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Pacific Symphony • 27
ROGER KALIA • CONDUCTOR
pacific symphony youth orchestraMAR. 20
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Bacchanale from Samson et
Dalilá
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) Symphonic Dances from West Side
Story
Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, TrV
227, Op. 59
The concert begins at 7 p.m.
SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTSRENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT
HALL
presents
2015-16 CHENG FAMILY FOUNDATIONYOUTH ORCHESTRA CONCERT
SERIES
I N T E R M I S S I O N
This evening’s performance is generously sponsored by Jane Xu
and Sheng Jiang.
Spring Concert
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28 • Pacific Symphony
NOTES by joshua graysonmusic for the rest of his life, attending
the second performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Bayreuth in 1876
but promoting a ban on the performance of German music in 1914.
The narrative of Samson et Dalila comes from the familiar story
from the Book of Judges, in which the prophet Samson is seduced by
the beautiful Philistine woman Dalila. Enchanted by her beauty, he
reveals the source of his extreme physical strength—his hair, which
had never been cut. Dalila shaves Samson’s hair while he is
sleeping, thus robbing the great Israelite hero of his strength.
After a lengthy time in chains in a Philistine temple, enough of
Samson’s hair grows back to give him the strength to bring the
temple crashing down on himself and all of the Philistines inside.
In the opera, Saint-Saëns downplays Samson’s heroic feats and
emphasizes the emotional aspects of the story.
The famous “Danse Bacchanale” is taken from Act III of the
opera. Occurring at the height of the opera’s climax, it depicts
Samson bringing down the temple on the Philistines. (A “danse
bacchanale” is a ballet scene inserted into an opera, a standard
practice in 19th-century French grand opera. A wild, frenzied
dance, it originally was meant as a tribute to Bacchus, the Roman
god of wine.) Beginning with stirring passion and drama tinged with
exoticism, the piece includes music in the ancient Jewish “Ahava
Rabah” mode, a scale common to Jewish and Arabic music and
prominently featuring two augmented seconds. A contrasting theme
displays soaring lyricism and romantic love before a rousing
climax.
Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
C onductor, composer, pianist, educator and public figure
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) led a multifaceted career over the
course of his life that few musicians could match. After his first
appearance conducting the New York Philharmonic in 1943, when he
substituted for an ailing Bruno Walter, Bernstein went on to lead
the ensemble from 1957 to 1969. During the course of his tenure in
New York, he became one of the world’s most renowned, authoritative
conductors. One of the hallmarks of his tenure was the Young
People’s Concerts in New York. Appealing to young audiences,
Bernstein explained both the orchestra’s functions and the music
itself in a way that children could understand. He was also one of
the first to utilize the then-new medium of television to share
music with large audiences. In academia during the early 1970s, he
gave a series of public lectures at Harvard, called the Norton
Lectures, which he later televised, discussing music, linguistics
and a variety of related disciplines.
As a composer, Bernstein remained committed to serving large
audiences. Firmly opposed to the avant-garde and serialist music
favored by most composers during the 1950s and early 1960s,
Bernstein’s music remained largely melodic and lyrical. At the same
time, his use of blues notes, leapy angular melodies and strong
syncopations combine with a sophisticated musical language
featuring extended tertian harmonies, octatonicism and complex
shifting meters. Bernstein was particularly fond of using concert
music as a means of commenting on social and political issues of
the day, ranging from World War II and nuclear weapons to the Cold
War and the role of religion in American society. He also composed
numerous works for the Broadway stage, bringing a harmonic and
formal sophistication to the genre. His musical style is quite
similar in both the concert and Broadway works, although the
concert works tend towards greater dissonance.
Bacchanale from Samson et Dalilá
A pianist and organist as well as composer, Camille Saint-Saëns
(1835-1921) began his musical life as a prodigy, displaying his
supreme talents in conservatory and establishing his reputation as
a composer by his mid-20s. In addition to symphonies, concertos and
his now famous Carnival of the Animals (of which the composer was
so embarrassed that he forbade its public performance during his
lifetime), Saint-Saëns wrote 13 operas. Of these, Samson et Dalila
is the only one still performed today.
