Composer is inspired by nature

I think of all music as existing in the substance of the air itself. — Libby Larsen

Alexandria Symphony Orchestra presents “Atmosphere as a Fluid System,” by American composer Libby Larsen

By Merrie Leininger

Libby Larsen is one of only 20-30 people in the country who make their living purely from composing music for orchestras and operas.

Most people, of course, hold down a second job -- most as a teacher at a university -- but Larsen is one of the most frequently commissioned American composers, and also is in demand as a speaker. She has written more than 400 works, including operas, songs, orchestra and chamber music, and has more than 50 recordings of her music.

“I like to keep busy. There are so many ideas to pursue — and life is short,” she said.

The Larsen work that will be performed by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra on May 22-23 is “Atmosphere as a Fluid System.” Maestro and Music Director Kim Allen Kluge picked the piece because it fits so well into the season’s theme: “Inspired by Nature.”

Larsen described how a plane ride led to the music:

“One day, years and years ago, I was flying somewhere, plastered up against the window watching light on the clouds, and I saw a rainbow cone in the clouds, and although we were moving, the rainbow was moving with us, and I could see right down the center of the cone,” she said. “I was fascinated by it, because I had never seen anything like it, and I began to study, I wanted to find out what it was. Turns out it was something called Ulloa’s Ring.”

Larsen said “Atmosphere” is meant to transport the listener into a cloud.

“Along the edges and in the middle of clouds, this fluidity is dynamic and we get tornados and hurricanes from this kind of thing. I wanted to write a piece from the inside of a cloud, and that’s what this piece is — it moves all the time, it is very fluid and moving and full of shifting colors, so it’s as if you as an audience member were inside the cloud, moving with the atmosphere.”

Nature is where she most often turns to for inspiration. She described the piece for two violas that she is currently working on:

“It’s really about the moment of quiet in the night where the stars are bright. It’s a suspended moment in eternity.”

Despite working in an industry that values the voices of dead European men over productive women who work and live among us, Larsen said that she feels like there is certainly room for growth and ground-breaking music on American stages.

“It’s an industry that has become a repackaging industry, and those of us who can add to that — contribute to the cannon — are vital,” Larsen said. “It’s less than from the public, that perception of boards of directors and marketing departments that an audience will not come to a performance of something they don’t know. It’s not the accepted thinking in any other form of art — not music, movies, art — but really only the classical music world who have bought that mythology hook, line and sinker.”

However, Larsen says she understands the restrictions that orchestras are often under, and how little time musicians have to learn a new piece of music.

“I like to challenge myself to make music that is interesting and idiomatic for the performers and resonates with the audience, in the way the notes are arranged. I don’t try to write music people simply ‘like,’ but are engaged with.”

She said being a woman in this demanding — and sometimes isolating — profession can be difficult, but she maintains contact with other women composers such as Jennifer Higdon, who just won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for composition.

“We have a wonderful community network, where we all e-mail. There is a league of women composers and wonderful trade associations. I support them where I can, but best of all is to be in communication, so we support each other,” Larsen said.

Larsen said she respects other composers and musicians and is pleased when they enjoy her work, but she said she is thrilled when her work inspires audience members to reach out to her.

“I’m always delighted when someone who has heard my work goes out of their way to be engaged — sends an e-mail or says something to me in the grocery store. Because composition is when you make a shape out of sound and time, in order to communicate what it’s like to be alive. When someone communicates with me about my music, it’s because I made this sound, and I feel like the work I do — which is an odd way to spend your life — has meaning.”

Larsen, who lives in Minneapolis, said she took up long-distance running a couple of years ago in order to get out of the head space where she often loses time to music.

“The sound is in my head, I hear everything in my head, and work in a different kind of time when I’m writing. Two or three days can go by, and suddenly, I realize I really need to get out of the house and talk to people who are living in flat time.”

Larsen said that keeping her life well-rounded only enhances her music.

