American Fanfare - September 17, 2024 - LaGrange Symphony Orchestra

News Review/Comments September 20, 2024

Season of Celebration

With great flair, the American Fanfare concert marked the opening of the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra’s (LSO’s) 2024/25 “Season of Celebration”! This season commemorates the 10^th anniversary of Maestro Richard Prior.

Setting the scene

It was one of those evenings when the weather could not have been more perfect. The sun was slowly fading, the temperature was around 72 degrees, and there was only the slightest hint of a breeze. The type of comfortable evening that one might reminisce about from their childhood, and perhaps, if you already knew what was on the LSO program, you could relate to one of the evening’s musical selections. (Read further below about Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.)

Here are a few photos taken as these lovely folks arrived:

Welcome

LSO Board President, Brandon Adams, welcomed everyone to the opening of the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra’s Season of Celebration. He thanked LaGrange College for their on-going support in addition to all the sponsors within the pre-concert slide show. Mr. Adams also acknowledged some special guests in attendance.

The audience learned that both Dr. Lorna Wood, LSO concertmaster emeritus, and her daughter, Sylvia Mwila, would be playing. What a special tribute to Joseph Wood for his piece to be performed with his daughter and his granddaughter in the orchestra!

Dr. Lorna Wood, concertmaster emeritus of the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra — Dr. Lorna Wood

A Formal Opening

The concert began with the traditional Star-Spangled Banner by John Stafford Smith. The audience proudly stood and sang Francis Scott Key’s poetic words as the seventy-member-strong orchestra played our National Anthem. This is always such a great way to open the classical concert season and, on this night, it was especially fitting with the theme.

About the Concert

Once everyone was seated again, Dr. Prior took a moment to speak about the voices of composers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and how this concert was a celebration of those who “transitioned music for the concert hall away from the purely Western European heritage of the great classical composers, to include the unique vision, promise, and cultural experience of this great country we call the United States of America.”

Fanfare

Our journey continued with the Olympic Fanfare and Theme by John Williams. Written for the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, this piece was commanding and optimistic. The LSO brass section was robust and brought necessary vigor and intensity to it. John Williams never disappoints, and neither does the LSO. Olympic Fanfare is a truly heroic piece, with its underlying march meter, and the LSO was leading the charge! This was a wonderful choice for inclusion in this program.

Poem for Orchestra

After a rousing round of applause, Maestro Prior introduced Joseph Wood’s Poem for Orchestra. [If you would like to learn a bit more about Joseph Wood, you can read this blog post HERE.] The maestro explained that this piece was his “starting point” for designing this concert program. He commented, “This is music that should be known, and it needed to be heard in the context of [Wood’s] direct and equal contemporaries such as Samuel Barber and Howard Hanson.”

Maestro Prior also went on to share that the LSO professionally recorded Poem for Orchestra the previous night in collaboration with the American Composers Alliance. This recording will stand as a reference to other symphonies for Joseph Wood’s composition Poem for Orchestra.

The LSO performed this composition with elegance. The phrases flowed effortlessly through scenes of wonder and discovery, in tune with the audience as they were discovering this music. This performance was tender, balanced, and a joy to experience. The composition and the interpretation both were expressive and captured your imagination. It was a lovely and momentous occasion in LSO history. No live performance can ever be replicated, but hopefully this piece will be included in a future program. It was an honor to be present and the musicians too seemed honored to perform Joseph Wood’s Poem for Orchestra.

Here is a photo of Maestro Prior recognizing the contribution of Dr. Lorna Wood to this historically significant occasion.

Maestro Richard Prior recognizing Dr. Lorna Wood

Knoxville: Summer of 1915

Next was Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with guest artist, Jonathan Pilkington, tenor.

Maestro Prior informed the audience that Dr. Lorna Wood was, among other things, a gifted and widely published poet. She kindly agreed to say a few words about Knoxville: Summer of 1915 to help the audience see some underlying themes and recognize key moments within the text and the music.

After her comments, guest artist, Jonathan Pilkington took the stage and another poetic journey began. This musical work takes a section of James Agee’s much longer poem of the same name and sets it to music. The text, which was printed in the concert program, is descriptive of sounds, tastes, and feelings of summertime in small town America. It is a blissful reminiscence. However, the detectable under-painting is the struggle of the author to find out who he is.

Jonathan Pilkington was superb at projecting this idyllic scene. His warm, bright and bold voice combined with a large vocal range was a perfect combination with the Orchestra. The lyrical reminiscing was relatable and made the audience feel connected to the composition. [read more about Jonathan Pilkington HERE.]

Maestro Prior shaking hands with Jonathan Pilkington

Symphony No. 2 “Romantic”

After a brief intermission, the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra came back with a gorgeous performance of Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 “Romantic”.

Done in three movements, the first two were both nostalgic and calmly expressive in flavor, incorporating several solo instruments. All three movements had an underlying theme connecting them. The third was more imaginative with tension building into a fanfare then finally into a triumphant ending.

This was a wonderful and rejuvenating night of music from the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra. We, too often, think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but these home-grown American works of art, witnessed in this concert, are proof that we need not look too far to find greatness.

The conclusion of the American Fanfare concert by the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra

American Fanfare was a terrific concert – definitely one for the history books. Check out the LSO Facebook posting of numerous stage photos from the evening.

Many folks were already discussing the next concert, which will be October 29th! It is titled COMPOSED & Collected and is touted as “an oasis of lyrical calm and exquisite beauty”. The program consists of Brahms: St. Anthony Variation, Strauss: Horn Concerto No. 1 with Anne-Marie Cherry, and Borodin: Symphony No. 2! [You can read more about the next concert and the entire season as well as find a ticket link HERE.]

Thank you for supporting the arts in LaGrange, and especially for supporting the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra.