She has been a soloist at St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church and First United Methodist Church. In 2000, Ms. Duncan placed first in the National Association of
Teachers of Singing state vocal competition and second place in this year’s
competition. After graduating from BSC,
she plans to attend graduate school for her masters degree and to pursue a career
in operatic performance. She is a voice
student of Jacqueline Leary-Warsaw.
Kathleen Healy is a senior Vocal
Performance major from Canton, Connecticut.
She cantors for St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church and is a member
of the chancel choir at Canterbury United Methodist Church. This year Ms. Healy was a recipient of an
encouragement award from the Metropolitan National Opera Council. She was also awarded second place in the
National Association of Teachers of Singing state competition. She sang the role of Ursula in the College's
world premiere performances of Charles Mason's Daphne at Sea. She is a
voice student of David Smith.
Thomas
Gibbs, Conductor
Program
Symphony
No. 56, in C Major Franz Joseph Haydn
Allegro di molto 1732-1809
Adagio
Menuet, Trio
Finale: Prestissimo
--- Intermission ---
Piano
Concerto, K. 466, in D Minor Wolfgang A. Mozart
Allegro 1756-1791
Betsy
Jackson, Soloist
The
Count's Aria (Hai già vinto la
causa) Wolfgang A. Mozart
from Le Nozze
di Figaro
Daniel
Seigel, Soloist
Monica's
Song (The Black Swan) Gian-Carlo Menotti
from The
Medium b. 1911
Nicole
Duncan, Soloist
Magda's Aria (To This We've Come)
Gian-Carlo Menotti
from
The Consul
Katheen
Healy, Soloist
Please join us in the lounge area
for a reception following the concert.
Haydn
- Symphony No. 56, in C Major
Haydn came from Austrian peasant stock and
was proud of it. He said, after he came
back from England, "I have often in life mixed with many exalted persons,
and we understood each other, too; but I prefer to be with people of my own
class." This was the proud
statement of a man who had chatted with the King and Queen of England and had
sat next to the Duchess of York as she happily hummed the tunes of his
symphonies. Haydn was never a peasant when it came to musical construction,
however; here a highly educated thinker stands beside an earthbound man who
loved the Austrian people.
This symphony begins with a festive,
brilliant first movement, with horns and trumpets used in their high
registers. Formal sections of the
movement are clearly articulated by rests and pauses. There is occasional chromaticism and suggestions of minor mode
that add a serious affect. The second
movement is in the subdominant, F Major, and provides a restful and elegant
lyric contrast to the first movement.
Oboes figure prominently, and the bassoon solos are especially
notable. The minuet is a wonderful
specimen, with a character both polite and jovial. The last movement is structurally similar to the first two. Oliver Roosevelt calls our attention to
"its stunning trumpet fanfares, the whirling triplets, and the dancing,
tongue-in-cheek second subject."
Frontispiece of the Haydn
manuscript
Mozart
- Piano Concerto in D minor, K. 466 (Allegro)
In February of 1785, Leopold Mozart,
visiting his son in Vienna, wrote back home to Salzburg of a concert at the
Burgtheater at which Wolfgang had performed a piano concerto. "I had the great pleasure of hearing so
clearly all the interplay of the instruments that for sheer delight tears came
into my eyes." Leopold was hearing
something radically new in his son's conception of the piano concerto.
Of Mozart's 27 piano concertos, only two are
in minor keys. This d minor concerto is
one of Mozart's darkest and most chromatic works. The lyrical entrance of the piano soloist is in marked contrast
to the turbulent orchestral tutti beginning.
Woodwind colors are prominent, and the piano solo is deftly integrated
into the orchestral texture.
Mozart
- The Count's Aria, from Le nozze di Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro was Mozart's
first collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. This libretto, based on the second play of a trilogy by
Beaumarchais, is openly critical of the old social order of Europe. Count Almaviva lusts after Susanna, the
Countess's maid, but he has been outwitted by his own servant Figaro, Susanna's
husband-to-be.
Menotti
- Monica's Song (The Black Swan), from The Medium
The
Medium is Baba--a charlatan, a drunk, and also something of a tragic
figure. Her household includes her
daughter, Monica, and Toby, a mute. Monica calms a hysterical Baba by singing
to her this song, "The Black Swan."
In
1947, Menotti wrote a short one-act comedy, The
Telephone, as a curtain raiser for The
Medium, and the pair of works received over 200 performances on
Broadway. The Medium is considered by many to be Menotti's finest operatic
work.
Menotti
- Magda's Aria, from The Consul
In
this aria, the opera's musical centerpiece, Menotti's Magda rages against the
inhumanity of faceless bureaucracy
In 2001, Gian-Carlo Menotti celebrates his
90th birthday.
Notes by Oliver Roosevelt and Tom Gibbs