Bach, Baroque and All That Jazz Friday, November 18 Coronado Performing Arts Center Saturday, November 19 Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall, Sorrento Valley Monday, November 21 Sherwood Auditorium, La Jolla Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m.; the Nova Experience begins at 6:00 p.m. Featured guest artists Tripp Sprague, tenor and soprano saxophones and flute Justin Grinnell, bass (Friday) Rob Thorsen, bass (Saturday, Monday) Isaac Crowe, drums (Friday) Richard Sellers, drums (Saturday, Monday) Richard Thompson, piano Suzanne Kennedy, piccolo Concerto for Piccolo in C Major   Antonio Vivaldi Help! (in the style of Vivaldi)       John Lennon/Paul McCartney Arr. Peter Breiner Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 (3rd movement)   Johann Sebastian Bach The Long and Winding Road: Overture  (in the style of J. S. Bach) John Lennon/Paul McCartney Arr. Peter Breiner Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3  Johann Sebastian Bach Concerto Grosso, Opus 6, No. 1   I. A tempo giusto   II. Allegro George Frideric Handel Penny Lane: Allegro (in the style of Handel) John Lennon/Paul McCartney Arr. Peter Breiner Intermission   Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child Traditional Spiritual Arr. Richard Thompson Wade in the Water  Traditional Spiritual Arr. Richard Thompson Concerto for Harpsichord in D minor  I. Allegro   Johann Sebastian Bach    Concerto Jazz Quartet and Orchestra   WORLD PREMIERE Richard Thompson  Download program notes A Jazzed-up Bach? Most of us who love Johann Sebastian Bach’s music can’t imagine the dour-faced man we see in portraits as a fun-loving soul who loved to let his creative mind loose as he improvised note after note. But he may have been the greatest “music experimenter” of all time – and there’s every indication that he had fun doing it. Basso continuo, as used by Bach in the late 1700s at the height of the Baroque era, was a written-out part for the left hand, usually played by the cello and a keyboard instrument (the organ, in many cases). The right hand improvised, following a system of numbers written under the left-hand notes – or figured bass. The Art of Improvisation: Lost for 200 Years During the 19th century and early 20th century, the art of music improvisation was lost as the symphonic form became the popular form of what became known as “classical music.” Nearly 200 years later, Louis Armstrong (often called the grandfather of jazz) “re-discovered” the art of improvisation, and jazz music came into being. Ironically, many jazz musicians today don’t listen to jazz – they listen to Bach. They study his music and they are inspired by his music. Bach, Baroque and All That Jazz: Similarities Abound   Baroque music Jazz music Bass line (basso continuo) cell and/or organ string bass Lead instrument keyboard (organ/harpsichord) piano, winds, brass Improvisation a key component a key component Emotion more expressive than Renaissance all about individual expression Ornamentation used, but somewhat restrained used extensively Size of group rarely more than 16 rarely more than 16, usually small combos of three or four What about Vivaldi? Antonio Vivaldi, known as “the red priest” – probably because he was a priest with red hair – was an earlier Baroque composer whose works deeply influenced Bach. He helped standardize the three-movement concerto form later used by J. S. Bach and others. Vivaldi's brilliant allegros and impassioned slow movements were greatly admired by Bach. Suzanne Kennedy is Nova’s resident musical chameleon – changing from one moment to the next. She plays the piccolo and the flute. She’s a vocalist who sang on the Letterman show when she was 10 and again in 2003. She directs four church choirs and teaches 550 students. She’s played with her favorite rock band STYX – and loves playing for Orchestra Nova. Tonight, she plays her first concerto with the orchestra – a piccolo concerto by Vivaldi. What next?! Lost and Found: The Brandenburg Concertos The year was 1737 and Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt had died at his home in Berlin. A music score of six concertos “for various instruments” was left unused in the library and it was subsequently sold for 24 groschen (about $22). It was 112 years later that the autographed manuscript (by none other than J. S. Bach) was re-discovered. The concertos were published in 1850. Known today as the Brandenburg Concertos, they are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era. Bach had presented them to the Margrave in 1721, with an introductory letter, “As I had the good fortune a few years ago to be heard by Your Royal Highness’s commands, and as I noticed then that Your Highness took some pleasure in the little talents which Heaven has given me for Music…I have taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments…..” The Margrave obviously never heard them. The story behind Air On A G String Bach wouldn’t know what you were talking about if he were here today and you asked him about his Air On A G String. He composed the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major