The composition of Samson et Dalila has a long and complicated
history. The earliest music in it dates to 1859, when the composer,
only recently out of school, was first beginning to establish his
reputation. Saint-Saëns then set this project aside for several
years. By the late 1860s, the premiere of his first opera, Le
Timbre d’Argent (“The Sound of Silver”), gave him enough confidence
to return to his biblical opera. Initially, he had conceived of the
biblical story of Samson et Dalila as an oratorio (an unstaged
opera, usually on religious themes), but his librettist Ferdinand
Lemaire (1832-1879) convinced him to make it a full opera. He put
the project on hold yet again until 1873 after the completion of
his third opera, La Princesse Jaune (“The Yellow Princess”). Before
Samson’s completion, its first act was premiered in concert form in
Paris in 1875 but received largely negative reviews. Saint-Saëns
finally completed Samson et Dalila in 1877, nearly 20 years after
having begun. In spite of the composer’s French nationalism and
anti-German sentiment in response to the Franco-Prussian war of
1870-71, the opera received its premiere in Weimar, Germany on the
financial backing of none other than the composer’s friend Franz
Liszt.
In many sections (especially those composed during the 1860s),
the opera displays the influence of Richard Wagner, the most
prominent German operatic composer of the mid and late 19th
century. Saint-Saëns admired Wagner’s music before the 1871 French
defeat by Prussia sparked a national crisis of confidence. Like
many French musicians of the day, Saint-Saëns changed directions in
the 1870s, emphasizing French artistic traditions and rejecting
German ones. He would maintain a complex relationship with Wagner
and German
CAM
ILLE
SA
INT-
SAËN
S(1
835-
1921
)
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Pacific Symphony • 29
NOTESa decade later and Bernstein himself would conduct the New
York Philharmonic). Two rival street gangs, the Jets (white) and
Sharks (Puerto Rican) are having it out with one another; the
leaders plan to fight each other to determine which gang would
control the neighborhood. Tony, a former member of the Jets and the
best friend of the Jets’ current leader, meets Maria, the sister of
the Sharks’ leader; the two fall in love at first sight. When the
two leaders fight, Tony kills his rival (Maria’s brother). Maria
forgives Tony and the two decide to run away together; she sends a
messenger to inform Tony of her plan. However, when the messenger
(Anita) arrives at the Jets’ territory, they taunt and humiliate
her. Enraged, she tells Tony that Maria is dead. Distraught with
grief, Tony runs into the streets begging to be killed; he finds
Maria still alive just before he is shot by a member of the Sharks.
Maria begs everyone to stop the violence. While violence had been
in musical theater before, the level of violence depicted in West
Side Story was unprecedented—both acts end with corpses on
stage.
In addition to its stark depiction of urban violence and its
dealing with contemporary social issues, West Side Story is also
unique in its integration of dance into the story. In traditional
musicals, separate choruses perform the choral singing and
choreography; in this one, all the singing and dancing is done by
characters in the story. Rather than dramatic breaks appended onto
songs, the dances in West Side Story are set pieces that are well
integrated into the dramatic action. Every bit as musically
engaging as the musical’s songs, these dance pieces have become
equally well known, unlike in most musicals in which only the songs
are famous. In 1960, Bernstein extracted these dance sequences as
Symphonic Dances from West Side Story for use in the concert
hall.
The resounding success of West Side Story helped reset
Bernstein’s career, which had suffered some temporary setbacks when
he was blacklisted in 1953 as a result of left wing activities
earlier in his career. Although he had been a relatively high
profile conductor previously, he had been primarily appointed to
guest positions. In the same year as West Side Story’s premiere,
Bernstein was appointed co-director of the New York Philharmonic;
he would be the youngest music directory in the orchestra’s
history. Among many other factors, the force of Bernstein’s
personality, vision and outreach as director of the New York
Philharmonic helped make classical music a mainstream cultural icon
in America.
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier
B orn in Munich, Germany, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was
precocious from the very beginning: he began studying piano at age
4 and composed his earliest music at age 6. He briefly attended
Munich University where he studied literature and philosophy,
something that would later inform much of his music (particularly
his famous tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra). After leaving the
university, he moved to Berlin in 1883 where he befriended Hans von
Bülow, a friendship that helped launch Strauss’ conducting career
and heightened his already great interest in orchestral
composition.
Strauss was strongly influenced by the progressive composers
Wagner and Liszt; he attended Bayreuth, and in the early portion of
his career was dedicated to the Lisztian doctrine that “new ideas
must seek new forms.” He composed most of his famous tone poems
while in his 20s, expressing philosophical ideas using novel forms
instead of traditional sonatas and symphonies. Hugely
successful
Composed for the Broadway stage in 1957, West Side Story remains
Bernstein’s best known composition. In fact, West Side Story was
almost East Side Story. The idea for the musical dates back to 1949
discussions between Bernstein, choreographer Jerome Robbins, and
librettists Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim. The original idea
was for a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in New
York’s Lower East Side, involving a Jewish Holocaust survivor and
an anti-Semitic Irish-American street gang, the Jets. The idea
gradually evolved over the next several years before reaching its
current form.
