Times of Trenton interviews Darryl Kubian about premiere
Composer and NJSO violinist Darryl Kubian chats with The Times of Trenton about the commission the Orchestra will premiere at four concerts this weekend, beginning tomorrow night at bergenPAC in Englewood. The Times story will run in Friday’s print edition, but you can check out the interview in advance on nj.com:
“O for a Muse of Fire,” which takes its name from the prologue to “Henry V,” will be performed at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Friday at 8 p.m. Music director Jacques Lacombe will conduct. Also on the program will be Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, “Pathetique,” and Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini,” with pianist Serhiy Savlov.
The program will be repeated at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, Saturday at 8 p.m., and at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, Sunday at 3 p.m. (The NJSO also performs the work at bergenPAC in Englewood tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.)
Kubian’s work takes its inspiration from the Bard’s rousing history, which yet portrays the king’s private struggle of conscience as he leads a vastly outnumbered army into France to unlikely victory at the Battle of Agincourt.
“What attracted me to ‘Henry V’ is one person’s ability to make a decision that holds people’s lives in the balance,” Kubian says. “He has to make a decision to go to war that he knows will inevitably lead to the deaths of many people. It’s his struggle with that throughout the play, even up until the eve of the battle, that I found really compelling.”
He credits his wife, JoAnna, who also plays in the orchestra, as his own muse.
“Luckily she’s very knowledgeable about Shakespeare. She was an invaluable resource in narrowing down which play would fit what I was trying to say. Reading ‘Henry V,’ I realized it really spoke to me.”So much so, the composer elected to include some of the Bard’s actual text.
“I thought about using a vocalist,” he says, “not as in a work for soloist and orchestra, but actually integrating the vocal line into the orchestra, so that she becomes part of the orchestra. I mix some of the actual spoken word with her singing ideas that are then developed by the orchestra, as in a kind of call and response.”The vocal contributions will be provided by singer Mary Fahl. Also notable is the work’s orchestration, which includes unusual percussion instruments, such as the rototom, “bodiless heads” often used in marching bands, and a waterphone.
“It has a tub that you fill with water and there are these tines that go around the edge, and you can bow them or use mallets to strike them,” Kubian says. “They make a very distinctive metallic sound. Depending on how you play it, it can sound like swords or something very ethereal.”Kubian, who has played in the orchestra’s first violin section since 1991, was commissioned by the NJSO as part of its New Jersey Roots Project. The performances are the final harvest of a five-year program, which has focused on music by composers born in, or who have been influential to, the Garden State.
» RELATED: New Jersey Monthly and Courier News preview Kubian premiere