“One can live an artful life, and the products of that artful life can be food, music, a perfect run, a fine interview, (art doesn’t imitate life), they are one in the same. If your life is an artful life, you live a mindful life, where mind and emotion are in balance.”

Learn more about Libby Larsen at her website.

Get tickets and more information about the May 22-23 concert, go to www.alexsym.org

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!

Happy holidays, music lovers! I'm so excited about Saturday's concert at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre. Not only is "The Nutcracker" one of my favorites, but we get the original and a special treat -- the Duke Ellington version! To get more information, go to the Website.

I'm having trouble finding Duke YouTube videos, but here's a version of the Duke Ellington band doing "Jingle Bells:"



Here's Duke and his band doing "Don't Mean a Thing:"



And, finally, Ellington's version of "The Nutcracker," as performed by the U.S. Army Blues Band:

Violin soloist prepares for the variety and fun of the Nov. 14 concert with the ASO

Violinist Olivia Haijoff says preparing for the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra's Nov. 14 performance at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall has been both challenging and comforting.

The playlist includes one of her favorite pieces to play – Arnold's "Concerto for Two Violins," and something she’d never even heard before, Piazzolla's "The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires."

"I think this is a particularly good program; there is so much variety, the pieces are really fun, and there's nothing to be scared by -- everyone is familiar with the Vivaldi; the Piazzolla is really fun; the Arnold is short, and has a rhythmic quirkiness, when we've played it to audiences before, they really love it and find it interesting … the middle movement is very sensual, slinky and special…. And the Brahms is really warm. It's not the usual thing."

Haijoff will be performing, as always, with her husband, Marc Ramirez. The couple have been married since 1997. They live and teach violin in Vienna, Va., and met while studying violin at the University of Maryland. She came to the U.S. from England on a Fulbright Scholarship.

"We met in the violin class," she said. "He was nice to me after I played."
Haijoff said both she and her husband grew up with musicians in the family and came to the violin early on. She was 4 when her mother, a harpsichordist, took her to a concert, and Ramirez was 7 when a violinist performed for a small party at his parents' home. Both his parents, Connie and Abad Ramirez, had at one time served as president of the Arlington Symphony.

Both Ramirez and Haijoff are also past winners of the Lasley Scholarship program -- co-sponsored by the Symphony Orchestra League of Alexandria and the ASO -- that helps support and teach young musicians.



Haijoff said the competition really helped her develop into a professional musician.

"Just having to get ready for something like that, preparing a concerto, a major concert, makes you work hard, gives you a goal. And you know it's going to be taken seriously. Marc judged it a few years ago. The judges are people the students really respect, so it really stays with them."

Since then, the couple both taught at Shenandoah University, and now teach out of their home and perform all over the country and the world as Marcolivia violin duo. She said it's not difficult to both work and live together.



"Before we got married, we started doing duos in school, so we'd already been working together," she said. "I think we agree on quite a lot of things musically. We both try hard not to argue or bring other things into it, from our daily life. There's never been a piece that we disagree on. We like the same things. We are technically similar, we went to school together and learned from the same people, and teach the same way."

Haijoff said she loves to teach violin to people, whether they have a future as a professional musician or not.

"I just want them to always have music they can come back to later in life, whether they play in an orchestra, or just are able to go to orchestras and really love it. I've never been one of those teachers who say, 'You have to do it this way,'as long as they want to learn and show respect for the music, then I'm happy."
She said the beauty of teaching the violin is that amateurs and professionals are both always working on the basics -- it's not as simple as reading a note and then playing that note.

"It's like solving a puzzle -- there are always things to work out. I like to bring that out of them," she said. "The violin is really hard, it's much harder than anything they will do in school, or even anything they will do in life, but if I can help them to enjoy the puzzle solving, then they will know it's not something you're supposed to know how to do, and that's why they should love it."