Bernstein composed West Side Story at the same time as Candide;
several musical selections migrated between the two works (for
example, the song “One Hand, One Heart” was originally intended for
Candide). Nevertheless, the two works are remarkably distinct:
waltzes and other European aristocratic dance forms predominate in
Candide, while West Side Story is heavily indebted to Latin and
jazz influences. West Side Story premiered at the National Theatre
in Washington on August 19, 1957, and ran at the Winter Garden
Theatre in New York starting on September 26, 1957. Unlike Candide,
West Side Story ran for two years on Broadway, although it received
only relatively modest success. It toured in 1959 and was revived
on Broadway in 1960. The musical was propelled to fame in 1961 by a
film adaptation.
West Side Story is unique among musicals for its operatic
features. Bernstein unifies the music through the use of motif, a
technique common to classical and operatic composers. In West Side
Story, Bernstein uses the characteristic interval of a tritone
(from C to F-sharp, for instance) as a characteristic sonority
throughout the work. Many songs have this interval in their melody
lines (for example, “Maria”), while others have it in secondary
melodies in the accompaniments. A musical symbol of violence, it is
absent from the final scene where Maria dreams of a more peaceful
world. In other sections of the work, Bernstein combines several
principal themes with each other in counterpoint.
A modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story takes
place in an impoverished area of New York’s Upper West Side
(interestingly, in precisely the same location where Lincoln Center
would be built
LEO
NA
RD B
ERN
STEI
N(1
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)
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30 • Pacifi c Symphony
NOTES(Strauss would later move to Vienna after World War I).
The opera’s plot centers on Marie Thérèse, the fi eld marshal’s
wife (named after the Archduchess of Austria), who is having an aff
air with Octavian, a youth; the opera’s overture musically depicts
their amorous encounter. Waxing philosophical about the passing of
time, she tells him that one day he will leave her for a younger
woman. Meanwhile, Baron Ochs, Marie Thérèse’s cousin, wants to
marry Sophie, who is from a wealthy but non-noble family, and wants
to send a noble messenger (the Rosenkavalier, “knight of the rose”)
with a silver rose to formally propose to her. Unknown to Ochs, he
ends up sending Octavian; he and Sophie fall in love at fi rst
sight. Octavian and Ochs fi ght a duel; the bumbling, boorish Ochs
is slightly scratched and cries out pitifully. Later in the opera,
Octavian disguises himself as a woman, whom Baron Ochs attempts to
seduce; he is caught in the act by Sophie and her father. In the
end, Marie Thérèse arrives, Baron Ochs agrees to end his courting
of Sophie, and Sophie and Octavian are given her blessings.
Deliberately archaic, Der Rosenkavalier’s musical language
refers to Mozart, Johann Strauss and Verdi, yet its formal
structure is more modern. The opera includes many waltzes, a genre
that had largely gone out of fashion by 1910 but had not yet become
fashionable at the time the opera takes place (Hofmannsthal would
ask Strauss to “try to think of some old-fashioned Viennese waltz,
half sweet, half cheeky, which should pervade the whole Act.”)
Der Rosenkavalier Suite was extracted from the opera, arranged
for concert use, and published in 1945. Strauss authorized this
arrangement but did not work on it himself; it was most likely done
by Artur Rodzinsky, who conducted its premiere at the New York
Philharmonic in 1944. The proceeds from its publication helped
Strauss fi nancially in the wake of World War II. The last trio of
the Rosenkavalier Suite was performed at a memorial service
following the composer’s death in 1949.
Joshua Grayson is a Ph.D. candidate in historical musicology at
the USC Thornton School of Music.
and supremely self-assured, the young Strauss saw his career
reach its fi rst peak in the 1890s. By 1900, Strauss had again
relocated to Berlin, had abandoned the tone poem and had turned to
opera. Still experimenting with form, content and harmony, his
Salome (1905) and Elektra (1908) were fi lled with extremely
chromatic and dissonant music, and portrayed violent, licentious
action. The two operas were highly scandalous—something that
undoubtedly infl uenced their resounding successes.
Begun soon after, Der Rosenkavalier represents a step in another
direction. The harmonic language in this opera is signifi cantly
more conservative and less dissonant than that of his previous two.
