Concert will also feature two young winners of Al Navaroli competition
Published in the February 3-16, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
The South Valley Symphony under the direction of Anthony Quartuccio rehearses for the upcoming March 5 concert.
The South Valley Symphony’s March 5 concert will feature a composition honoring the poppy jasper gemstone found in the Morgan Hill region as well introducing audiences to performances of violin concertos by the two winners of the symphony’s 2016 Al Navaroli youth competition.
The symphony’s music director and conductor Anthony Quartuccio promises that audiences will see some exciting changes with this concert as the orchestra stretches itself with new and challenging works.
“This concert is future looking. We’re looking forward down the road to where we are going with music in our community,” he said. “One of the things we are going to be doing is playing a piece that the orchestra has always wanted to play and I thought sometime in the future we would do it. It’s the finale of Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ ballet.”
This is a piece that was requested by the orchestra leaders and the musicians are excited to play it, he said.
“It looks toward the future where we can play more pieces of that caliber. It kind of opens the door to works of huge magnitude,” Quartuccio said. “It’s an excerpt from the ballet but one that is finally on our plate and we’re ready to deliver.”
Musicians rehearse for the March 5 South Valley Symphony Concert. Photo by Marty Cheek
Morgan Hill Life commissioned 19-year-old Robert Alexander, a 2015 Live Oak High School graduate now studying music at University at Southern California, to compose a piece of music representing the spirit of the South Valley region. His piece “Poppy Jasper” will have a world premiere at the March 5 concert.
Quartuccio said he believes the piece will challenge the musicians and audience by trying a more modern style of music that is something the South Valley Symphony has never done before.
“We’re looking toward the future of experimental music and new techniques of orchestral playing,” he said about Alexander’s composition. “It’s going to be kind of a laboratory of sound for the audience to come and experience a little bit differently what they would ordinarily come and hear. It’s a theme about our community, about the geology of our community and its history and how it evolves in the future. That’s going to be a really fun piece to perform.”
Judges for the South Valley Symphony selected two young violinists as winners of the 2016 Al Navaroli Competition, giving the young men the opportunity to perform solos with the orchestra at the March 5 concert. Michael Kong will perform the first movement of the Mozart Violin Concerto, No. 5; and Dohyun Kim will perform the first movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto, No. 1.
“The Navaroli judges have selected multiple winners in the past,” said competition organizer David Thompson. “However, this year was so close the only realistic and honorable decision was to select both students to perform.”
A Gilroy resident, Al Navaroli loved music, and served as a longtime supporter and board member of the South Valley Symphony, from 1995 until his death in June 2008, Thompson said.
“His personal promotion of the symphony was geared at increasing public exposure to this wonderful genre,” he said. “Part of his work was to bring guest artists to the symphony, but also to increase an effort to attract young musicians to perform.”
The March concert audience will receive a “rare treat” to hear two different concertos on the same program with the young violinists, Quartuccio said.
“This is going to be, through the Navaroli competition, a way to let our community know how our students are growing and becoming mature artists,” he said. “I want our community to know what our symphony is doing to provide all the amenities for our young people. It’s amazing the amount of great talent that is here. The Navaroli competition was very stiff this year.”
Another piece that will be performed at the concert is the Danse Bacchanale from the opera “Samson and Delilah” by Camille Saint-Saëns. This is a very “exotic” piece of music that many audience members will recognize from films, Quartuccio said.
“I thought it would be nice to bring a rabble rousing and familiar tune that is also a ballet piece used in an opera,” he said. “This piece is one that people will recognize as it develops… ‘Oh, I’ve heard that before.’ This is a very youthful piece that needs to be heard live in a concert. You hear it slipped and tucked in television commercials and films.”
The theme of the March concert is “Rising Young Artists” which makes it appropriate for families to bring their young children to and introduce them to symphonic music, he said. Children get in free with accompanying parent or guardians. Students with identification also can attend for free.
“Any young students in the elementary or middle or high school level, if they have ever wondered what it’s like to be onstage alone as a soloist playing your favorite instrument whether it is a guitar or a violin or saxophone or piano and you want to see how that dream can come true, then they can come an actually experience the dream coming through by playing in this concert,” he said. “Their dreams are coming true.”
The March concert will also show a maturing of the South Valley Symphony which will be taking more risks with the compositions that will be performed, Quartuccio said.
“I think it’s important for audiences to know that we now have traction in giving people the opportunity to really get out there and do something exciting in music,” he said. “That’s perhaps the biggest responsibility the symphony has for the community is to provide an investment in the future where we can see the payoff.”
The conductor’s own personal philosophy in life is that things are either growing or dying. He was told when he took on the role of conducting the orchestra not to pick compositions that were too hard for the musicians to play, but he decided he would challenge them every now and then.
“I just thought that every year that we’re there, I want to do something a little more novel, a little more daring and rally the troops around them,” he said. “Let’s keep trying to make this orchestra grow and have a life that is moving forward and not just playing the same old stuff over and over. I wouldn’t do music if I didn’t do that.”
