ASO season stays close to home
Jazz guitarist Ted Ludwig, a former New Orleans luminary whom Hurricane Katrina blew to Little Rock in 2005, will solo in the world premiere of a new jazz guitar concerto by D.J. Sparr as the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra closes its 2015-16 season in April 2016.
Other highlights of the Masterworks season include the return of pianist Jon Kimura Parker, playing Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in the season opener; solo performances by locals — concertmaster Kiril Laskarov and principal clarinetist Kelly Johnson; and popular symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven, Alexander Borodin, Antonin Dvorak and Dmitri Shostakovich.
“I couldn’t be more excited about this,” Music Director Philip Mann, who in September will start his sixth season on the orchestra’s podium, says about the Sparr concerto and the guitarist who will play it for the April 9-10, 2016, concerts. “It seems like the kind of addition to our repertoire that might be very welcome in every city across the United States and maybe even beyond,” he says.
“It’s really been in the works since my first season here,” Mann says, born of an evening
in which he and composer Michael Torke, “over a few Scotches,” listened to Ludwig and his trio perform at the Capital Bar & Grill.
Meanwhile, Mann says, Ludwig is “champing at the bit and ready to go. And the composer is himself a very accomplished guitar soloist and wants to work in collaboration with Ted about the crafting of this work, which is going to have very significant improvisational elements to it.
“I think this is going to be the first of its kind. You always wonder in any commission, whether it’s a painting or a piece of music, that what you get is very special. But in this case we know it will be special because it’s the first — and we hope it has legs beyond that.”
Also on that final program: Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.
The Masterworks season as a whole, Mann says, “is very much built to capitalize on the strength of our [new] hall,” the Maumelle Performing Arts Center, 100 Victory Lane, Maumelle, one of the orchestra’s temporary homes as renovations continue on downtown Little Rock’s Robinson Center Music Hall. He says he has chosen the repertoire very carefully to match the sound of the hall and the way the orchestra sounds in it.
“We’re trying to really treat our challenge of being out of Robinson as a huge opportunity for audience-building” in Maumelle, west Little Rock and North Little Rock. “What’s been very clear from our audience responses is that the orchestra has performed some of its finest programs ever in these new venues,” he says.
Parker most recently soloed with the symphony in February 2005 in Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. His performance of Grieg’s Concerto will be the centerpiece of concerts Sept. 26-27 that will also feature the Hebrides Overture (also known as “Fingal’s Cave”) by Felix Mendelssohn and Borodin’s Symphony No. 2 in b minor.
“He’s a wonderful soloist,” Mann says. “He’s been here several times prior to me being here; I’ve worked with him other places, so it’s a happy reuniting for me as well.”
In conjunction with that concert, Mann says, he’s making some “connections and collaborations with other entities outside of the arts … in terms of how music affects our minds and bodies.” He selected the symphony by Borodin “partly because he was also a scientist — a composer second, not by talent, obviously.”
“I’ve done programs like this in other places,” he says. “I did one that involved a bunch of neuroscientists; we called it ‘Sound Science.’ I’ve done one called ‘Supersonic Symphony.’ I’ve always been fascinated by how the experience of listening to music or making music can change our lives and our bodies in every way, including the physiology of our brains. And it underlines the importance of music education,” a key part of the orchestra’s mission.
Hungarian conductor Imre Pallo, godson of composer Zoltan Kodaly, will be on the podium Oct. 17-18 for Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8. A cellist to be named later will solo in Franz Joseph Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto; the program will open with Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta.
“Our guest conductor is coming in to do a program that he has a personal connection to,” Mann says. “He brings an incredible depth of musicianship and experience to the stage that I’m looking forward to our audiences experiencing but also for my musicians to work with.”
For the orchestra’s annual “Beethoven & Bluejeans” concert pairing Nov. 7-8, Johnson will solo in Scott McAllister’s Black Dog. Mann will also conduct Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 and a suite from Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake.
Jan. 30-31, Laskarov will be the soloist in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in e minor on a program that also features the overture to The Thieving Magpie by Gioacchino Rossini; Black Bend by the orchestra’s 2015-16 Composer of the Year, Dan Visconti; and the 1919 suite from The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky.
Choirs and soloists (to be announced) will join the orchestra Feb. 27-28 for choral-orchestral works by Leonard Bernstein ( Chichester Psalms) and Johannes Brahms ( A German Requiem), which Mann described as “the poignant pairing of two sacred topics, approached in secular or perhaps what were unconventional ways at the time.”
Mann described the orchestra’s Acxiom Pops Live! Series, in the Connor Performing Arts Center at Pulaski Academy, 12701 Hinson Road, Little Rock, as a collection of “our recent greatest hits.”
“It’s been clear from audience surveys that people have wanted cirque, a homegrown holiday show, Broadway and then John Williams. This gives the audience what they ask for.”
The series will kick off Oct. 24-25 with “Cirque Musica,” featuring “contortionists, strongmen, balancers and jugglers performing with symphonic accompaniment.” The rest of the schedule: Dec. 18-20: “Holiday Pops with the ASO”
Feb. 13-14: “Broadway Rocks!,” with singers Christiane Noll, Capathia Jenkins and Rob Evan performing selections from rock and contemporary Broadway hits including Wicked, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, Rent, The Wiz and Phantom of the Opera.
May 7-8: “The Movie Music of John Williams.”
All Masterworks and pops concerts will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. (There’s also a Friday evening performance for the “Holiday Pops.”) Masterworks season tickets are $103-$313 for established subscribers, $80-$244 for first-time renewals, $57-$174 for new subscribers. Pops season tickets are $68-$209, $53$162 and $38-$116. Call (501) 666-1761 or visit the website, ArkansasSymphony.org.