{"id":68030,"date":"2017-02-17T16:01:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T23:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-symphony-celebrates-gershwin\/"},"modified":"2017-02-17T23:01:21","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T23:01:21","slug":"san-juan-symphony-celebrates-gershwin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-symphony-celebrates-gershwin\/","title":{"rendered":"San Juan Symphony celebrates Gershwin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Heuser could be describing George Gershwin\u2019s energetic \u201cAmerican in Paris\u201d or the muscular \u201cRhapsody in Blue,\u201d but the music director of the San Juan Symphony<\/a> is commenting on John Harbison\u2019s \u201cFoxtrot for Orchestra,\u201d one of two outliers on the program this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cGershwin and the Roaring Twenties\u201d is the title of our regional orchestra\u2019s upcoming twin concerts. On Saturday evening in Farmington\u2019s Henderson Performance Hall, and Sunday afternoon in Durango\u2019s Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, the San Juan Symphony will surrender to jazz.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur program is designed to highlight three of Gershwin\u2019s masterworks,\u201d Heuser said, adding a medley from Gershwin\u2019s only opera, \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re framing Gershwin\u2019s music in the context of the Roaring Twenties, a period in American history fraught with idealism, social change and stylistic evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The orchestra will open with an arrangement of songs from \u201cPorgy and Bess,\u201d the opera inspired by DuBose Heyward\u2019s novel Porgy. It took eight years to bring what Gershwin preferred to call his folk opera to the stage. The arrangement you\u2019ll hear comes from a colleague of Gershwin\u2019s, Robert Russell Bennett. He orchestrated Gershwin\u2019s two Broadway shows: \u201cGirl Crazy\u201d and \u201cOf Thee I Sing.\u201d And in 1962, long after Gershwin\u2019s untimely death in 1937, Bennett created this particular medley. Among other familiar songs, you\u2019ll hear \u201cA Woman is a Sometime Thing,\u201d \u201cSummertime\u201d and \u201cBess You is My Woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heuser has invited pianist Roberto Plano, a musical colleague, to be the soloist for \u201cRhapsody in Blue.\u201d Plano has performed standard classical concerti throughout Europe and North America, particularly Lincoln Center in New York and Wigmore Hall in London. Italian born, he is currently professor of piano at Boston University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Gershwin Rhapsody seems perfectly suited to Roberto\u2019s lively personality, and I am happy to have the chance to work with him on such an iconic and well-known work,\u201d Heuser said.<\/p>\n

The first outlier on the program is A Symphonic Portrait of Irving Berlin. He published his first song in 1907and was famously active throughout the \u201920s. The Symphonic Portrait was arranged by Henry Ades, who worked for Berlin in the 1930s. The arrangement includes \u201cAlexander\u2019s Ragtime Band \u201cand \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other outlier is a contemporary work by American composer John Harbison, born one year after Gershwin\u2019s death. His 1999 opera, \u201cThe Great Gatsby,\u201d is based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name. Because of permission rights, the opera stalled several times. In the interim, Harbison wrote an orchestral foxtrot which eventually became the overture. Its eight minutes contain musical foreshadowing of the opera and echoes of Gershwin\u2019s genius, for example, car horns.<\/p>\n

Heuser will also conduct the joyous and jazzy \u201cAn American in Paris.\u201d Composed in 1928, the work brims with nostalgia. That spring, Gershwin and his brother, Ira, had gone to Europe, and while in Paris, the work-in-progress blossomed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur American friend,\u201d Gershwin wrote about his hero\u2019s musical journey, \u201cafter strolling into a caf\u00e9 and having a couple of drinks, has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gershwin went on to describe a blues section that eventually \u201creturns to the vivacity and bubbling exuberance of the opening part, with its impressions of Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theater Critics Association. <\/em><\/p>\n

\n

If you go<\/h4>\n

What: San Juan Symphony, Thomas Heuser, music director-conductor, \u201cGershwin and the Roaring Twenties,\u201d with guest soloist Roberto Plano and side-by-side student musicians.
\n When\/Where: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Henderson Performance Hall, Farmington; and 3 p.m. Sunday, Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
\n Tickets: Prices range from $16 students to $55 adults.
\n More information: 247-7567, www.durangodurangoconcerts.com or (505) 566-3430 Farmington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

du1-i-syn Heuser could be describing George Gershwin\u2019s energetic \u201cAmerican in Paris\u201d or the muscular \u201cRhapsody in Blue,\u201d but the music director of the San Juan Symphony is commenting on John Harbison\u2019s \u201cFoxtrot for Orchestra,\u201d one of two outliers on the program this weekend. \u201cGershwin and the Roaring Twenties\u201d is the title of our regional orchestra\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2401,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-68030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-musical-theater","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68030"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=68030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}