Grant Harville's Farewell Concert
Why You Shouldn't Miss It
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Grant Harville's final season conducting with us hits a crescendo on the glorious "Resurrection Symphony."
Two fabulous soloists and our Symphonic Choir will help Grant close out his tenure with this monumental work––a favorite since his teenage years.
Join us for a reception after the concert to wish our Maestro a fond farewell.
BY GRANT HARVILLE
PROGRAM NOTES
Symphony No. 2
"Resurrection"
1894
Gustav Mahler
1860 – 1911
80 MINUTES
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) has a way of messing with people’s heads. Composer Alban Berg, during a hearing of the fifth and final movement, felt that “in all the world there were nothing left but this music” (and immediately confessed infidelity to his lover). Conductor Simon Rattle describes wandering around in a daze after hearing the piece for the first time at age 11. Economist Gilbert Kaplan “walked out a different person” after hearing the piece for the first time – so he learned to read music, took conducting lessons, and rented an orchestra and concert hall in order to conduct a private performance of the work. Later, he would purchase Mahler’s original manuscript score – having a nine-figure net worth has its perks.
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I do not have a nine-figure net worth, and at age 11, I would have been bored to tears by Mahler 2’s 80-minute run time. But it’s fair to say that this symphony spoke to me in a unique way as well, as it has done for so many others. The first time I ever had the opportunity to write a college paper on whatever musical work I wanted, Mahler 2 was the piece I chose. As I complete my tenure with the GFSA, I can’t imagine a more appropriate piece with which to do so.
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The widespread adoption of recording technology beginning in the early 20th century changed music in many fundamental ways: how it’s heard, performed, disseminated, composed, marketed, evaluated, and so on. One profound consequence has been that performers could now put down their work in tangible form, allowing for the posthumous recognition previously only available to composers. Had Mahler not died prematurely, at age 50 in 1911, he might have put some of his performances on disc, as his contemporary Toscanini did so often, and he thus might be remembered in death the way he was thought of in life: arguably the greatest conductor of his day, who just happened to write symphonies in his spare time.
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Mahler had perhaps the first modern “jet-setting” conducting career, moving from job to job throughout continental Europe and eventually making his way across the Atlantic for a stint with the New York Philharmonic at the end of his life. He generally reserved his composing time for the more relaxed summer months, when he would find a shack in some picturesque location and take inspiration from the surroundings. Mahler composed Totenfeier (Funeral Rite) – the piece that would become the first movement of the Second Symphony – in 1888, during an apprentice-like period in Leipzig where he conducted opera extensively as a subordinate to Arthur Nikisch. But the bulk of the Symphony No. 2 would be conceived in a hut in an Alpine village on the shore of the Attersee over two years in the mid-1890s.
Continues next column
Much ink has been spilled over what Mahler’s music “means,” and for good reason. Even ignoring the sung text many of his works have, the music is full of “signifiers” – archetypal musical tropes that point to non-musical things: funeral marches, militaristic fanfares, birdcalls, traditional dances high- and low-brow, and liturgical chorales. When you add the sung text back in and layer the whole of it with a healthy dose of self-quotation, the fact that Mahler’s symphonies possess meaning becomes all too obvious, while the precise nature of that meaning remains tantalizingly obscure. That said, Mahler’s 2nd may be the most forthright, at least in its broad strokes. If nothing else, given how the piece opens and closes, it justifies quite clearly its appellation “Resurrection.”
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As mentioned, the Second Symphony’s opening movement is a funeral rite, alternating between a despondent gravity and gentle beauty, with snippets of the Roman Catholic Dies irae hymn invoking the requiem mass. The second movement, in a supreme contrast, is a mostly, though not entirely, gentle triple-time dance. (Mahler famously felt that this movement was too light to follow the weighty opening movement and suggested that a break of five minutes’ silence be inserted between the two: We will not be doing this in our performance.) The third movement scherzo veers from the rustic (high clarinet and a German folk percussion instrument called a Rute) to the beautifully serene to the violently brash.
