May Program: Unanswered Questions
Music Director John Thomas Dodson Comments
When I first became Music Director of the ASO in 2001, one of the first concerts I conducted was a casual classic. It was a brand new kind of concert for us: It featured a chance for me to talk with the audience, to explore the music by playing musical excerpts with the orchestra, and to have the concert take place in the most casual setting possible — complete with table seating and a cash bar! Over the years this concert format became so popular that we added a second night to accommodate the growing audiences. Of all the Casual Classics I've ever done, I'm most excited about THIS one, and I want to tell you why. This particular Casual Classic places two American works in combination with each other. One is by America's great musical innovator Charles Ives. His work The Unanswered Question, splits the orchestra into three different locations, each one representing an aspect of the musical scene he experienced at the beginning of the 20th Century. It's an adventure to listen to this work, since the sounds come from a variety of directions, and I've always found performances of it to generate lively discussion. We'll play the Ives so that we can explore not only the music of America's past, but also, its present. On this same program, we'll meet Kenneth Fuchs, an award-winning American composer, talk to him about his music, and give the first performance of a work he has created just for this occasion. You can stay around afterwards and talk with him personally. This concert will be part of a two-year collaborative project to present several works by Ken and to remind ourselves that the act of creating music continues right up to the present day! Many orchestras offer a premiere performance, but very few let you really get to know a composer personally over time, ask him questions, and get inside his music in such an intimate way. It's going to be a fun-filled night!