sometime between 1717 and 1723. The second movementreceived its nickname in 1871 when the violinist August Wilhelmj made a violin and piano arrangement of this movement. By changing the key into C major and transposing the melody down an octave, Wilhelmj was able to play the piece on only one string of his violin, the G string. An arrangement of Air for a jazz trio was used as the background music for the long-running TV commercials for Hamlet cigars in the U.K. Procol Harum borrowed from this piece for the international hit, A Whiter Shade of Pale. Gary Brooker of Procol Harum told Uncut magazine, “If you trace the chordal element, it does a bar or two of Bach’s Air On A G String before it veers off. That spark was all it took. I wasn’t consciously combining Rock with Classical; it’s just that Bach’s music was in me.” Today, phones with ringtones of Air On A G String are ringing throughout the world. That other famous Baroque composer George Frideric Handel was the most famous of all Baroque composers during his lifetime, traveling and living throughout Europe, but calling London home. He was a businessman as well as a composer, owning an opera company and independently producing operas in addition to commissions for nobility. By the time of his death, he was regarded as the leading composer in Europe and was well-known for his improvisations, especially with his operas. In 1735, Handel had started to incorporate organ concertos into performances of his oratorios. By showcasing himself as composer-performer, he could provide an attraction to match the Italian castrati of the rival company, the Opera of Nobility. He wrote the first of the six concerti grossi (also known as the Twelve Grand Concertos) to be performed during his oratorio Alexander’s Feast in 1736. Because of a change in popular tastes, the 1737 season had been disastrous for both the Opera of the Nobility and Handel’s own company. At the close of the season he suffered a form of physical and mental breakdown, which resulted in paralysis of the fingers on one hand. Persuaded by friends to “take the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle,” he experienced a complete recovery. Handel’s Twelve Grand Concertos were composed for the 1739-1740 season at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in London, specifically to be performed during intervals in the masques and oratorios as a feature to attract audiences. Many have speculated that it was a conscious effort by Handel to produce a set of “orchestra masterpieces” with these compositions. He completely abandoned opera in 1741. What’s a concerto grosso? The concerto grosso (plural is concerti grossi) is a form of Baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and the full orchestra. This is in contrast to the concerto which features a single solo instrument with the melody line, accompanied by the orchestra. Peter Breiner: Who is he? What is he? Born in 1957 in what is now Slovakia, he’s a composer. He’s a conductor. He’s a pianist. He’s an arranger. He’s an author. He’s a TV personality. He’s a passionate soccer player (left wing). He’s a linguist (proficient in seven languages). He says, simply, “I am a musician.” Peter goes on to say, “The connection between Bach and jazz is very obvious, and there’s certainly a clear connection between Baroque music and Beatles songs – as I demonstrated by juxtaposition of both on my Beatles Concerti Grossi. As you can hear, there’s not a problem playing a Beatles song and immediately finding its pendant in Baroque music. I have recorded two more CDs of Bach’s music with my jazz trio and it only confirms this. There is just one kind of music.” Trained in the conservatories, he has been a guest conductor for world-renowned orchestras; he has given concerts all over the world as a pianist, often playing his own compositions, but he loves “crossing over the different musical worlds,” as he says. His arrangements of national anthems of ALL participating countries were used during the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. Six years with the Beatles Help! was written by John Lennon, but credited to both Lennon and Paul McCartney (as were all Beatles songs written by either person). According to a documentary, Lennon wrote the lyrics of the song to express his stress after the Beatles’ quick rise to success. “I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for ‘Help’,” he told Playboy. It was #1 on the U.K. and U.S. charts in late summer 1965. The Long and Winding Road is a ballad written by Paul McCartney. It was the last single released by the Beatles quartet. McCartney originally wrote the song at his farm in Scotland and was inspired by the growing tension among the Beatles. It was released in 1970 and brought the curtain down on the Beatles’ six years of domination in America that began with I Want to Hold Your Hand in 1964. Paul McCartney was sitting at a bus shelter waiting for John Lennon to meet him on Penny Lane, a street near their houses. While sitting there, Paul jotted down the things he saw, including a barber’s shop. After