Loudoun Symphony Notes |
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| May 2008 | Issue 3 |
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Meet The Orchestra
A Life in Music "Wollin....wollin....wollin on da wibbbbuhhh!!!" The little toddler suddenly stood up on her pew in the middle of the church sermon and began to sing. Thus began the illustrious musical career of our esteemed concertmaster, Teresa Gordon. Teresa's grandmother, Mamaw, loved to tell this story about Teresa's musical debut; Mamaw, who was babysitting Teresa, tried to shush her, but the congregation said "Aww, let that baby sing!" Teresa's mom said Teresa could sing before she could talk. And sing she continues to do, enjoying her role as "karaoke goddess" in local establishments. But Teresa is better known to us as an outstanding violinist and musician, helping Maestro Mark McCoy lead the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra to new heights. Her solo in Liszt's Mephisto Waltz was a highlight of the LSO's fall "Spook-tacular" concert. Teresa is also personnel manager for the orchestra and as concertmaster, serves on the artistic committee, which auditions players and helps develop the programming. Teresa's violin career was never a given. Growing up in Annapolis MD, when she was seven, there was a presentation on string instruments in her school. One of the instructors looked at her hand, said it was small, and decided she should play the violin. She remained involved in the orchestra, but was also a very good student, enjoying foreign languages and math in addition to music. As she started to consider college and careers, her top choices were to become a surgeon, diplomat or interpreter, or a rock star. One of her best friends decided to major in music therapy at Shenandoah University in Virginia; Shenandoah offered Teresa very large scholarships to major in music and music education, sealing her fate. Teresa started in music ed, changing to performance about halfway through her college years; she later went back to do graduate work in music ed. After graduation, Teresa was offered a full-time middle school orchestra director position working with inner-city youth in Portsmouth Public Schools. Several years later, she moved to northern Virginia and has been working in the area ever since, except for a one-year stint as the orchestra director at an arts magnet high school in Florida. Shortly after returning from Florida in 2001, Teresa was the concertmaster for the pit orchestra of Shenandoah Summer Music Theater. She was in line at the ladies room at intermission (isn't there ALWAYS a line?), when another woman asked her if she were the one playing all the solos. When Teresa said yes, the other woman–fellow LSO violinist Sue Berkery–told her about the auditions for the concertmaster job with LSO, bringing us up to today. In addition to all her duties with LSO, Teresa teaches elementary strings for fourth and fifth grade students in the Loudoun County public school after-school program. She is a member of the Maryland Symphony in Hagerstown MD and also has occasionally played with many orchestras in the region, to include the Fairfax, Prince William, and Roanoke Symphonies and the new Shepherdstown WV group, the Two Rivers Orchestra. She does festivals or theater performances in the summers throughout the Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania region. Believe it or not, Teresa still has a little bit of free time, which she spends doing other musical things (like her karaoke), reading, doing cross stitch, watching TV, or just hanging out with family and friends. In previous summers, she has also volunteered as a leader for the People to People Student Ambassadors program, a leadership training program for youth. In this capacity, Teresa has been able to indulge her passion for traveling, going to Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Teresa stays with the LSO because she enjoys the orchestra members and helping the group grow musically. Some of her favorite LSO memories, though, revolve around the annual fundraising Galas. She volunteered to tend bar during the cocktail hour before one gala and ended up stuck along the tent's edge with water dripping on her, trying to balance on wooden planks and tufts of grass but ending up covered in mud from head to toe as she went out on stage. She also thoroughly enjoyed the "airplane hangar" gala, where she celebrated her love for jazz by dancing and singing along with the jazz music provided by Principal Cellist Maria Baylock's husband, Alan, and his colleagues. As you have probably figured out by now, Teresa loves music, particularly sharing it with others. Her impish sense of humor is also occasionally on display, like with funny headgear during the Christmas pops concert. If you make it a habit to attend LSO concerts, you're guaranteed to enjoy Teresa's musicianship and occasionally be surprised with a bit of humor. (Vicki Rundquist) The Concertmaster A bit of history Harpsichords, organs, clavichords and pianos, among other instruments, formed the core of the symphony orchestra (small though it was) in its earliest years. As it began to grow and develop, however, keyboard instruments gradually started to be "overtaken" by the strings. One reason is because composers began to appreciate how the sustained notes of violins, say, allowed them to enhance their works: other than an organ, most keyboard instruments tend to have a "striking" moment, when a key is depressed, with only a second or two of sustained sound at a detectable volume level. Violins, violas, cellos, basses and others, can bridge very long passages, during which other instruments--even other strings--can develop and explore varying compositional moments. Therefore, the need for a "leader" to coordinate all the violinists, at first, and often all other strings later on, arose. Indeed, in today's orchestra, the concertmaster is essentially the leader of the entire group: the First Violin. He or she provides guidance in tuning--the most visible (and audible) necessity--gives help in synchronizing bowing and bodily movements in the effort to coordinate the performance from an audience's point of view, and more. The concertmaster also provides different services unseen by audiences. Depending on a particular conductor's wishes, concertmasters will conduct sectional rehearsals (aided by the principal performers of each section), interview and audition potential members of the string section, conduct a piece when the conductor wishes to listen, and act as artistic representative for the organization. And, should the situation arise due to a conductor's illness or other cause, the concertmaster may step-in and lead the orchestra during a performance. Moreover, except in cases where a guest violinist is on the program, the concertmaster is the violin soloist for his or her orchestra. So, next time you note how the concertmaster receives applause when entering the stage, and takes a bow, and how the conductor will shake the individual's hand prior to responding to the audience's welcoming applause, remember that the concertmaster is the official spokesperson for the orchestra to its conductor. By acknowledging the concertmaster, the conductor expresses thanks and appreciation to every performer. As a moment of both tradition and etiquette, this brief gesture tells everyone that the honor of presenting music is shared, and enriched, by everyone on stage. (Don O'Brien) Did You Know?
