Kids and Cannons: Fairbanks Synphony Concert

A friend of mine claims that Fairbanks has more arts events for its size than any other city. I’m not going to take a stand one way or another, if only because the metric is so poorly defined, but it certainly has more going on than my inability to drive at night (and the lack of alternative transportation) will let me attend! This time of year, however, the evenings are light enough I can go places, and the Fairbanks Symphony’s Concerto Competition concert April 29 was certainly worth attending.

The Concerto Competition is held each year to find the best young local musicians in four categories: 11 years and under, 12-15, 16-18 and University of Alaska Fairbanks students. Winners play with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra at one of their concerts – this year, the last concert of the season, Sunday evening. They were superb. Every one received a standing ovation, and in my opinion, well deserved. Granted, the tenor is a graduate student and an understudy for the role of Rudolpho in the Opera Fairbanks production of La Bohéme this summer, but these kids are talented and the concerto portion of the concert alone was worth attending.

And that wasn’t all.

The second half of the concert had two “patriotic” pieces that were both inspiring and somewhat overwhelming. The first was Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait. You know the one – bits about Lincoln, interspersed with his own words, read to a background which (and I caught this primarily because of the pre-concert lecture) quoted several times from Camptown Races. It took a few bars for the orchestra to find the right balance between their own volume and that of the reader, but once the balance was found it was an excellent performance. Then came Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

Maestro Zilberkant always gives an introductory lecture before the concert, and when I can attend the concert, I generally manage to arrive early for the lecture. This time he let us in on some interesting bits about the cannon fire and church bells which are orchestrated parts of this piece — often with real cannons, which are not all that easy to time properly, and which (for obvious reasons) are not used indoors. Timing? Imagine a gunner lighting a fuse to fire a cannon which has to go off at exactly the right time. How long must the fuse be? Exactly when must it be lit? And since cannons have to have a cool-down period between firings, it takes no less that 18 cannons!

It is possible to fire the cannons outdoors and have the sound piped indoors, and to Maestro Zilberkant’s credit, he checked with our local Army base, Fort Wainwright, about the possibility. A century ago, it might have worked. Today it would require closing all roads in the vicinity of the university and closing the airspace over the university (which would mean closing down the Fairbanks airport.) It wasn’t practical. A recording of cannon fire was used, and played through – well, I don’t think they were your usual everyday speakers. Maestro Zilberkant warned those sitting near the speakers to move before the final piece was played. The building shook – literally. I don’t think anyone’s hearing was actually damaged, but then I was at the very back of the theater, and the loudspeakers were at the front.

I hope I can figure out a way to get to more concerts next winter.

Fairbanks Chamber Orchestra Concert, 10/2/11

Something old, something new, something borrowed ….

No, nothing blue, and it wasn’t a wedding.

The music director and conductor of the Fairbanks Symphony gives a talk an hour before each concert, and Maestro Zilberkant described last Sunday’s concert, the first of the 2011-2012 season, with the words above. The chamber orchestra played three selections: Gordon Jacob’s “Old Wine in New Bottles,” Robert Schumann’s “Piano Concerto in A Minor” (with guest soloist Kiara Min) and Rodion Shchedrin’s “Carmen Suite (after Bizet.)”

Something old – well, the themes were old folk tunes. I was delighted to note that one of the tunes was “The Three Ravens,” the basis for my own pastiche, “There were Three Quarks in a Neutron Seen,” which describes carbon-14 decay in terms of a hole in Santa’s hat. (Believe it or not, it’s accurate on a sub-atomic level.)

Something new turned out to be the oldest piece on the program. What I had not realized was that Robert Schumann may have suffered from mental illness. Maestro Zilberkant said schizophrenia, pointing to the fact that he himself marked portions of his work as being by Florestan (his passionate, voluble side), Eusebius (his dreamy, introspective side) and had also a third personality, Raro. The Wikipedia biography suggests bipolar disorder, but also brings up other possibilities. The one point of agreement is that he died in a sanatorium.

The music he penned was glorious, as was its performance.

The Carmen Suite (which borrows themes from Bizet’s opera) was written for a ballet performance of the story of the well-known opera. My acquaintance with the opera is limited to short excerpts seen on television, but I kept recognizing tunes in the suite, and wished I could have seen the ballet. Maestro Zilberkant had, and I am sure it influenced his conducting.

As an old trombonist, I couldn’t help noticing the absence of the brasses, except for two trumpets with the woodwinds in the first piece.

I have an old work crony and facebook friend who is fond of repeating that Fairbanks has more cultural events per capita than any other city in the US. I certainly cannot confirm or deny this, but we do have a symphony orchestra to be proud of, especially considering that the whole area’s population is under 100,000. I’ve missed many of the winter performances in former years because I cannot drive in the dark, but I hope I have transportation arranged this year.