TSO has big night ahead with Mann at the helm
The Texarkana Symphony Orchestra has a big night of masterworks on tap with “Mann Conducts,” which features Philip Mann at the helm as conductor on Saturday, March 3, at the Perot Theatre.
Mann, music director at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, is an acclaimed rising star as a conductor, having worked with top classical music talents like Joshua Bell, Sharon Isbin and Midori and with orchestras and music organizations across the world, from San Diego to Oxford and elsewhere.
Here in Texarkana starting at 7:30 p.m., Mann will lead the TSO musicians in an eclectic, lively evening of music with a repertoire of Beethoven’s “Symphony no. 7, op. 92, in A major,” Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” and Stephanie Berg’s “Ravish and Mayhem.”
So, local music lovers have a date with one of classical music’s titanic composers, a classical guitar masterpiece performed by Grammy Award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux and a contemporary composition by a young Missouri-based composer and clarinetist in Berg.
As the featured soloist, Vieaux presents a work that he’s performed many, many times, nearly 200. He won the 2015 Grammy Award for best classical instrumental solo for
his album “Play.”
He says the Rodrigo work is recognizable to many, pointing out that musicians from Miles Davis to Led Zeppelin have performed it. Not only is it famous, but it’s also important in the technical standards for performance that it set, he said.
Vieaux works with students at the Curtis Institute of Music, having co-founded the guitar department there, and says the Rodrigo piece is a tough one for his young students, as skilled as they are.
“It really is a challenge the first time for them,” Vieaux said, noting there’s no room for manipulating the rhythm or time keeping in this work. “You’ve got to pretty much play in a pocket.”
And of this work, Vieaux says, “It’s definitely the concerto that I’ve performed the most.”
And he’s tackled a varied repertoire while earning accolades and appearances all over the world, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colon, Ravinia Festival and more. He’s also performed with the Arkansas Symphony and worked with Maestro Mann before.
Fans of NPR’s Tiny Desk music series may have seen his appearances there. “I was the first classical musician to go to their studios and do this kind of makeshift concert,” Vieaux said, noting it’s fun to play in larger, more formal venues and more intimate ones, as well.
And he’s able to tackle an eclectic range of works in his guitar playing, a goal of his from his first work as a professional musician onward. He likes a wide range of things to play, “which is more accepted now in classical music.” At the time he started, not so much, he recalls.
“I always like to put things together not unlike interior decorating or a chef does with a meal,” Vieaux said. It’s like putting courses together “so the overall gestalt or the overall feeling of the thing comes through.”
In Berg, the TSO welcomes a composer whose work has been praised as fun, vivid, creative and energetic. “Ravish and Mayhem,” the piece the TSO will perform, has been performed by orchestras like the St. Louis Symphony and Rochester Philharmonic.
“The piece itself, ‘Ravish and Mayhem,’ was originally written for the Mizzou International Composers Festival,” Berg said. There, it was performed by the muchloved ensemble Alarm Will Sound.
Berg recalls that she’d met that ensemble previously and wanted to compose a work that captured their vibrant spirit. And then later, the work grew. “It was recommended I should score it for full orchestra,” she said. Hence, the performance by the St. Louis Orchestra and others.
Hearing the St. Louis Orchestra perform it was a particular pleasure because of their brass section. “You really need big, vibrant brass to bring it home,” the composer said.
As a clarinetist, she’s actually performed this piece with the Columbia Civic Orchestra, which made for an unusual, even somewhat awkward experience—as she put it, you can know something in your head but not yet with your hands.
“It’s very different to play your own music,” Berg said, noting that nevertheless it’s a fun piece, an opportunity for the orchestra to sort of let their hair down and capture the listener’s attention with a rough-around-the-edges work.
“It’s a very vibrant piece,” said Berg, who plans to attend the TSO concert.
(Tickets: $50, $39 and $27. Get tickets at TexarkanaSymphony.org or call the Perot Theatre box office at 903-792-4992.)