‘FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS’
Concert will be livestreamed Dec. 11; limited in-person concerts this weekend
The theme of the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra’s second concert lies not so much in the music itself, but rather in the individuals who composed the pieces.
In light of the symphony’s commitment to play music that has not been typically included in the culture of classical music in the past, the five composers showcased in the concert are all of Jewish ethnicity.
“Festival of Lights” will take place during Hanukkah, at 8 p.m. on Dec. 4 and at 2 p.m. on Dec. 5. To further memorialize the performance, it will also be the first concert with a live audience in the auditorium since the pandemic began in 2020— though seats are limited.
There are 25 string players appearing in the concert, with first and second violin sections, a viola section as well as a selection of cello and bass players.
“This is a full string section, unlike the last concert where only some of the pieces had strings,” says Phillip Lenberg, music director of the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra.
With only five weeks of rehearsal to prepare and one canceled rehearsal due to a power outage, the string players have been pressed toward perfection by Lenberg—three hours of insistent practice every Wednesday night.
The music featured in the concert is not often performed, due to how difficult it can be to play. “It’s really dense music, it’s hard to latch onto stuff or hear parts that you’re playing with,” Lenberg says.
Although the symphony musicians were able to play together for the “Cycle/recycle” concert in October, they are still adjusting to the challenges of being physically distant from one another on stage.
Especially for musicians who have been playing together in the symphony for years, such as concert mistress Margie Rice and cellist Clovice Lewis, being distant changes the dynamic.
“For the last twenty something years, I’ve looked across to Margie,” Lewis says, who has been playing cello for the symphony since 2003. “As section leaders, we have to be in tune with each other. But because she’s so far away now, it’s harder.”
The string players are situated across the stage, yet many have the same cues and play the same part. “In a lot of ways, it’s more challenging to play as an ensemble,” Lenberg says.
One of the pieces composed by Gerald Finzi—a 20th century composer whose musical style resembles that of film score composers—proved to be so challenging that Lenberg dedicated five days to transposing it into an entirely different key. Even with a less problematic key, Finzi’s composition is still one of the harder pieces in the concert.
“Originally, it was in a Gflat major key, which is insane,” Lewis says. A flat key requires string players to constantly extend their fingers backwards or forwards to create half-positions.
“You can’t just put your fingers down on a note,” Lewis explains. “If we could put capos on our instruments, we would’ve.”
While researching Jewish composers and perusing scores online to select music for “Festival of Lights,” Lenberg’s new discovery was a piece by Alexander Tansman.
“It’s such a gorgeous piece of music,” Lenberg adds.
Tansman transformed a
theme that had been written for lute into a 17-minute string piece, which has become one of the orchestra’s favorite arrangements to play over the last few weeks.
The shortest piece on the program is a composition by Philip Glass, a 20th century composer known for being a part of the minimalist movement—a style of music that is seemingly simple, with repetitive notes that begin to layer on top of one another.
The piece being performed by the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra is unusual for Glass, and has its origin in his pre-minimalist era of composition.
“It’s quite dissonant, but because it’s so slow and somber, it doesn’t seem jarring,” Lenberg says.
Margie Salcedo Rice, the orchestra’s concert mistress since 1990, has a ravishing violin solo that is featured throughout the Glass piece. As she does with other solos, Rice begins by listening to recordings and a variety of group performances of the piece to understand “where the musical line is going,” she says.
While learning this new piece, Rice has been attentive to every detail—interpreting the musicality and dynamics of the piece as the composer would have intended.
One method of learning music that Lenberg has emphasized since becoming the symphony’s music director involves encouraging the musicians to understand and play the piece the way the composer envisioned it.
Rice’s accumulated experience as a virtuoso violinist, both with the symphony and outside of it, has well prepared her for learning intricate pieces and performing them in a way that honors the composer. This is her 36th season with the symphony orchestra.
The final two composers introduced in the “Festival of Lights” are brother and sister—felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. While Felix is the better-known composer, both of them received musical education as children in Germany in the 19th century.
Lenberg was delighted to find a string arrangement of one of Fanny’s compositions for the orchestra to perform, as well as one of Felix’s romancestyle pieces.
In addition to the symphonies, the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra will also be performing three familiar Christmas pieces to celebrate the season— including “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” and a part of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” that was partially written by Felix.
“It harkens back to an older time of Christmas music,” Lenberg says.
The running time of the concert amounts to about an hour of music, with short breaks between each piece where Lenberg will introduce and provide context for the next composition.
The new setup will take the place of Lenberg’s typical pre-concert discussions with the audience. There is also no intermission in “Festival of Lights,” as part of many safety precautions against COVID-19.
Rice concludes, “It’s a joy to be in front of a live audience, to be able to share musically what we’ve rehearsed so long for, to see the joy in their eyes and delight in the music.”
Tickets are only available for season subscribers and individuals with proof of vaccination, with a limit of 60 audience members per performance—which was a joint decision made between the symphony and Mendocino College. Reservations must also be made for in-person attendance ahead of time, through ukiahsymphony.org.
The Saturday live performance will be recorded professionally and will be available to watch through a livestream the following weekend, at 8 p.m. on Dec. 11. A streaming pass can also be purchased on ukiahsymphony.org.