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The complexities and eclecticism of the first three movements depart as the alto soloist enters for movement four. The poem “Urlicht” (approximately “Primordial Light”) conveys as direct a message as one might find in a Mahler work: “Man lies in greatest pain! How I would rather be in heaven … I am from God and shall return from God!” Whatever comfort may be gleaned from this is rudely destroyed, Beethoven’s Ninth-style, by the merciless crash of the opening of the fifth and final movement. And even though this quickly yields to calmer pastures, it’s immediately clear that the aspirations of “Urlicht” will not be realized without doing some significant musical work. Fragments from earlier movements return, including the Dies irae, as if it is necessary to reexamine them in order to move past them. Finally the choir and soprano soloist join in: “You were not born in vain, have not lived in vain, suffered in vain … I shall mount to the light to which no sight has penetrated. I will die, so as to live.”
CONCERT SPONSOR
GRANT HARVILLE
GUEST ARTIST
Kimberley James
MEZZO SOPRANO
Dr. Kimberly Gratland James, Mezzo-Soprano, joined the UNLV School of Music faculty in 2017 as an Assistant Professor with more than 20 years of professional performance and teaching experience in vocal music. Previously, she was an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Montana, where she primarily taught applied voice, voice pedagogy, and diction for singers.
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Dr. James maintains an active performance career, particularly as a concert artist and recitalist. She has performed in concert with the London Sinfonietta, the New World Symphony, the Los Angeles Symphony, and on stage with New Orleans Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, among other organizations.
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Her performance repertoire is quite diverse, encompassing oratorio works by Bach, operatic repertoire from Purcell to Adamo, and concert works by Verdi, Mahler, Ravel, and contemporary composers. She is passionate about culturally-situated art and looks forward to exploring Las Vegas and the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, and the Central and South Americas in performance venues and repertoire.
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James’s growing passion for bridging the gap between the hard sciences and singing began in 2008 when she completed a vocology certificate program at the National Center for Voice and Speech under Dr. Ingo Titze. Her work has been published in the Journal of Voice (multi-institutional research study) and Journal of Singing (book review). She presents posters and invited sessions regularly at regional, national, and international conferences. Dr. James is a member of the Pan American Vocology Association (PAVA) and has been an active leader in the National Association of Teachers
of Singing (NATS) at the local, regional, and national levels, as well as the College Music Society (CMS).
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In addition to her vocology certificate, James also earned degrees from Texas Christian University (BS), Rice University (MM), and Indiana University (Performer Diploma, DMA).
GUEST ARTIST
Diana McVey
SOPRANO
Soprano Diana McVey is an artist whose consummate skills as both a singer and an actress have quickly made her highly visible in opera, oratorio, and as soloist with symphony orchestras. She has become known for her riveting and moving portrayals of Countess Madeleine in Capriccio, Violetta in La Traviata, Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. She has sung leading roles with Florentine Opera, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Opera Omaha, Opera Dubai, Opera Tampa, Opera Columbus, Lake George Opera Festival, Jacksonville Lyric Opera, Treasure Coast Opera, Opera Naples, Light Opera Oklahoma, Ocean State Lyric Opera, the Salt Marsh Opera Company, Boston Academy of Music, Helena Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic and Opera Providence, among others.
Recent engagements include Zelenka’s Miserere in C minor, Mozart’s Regina Coeli, and Requiem at Carnegie Hall, Mozart’s Requiem with the CT Choral Society, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Chamber Orchestra of Barrington at St. John’s, and appearances with the Music on the Hill Festival.
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Other engagements include Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the Great Falls Symphony, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Gateway Chamber Orchestra, appearances with the numerous music festivals, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the RI Civic Chorale & Orchestra, a gala concert with Opera Tampa celebrating the 100th birthday of Maestro Anton Coppola, Countess Madeleine in Strauss’s final opera Capriccio with Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Adina in L’Elisir d’amore and Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro with Florentine Opera, Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opera Idaho, Die Zauberflöte with Opera Omaha, La Rondine and The Merry Widow with Opera Tampa and Maestro Anton Coppola, and the US premiere of Patrick Hawes’ The Great War Symphony at Carnegie Hall.
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Upcoming engagements include the world premiere of Ola Gjeilo’s Twilight Mass, and Vivaldi’s Gloria at Carnegie Hall, along with appearances with the Music on the Hill Festival.