"Lots of people come up to me and say, 'I played the violin once, I wish I hadn't given it up,' But no one ever says I wish I didn't play the violin."

The Marcolivia duo will bring that love of music and the violin to the stage on Nov. 14 with the ASO -- the only problem was deciding who would get to play what.



"I think I really wanted to play the Piazzolla, and I'm the more pushy one," she laughed. "This Piazzolla is unlike anything I've played before. I think the quirkiness really appealed to me; it's different, so it's always going to bring something new out. It's something like playing jazz -- there’s that freedom you get that you have on stage, there's a little bit of that."

Listen to Marcolivia at http://marcolivia.com/cd.htm

ASO chosen for 2009-10 Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington

The Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington is proud to announce that Alexandria Symphony Orchestra (ASO) has been selected to be featured in the 2009-10 Catalogue. A panel of 90 experts from area foundations, corporate giving programs, larger non-profit organizations, and the DC government evaluated nearly 240 applications; the ASO is one of 68 outstanding nonprofits to be featured this year.

About the ASO, from the Catalogue:

The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra combines a commitment to artistic excellence with a dedication to entertaining and educating a wide range of audience members -- from the seasoned subscribers to the 8-year-old attending a concert for the first time. Generous discounts for seniors, students, families, and youth organizations (Girl Scouts can earn a participation patch!); a free-ticket program for at-risk youth; select free concerts; a main location near four large retirement communities; and popular daytime events make ASO concerts accessible to committed music lovers and tentative music explorers alike. And the programming is fresh and innovative: recent seasons have included collaborations with visual artists, theater, choral, dance, and opera companies. In addition to its evening and matinee concert series, ASO offers an annual children's holiday concert; school-day concerts for Alexandria City's third- through sixth-graders that conclude a collaborative, year-long music and art curriculum; and a serious mentoring program for high school musicians.

ASO and you: beautiful music together.

About the Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington:
Now in its seventh year, the Catalogue has become a trusted intermediary connecting smaller, community-based organizations with individual and foundation donors. According to Barbara Harman, President and Editor of the Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington, "We know that nonprofits have had a very difficult year. For most, contributions are flat or down, and the decrease or loss of foundation and government funding has created significant budgetary challenges. Individual donors can make a real difference this year, keeping great organizations afloat during these tough times.” The Catalogue enables smaller non-profits to tell their stories to individuals who would otherwise never hear them, and to encourage those individuals to give. It also provides charities with a stamp of approval that tells donors they can invest with confidence because the Catalogue vets its family of nonprofits with great care.

20,000 individuals and hundreds of family foundations will receive copies of the catalogue this year, and the new catalogue website (cfp-dc.org), which launches on November 1, includes a gift registry and gift cards, and a section especially for kids.

Since its inception in 2003, the catalogue has helped raise over $9.5 million dollars for deserving, local, non-profit organizations. "Charities were selected for excellence, cost-effectiveness, and impact" Harman said. “These are certainly among the best community-based nonprofits in the Washington region.”

First concert of the season a great success

The positive response to our first concert of the 09-10 season has been overwhelming!

Thanks to amazing solo performances by pianist Carlos Rodriguez, (pictured, at left, with ASO Executive Director Adrien Finlay) violinist Leonid Sushansky, and the whole ASO orchestra, the Sept. 26 concert was a smashing success. (Despite a driving rain and one musician who couldn't make it because of a car accident on the way!)

The audience was brought to its feet at the end of Rodriguez's rousing performance of Gershwin's "Piano Concerto in F" and then, as an encore, he performed Debussy's lovely "Clair de Lune."

We have not stopped taking calls from raving audience members since.

Thank yous must be made to Music Director Kim Allen Kluge, all the musicians, SOLA volunteers, Tara Conte, and Key Club volunteers from T.C. Williams High School (pictured at left). And, thank you to Susan Cavanaugh for the great photos!

The next one is coming up on us soon! See you Nov. 14 with marcolivia!


--Merrie