TBT - Rossini's Sins

What do opera, a mass, some gondoliers, and two cats have in common? Well, Rossini, of course!

Yes, today's #throwbackthursday brings us back to the first Thursday night of the 2015 Wintergreen Summer Music Festival, when the Richmond Symphony Chamber Chorus, boas in hand, invaded the Dunlop Pavilion. They performed selections from the Petite Messe Solennelle by Rossini (a piece which is neither petite nor particularly solemn) as well as some other works that the opera composer wrote as part of a set he called "Sins of My Old Age."

The pianist who played some of the most virtuosic accompaniments imaginable was the incomparable Peter Marshall - one of WPA's own Festival Artists. He stepped in at the last minute for an injured pianist, but the chorus was in excellent hands (literally and figuratively). His expert technique was matched only by his sensitive and supportive accompanying skills. (Did you know that Peter is also the pianist for the Grammy-winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus?!)

And, if you didn't get enough of the Rossini Petite Messe this summer, the Richmond Symphony Chorus will be revisiting the work in its entirety this Saturday in Richmond at the Alexander Paley Music Festival. The event is FREE and open to the public. Find information here: paleymusicfestival.org

Hopefully, performances like this Saturday's will keep you going until our 2016 Festival! 

Erin introduces three of Rossini's sins to the audience: a silly piece about Venetian gondoliers, a literal cat fight, and a mass with humor! Photo credit: John Taylor  

Photo credit: John Taylor

Peter Marshall saves the day as the pianist for this sinful concert.  First up: the wickedly hard piano part to Il Gondolieri.  Photo credit: John Taylor

Meow.

2 sopranos (Jeannie Patton and Gabrielle Bergeret) have a musical cat fight over who gets to sing the high C at the end of the "Duetto buffo di due gatti".  Photo credit: John Taylor

And the epic mass is under way.  Erin Freeman leads the chorus through motets, fugues, and operatic moments in Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle. Photo credit: John Taylor

Soprano Gabrielle Bergeret removes the feather boa to sing the "Crucifixus" of Rossini's epic mass.  (Right at this moment a storm passed over.) Photo credit: John Taylor

Photo credit: John Taylor

Final Bows - just as the passing storm was over! Photo credit: John Taylor

TBT - Symphonic Jubilation

Academy student Walker Konkle introduces his quartet while standing in front of the backdrop.  Photo credit: John Taylor

Close your eyes, and think back to your favorite concert of the summer.  Perhaps it was Lynette Wardle and her ethereal harp.  Maybe it was Zuill Bailey with his fiery cello.  Or, maybe it was a student group - inspiring to hear and watch.  

What they all had in common was the backdrop - a reproduction of an original work by Kendra Dawn Wadsworth, Fellow at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  With vibrant colors, visual motion, and a landscape inspired by the view from atop Wintergreen mountain, this piece of art embodies everything we love about Wintergreen Performing Arts: it is colorful and vibrant; it celebrates a living artist; AND it represents a partnership with one of our favorite organizations: the VMFA.  According to Kendra, she even listened to some of the music we programmed while she was painting it!

The back drop was a whopping 8 feet by 20 feet.  The original is a "mere" 4 feet by 12 feet.  

Me, introducing the 2015 backdrop at the first orchestra concert. [ah...the joys of a tent in an outdoor location - wrinkles are unavoidable. They aren't in the poster or the original, however!] Photo credit: John Taylor.

If you're missing the summer, don't worry!  You have two opportunities to have "Symphonic Jubilation" as a reminder of WPA's exciting 20th anniversary season.

You could, of course, buy one of our posters.  [I did! It is framed in my dining room.  I have to admit, I repainted the entire dining room so it would highlight Kendra's work!] 

Click here to visit the online WPA gift shop

If you have a big enough wall, you can still purchase the original painting!  As of today, it is hanging in the brand new Quirk Hotel in Richmond. Head downtown on Broad Street, grab a bite to eat at the new Maple and Pine (or right nearby at GraffiatoRVA), and then go see the artwork in person.  

