Puerto Rican flutist Josué Casillas looks forward to "adventure" of playing with the ASO

Puerto Rican flutist Josué Casillas will be performing a solo with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra on May 22-23 that he has never heard performed before. And he likes it that way.

“It’s one of those adventures, but I’m good at that,” he said. “In the years I played in Houston, Texas, I played with a group that presented new music at recitals – music that hasn’t been recorded. That’s art in its crudest and most valuable sense. It’s like a painter creating colors from scratch. It’s a privilege to create something fresh and new and make it alive.”

Casillas, 45, will be soloing during “Atmosphere as a Fluid System,” a composition by Minneapolis composer Libby Larsen. While Larsen is a popular and prolific composer, orchestras rarely perform pieces that audiences are unfamiliar with.

“It is usually the 20th Century (and earlier) composers that they are sure are marketable, such as Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart,” he said. “But there is something to be said for new music. It challenges our souls and our hearts. It makes us better human beings and better servants to society. Libby Larsen is an amazing composer. (“Atmosphere as a Fluid System”) is all about fluidity and the flow of the orchestra sounds into the flow of the flute sounds. It’s very modern in that way --- we live in a dynamic, ever-changing world.”

Despite flying in just a week before the concert from Puerto Rico, where Casillas is the principal flutist of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico and the flute professor at the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, he said he will be prepared to play the piece with musicians and a conductor that he has never worked with before.

“Oh, it’s nerve-wracking, but thanks to tradition and discipline, we all have the same language – music,” he said. “The human spirit is the same, whether you’re from Puerto Rico, China or America – musicians are all just human. That’s how the collaboration can occur.”

Casillas said he also has pressure to perform for his sponsor, Suzanne Brock, who brought him to Alexandria after seeing him perform with The Orchestra and Community Choral Artists of the Tahoe Area in Incline Village, Nevada, over the course of four summers; and for former students – who he calls “my peoples” -- who will be flying in from all over the country to see his performance with the ASO. “I want to do a good job for them,” he said.

Casillas will also be performing with another flutist, Sara Stern, during Telemann’s “Double Flute Concerto.”

“It’s a privilege because we are not going to meet at a bus stop, or at the library or any other way people normally meet. Telemann has brought us together,” he said. “I have a college friend I met at the Cleveland Institute of Music, who is Chinese. English was her second language and English is my second language, but we had music.”

In addition to his duties rehearsing with the ASO the week of the concert, Casillas will take one day to fly to Winston-Salem to teach a master class at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

“Being Hispanic, we are famous for being laid-back,” he said. “I had to change my way of thinking. Orchestras are very competitive. I have to be prepared.”

-- You can read more about Josué Casillas here: http://www.miyazawa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1869&Itemid=3100
-- Or listen to his performances on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/josueflute

GET TICKETS HERE: www.alexsym.org

Maestro Musings: 'Carmina Burana' still contemporary and exciting

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
and waning;
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;
poverty
and power,
it melts them like ice.
-- Carmina Burana


The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra's popular 2009-2010 season, entitled "Inspired by Nature" comes to an ecstatic conclusion in it's Grand Finale concerts on May 22-23. The centerpiece will be Carl Orff's timeless masterpiece, "Carmina Burana," which has reached far into popular culture, making it into the soundtracks for the films "Excalibur," "The Hunt for Red October," and "The General's Daughter." It has also been used by many pop musicians, including Michael Jackson.

Just what is the appeal of "Carmina Burana"? The poetry deals with timeless subjects of life, love and loss. Although written in thirteenth century Latin it has a surprisingly modern sensibility. The Latin language gives the poetry an extra punch and is ultra-expressive and descriptive ... sometimes shockingly so.

But it is the music -- the unforgettable rhythms, pounding and hypnotic -- that gets under your skin and makes your hairs stand on end. The music sounds contemporary and relevant. Even hip-hop music seems to pale in comparison to the primitive and expressive power of Orff's music.

So it's the combination of compelling and graphic poetry with this hyper-propulsive music that give "Carmina Burana" it's unique appeal—to both classical music lovers and popular culture.

