Backstage: NJSO builds buzz ahead of Carnegie Hall concert

By Victoria McCabe

New York City is about to discover something that communities across New Jersey already know. New Jersey Symphony Orchestra audiences and critics have raved about Music Director Jacques Lacombe’s bold programming, and on Wednesday, May 9, Lacombe makes his Carnegie Hall debut with the NJSO in a mesmerizing concert that promises to be the must-see event of the season.

The NJSO is one of six orchestras the Spring for Music Festival selected to perform at Carnegie Hall in the festival’s second year. Open to orchestras across North America, Spring for Music invites applicants to submit the most creative program they would present if they had the opportunity. Spring for Music will feature a performance by one orchestra each night for six nights, May 7–12.

“The festival is designed to allow chosen orchestras to showcase their artistic philosophies through distinctive and creative programming in one of the world’s most competitive musical environments,” says the Spring for Music announcement of the 2012 participating orchestras.

Lacombe crafted a program around Ferruccio Busoni’s massive, rarely performed five-movement piano concerto, commonly thought to be the most challenging work in the piano repertoire. The Orchestra welcomes pianist Marc-André Hamelin—a favorite of NJSO audiences and one of the few pianists today who performs the intensely difficult, lyrical work—to take center stage for the Carnegie Hall performance.

For the first half of the program, the NJSO Music Director selected works by Kurt Weill and Edgard Varèse, who both studied with Busoni in Berlin. “Busoni was an interesting man, and I thought it would be interesting to explore the role he played as a teacher,” Lacombe says. “There are several important people who learned from this great artist, and I decided to pair Busoni’s piano concerto with the works of two composers who went in totally different directions in terms of musical aesthetics. Busoni must have been a great teacher to have been able to work with these strong personalities and guide them in their own personal directions.”

The NJSO gives the Carnegie Hall premiere of Weill’s Symphony No. 1, “Berliner,” a work the Orchestra performed for New Jersey audiences in November 2010. Lacombe says: “One already finds in Weill’s First Symphony the seeds of what he would become—a Broadway composer. Moreover, one hears clearly the voice of a composer who wants to prove what he can fashion from diverse influences, from Schoenberg to the chamber music of the late 19th and early 20th century.

“In the case of Nocturnal, I chose to present the other end of the spectrum. Varèse’s last work shows his maturity—a certain casting off of everything extraneous, and a greater simplicity of material than in several preceding works.”

Both the Varèse and the Busoni call for men’s chorus; the men of the Westminster Symphonic Choir—another important New Jersey musical institution—join the NJSO for the Spring for Music program. Famed soprano Hila Plitmann appears as soloist in Nocturnal.

HOMETOWN HEROES

The NJSO is in a unique position among the six orchestras in the 2012 Festival. Unlike the Houston, Nashville, Milwaukee and Alabama Symphony Orchestras, the NJSO’s hometown crowd won’t need to board an airplane or embark on a very long road trip to travel to Carnegie Hall. And unlike the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, passports won’t be required. (The NJSO has just announced bus transportation from five New Jersey locations.)

Perhaps taking a cue from the “rally towel” culture of today’s sporting events, the Spring for Music Festival has created a “hometown hankie” to give to all patrons who have purchased their festival tickets through their own orchestra’s box office.

Festival administrators say that the sight of hundreds of audience members cheering and waving their handkerchiefs was both visually stunning and a hugely emotional thrill for the orchestra musicians onstage.
And with New Jersey’s close proximity to New York City, NJSO musicians can expect to see a huge sea of blue handkerchiefs inspiring them.

‘GLORIOUS EXCESS’—THE BUSONI PIANO CONCERTO

In the January 9 edition of The New Yorker, Alex Ross explores Busoni’s mammoth concerto and its “glorious excess” in depth. “It opens with a pastiche of Brahms and then moves on to Beethoven-like strutting themes, Lisztian arpeggios, brooding spells of Wagnerian orchestration, delicate Chopinesque interludes, depressive Schumannesque detours, and madcap Rossinian crescendos,” he writes. “As if his weren’t enough, the final movement has a male chorus intoning lines from Adam Oehlenschlager’s 1805 play, ‘Aladdin.’”

Famous for tackling unfamiliar and difficult repertoire along with established masterworks, Marc-André Hamelin has inspired tremendous accolades from media outlets across the globe. Of his virtuosity, The New York Times’ Vivien Schweitzer writes, “I felt the same disbelief as when I watched gymnasts at the Beijing Olympics, wondering how such acrobatics were humanly possible.”

In many ways, Hamelin is the perfect pianist to perform what Ross acknowledges is generally considered “the most difficult in the concerto literature.” Not only can the French-Canadian star tackle the work’s most demanding passages, but he also has the keen musicianship that allows him to find the beauty in the concerto, even when the soloist isn’t playing.

Writes Ross: “When I asked Hamelin about the experience of performing the concerto—he has done it more than twenty times—he told me, ‘It’s an especially joyful feeling to be allowed to be almost completely silent during the fifth movement, this after having had your blood pressure raised several points during the Tarantella.’”

TAKE THE BUS
The NJSO will offer bus transportation to Carnegie Hall from five communities in New Jersey. Buses will depart from Princeton (4 p.m.), New Brunswick (4:45 p.m.), Red Bank (4:45 p.m.), Morristown (5 p.m.) and Essex Green in West Orange (5 p.m.—this bus will stay for the post-concert reception). Buses will arrive at Carnegie Hall at approximately 6:30 p.m. Ticket packages that include the bus are $35 and are available through the NJSO Box Office by phone at 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476).

CELEBRATE THE EVENING WITH A SPECIAL RECEPTION
Raise a glass and celebrate the NJSO’s return to Carnegie Hall with a post-concert reception at The Russian Tea Room. Join Jacques Lacombe, pianist Marc-André Hamelin, other guests and fellow NJSO patrons to celebrate this special event.The Russian Tea Room, only steps away from Carnegie Hall, is an iconic Manhattan landmark and a Carnegie Hall favorite. Ticket packages are $135 and include the concert, reception, complimentary round-trip bus service from Essex Green in West Orange (optional). If you plan to attend the reception and wish to provide your own transportation to Manhattan, you are welcome to do so. 

The NJSO performs at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. as part of the 2012 Spring for Music Festival. All tickets without the bus or reception package are $25. Secure the best seats in the house and receive a hometown hankie when you purchase tickets through the NJSO Box Office at 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476) or 973.624.3713. For more information on Spring for Music, visit www.springformusic.com.

 

Top photo by Jeff Goldberg-Esto. Middle photo by Steve J. Sherman.