the song Penny Lane was finished, McCartney was watching BBC when he saw a group called The New Philarmonia perform Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and he got the idea to add a trumpet part. Bach’s influence is still being felt 200 years after his death! Breiner takes the Beatles Baroque The multidimensional Peter Breiner may be best known for his arrangements of well-known music in the style of ages past. His Beatles Go Baroque arrangements sold over a quarter million CDs worldwide. Spirituals and jazz Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child is a traditional African-American spiritual. The song dates back to the era of slavery in the United States when it was common practice to sell children of slaves away from their parents. An early performance of the song dates back to the 1870s by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. It has many variations and has been performed widely. But maybe never performed like you’ll hear it as arranged by Richard Thompson. Wade in the Water, another African-American spiritual arranged by Richard Thompson, may relate to stories in the Bible, although many sources claim that it contained explicit instructions to fugitive slaves on how to avoid capture and the route to take to successfully make their way to freedom. Bach like you’ve never heard it Local San Diegan composer Richard Thompson takes us on a heart-pounding trip from Baroque to jazz as he performs Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto No. 1 on the piano, with a bit of a twist. Concertos are designed to showcase a soloist’s technique against the texture of an orchestra. In all likelihood, Bach himself played the harpsichord as the soloist for this concerto, perhaps playing for patrons of a café in Leipzig – such as the Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum (the oldest coffee house in Europe) –  while directing students from the Collegium Musicum. Imagine the scene in that café! WORLD PREMIERE!!! Concerto for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra Richard Thompson Commissioned by Orchestra Nova to compose a piece that reflects the bridge between Baroque and jazz music, Richard Thompson joins the orchestra in presenting the world premiere of Concerto for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra. The one thing about Richard Thompson that is definite is that he cannot be categorized as belonging to any one music style. As a performer (piano) and composer, his compositions combine European and African-American styles so that the formal structures of European classical music develop ideas which are essentially jazz in nature. Originally from Scotland, he is currently Assistant Professor of Music at San Diego State University where he teaches jazz performance and history. He performs frequently in both jazz and classical performances, including with his own jazz quartet Mirage. He has appeared in BBC live broadcasts and has performed throughout Europe. He has also performed off-Broadway in New York as a pianist and has composed and recorded music for the Columbia Tristar film Love Walked In in addition to many independent films. What’s on his plate now? An opera! One can only imagine what will be next. Three men and their instruments –  made for each other Tripp Sprague’s first professional gig came at the age of thirteen when he, his brother Peter and friends, put together a quartet to play at the Golden Rollin’ Belly in Del Mar. The rest, as they say, is history. Tripp and his sax are “as one,” fluent in everything from bebop, through Brazilian, blues and standards to fusion and pop. He is one of today’s top players on the San Diego music scene.  www.trippsprague.com Rob Thorsen began performing with San Francisco street bands in 1982. After returning to school to study composition for two years, he moved to San Diego where he has been active on the music scene. He is no stranger to different instrumental sounds, playing a baritone ukulele at age six, switching to the guitar at the age of eight, then flute, saxophone and tuba. In his 20s, he discovered the upright bass and that became his one true love. He says, “you feel as much as you hear when playing an acoustic bass.” Rob says that he has always loved playing music, stating that “the feeling of performing music live is like no other. I would not want to be doing anything else, as it brings a lot of joy into people’s lives.” Besides his contributions on other artist’s recordings, he has produced his own CDs: Evoluton, First Impression and Moon Ray.  www.robthorsen.com Richard Sellers has been playing drums professionally for over 14 years, playing straight-ahead jazz, avant-garde jazz, Brazilian, Latin, funk and hip-hop. He also works extensively as a teacher, applying his unique rhythmic approach and meticulous technical methods. A native of Valencia, California, he received early training from Stewart Fischer, brother of jazz giant Clare. He moved to San Diego six years ago when he began making frequent appearances at San Diego State University and began gigging with the best professionals in town.