Strauss began composing it in 1909, before the premiere of Elektra,
fi nished it in 1910, and premiered it in Dresden on January 26,
1911. From here on in his career, he would write highly expressive
music that he would often undercut in a highly ironic way—quite
detached from his earlier music, and from the expressive heights of
his contemporaries Mahler or Schoenberg. In past decades, many
critics and historians have viewed Der Rosenkavalier as a step
backward, as the beginning of a career in decline from the
modernistic heights he had briefl y reached and then retreated
from. Ultimately, however, Der Rosenkavalier would prove to be his
most popular opera. In works such as this, Strauss deals with the
ambiguity of life in a highly modern—even post-modern—way,
suggesting through irony that the incredibly trivial can be
profound and the incredibly profound can be trivial.
The opera takes place in 18th-century Vienna; the libretto by
German playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) is derived from
Le Nozze di Figaro, references Molière, Beaumarchais and Wagner’s
Die Meistersinger, and is largely based on the 1787 novel Les
Amours du Chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvray (1760-1797).
Strauss’ turn to the literary genres and musical styles of the past
and his combination of diverse sources foreshadow both 1920s
Neoclassicism and 1960s Postmodernist takes on history,
problematizing Romantic notions of inevitable progress. Filled with
parody, imitation and contrasts, the artifi cially stilted text
uses over-courtly German, French idioms and unique linguistic
elements invented by Hofmannsthal. The opera also suggests Strauss’
ambivalent attitudes to Vienna, at once nostalgic and mocking
RICH
ARD
STR
AU
SS(1
864-
1949
)
PACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH ENSEMBLESSEASON FINALE CONCERTS at the
Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall
Santiago Strings | Sunday, May 1 at 7 p.m.
Youth Wind Ensemble | Sunday, May 22 at 1 p.m.
Youth Orchestra | Sunday, May 22 at 7 p.m.
Interested in joining PSYE? Auditions will be held in June for
PSYE’s 2016-17 season.
Visit www.Pacifi cSymphony.org/PSYE for more information and to
sign up for an audition today!
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Pacific Symphony • 31
ROGER KALIAMUSIC DIRECTOR, PACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH ORCHESTRA
W inner of the 2013 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance
Award, Roger Kalia has been hailed as a conductor who conducts with
“vigor” and “commitment” by the Charlotte Observer and for bringing
a “fresh view to classical music” by The Republic. Kalia is the
newly appointed assistant conductor of Pacific Symphony and music
director of Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra (PSYO). He recently
completed a successful two-year tenure as assistant conductor of
the Charlotte Symphony and served for three years as music director
of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles.
During the summer season, Kalia serves as music director of the
Lake George Music Festival in upstate New York. In the summer of
2016, Kalia will lead PSYO on their first-ever tour of China.
Kalia has worked with orchestras across North America and Europe
including the Pittsburgh Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Utah Symphony,
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra,
Memphis Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Cabrillo
Festival Orchestra and the Cadaqués Orchestra, among others. During
the 2014-15 season, he guest conducted the Bakersfield Symphony,
and served as a guest cover conductor with the St. Louis Symphony
and Indianapolis Symphony. That same season, he was invited as a
finalist to the assistant conductor audition for the New York
Philharmonic.
An advocate of new music and unique collaborations, Kalia
commissioned four works with the Debut Orchestra from 2012-14.
Their performance of Paul Dooley’s Coast of Dreams was featured on
American Public Media’s Performance Today with Fred Child this past
season, and received funding from the National Endowment of the
Arts. Kalia has collaborated and shared the stage with such artists
as Jack Black in a performance of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat
at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Randy Newman for the Debut
Orchestra’s 60th anniversary gala concert, violinist Glenn Dicterow
at UCLA’s Royce Hall and the Angel City Chorale in a performance of
Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 450th anniversary
of Shakespeare. Always trying to introduce new audiences to
classical music, Kalia conducted the Debut Orchestra at the Ford
Theater in a concert titled Gamers Jam, which featured music by
leading video game composers from around the world.
A passionate proponent of music education in the concert hall,
Kalia conducted for more than 12,000 students annually during his
tenure with the Charlotte Symphony. He expanded the On Campus and
Education concert series to include collaborations with dancers,
visual artists and multimedia. Kalia shared the stage with Michael
Boudewyns, Classical Kids Music Education, Grey Seal Puppets,
Charlotte Ballet, Metropolitan Ballroom, and students from
Northwest School of the Arts, Central Piedmont Community College
and UNC Charlotte. Kalia regularly led pre-concert conversations
for every classics concert, and he was also featured on Charlotte’s
WBTV. He was also part of the alternative weekly Creative Loafing’s
“15 People to Watch in Charlotte” during 2015.