And, if you want to support Kendra in another campaign, consider voting for her 'door.'  Art Doors is a project that benefits Virginia Supportive Housing.  A simple click on the link below will allow you to show your love for Kendra's work.  Let's bring on the WPA encouragement to this marvelous artist who created a work just for OUR 2015 Wintergreen Summer Music Festival & Academy!

Vote now at http://findartdoorsrva.org/vote/

And, of course, visit the VMFA and tell them that WPA sent you.

Artist and VMFA Fellow Kendra Dawn Wadsworth in front of her original artwork: "Symphonic Jubilation."  Photo Credit: Paul Purpura.

TBT - Conductors' Summit

Guest post by Bobbi Dunn

Fedor Ouspensky conducts the Wintergreen Festival Artists in a public masterclass - under the watchful eye of Victor Yampolsky. Photo credit: John Taylor

A Text Message from Mr. Haydn:  “Nein! You haven’t got the spirit of the music!” How often such messages were relayed by Maestro Victor Yampolsky, famed conductor and instructor from Northwestern University, to six competitively chosen young conducting students as he and Artistic Director Erin Freeman led the first session of the week-long world premier of the Wintergreen Performing Arts Conductors’ Summit during the 2015 Summer Music Festival & Academy…. In that session, the students demonstrated their fledgling skills, taking turns conducting the joint orchestra of the String Chamber Academy and 2015 Fellowship Quartet in their first reading of The Seven Last Words of Christ, a rarely performed work by Haydn.  Mr. Haydn, channeled through Maestro Yampolsky, also argued that “a preacher’s face” rather than a happy conductor’s face was more appropriate to the music, or that a gesture like an 8-cylinder Cadillac was not appropriate to signal a small change in sound, or that “you can’t Google it” to get the strong will that a conductor needs to show the musicians that he’s in charge.  How Haydn could have known about Cadillacs or Google was not explained….

Victor Yampolsky and Dan Whisler take a deeper look into the music. Photo credit: Lewis Dunn.

Nevertheless, the students survived that evening’s two sessions of twenty minutes each of practice conducting—an exceptionally generous period of conductor training.  The sessions were video-taped, as would be all their practices, and were provided to the students at week’s end.  The student conductors also had four sessions, closely monitored by Yampolsky, conducting and rehearsing ensembles of professional Wintergreen Festival Artists in preparation for a Sunday morning public concert.  Notably, there were fewer and fewer text messages from Mr. Haydn as these sessions continued.  Perhaps most instructive of all were the three “how to” lessons when the students observed Maestro Yampolsky conduct rehearsals of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra playing the Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Mendelssohn to be heard at the weekend Classics Concerts.  Add in sessions with the Artistic Director on public presentation and audience engagement, and the young conductors were well prepared for Sunday.  At that concert, appropriately entitled The Future of Conducting, the six students skillfully presented themselves and described to the audience important musical and historical facts about the pieces by Beethoven, Stravinsky, Britten, and Spohr that they would conduct.  For instance, the audience learned that Spohr, a Beethoven contemporary only now resurfacing in the music world, was in his time considered “better than Beethoven”.  At the concert’s conclusion, the audience loudly applauded the six young conductors as together they took their bows across the stage in the Dunlop Pavilion performance tent. 

The six conductors of the inaugural Conductors' Summit take a bow and acknowledge their master instructor, Victor Yampolsky.  From the left: Deanna Tham, Fedor Ouspensky, Dan Whisler, Mark Tse, Grant Harville, and Matthew Abernathy. Photo credit: Lewis Dunn

More pictures in the Gallery below.

1. Patrons take part in the action - getting coaching from WPA Artistic Director Erin Freeman. Photo credit: Lewis Dunn

2. Victor Yampolsky guides Matthew Abernathy through the music of Haydn in the conducting session with the Academy string students.  Photo credit: Lewis Dunn

3. Victor Yampolsky and Mark Tse dive into a score during rehearsal break.  Photo credit: Lewis Dunn.

4. Deanna Tham leads Wintergreen Festival Artists in music of Beethoven.  Photo credit: John Taylor.