Among friends: TSO opens season at the Perot
The Texarkana Symphony Orchestra kicks off a new season Saturday, Oct. 6, with a guest conductor and supremely talented violinist conjuring some of Mendelssohn’s finest music for a program of music titled “Musical Friends.”
Starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Perot Theatre, Steven Jarvi steers the TSO through new waters as guest conductor with a program that includes Felix Mendelssohn’s “Concerto in E Minor, op. 64” with TSO concertmaster Kiril Laskarov featured on violin and, a first for the TSO, the English composer Sir Edward Elgar with his “Enigma Variations.” Also on tap is contemporary American composer Adam Schoenberg with the work “Finding Rothko.”
In several ways, the theme of friends is at play here, explains Andrew Clark, the TSO’s executive director. And that includes Jarvi, only the second guest conductor the orchestra has had on the podium.
“Steven is a very versatile conductor, having conducted both symphonies and opera throughout the United States, as well as guest conducting in Europe. Steven is the most immediate past resident conductor of the St. Louis Symphony, which is of course a big position and one of America’s oldest orchestras, working alongside that great
orchestra and conducting most of their yearlong concerts that their named conductor doesn’t conduct,” Clark said. “He’s also currently the interim director of the Charlottesville Opera in Charlottesville, Va.”
Jarvi is an award-winning, young conductor. “He’s very excited about working with our orchestra,” Clark said. In keeping with the “musical friends” theme, Jarvi has connections to several TSO musicians. “Having known them for quite some time in roles that they play outside the Ark-La-Tex area.”
Clark suspects the local audience and the musicians will love having Jarvi aboard, just as they did with Phillip Mann, a previous guest conductor.
“It should be a very pleasant experience. It’s a great program to start off our 13th season with,” Clark said, noting Laskarov will perform with a Stradivarius violin he’s previously played for the TSO.
With that violin, Laskarov will perform the Mendelssohn violin concerto that the composer wrote for his concertmaster friend, Clark said. It’s also a concerto performed by the TSO a few years ago with Elena Urioste as featured artist.
“We have done it before and we look forward to doing it again, but this time with our own concertmaster, Kiril Laskarov, and the Stradivarius,” Clark said.
Beginning the program is Schoenberg’s “Finding Rothko.” It was the 37-yearold composer’s first big professional commission, Clark said. It was inspired by Mark Rothko’s paintings and their colors and characterization, the director explained. Its four movements represent the color in each painting: orange, yellow, red and wine.
“A really unique piece,” Clark said, adding, “It’s a very calm piece to start off a program with.”
After intermission, the TSO moves on to Elgar.
“Then the program will end with really the one big piece de résistence of the English symphonic literature and that is the ‘Enigma Variations’ by Sir Edward Elgar,” Clark said.
Elgar, whom the TSO hasn’t performed until now, dates from the late 19th and early 20th century, having written music for coronations of kings and queens. If you’ve heard “Pomp and Circumstance,” you have heard Elgar.
In keeping with that “friends” theme, “Enigma Variations” explores exactly that, each variation depicting Elgar’s friends and acquaintances. The most famous, Clark explained, remains the “Nimrod Variation.”
“And of course Nimrod is an Old Testament figure, a hunstman character, hunter/ king character from the Old Testament,” Clark said. The audience will likely recognize this tune, although they may not associate it with Elgar. Clark says it’s a great way to introduce British music to the audience.
“We sought after, as we always do, a grab piece which is a piece that features a guest artist, in this case our own. And a big work that’s going to be known to our core audience of our season ticket buyers that love the masterworks. Of course, the Mendelssohn fits that bill,” Clark said. Add to that a focus on more contemporary American music, too.
The TSO will announce the celebrity conductor competitors for that annual TSO benefit, as well, during this concert.
(Tickets: $47 to $23. Purchase tickets online at TexarkanaSymphony.org or PerotTheatre.com or call the Perot Theatre box office at 903-792-4992.)