NJIO 2022-2023 Concert Season at a Glance

 

 

Fall Concert: November 6, 3pm, Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church, Plainfield.

 

Concerto Competition Winner: Giovanni Viotti Violin Concerto No. 2.  Our Concerto Competition winner is Semin Chun, an accomplished middle school violinist who will be attending Juilliard pre-college in the fall.  Viotti was an Italian violinist whose 29 violin concertos are his most memorable works and known for their lyrical passages.

 

Felix Blumenfeld’s Symphony in C Minor: This beautiful Symphony, in a late Romantic idiom has been largely neglected. Blumenfeld, the Director of the Conservatory in Kyiv during the era from 1918-1921 when Ukraine was first an independent state, dedicated the work to the victims of Czarist oppression. This Ukrainian-born composer is best known today as the teacher of Vladimir Horowitz and for a remarkable and gorgeous etude for the Left Hand alone. With a sudden increase- after centuries of neglect- of interest in Ukrainian composers, it is time that his unique, accessible, and colorful music to gain the audience it has always deserved.  

 

Intermezzo will play Mozart’s Overture to the Marriage of Figaro and music from Fairy Garden.

 

Holiday Concert: December 18, 2 pm, New Providence High School (venue tentative)

 

Our NJIO holiday concert will feature all three ensembles playing together.  We will play some traditional seasonal music capped off by the Leroy Anderson Sleigh Ride.   Also, we have our Concerto Competition Second Prize winner, high school junior Chloe Lau, playing the Dittersdorf Harp Concerto with Strings.  We will also feature our brass and winds in separate pieces by Hindemith (Morgen Musik) and Enescu (Dectet). 

 

Winter Concert: March 26, 3 pm, Lawton Johnson Middle School, Summit

 

This NJIO concert celebrates a diversity of composers!

 

Doreen Carwithen, Suffolk Suite.  Doreen Carwithen was a pioneering woman film composer, and this Suite is derived from music she composed for several movies. Her music was largely neglected until recently, but her lush orchestration, melodic gifts and wonderful structure make her a composer well worth exploring. 

 

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Petite Suite de Concert:  The music of Coleridge-Taylor, an extraordinary composer of African and British descent, has recently become a staple once again of the concert hall. During his lifetime he was among the most performed of living composers, but his music slowly disappeared by the mid twentieth century. Edward Elgar said in 1897 that he was the best of young British composers, and during the decade of 1900-1910 he visited the United States several times becoming the first Black composer to be invited to the White House. His music was strongly influenced by his hero, Dvorak, but his voice is unlike any other, and his integration of folk elements from African music made him a pioneer in the exploration of non-Western sources for music. 

 

Manel Burgos de la Rosa, a contemporary Catalam composer, composed his "Fatum" specifically for the Wind, Brass and Percussion sections of NJIO! A lively work with Latin rhythms and colorful scoring, it is a work that we are honored to have had written for us.

 

Intermezzo will perform Grieg’s Norwegian Dances Nos. 2 & 3 and a selection from Handel’s Water Music.

 

Spring Concert:  May 21, 3 PM.  Lawton Johnson Middle School, Summit

 

Brahms Symphony no. 1.   Brahms famously was so intimidated by the spectre of Beethoven that he did not write his first Symphony until he was over 40! The Symphony was a long time in coming, but it became an instant success and remains among the most frequently played concert works. The dark and sinister opening gives way gradually to an opening of light and triumph that is more telling for the struggle it took to get there. 

 

In keeping with the Brahms theme, Intermezzo will play his Hungarian Dance No. 3 as well as some more selections from Handel’s Water Music.