So electrifying is "Carmina Burana" that is practically impossible for me to sleep after performances! Sharing the stage with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra will be The Metropolitan Chorus, Heritage Signature Chorale, NOVA Chorus and Alexandria Choral Society.

Also on the program are guest flute soloists Josue Casillas and Sara Stern playing music by Telemann and a fascinating work by Libby Larsen, entitled "Atmosphere of a Fluid System."

Our "Inspired by Nature" theme this season was so popular that we are extending it into an exciting new direction for our 2010-2011 season, entitled "Symphonic Vistas!" Headliners will be Garrick Ohlsson, Jenny Oaks Baker and Steffen Horn in a season featuring many of music’s greatest evocations of nature…and of man’s endless fascination and love of nature.

See you at the concert!

Kim Allen Kluge
Music Director
Alexandria Symphony Orchestra

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

Leonid Sushansky: Born to make music

Leonid Sushansky was born to make music.

The violinist will be a solo guest performer on the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra’s opening night performance of Vivaldi’s “Summer” and “Autumn” from The Four Seasons on Sat., Sept. 26. He is the son of violinist Rimma Sushanskaya, who was already a successful solo violinist in the Soviet Union when Sushansky was born. She was one of the last students of the famous violinist David Oistrakh, a prize-winner, conservatory teacher and internationally acclaimed touring musician.

“My first memory of the violin is imaginary,” Sushansky said. “My mother played before I was born, and when she was pregnant with me, so I had music piped in from the very start. When I was a baby, I had music all around me. When I was a little kid, I used to pick up sticks and imagine I was playing.”

However, violin lessons didn’t come naturally to the mother-son pair right away, and eventually, at age 7, little Leonid started classes at a local school.
“They tried to start me at 6, but I didn’t have the attention span. I guess I wasn’t careful, or paying attention, and broke a couple of violins.”

Practicing never came easy for him, he said, but once he took the stage, his fate as a performing violinist was sealed.

“When I go on stage, it’s almost like being transformed into a different person,” he said. “In fact, when I was in the fourth grade -- 7 or 8 (years old) -- I was in a competition and one of my teachers was in the audience and didn’t recognize me.”
It was about that time that his mother began attempting to get permission to leave St. Petersburg and move to New York City. It was a long and difficult process.

“We were trying to leave Russia, and for a number of years we were refused. When people were denied the right to leave Russia, you were fired from your job, and the Soviet government said, ‘Survive how you can.’ My mother lost her job at the conservatory. All her concert tours were cancelled and all her music was taken off the radio. The only way we survived was private students would come in secret, and packages sent from relatives. In fact, when I won first competition, right before leaving Russia, the people were afraid to let me perform at the awards concert, for fear of repercussion.”

In 1977, the family members who were already in the United States, were able to win the family’s right to immigrate by campaigning politicians.

He was raised in New York City and attended the Julliard School of Music. He has never been back to Russia, although his mother, who splits her time now between New York and England, has returned on concert tours.

Leonid has lived in the D.C. area for a decade. He is in his third year as director of the National Chamber Ensemble. He said his mother sometimes comes to see him perform.

“I think she’s proud. Most of the time,” he said. “When she’s in town, I’m very appreciative to play for her. She’s a great artist. Her input is very valuable.”
Sushansky said he is looking forward to starting the season with the ASO and Vivaldi.
“I try the most to make whatever I’m performing at the moment my favorite work. Whatever you’re performing, you have to be fully invested in it. I’ve never had a concert where said, ‘I don’t really like this.’ So, yes, Vivaldi is my favorite. This week. And next week,” he said with a laugh. “This is very exciting to do Vivaldi, because I’m starting the season with Vivaldi with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, and ending the season with Vivaldi. In June, I’m performing the entire “Four Seasons” with the National Chamber Ensemble.”

“One of the things we do the most is talking to the audience during a performance. I try to make it interesting by telling stories, telling jokes – I try to make it a fun, interactive experience. Music is about sharing. When you share music, you’re also sharing yourself, it’s communicating.”



Sushansky said he likes to bridge the gap between the listener and the composer by giving out “the dirt” on the composers.