As co-founder and music director of the Lake George Music
Festival, Kalia conducts the Lake George Festival Orchestra every
summer. The first classical music festival of its kind in Lake
George, the orchestra brings together young professionals and
current students from many prestigious institutions including the
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the
symphonies of Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, Kansas City, New World,
Dallas, Boise, Detroit, San Antonio, and the premier conservatories
in the nation including the Curtis Institute of Music, The
Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music. A strong advocate
of music education and audience development, he has created an
annual Family Concert series and an innovative Late Night Concert
series.
A native of New York, Kalia received his doctorate from Indiana
University in 2015, where he served as an associate instructor and
assistant conductor of the IU Opera Theater and New Music Ensemble.
He has been a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival,
Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Kurt Masur Conducting
Seminar and the St. Magnus Festival in Scotland. His primary
mentors include David Effron, Arthur Fagen and Franz Anton Krager,
and he has undertaken additional studies with David Zinman, Kurt
Masur, Franz Welser-Möst, Robert Spano, Marin Alsop, Hugh Wolff,
Mei-Ann Chen, Gustav Meier and Larry Rachleff.
ROGER meet the psyo music director
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32 • Pacific Symphony
MEETPACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH ORCHESTRA
ROGER KALIA • MUSIC DIRECTOR
2015-16 Season Sections listed alphabetically under
principal
the youth orchestra
VIOLIN IPhil Chen, concertmasterJonathan Huang, assistant
concertmasterElaine HuangBrandon KimI-Young (Emily) KimSean
KimYuann KimJessica Jung Yeon LeeEthan LiaoDanielle LiuJustin
LiuLeonardo MatsuokaMadeline PugarChristina TangJulia (Claire)
YuanCaitlyn Zhang
VIOLIN IIShelby Wong, principalAnna Kim, assistant
principalEvette ChungLauren HuangDavid HuhLuchi JiangYing
JinChristina LeAndrew LeeEllie NagatomiJean ParkTyler RhoAlexa
SturrockSimina TipriganAlicia XieJennifer YangSteven YangGordon
Yin
VIOLAEunji (Sarah) Shim, principalChristine Lin, assistant
principalHanlin ChenKevin ChoChristina ChungKenneth HanJae Hwan
(Jay) LeeKaren LiJustin NguyenNoah PacisGrace ParkYerim SeoKevin
TsaoEmily Uh
CELLOEmma Lee, principalHannah Kim, assistant principalJulianne
ChenReina ChoErica Huang SeEun (Annie) HyungPriscilla KimDanielle
LeeSatyajit MayadasDaniel PaikPhillip SeoChristopher YeDaniel
YooKelly Zhou
BASSJake Platt, principalYena ChungSienna GeorgeHenry
GlennTristan MalhotraSeemal TahirTomoka TakeuchiJessalyn Yam
FLUTEAlison Huh, co-principalAaron LiuDanielle Guilmette*
OBOEClarissa Antoine, principalIssac ChyunJoshua Park
CLARINETJoshua Lee, principalEliott ChungJonathan MyongAnnabelle
Wang
BASSOONStephen Shu, principalKatie Miller
FRENCH HORNJanis Jin, principalEmma ChangAva ConwayRachel
KimAlex Liang
TRUMPETWilliam Berue, principalKenny AbbottKaylin KimDonghyun
(Stephan) Ko
TROMBONEHanae Yoshida, principalMichael DuEliana Leish
BASS TROMBONEDominic Diaz, principal
TUBAAziz Hamza, principal
HARPSarah Hsiao, principal
PIANOValerie Narumi, principal
CELESTEMegumi Suzuki
PERCUSSIONRyan Chao, principalHampton DouglasMary La BlancThomas
Wolff
STAFFKelsey UyedaYouth Orchestra Manager
* Piccolo
PARTICIPATING SCHOOLSAliso Niguel High SchoolAnaheim Magnolia
Christian
SchoolArnold O Beckman High SchoolCalifornia Virtual
AcademyCapistrano Valley High SchoolCrean Lutheran High SchoolDana
Hills High SchoolDiamond Bar High SchoolEl Toro High SchoolFairmont
Prepatory AcademyIrvine High SchoolJohn F. Kennedy High
SchoolJSerra Catholic High SchoolLong Beach Polytechnic High
SchoolLos Alamitos High SchoolMission Viejo High SchoolNorthwood
High SchoolOrange County School of the
ArtsPalm Springs High SchoolPalos Verdes High SchoolSage Hill
SchoolSan Dieguito AcademySonora High SchoolSt. Margaret’s
Episcopal SchoolSunland High SchoolTesoro High SchoolUniversity
High SchoolValencia High SchoolVista Murrieta High SchoolWoodbridge
High School