Movie Magic Matinee, Loudoun Youth Symphony Orchesta May 10, 2008, 4 pm, Harper Park MS, Leesburg Salsa to Salzburg,Loudoun Symphony Orchesta May 17, 2008, 8 pm, Stone Bridge HS, Ashburn May 18, 2008, 3 pm, Freedom HS, South Riding Comments? Want to suggest or write an article? Contact us! newsletter@loudounsymphony.org. View Previous issues of "Notes" Issue 1, March 2008 Issue 2, April 2008 |
What's That I Hear? Some notes on our next concert: May 17 and 18
What's that I hear? It's another outstanding concert by your Loudoun Symphony Orchestra, proud to present the world of great music in our community. And remember this: listeners, age 18 or younger, attend at no cost. Free! Invite a neighbor or two along, too...and bring their kids. Spread the word about your LSO. Spring is in the air -- it's time to lift everyone's spirits. In concert, we can do great things. (Don O'Brien) Further reading: George and Ira Gershwin: http://www.gershwin.com/ Roy Harris: http://www.royharrisamericancomposer.com/ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: http://www.mozartforum.com/index.htm Alexander Borodin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Borodin What ARE Those Instruments? A short guide to Latin Percussion In 1932, George Gershwin had already made a name for himself not only as a Broadway songwriter, but as a "serious" orchestral composer, with his three best-known orchestral pieces-- "Rhapsody in Blue," the piano concerto in F, and "An American in Paris" all in the past. ("Porgy and Bess," his masterpiece, was still a few years in the future.) Early that year, he took a two-week vacation to Havana, at that time one of the great party cities of the Caribbean for the American upper crust. He was quite taken with the music of the dance bands there, and the unique percussion instruments they used. He came back from that trip with samples of four Cuban percussion instruments--the claves, maracas, guiro, and bongos--and an idea for an orchestral piece based on the music he heard. This piece was premiered as "Rumba" in the summer of that year, and was retitled "Cuban Overture" for its second performance three months later. The four instruments he chose have a very long history but weren't well known in the United States at that time. The claves, maracas, and guiro are descendants of some of the oldest musical instruments known: the clapper, rattle, and scraper. All are quite simple. The claves are simply thick wooden dowels that produce a sharp, high-pitched "click" when clicked together. The maracas are simple gourds or leather bags filled with seeds and affixed to handles and are played by shaking. The guiro is a gourd with grooves cut into one side and is played by scraping a stick along the grooved side. The bongos are two small high-pitched drums played with the hands. The more modern forms of these instruments came to Cuba, along with the rhythms played on them, from Africa with the slave trade, where they combined with Spanish tunes and instruments to form a unique Latin American musical language. Although some of these instruments had appeared in orchestral music before (Stravinsky used the guiro in "The Rite of Spring," for example), "Cuban Overture" represents one of the earliest--perhaps the earliest--example of their being used in an orchestra to play their native dance rhythms. Because of their novelty, Gershwin asked that they be placed in front of the orchestra, as soloists, and gives them prominent, if not quite soloistic, roles in the music. This poses an interesting logistical challenge for amateur orchestras such as the Loudoun Symphony, because in addition to the four Latin instruments, Gershwin calls for a standard four-member orchestral percussion section, meaning the orchestra needs to have eight percussionists. It's difficult for players to double on the orchestral and Latin instruments, not only because the Latin instruments are supposed to be in front, but because their parts often overlap. We've really had to scramble to put together a large enough section for this concert. There are also some interesting things about Gershwin's writing for these instruments. The claves (which Gershwin oddly called the "Cuban sticks") and guiro play fairly consistent rhythms throughout, the maraca and bongo parts are much more free. Interestingly, while maracas usually come in matched pairs today, Gershwin wrote for maracas of two different pitches, and wrote out both "clicks" the instruments make when shaken--one when the instrument is brought up, and another when the instrument is brought back down. The bongo part is very soloistic, with no repeating patterns as on the other instruments. This makes all of the parts interesting and challenging, more so than the parts we usually get to play when these instruments are called for. So it's been some work to put this piece together for this concert, but we've been having fun. We hope you enjoy listening to it.(Rich Gillam) ---------- Please note that the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra has no connection, financial or otherwise, with any of the Web sites or other outside resources mentioned in this Newsletter. They are suggested only to help you discover additional information. Loudoun Symphony Notes, copyright 2008. All rights reserved. |