“Everybody has problems. It brings the composer to life. Most people, when they hear a composer’s name, think of some bust in a lobby, but I try to make the composer human. It helps to connect them to the music.”

But, Leonid said, Vivaldi is one of the few composers who almost doesn’t need any explanation – his music is so full of imagery and so accessible.

“ ‘The Four Seasons’ is probably the greatest or earliest examples of program music — music that tells a story. It’s amazing how accurately each piece portrays the poem without losing the musical quality,” Sushansky said. “In “Autumn,” in the first movement, the peasants are celebrating the harvest, and in the music it says they drink and they become drunk. I do not imagine a drunk person being able to play metronomically, so I make it a little free and unpredictable. Also, he brilliantly demonstrates when they fall asleep, the music demonstrates how they sleep and breathe. … In the first movement, they are dying from the heat, and then in the last movement, have a storm, and you hear the hail beating down the crop.”

Sushansky said while every concert has a great moment and memory for him, his most memorable moment onstage came when he was under the influence.

“It was last May, I had a performance two days after having surprise oral surgery. Doing a performance on Vicodin was interesting. For years I’ve always thought, ‘Hard work, hard work, practice hard,’ and Vicodin makes you think you can do anything. It went really well. I should have discovered Vicodin years ago. All these years, could have just taken a pill. And the concert was called ‘The Russians are Coming,’ so it was appropriate.”



Who: Alexandria Symphony Orchestra & Maestro Kim Allen Kluge
What: Vivaldi “Summer” and “Autumn” from The Four Seasons
Respighi Pines of Rome
Gershwin Piano Concerto in F
When: Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Where: Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall & Arts Center
NOVA Community College, Alexandria Campus
3001 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria, VA 22311
Price: $20-$80. Call 703-548-0885 or visit www.alexsym.org for tickets

"Inspired by Nature" opens on Sept. 26

09-10 season begins at 8 p.m. Sept. 26

Featuring Carlos Rodriguez on piano and Leonid Sushansky on violin

Performing works by Vivaldi, Gershwin, and Respighi

The ASO heats up its 66^th season, with pieces that evoke warm afternoon thunderstorms and colorful leaves softly floating to the ground. The season is Inspired by Nature, and during the scorching Sept. 26 concert, violinist Leonid Sushansky will perform Vivaldi's bright and playful “Summer” and “Autumn,” selections from The Four Seasons. These two well-known pieces were part of the ground-breaking work by the composer whose melodies bring to mind flowing creeks, singing birds and buzzing mosquitoes.

Check out this amazing sand painting, by Ferenc Cako set to "Summer."

Guest Musicians

Leonid Sushansky is a virtuoso musician who is in his third season as the National Chamber Ensemble’s violinist and music director. The New York Times has called him “extraordinarily gifted,” and NPR’s Nina Totenberg has said, “He plays with so much heart, it makes you want to cry.”

ASO is happy to welcome back pianist Carlos Rodriguez. Rodriguez was one of the ASO’s most popular guests of the 07-08 season. Rodriguez is a member of the faculty at the Levine School of Music and guest artist and coach for the Domingo/Cafritz Young Artist Program with The Washington Opera.

Information

Check out part of the Gershwin, as performed in the film "Rhapsody in Blue." Be forewarned, it's a little disconcerting that the concert is interrupted by an announcement of the composer's death.

For more information, to contact the guest musicians, or for photos or review tickets, call Marketing and Box Office Manager Merrie Leininger at 703-548-0885 or e-mail her at alex@alexsym.org.

Go here to see the "Fantasia 2000" version of our third piece of the night: Respighi's "Pines of Rome"

Who: Alexandria Symphony Orchestra & Maestro Kim Allen Kluge

What: Vivaldi “Summer” and “Autumn” from The Four Seasons

Respighi Pines of Rome

Gershwin Piano Concerto in F

When: Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.

Where: Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall & Arts Center

NOVA Community College, Alexandria Campus

3001 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria, VA 22311

Price: $20-$80. Call 703-548-0885 or visit www.alexsym.org for tickets