The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra celebrates Black cultural connections and artistic lineages in its concert this weekend. Music performed in the first half of the SPCO program nods to the impact individuals have on the people around them — in family and friend circles and in the wider community.
Opening the program, principal bassoon player Andrew Brady pays homage to his grandmother with a new work based on one of her poems, composed by Stefan L. Smith. Originally commissioned in 2022 by the Colburn School in Los Angeles for bassoon and piano, the SPCO and Brady have commissioned Smith to arrange a bassoon and chamber orchestra version of “My Young Friend,” based on a poem by Elvena E. Bowers.
Smith’s “My Young Friend” has lovely moments between Brady and harpist Sarah Grudem, as well as opportunities for Brady to lean into the music’s shifting between pensive and playful phrases. The tension of the music increases as it slows down, with Brady stretching the emotional range of his instrument with long, sustained notes. The subtle addition of the timpani adds a robust urgency to the work.
The concert’s second piece, “Prelude for Strings,” by Julia Perry is quite short at only three minutes long. Arranged by Roger Zahab, the work features a sumptuous beginning, with subtle slides, teasing dissonances and a dramatic sound at the end of its short length. The piece was quite the teaser for hopefully more to come of Perry’s work performed by the orchestra.
From there, the SPCO performs “Records from a Vanishing City for Chamber Orchestra,” by composer Jessie Montgomery. It premiered in 2016 with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
The work honors the creativity and empathetic spirit of the composer’s family friend from her upbringing. The friend’s name was James Rose, an illustrator and writer with an expansive record collection. Montgomery’s music weaves in the sounds of her old friend’s jazz records in a dream-like swirl.
There’s a wonderful trumpet solo with a mute played by Lynn Erickson reminiscent of Miles Davis, and Sang Yoon Kim shares his skill in jazz clarinet. Timpanist Steve Kimball claps his mallets together, making dramatic shifts in the music— almost as if the sound recalls the sound of the record player spool reaching the end of the record.
SPCO’s artistic director and principal violin Kyu-Young Kim, meanwhile, leads a section of music that is at once folkloric and keenly contemporary.
The first half of the program carries an International Women’s Day theme, as it amplifies a Black female poet and shares the music of two Black women composers. After intermission, the gears shift a bit to highlight Czech composer Antonín Dvořák.
Introducing Dvořák’s “Serenade for Strings” on Friday night, Kim noted that Dvořák championed African American composers. “He felt the future of music in America should be based on African American music and Native American music as well,” Kim said. “He would be so delighted to be programmed in the same program with Jesse Montgomery and Julia Perry and Stefan L. Smith.”
Dvořák wrote “Serenade for Strings” in 1875, before he moved to America, so it doesn’t have the same layering of Native American and African American influences that his later work, Symphony No. 9 (“The New World Symphony”) has. It’s certainly a satisfying piece, one that moves through its deeply felt melodies and divergent movements as it builds energy.
Planning to see the show?
Who: The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
What: Dvořák’s “Serenade for Strings”
When: 2 p.m. Sunday; 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Sunday at Ordway Concert Hall, 408 St. Peter Street; Tuesday at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, Apple Valley
Tickets: $12-55 at thespco.org
Capsule: The SPCO celebrates Black cultural connections and artistic lineages, then shifts gears to perform Antonín Dvořák’s “Serenade for Strings.”
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