Backstage: NJSO kicks off 2012 with 'Fire' Winter Festival

By Victoria McCabe

Next month, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra kicks off the new year with its 2012 Winter Festival—FIRE—the second season of a multi-year odyssey spotlighting the power of natural elements that have inspired composers for centuries. The three-concert festival, which runs from January 6–22, celebrates fire in music. From multiple orchestral reflections on the legend of Prometheus featuring special lighting and dance elements to a performance of Kaija Saariaho's scintillating cello concerto Notes on Light featuring the cellist for whom she wrote the piece, the NJSO explores the powerful musical creations fire has inspired. Performances will take place at six venues throughout the state of New Jersey.

Music Director Jacques Lacombe leads each festival program. Pre-concert Winter Festival events, presented in collaboration with several partnering organizations, explore fire-related topics. Special events include conversations about fire's restorative role in nature, alternative energy sources and the myth of Prometheus; a Classical Conversation with composer Saariaho and Information Fairs & Artisan Marketplaces that will showcase displays from environmental organizations and artisans who work with fire.

WEEK I—THE HERO'S FIRE (January 6–8)

The first Winter Festival program, The Hero's Fire, features pianist Yevgeny Sudbin performing Scriabin's Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (Symphony No. 5). Stravinsky's complete Firebird and music from Wagner's Die Walküre round out the program. 

The NJSO's performance of the Scriabin work promises to be among the season's shining moments. With ambitions that exceeded the technological capabilities of his era, Scriabin envisioned elaborate projections of color accompanying the music of Prometheus: The Poem of Fire. The color machine he imagined drew on color-sound associations.

Arc3design collaborates with the NJSO to create a special lighting environment for these performances of Scriabin's orchestral tone poem. Thus, a work penned more than a century ago will light up the stage as its composer originally envisioned.

A special Winter Festival pre-concert event—"Keeping the Home Fires Burning: A Panel Discussion on Alternative Energy Sources"—begins one hour prior to the January 6 and January 8 performances in Newark. The two Newark performances will also feature an Information Fair & Artisan Marketplace; artisans who work with fire and environmental organizations will host displays in the Prudential Hall lobby before the concert and during intermission. 

WEEK II—BEST OF PLAYING WITH FIRE (January 13–15)

The second program, Best of Playing with Fire, looks at musical stories of characters that have made a deal with the devil. From Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld Overture to Dompierre's Les Diableries to Gounod and Berlioz's depictions of the story of Faust, the NJSO presents a host of diabolical scores featuring characters who tempt fate by playing with fire.

Special events surrounding Best of Playing with Fire include "When Fire Gives Life: A Look at the Heroism of Fire in Nature"—a panel discussion that will explore the element's usefulness, looking at the ways in which fire restores and regenerates nature. Discussions begin one hour prior to the performance on January 14 and 15 in Red Bank and Englewood, respectively. The NJSO also offers a light supper at the War Memorial in Trenton on January 13, prior to the Orchestra's performance. The supper is available for purchase as an add-on to concert tickets. Reservations are required for supper. For details, call 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476).

WEEK III—FIRE: Light & Legend (January 20–22)

Fire: Light & Legend—the Winter Festival's closing program—touches on the earliest days of the symphony with Haydn's "Fire" Symphony, and it reaches forward into contemporary life with Saariaho's cello concerto Notes on Light. The program's finale is a new vision for a Beethoven classic, and the true capstone of the NJSO festival. 

For the Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's The Creatures of Prometheus, Lacombe synthesizes music, dance, speech and light into a gripping new take on the mythical moment when fire transformed human life.

"We thought it would be really interesting to create a new telling of the myth of Prometheus by using the Beethoven piece as the canvas for a work incorporating dance, acting and lighting with music," says NJSO Director of Artistic Planning Roger Wight. "It's a real culmination of the 'Fire' Winter Festival—we will have performed an incarnation of the Prometheus myth [in the first program of the Winter Festival], and in this closing program, we will present a reimagined version of that story."

Dancers from The Francesca Harper Project, lyricist and playwright Murray Horwitz and lighting designer Albert Crawford (of Arc3design) collaborate to bring The Creatures of Prometheus to life. The all-new commission will feature two actors narrating while dancers perform, supported by Arc3design's lighting.

"It's going to be an artistic experience that goes beyond listening to music," Wight says. "These other elements combine to make this a unique new work."

Special events begin one hour prior to each of the weekend's three concerts. On January 20 and 22 in Princeton and New Brunswick, Rutgers University Classics Assistant Professor Emily Allen-Hornblower gives a pre-concert lecture on "Hero as Myth: Prometheus Unveiled," exploring the legend of the Titan whose story inspired the NJSO program's central work. On January 21 in Newark, Saariaho gives a Classical Conversation, speaking about her inspirations and Notes on Light, the cello concerto she wrote for her countryman Anssi Karttunen, who performs the work on the NJSO program. 

Tickets for each Winter Festival concert start at $20; pre-concert events are free to ticketholders. To learn more about Winter Festival concerts, dates, locations and special events, and to purchase tickets, visit www.njsymphony.org/fire.

Winter Festival partnering organizations include The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Friends of Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, GlassRoots, The Nature Conservancy, New Jersey Highlands Coalition, New Jersey Sierra Club, Newark Arts Council, Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Potters' Guild of New Jersey and Raritan Headwaters Association. 

Win a Kindle Fire tablet!

Be part of the 2012 Winter Festival and you could win a Kindle Fire tablet! Simply purchase tickets for any Winter Festival concert to be automatically entered. If you are a subscriber, you are already entered to win! For complete contest rules and an alternate method of entry, please click here.